Warmaker

Same here. I was always wanted to hear about, see the hunting down of the few remaining Jedi take place in SWG. I still have the SWG Collector's Edition box set. During the game installation process, you of course get to see images of the game while waiting. There was one image where some fledgling force user / young Jedi was being force choked and suspended in the air by Darth Vader, with lots of Stormtroopers waiting behind him. The potential was there in SWG to bring a Jedi experience that hasn't been done yet in any Star Wars game. Unlike any other depicted era in a Star Wars game where Jedi are free to roam anywhere out in the open (unless on a world hostile to the Republic), the Imperial era was unique. The Jedi were practically extinct. The few survivors were wise not to make themselves easily known to the Empire, or face a series of attempts on their lives, or worse, attract the attention of Darth Vader himself (along with the forces he can get on a whim). You were hunted. The Empire is looking for you. Some random citizen may want to report you for a reward. The Empire would gladly pay a bounty for your capture or your head. You'd have to contend with opportunistic, hidden Bounty Hunters. It wasn't like you had a Republic / New Republic or Jedi Order to run back to or to call for help. You were on your own. The Order is destroyed. The Republic IS the Empire now. And the Rebel Alliance had their own hides to preserve, with the Empire constantly looking for them. Back in the heyday of SWG, we all had our ideas about the Jedi hunt, especially for Imperial players to join on such hunts. In the old days of SWG, Jedi were extremely powerful. But they needed that power to survive. Lots of fun going with my buddies as a squad of Stormtroopers, bumping into a Jedi that didn't want to be seen And Duke Togo: You and I aren't going to back down from our positions so I guess we should leave it at that. It's your thread you initiated so I don't want to start a flame war here, so back to news and whatever details this new SW MMO will bring

I didn't click either. I'm just saying. Y'know... nothing to see here...

"And not one of the games you listed could be made as an MMO." Elements of those HAVE been made into an MMO, namely SWG... but we can all thank SWG's horribly bad execution as a whole. Have you tried the space portion of SWG? It is the last good thing left with SWG with any sort of depth and hasn't been borked too badly due to the CU / NGE. Ship customization, parts, many different ships to pilot. From single-seater stuff like the X-Wing, TIEs, KSE Firespray, to multi-crew ships like the ARC-170, YT-1300, etc. Your X-Wing built up with your parts that you've brought together will not necessarily perform the same as other X-Wings. You can HAVE the Clone Wars, the Galactic Civil War, and whatever conflict in an MMO. You can HAVE the hardware (military or civillian) found in the Star Wars universe in an MMO. You can HAVE players pilot / use all this hardware. Nobody's ever done it with an MMO, even though FPSs do, especially since there's been only 1 Star Wars MMO. Just as you can envision a game full of Jedi, I can easily envision a Star Wars MMO showing non-Jedi fighting the Clone Wars or Galactic Civil War. There are, IMO, major faults with being completely centered on Jedi classes. Your level of variety and customization between all these Jedi classes will be limited in the scope of a MMO. There are only a limited variety of Force Powers if you want to include all the Star Wars productions ever made, games, books, etc included. There's only so many variations of Force Push, Choke, Sith Lightning that you can come up with. There are only a limited variety of weapons to be had for Jedi. Lightsabers, and anything else for a Jedi does not mesh well with the image. There are only a limited variety of ways how different Jedi can look. All those robes... All these Jedi classes... will have to divide a limited variety of Force abilities, all use the SAME weapons, and will traditionally look the same. It's like having a Fantasy game solely composed of several classes of Wizards. People will want variety in their MMO, and having only Jedi will not cut it. You'll need the other elements of Star Wars to flesh out that MMO. Having a good Jedi aspect to it will be great, but it's making the game to be a 1-trick pony. You'll need non-Jedi classes, because like it or not, just as you want Jedi, others want to be guys like Stormtroopers or Clonetroopers, the next best thing to Jango / Boba Fett, someone like Han Solo, etc. You will need space flight and combat, otherwise reap the whirlwind SWG took when it didn't have space combat in a Star Wars game... esp. in an MMO. And people don't want to play grunts? I beg to differ. I'll point out earlier that we used to have many "Imperial Trooper" guilds, far more than any guilds making themselves look like a Jedi Order. Rebel troopers clashing with Imperial Stormtroopers in a Tatooine town screams just as much Star Wars as a Jedi facing down a Sith. You might be surprised with what you can do with the Star Wars license other than Lightsabers and Jedi. That's all I'm saying. There are more aspects to that franchise than a screenful of lightsabers swinging away. And you will need as many aspects of Star Wars to make it a successful MMO. As great as Lightsabers are, people will want to try out all those blasters and armor they have seen in the movies and such.

Sweet! I am so there!

Yet there are Star Wars games that have extremely well without being so centered on Jedi? The X-Wing series of games? TIE Fighter? X-Wing Alliance? The only times a Jedi is literally in-game are in 3 points during all these games. - If Luke Skywalker is flying in his X-Wing (not common) - Flying as Darth Vader's wingman (1 occurence in all the X-Wing games) - Escorting a luxury yacht transporting the Emperor (1 occurence) The series died with the advent of The Phantom Menace since LA was completely obsessed with Ep.I games. You had Empire at War, a recent strategy game that's done well enough to merit an expansion pack. It's not my favorite game, but it's doing well enough if you look at the fan and mod community for it. Now, there ARE Jedi characters, but they take a backseat to all the military hardware that saturates the game. Star Destroyers, X-Wings, Stormies, AT-ATs, etc. I'm not saying that having a game centered on Jedi is going to make it bad or lackluster. Games like Jedi Knight and KotOR are examples. Yet we have other non-Jedi centric games that have done well. But saying having Jedi in an MMO would bring millions into the game is false. SWG tried that, making them easier and easier to attain, devoting tremendous development time into them (getting several passes before professions have even received a single one). They even made them a starting class. Yet the game is nowhere close to even being saved. What was funny was that during SWG's height, we had many "Imperial Trooper" guilds. All the members had to have one of the Imperial Armor sets and a uniform, some even going so far as to use only the weapons used by the Empire in the movies and EU. I do know people would like to play Jedi. But believe it or not, there are many that prefer Stormies, Clonetroopers, the Fetts, etc. more than Jedi. Jedi are great and are part of the flavor that make Star Wars, Star Wars. But there are just as many things in the franchise that make it up. We had many people back in the day flying the X-Wing series of games, flying online with and against each other. I've later tried and liked the Freespace games (esp. 2)... yet, as good as Freespace was, there were a bunch of us that just missed that feeling of flying an X-Wing, B-Wing, or the TIE series. Star Wars has many advantages to it than other franchises. Jedi are just one of those edges.

The whole AvP2 movie is a series of mindless scenes. What good is tacking another mindless scene going to do?

Star Wars has tacky lines all over, even in the Original Trilogy. Also, even the good actors rolling into Star Wars had to deal with some of the bad dialogue. Natalie Portman before Ep.I had more varied, better roles. But she's mostly been "stiff," esp. in TPM. In AotC, she's got more playroom, but in RotS, not much. Just a scene here, there, put on a funny wig / hairdo, and stand there and say something. That's it. Even Alec Guinness commented during filming of ANH of having to say "those bloody awful lines," yet he still did it as a professional. For Christiansen, he really gets the bad rap for AotC. Due to how the character at that age was supposed to be portrayed, the poor guy had to be the driver for the Waaambulance It got better for him in RotS. But he didn't get any great Vader lines. All that was done by James Earl Jones. "When I left you Obi-Wan, I was but the learner, now I am the master!" "The Admiral is as clumsy as he is stupid." "I am your father!" All of these, and more are > "NNNnnnnooooOOOO!!1!!111!" He didn't even get the chance to do anything cool with the Darth Vader suit on. I was hoping to see him slay Jedi scum with the armor on before Ep.III came out.

I think I got into this a while back with 'ya, but I'll retread a bit A new Star Wars MMO in the Original Trilogy's timeframe wouldn't be a disaster as you say. IMO, it has by now contrast to other SW eras the most different setting, despite being the originally made era. As a former Star Wars: Galaxies player from Jan '04 until Dec 05 (with a see how it's doing trial in '06), I can tell you that the setting in between ANH and ESB is not a major cause for its failure. The Jedi situation is one, and I'll get into that later. Anyhoo, I'll try to keep it brief, but here's the major causes for SWG's failure. * Upon release, SWG is obviously incomplete and extremely buggy. Almost all MMOs have this negative aspect upon release, but SWG took it and ran with it. Practically every review, online or magazine that I read, properly panned the game, especially since it touted the powerful "Star Wars" name. Things like Speederbikes and mounts (sort of like those Taun Taun thingies from ESB and that animal Obi-Wan rode at the very end of RotS when dropping Luke off at Owen & Beru Lars' home) were not there at release, but added months later. Space flight and combat wasn't added until late 2004. SPACE! SWG was ripped really hard for reviews due to this. An MMO set in Star Wars that wouldn't let you fly X-Wings or TIE Fighters, or travel in space. Ha! * Bugs... SOE, in regards to SWG, has historically been extremely slow in fixing bugs, even major ones. Many things we complained about in 2004, interestingly are still there in 2008. We've made our share of in-game Bug Reports and posting in the Official Forums of such problems. Yet they're still there in 2008. * Slow in adding content. It took ages for SOE to add more content. We had a short lived story arc in the first half of 2004, right around when I joined. But other than this, there were no new quests or story arcs. There were no major patches to introduce more conent. The first expansion pack, which focused on space, wasn't until late 2004, with SWG having been released summer 2003. Almost a year and a half before major content was added. That's the early, initial stuff that really put SWG in a big hole early in its history. Despite those issues, at its height, SWG did have anywhere from 250k-350k subscribers. Very good, respectable numbers before World of Warcraft took the MMO world by storm. Then came a few more mid-development issues that effectively killed the playerbase and the game's reputation. * There were 2 revamps that hit SWG. The "Combat Upgrade" (CU) in mid-2005 and the "New Game Enhancements" (NGE) of Nov 2005. The CU introduced some big gameplay changes that alot of people didn't like. Alot of players were against it and left. I personally liked some of the things it did but despised some others. Keep in mind, this change wasn't a balance tweak, "class" revamp. It was a big change to the core gameplay. Still, it had very close ties to the original game. We still had a good number of players. Then came the (NGE) a few months afterward. The players saw the previous CU coming. But the NGE was unannounced. Anyways, while the CU was a "revamp" of the original game system, the NGE completely changed the game. I'm talking about going from 34 or so "professions" to mix and match stats / skills from, to less than a dozen, heavily defined, limited scope "iconic" classes to Star Wars. Lots of things happened, among those making the game much simpler and stripping away features that SOE and LucasArts felt slowed the game down. They wanted a faster, simpler game, making it seem like a FPS wannabe. It was also obivous that there was WoW-envy going on by LA/SOE. * In relation to the NGE, the "Trials of Obi-Wan" expansion pack debacle of Nov 2005. When that exp.pack was getting ready to come out, we were still in the "CU" era of the game. We were getting by just fine and figured that the CU was here to stay and would keep on getting polished, with more content to follow. With "Trials of Obi-Wan" coming out in the wake of Ep.III mania, we were expecting alot more. More items and additions to the current game and professions. You had people buying it, preordering it naturally. When the expansion pack came out, the NGE came out of the blue with no previous notification whatsoever to its existing playerbase. Like I said earlier, huge, sweeping core gameplay changes were made. Some of the rewards from the pack was supposed to enhance the older professions. With the NGE, those professions were GONE. There was a huge uproar in the playerbase about this. You can read a bit about it here in regards to that expansion pack and the circus that ensued There were some issues between the playerbase and the developers, but that's for another thread in itself if you want. Regardless, the NGE was one of the larger factors that killed off the playerbase. SWG had anwhere from 250k-350k players to maybe 50k-60k. Jedi - Like I said, I was going to come back to this issue. Until a certain patch mid-way through the game's history, Publish 9 if I recall it right, Jedi were extremely rare. Hard to attain, but if developed, were extremely powerful. A Knight / Master could wipe the floor with many players in combat if it came down to it. But to go with all that power, they were slow to develop and had Permadeath. 3 deaths, that Jedi was gone. Period. I was a hardcore fan of Star Wars canon, and initially wasn't keen on the idea of player Jedi in this timeframe. But the limited numbers of Jedi in game and the risks involved, perfectly captured the feel of what it meant to be a Jedi during the time of the Empire. You were HUNTED and the Jedi were practically extinct. If you showed off your power as a Jedi to the wrong crowd, i.e. a major hub in-game, you would be "visible" for Bounty Hunters to take contracts on. The Empire would be hostile and hunt for you (Darth Vader was supposed to, as the main Jedi killer if you became "too visible," but SOE never let this happen ). Later on, with Publish 9, Jedi had the measure that limited their numbers disappear (Permadeath). Their numbers became rampant and you began to see them out in the open, in front of major points of travel and Imperial installations. There came a point where I could easily see more Jedi than Stormtroopers, and that was a big concern. The "NGE" then made them a starting profession, at the cost of alot of their power also. Still you saw more Jedi than Stormtroopers or "regular" professioned players. Even early on, with the very limited numbers of Jedi and the vast majority of players having "normal professions," the players were content. We still had a healthy number of players even with "Permadeath" for Jedi involved. What was funny was that since Jedi were so rare and so powerful, the players in-game had great respect for seeing a bonafide, trained Jedi Knight or Master. It was great accomplishment to even becoming a trained Knight and stay alive, so Jedi characters were revered in-game... just like how the few Jedi were in the Original Trilogy. Jedi were rare, mystical, and revered (unlike the cannon fodder of the Prequels). If Jedi were going to be used as a tool to increase subscriptions, it didn't work. More Jedi didn't equal more subscriptions. Now, as far as the seemingly limited freedom of creativity if set in the Original Trilogy, there is no problem, IMO. You have the Galactic Civil War, the Empire vs Rebels. There was going to be no change as to what will eventually happen (Rebels win with RotJ regardless). But you know what? We didn't care. I always remained a loyal Imperial Stormtrooper. Many of us were loyal Imperials despite knowing the obvious end of the war. Granted, there was generally far more Rebel players than Imperials, but hey, most people like playing the good guys, right? As far as story arcs, quests, content set in the struggle between the Empire and Rebellion, there is no issue provided there's enough creativity, especially with whoever writes the quests. There are certain things you can / can't do with a major character like Leia, Han Solo, etc. But who's to say that your quests needs to revolve around these characters all the time? The war reached far flung places of the galaxy. You can always make up new characters, new arcs to give the writers freedom and immerse the players in it. It's the same thing with the basic background and core characters of other established eras of Star Wars like the Clone Wars and the Sith-Mandalorian Wars of the KotOR era. Each of these conflicts had a rich backdrop to operate in. You had key characters and themes in each. There's certain things you can / can't do with Obi-Wan, Mace Windu, Bastila, Revan, etc. But the conflicts, the galaxy is wide enough where you can make your own story arcs that can still fit in the theme of the struggle. Edit to add: Okay, I didn't keep it brief. So sue me!

Are you talking about the episode with the "eyelinered" Kirk?

Well, I was off the mark on that. My obligated stab in the dark: It'll be a BioWare Star Wars game, set in the Clone Wars.

Two-Disc Extreme Unrated Special Edition First of all, this has me amazed. "Two-Disc" - This movie has enough content and behind the scenes material to rate 2 discs? That is amazing! "Extreme" - There's more violence they cut out? The movie already has enough violence with the kill-meter already starting not long after the movie starts. And all the violence in the theatrical cut didn't save the movie... "Unrated" - What, are we going to see a woman giving birth to a normal baby with a Predalien swooping right as he / she comes out and eats it? Just for the sake of "shock value?"... Amazingly, it still wouldn't save the movie! "Special Edition" - Maybe if they recut / redid the combat so you can actually SEE the fighting instead of a bunch of dark, incoherent closeups, it'll rate the SE title. I also foresee 2 more possible editions past the Two-Disc Extreme Unrated Special Edition. "Collector's Exxxtreme Edition" - Splices in sex scenes cut from the theatrical version. During one couple's "scene," a Predator impales them both with a spear, sees a poster of Jason from Friday the 13th on the wall, and nods at it. "Director's Cut" - The director makes a version of "teh awsomness" of AvP2 to properly bring the movie inline with the true, glorious pedigrees of the 2 franchises that make it up. Inside, you'll find 3 discs to have: Predator, Alien, and Aliens movies, but no AvP 1 or 2... all in ONE awesome package!

The look on Guile's face from the strike is priceless!

I didn't know this. I figured there was nothing to gain from an HD version of an old film. Learned something new

As a buyer who sat and watched from the sidelines, this is humorous to me. So, HD DVD was cheaper to work with and replicate, but I noticed no appreciable differences in pricing between Blu-Ray and HD DVD formats. Brilliant. Too late now

Nice, dilligent work Mr March. Lots of mecha to keep up with in the Macross franchise.

Haven't heard anything recently about the live action show. Not in many months. The games don't really cover the gap in Ep.III and IV either. I know there's a single comic line about it, I recall seeing the first couple issues of it on the shelves last year. But in all, it's still less practically untouched compared to the Clone Wars or the Original Trilogy's timeframe.

I'm in the same boat. I prefer hearing characters speak their native languages when it's proper. The WWII flick "The Longest Day" was really good in that regard. You had Germans speaking *gasp* German! French soldiers & resistance speaking... French! And just as well is that British and American characters sounded different, with us Americans using our "version" of English For "Letters From Iwo Jima" you had Japanese actors speaking their language. And too bad (IMO) for "Enemy at the Gates" to not have more proper Russian and German actors, speaking Russian and German. But that's just me. I also get a humerous kick out of seeing fake, overexaggerated accents. Americans pretending to be English and all that. To me, it's part of the immersion of the setting, mostly for somewhat modern settings. After all, I don't expect anyone to do a proper Roman Empire or Classical Greek setting in old school Latin or Greek. If someone does, they have some brass balls

I could say the same for the Original Trilogy's conflict, the Galactic Civil War. More importantly, there's a practically untouched era between Ep.III and IV. The Clone Wars / Prequel era has saturated Star Wars productions for the past several years.

Too bad it won't be set between Ep.III & IV. To show the consolidation of power of the new Empire, the continued extermination of the few remaining Jedi, and the initial spark of the Rebellion, leading into the events of Ep.IV.

This news makes things interesting. A different company doing a Star Wars MMO? Due to SOE and SWG's numerous failures, I really, really hope SOE does not run or publish this new SW MMO. Really, I can't stress that enough. I can type out a whole thread why not to! I wonder who's developing the MMO and what the theme of gameplay will be. Personally, I hope that it's not the traditional single-class system that practically everyone uses, MMO or single player PC / Console RPGs. I'm a fan of the Sandbox style. I also wonder what setting the MMO will be. I believe that it will be in 2 possible eras. Republic / Clone Wars era or the Imperial / Galactic Civil War era. All other eras are too "niche" if LucasArts intends this game to compete with some existing heavy hitter MMOs out there. As to BioWare, well, KoTOR III it seems is on the way. They should be using a new engine since KoTOR's is showing its age today. But I hope BioWare doesn't dish out a buggy game. Even KoTOR was really buggy on release and it took several months worth of patching to make it right.

I suggest not to look down that road. Paying real money for game money. It's a dark, dark path. Just pay no heed to any of it. In some games it'll get you banned if you're caught.

The ones that, back in the day, had all the cool movies that Beta didn't have! I still remember begging my Dad to let us borrow a VHS copy of "Megaforce" for our Beta deck. I thought its cover was all sorts of "awesome"

I've been standing in the sidelines waiting to see who was going to come out of this as the winner. I always had this gut feeling Blu-Ray would come out the winner but never had the info as to why. But I guess all this settles it. Blu-Ray it is. P.S. - I still remember the last format war in the 80s between VHS and Beta when I was a kid. My Dad had a Beta Tape Player. I used to go with him to the rental shops all the time. I'd pick out a movie that I wanted to see but many of them he said we couldn't. Our Beta player of course couldn't play VHS, which seemed to have such a vast selection compared to the corner of the shop Beta tapes had. Eventually Dad got us a VHS player.

I had the 80s era "Robotech" kit, but it was configured for the VF-1D (2 head lasers like VF-1J, double stacked eye lens). It even had the optional chestplates for the -1D as seen in the first episode of Macross or the standard chestplate with the chest stripe pattern engraved. Still, as far as I know, it's still the same kit as the Imai. If so, this kit will require more extensive work than the newer Hasegawas. After all, you're putting together a kit that right out of the box is able to transform! You need serious skill and experience if you want to be able to do that with the non-transformable Hasegawas, as nice as they are. Faults: From memory, there were in general 3 faulty seam areas. 1) The sides of the forward fuselage. The forward fuselage is in upper & lower halves. When put together, I had gaps to fill up. 2) Lower Forarms, specifically the outboard portions. The least problematic between the 3. 3) Lower Legs. The halves of the lower legs didn't mesh well together. You'll have to play a bit to ensure the seams are good to go. If not, it's quite noticeable, especially the front of it since it's so visible in Gerwalk & Battroid modes. But as kid, I pulled it off just fine with the VF-1D. It took alot of work but it paid off. I recall someone around here posted their finished work on a Bandai / Imai VF-1J done in Millia's colors. With the work put in, it looked spectacular. Not sure how cheap you can get these compared to the Hasegawas. In light of that, it may not be a good idea to waste one of these old kits for practice if you're new to modelling. The instructions I recall were longer than the usual kits back in the day. If you need practice, I suggest getting a dirt cheap aircraft kit in 1/72 scale for practice. Set aside this Bandai / Imai VF-1 kit or the Macross Hasegawas for when you're better. But that's just me.

I'll have to agree. If New Line had agreed to pay people money for getting the green light for the movies, then they have to pay. No ifs, ands, or buts. Edit to add: If New Line is smart, they'd pay what needs to be paid. Wheel and deal to get the go-ahead to make the new movies. The movie going audience today I believe would still be very willing to go in large numbers for these prequels. RotK was a few years ago, but customers will still have a fond, fairly recent memory of the LotR movies. There is $$$ to be made here.