Star Wars: The Old Republic

Star Wars: The Old Republic, simply known as SWTOR or TOR, is a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG) set in the Old Republic era, and has been released by BioWare, a division of Electronic Arts.

The game was first officially announced in an October 30, 2007 press release. On October 21, 2008, the title of the game was revealed, in addition to a fair amount of detail about the game in a press conference. It is widely considered as the spiritual successor to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR). The game scope has been described as "essentially building [...] KOTOR 3 through KOTOR 10, and then shipping them all at once."

During its presentation at E3, BioWare announced the game would be the first MMORPG to feature large-scale voice acting.

BioWare confirmed that the release date would be 20 December 2011 in Europe and North America.

Background
The story occurs in a shaky era of the Star Wars universe, among a delicate ceasefire between the Galactic Republic, factioned by the Jedi, and the recently resurfaced Sith. The plot will revolve around the conflicts that arise as a result of the reshuffling of power after the Great Galactic War. The story will also conclude the story of Revan from the original Knights of the Old Republic.

Features

 * Planets
 * Classes
 * Species
 * Missions

The Collectors Edition
The Collectors Edition is essentially the TOR game but with a few add-on's, the Collectors Edition includes an exclusive Darth Malgus statue, SWTOR game disks in a collectable metal case, the journal of Master Gnost-Dural annotated by Satele Shan, an Old Republic galaxy map, a custom security authentication key, with an exclusive CD titled The music of SWTOR, all in a high-quality collectors box. This Edition also includes 7 additional digital items, a Flare Gun, a Training Droid, a HoloDancer, a HoloCam, a, a exclusive Mouse Droid, and an exclusive Collectors Edition Store an in game vendor were you buy exclusive upgrades and items.

Development Teams
The massive effort of producing SWTOR is divided into several teams: Writing, Worldbuilding, Scripting, Environmental Art, Combat Design, Combat Art (animations and f/x), Combat Programming, Gameplay Systems Design, UI Art, Gameplay Systems Programming, Quality Assurance, Client and Server, and Audio; the music is composed by Mark Griskey, Gordy Haab, Jesse Harlin, Lennie Moore, and Wilbert Roget, II. Drew Karpyshyn has also helped with the production of the game.

Development History
BioWare began development on The Old Republic in December 2005 at a satellite studio in Austin, Texas constructed primarily for the project. By January 7, 2007, Electronic Arts completed its acquisition of BioWare/Pandemic for $860 million, in a move motivated by hopes of expanding into the MMO genre of video games. In the following months, rumors persisted about the development of a new KOTOR video game, spurred on by leaks from within BioWare and LucasArts and the registration of "Star Wars The Old Republic" and "The Old Republic" as LucasArts trademarks.

During the E3 2008 expo, Electronic Arts executive John Riccitello confirmed that the MMO would be connected to the KOTOR series of video games. On October 7, Lucasarts and Bioware released an invitation to the press to attend an event on October 21 about "the game that has been rumored about for years." At that event, the official press release was finally published.

On Tuesday, 09/29/2009, after the SWTOR website was down for almost a day, it was announced that they would be accepting applications for game testing. The procedures include accepting the terms and agreements, basic information and a system scan of the computer you would be using to play the game.

On Friday, 07/22/2011, a press release announced that The Old Republic was available for pre-order, including special editions of the game.

On Saturday, 09/24/2011, Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuck announced the release date at Eurogamer Expo 2011.

Cast

 * Main article: Star Wars: The Old Republic Cast

Novels and Webcomics
The story-driven impetus of the game has been reinforced by three novels related to the game have been announced/published:
 * Star Wars: The Old Republic - Fatal Alliance, written by Sean Williams called and released on July 21, 2010 - the adventure of characters from each game class as they confront a threat which forces them to temporarily join forces.
 * Star Wars: The Old Republic - Deceived, written by Paul S. Kemp and released on March 22, 2011 - the story of Darth Malgus, the Sith Lord responsible for the sacking of Coruscant.
 * Star Wars: The Old Republic - Revan, written by Drew Karpyshyn is to be released on November 15, 2011
 * Threat of Peace: An Internet comic produced by Dark Horse and written by The Old Republic developer Rob Chestney also offers backstory to the game. This story spans ten years from the signing of the Treaty of Coruscant to the events that start the game. The comic, titled Threat of Peace, was released bi-monthly, and reached its conclusion in March 2010. It was collected in a trade paperback, published in April 2010.
 * Blood of the Empire: A second internet comic titled Blood of the Empire has been released and follows the story of a Sith apprentice on a dangerous and secretive mission. It is produced by Dark Horse and written by BioWare’s senior writer Alexander Freed. The story is set 25 years before the Treaty of Coruscant, and offers readers a new perspective of the events leading up to the start of The Old Republic. A sneak preview of the art was released, followed by the first issue on April 23, 2010.

Pre-release Reception
The title has already begun to receive a great deal of praise from various media outlets several months before its release. Pax East 2011 provided the public the most recent chance to go hands on with The Old Republic. Many gaming related news sources gave the project accolades for its showing at the convention. GameTrailers awarded the game both Best RPG and Best Online Game of E3 2010. IGN has also praised the story of the Jedi Consular, stating that its easy to focus more on the story instead of the mission at hand.

Processor

 * AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4000+ or better
 * Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz or better

Operating System

 * Windows 7 or later

RAM

 * 3GB RAM

Video Card
Star Wars: The Old Republic requires a video card that has a minimum of 1GB of on-board RAM as well as support for Shader 3.0 or better. Examples include:
 * Intel HD 3000 or better
 * AMD Radeon HD 7450
 * Nvidia GeForce 610

DVD-ROM (Physical Version Only)

 * 8x speed or better (for installation from disk only) – we recommend using the digital installer.