Last night it was time for an important livestream once again, and I did my usual thing of missing it and then catching up on all the info the next day.
In general, the stream was nice but not particularly meaty in terms of information. There was an interview with Enuka Okuma, the voice actress of Tau Idair, which I enjoyed just like all the previous interviews of this type that they've done before, but the rest was mostly a bit of chat about different NPCs, most of which we were already familiar with. Which is fine, I'm just saying "hey, Lana will be there too" isn't exactly some ground-breaking revelation and that's okay. We like Bioware to keep the big stuff under wraps until it actually comes out. I suppose this was the first time they officially confirmed that the Legacy of the Sith launch storyline will be different for Republic and Empire again, like Onslaught's was, though I think most of us already suspected that.
Keith made a brief appearance and I went "aww" when he told the little anecdote about his wife. Also something about wanting real life Community Cantinas to come back once the pandemic allows... but those aren't really very relevant to me over in the UK anyway.
We did finally get a launch date for the expansion however! It's going to be Tuesday the 14th of December, so just a little less than four weeks away. Swtorista had previously run a little game to have people guess the date, and the 14th had been one of the most popular guesses (it was mine too). That is somewhat dangerously close to Christmas, but I suppose the devs have given themselves a bit of insurance by delaying the launch of the new operation until later this time, so they should only really have to deal with story bugs and the like during that brief period before they go on their holidays, without any risk of major exploits for ops gear causing chaos over the Christmas period or anything like that.
Somewhat unexpectedly from my point of view, the two most intriguing reveals came in the form of the new expansion loading screen and a short celebratory video with a surprise at the end.
The Legacy of the Sith loading screen, or "key art" as they call it, isn't one of their better ones in my opinion. I find it hard to put my finger on it, but all the faces look ever so slightly off - stylised in a way that's different from the way they usually do these, and I'm not a fan. However, what's interesting is the small but central figure of a green Twi'lek with a lightsaber, who was conspicuously absent from the summary of important NPCs that we're going to meet - so who could she be?
This ties into the little anniversary video to promote Legacy of the Sith that they also revealed, most of which is a fairly generic happy clip show of previous cinematic trailers... until the very end, when we see an extreme close-up of a CGI-quality pair of eyes in a green face that made every fan sit up and go: "Hang on... that's not from any existing trailer!"
It seems fair to guess that this might be the same Twi'lek we see on the key art, but more importantly, does this mean that we'll be getting a new cinematic trailer for the first time since Knights of the Eternal Throne? And they are not pushing it yet, perhaps to not actually release it until the expansion is about to launch, so that anyone who's captivated by whatever it shows can then jump right in? If so, that's some pretty clever marketing - respect! I'm intrigued and curious to find out more.
I quite like this new key art/startup screen and I'd say it's the best one in a while. It follows the standard movie poster template like most of the others, but this feels less like a collage of pre-existing images awkwardly assembled into a new composition, and more a cohesive whole with a single style. The style doesn't quite match the game's, and I can see how that disconnect could be distracting. It might be like if Han Solo on a Star Wars poster looked more like Robert Redford than Harrison Ford. However, central figures all seem like they're meant to go together, the lighting is consistent across the composition, and Malgus' crooked stare is delightfully creepy, so I'll be fine looking at this as the game loads.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise it does seem like there's a new cinematic coming. You'd think they'd want to make it the centerpiece of the LotS hype machine, so I wonder why they're holding it back. Maybe it's so spoilerific, that they want to keep it under wraps as long as possible?
One of my guildies said Lana looks like Adam Driver in a wig. XD That would definitely qualify as distracting! But yeah, nothing wrong with the composition; I too like Malgus' side eye. Though I wonder why Rivix is hanging out on the light side of the image; if that doesn't end up being relevant somehow I'll have to deduct further points.
DeleteIt might be spoilers with the cinematic, though also it's been my impression with previous cinematics that they built hype early on and were then perhaps not able to fully capitalise on it for the actual launch months later? That's just a theory though, I have no real idea. I do know that the expansion launch being combined with a new cinematic reveal would be one massive bombshell for sure.
What?!New OPs will not happen, is delayed? When did they announce that?
ReplyDeleteIt was in this news article from two weeks ago.
DeleteI can understand why they want to delay the new Operatio until after the new year. It sucks for the Ops folks, of course, but I think having time to fix any issues -- and there are always issues -- before people are working on the new stuff is probably better for everyone involved. It is also nice to know that you have time to gear up over the holidays instead of having a "must rush" mindset from some trying to drive everyone else to be ready to go right away.
ReplyDeleteThat we may be getting a new trailer feels good. I like to see them having the confidence and support to make a big deal of the 10th anniversary. Letting their hype be closer to release feels good as a player, too. The hype train doesn't overstay its welcome that way.
I don't mind the operations delay myself. It's only about a month, with most of it over the Christmas holidays, and there'll be plenty to keep us busy anyway as we'll want to play through the new story first (on multiple characters of course) and familiarise ourselves with the new tuning and gearing systems.
DeleteIf they can afford a new cinematic, to me that would indicate that they have found their footing financially and the game is doing pretty well.
ReplyDeleteIt's what it'd look like, isn't it? I kind of hate that this is how we measure a game's success, but with little to no other public performance indicators you take what you can get. :D
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