Great news for comic book collectors! BioWare, LucasArts, and Dark Horse Comics are gearing up for the release of a three issue comic series of Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Threat of Peace™. Each issue features 27 vibrant full-color story pages, and will be priced at $2.99. Experience the passions and convictions driven by a handful of Star Wars™ heroes and villains as they reignite a legendary war between dark and light in this comic series originally published entirely online. The story takes place more than three thousand six hundred years before the rise of Darth Vader, and three hundred years after the fall of Darth Malak. If you haven’t seen Threat of Peace, you can check it out on The Old Republic website.

The first volume is embraced in a beautifully designed cover done by Benjamin Carré, and has a variant cover illustrated by Kai Li and Sunny Gho with art directed by Stan Zipnka from Attik. This action-packed, character-driven story was written by BioWare’s Rob Chestney, illustrated by Alex Sanchez, colored by Michael Atiyeh, and lettered by Michael Heisler.

Check out this pic:

The first issue of this three-part series will be released in comic book stores starting July 7, 2010 with two other subsequent issues following monthly thereafter. Check out the official News Article here.

BioWare and LucasArts share with us the fourth video documentary. This isn't the normal information release that we are used to. This release was set up on the Social Networking sites today, and led to a release of an exclusive video over at GameTrailers.com. This is a great video if you haven't checked it out already. Quote from the Official TOR Facebook page: Whether you dream of beating the odds with just your luck and a blaster, or imagine restoring order to the galaxy with Force powers and a Lightsaber, you’ll have your chance in Star Wars: The Old Republic! Learn more about how we’re delivering dynamic Star Wars action by watching our fourth Video Documentary, exclusively today on GameTrailers.com.

Check it out yourself here.

If this one ever gets released I will add it to the site.

There is a very cool interview posted over at the official forums by Shawn Dahlberg. For anyone out there that may have spent countless hrs deciphering the markings in Everquest many years ago, or spent days trying to decode the logos of the Eloh in Tabula Rasa, or spent weeks trying unlock the symbols in The Old Republic, heres a website dedicated to the language of the Holonet in The Old Republic. The site is entitled: The Holonet Project. Quote from the official forums post: The Holonet Translation Project: To Translate all the Aurebesh ( Star Wars Basic Language ) found on the holonet. It gives credit to many people that have helped to decipher the language. The site is run by Shane “Masamunex / Masamune” Angle.

Heres a pic. of the translation:

And now for the Interview, quote from The Holonet Project:

Holonet Project: Alyssa Gobelle Interview: We recently had the privilege to ask Alyssa Gobelle, the Lead Web Designer over at ToR some questions about herself, her work with the ToR website as well as the Aurebesh ( You knew I was going here right? ) found within the Holonet Project. I'd like to extend a special thanks to Sean Dahlberg and Alyssa Gobelle for taking the time to make this possible.

Masamunex: I have to say, being a fan of all things Star Wars lore I was extremely surprised, obviously in a good way, to see to what extent the Aurebesh was used within the HoloNet. Whose idea and decision was it to sneak the Aurebesh into the HoloNet?

Alyssa: When they first brought me on, our first major task was to design the HoloNet. We wanted the HoloNet's voice to be as much 'within the lore of the game' as possible so we planned to add some generic Aurebesh to start. But we also wanted to add some hidden teases and notes for you guys to devour and ponder upon and play with. Give some more fuel to the speculation festivities.

This is a great interview, you can read it yourself here.

The Starwars: The Old Republic official site has released a brand new holorecord. Watch the seventh Timeline Holorecord entry, Peace for the Republic?, narrated by actor Lance Henriksen. The centuries immediately preceding the Great War were thought to be one of the most peaceful eras in Republic history. As he dives deeper into the galaxy’s history, Master Gnost-Dural discovers new evidence that suggests the dark influence of the Sith Empire was seeping into the Republic even then. Gnost-Dural’s latest report isolates one historical incident which suggests there was a Sith Lord pulling strings within the ranks of the Jedi decades before the war even began.

BTC 103 – More than a century before the Sacking of Coruscant, two Jedi scholars embarked on a journey which became one of most inexplicable mysteries of its time. Young Jedi Knight Eison Gynt joined his Master in a mission to investigate the Ancient Sith Temple of Yavin 4. On Yavin, the pair was attacked by the native Massassi and driven into the Tomb of Naga Sadow where a powerful force of darkness emerged. Gynt’s Master returned to Coruscant wounded and half-insane, remorseful that young Eison Gynt had been killed in the chaos. Years later, however, Gynt returned from Yavin on his own and attacked his former Master. Gynt was killed and all assumed that he had been tainted by the darkness on Yavin 4 and returned to Coruscant for revenge. Nonetheless, the truth, as Master Gnost-Dural has discovered, may have been far more sinister.

You can read the official news article here.

Check out this latest entry:

The Starwars: The Old Republic official site has posted a new playable Planet: Voss. Intrigue permeates the planet Voss’s atmosphere where the visionary Mystics are fighting an impossible war. An alien species resides on the mysterious world of Voss and is said to have an incredible aptitude for the Force. These Voss Mystics – rumored to be enigmatic healers as well as seers – struggle to protect their utopian society from annihilation. Discover the secrets of Voss as you are forced time and again to choose between maintaining the appearance of neutrality so important to your leaders or striking against your enemies while you have the chance.

We have updated our Concept Art, Screenshot, and Wallpaper Galleries with the new images. You can read the entire article here. And make sure you check out the new Holonet entry for Voss here.

Check out this Screenshot from the Dev. Team:

The official website has posted a brand new Developer Blog Entitled: Community: The Third Element. Massively multiplayer games are not new. The first true massively multiplayer game was a text-only virtual world called MUD, put together by Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw in 1978. This little window of dizzying text descriptions was a far cry visually from the seductively lush 3D virtual worlds of today, but it was enough. Enough to get the genre started, and enough to get armchair designers across the world to imagine the possibilities, and debate philosophical matters of game design. One of these questions, still asked today, is whether or not massively multiplayer environments should strive to be games or to be worlds.

What a flashback. I played DragonRealms long before I played any top down 3'D games. And way before I left Legends of Kesmai, to follow all my friends to the new Real Immersive Game World they were testing, that was Everquest. That time period was great for all of us that lived through it. The question asked above: Whether or not massively multiplayer environments should strive to be games or to be worlds. I have to agree that there needs to be a balance of both.

And the next topic is one of my personal favorite things to do in an MMO: Crafting.

Crafting is another area where we’ve talked a lot about community. The systems design team is not satisfied with some other crafting systems that we’ve seen, where many players craft almost exclusively for themselves. We’ve spent quite a bit of time discussing how to ensure that crafters – true dedicated crafters – can make a name for themselves and be important in their community. But that is a discussion for a future letter.

This is a great read. Head over and check out the entire blog for yourself here.