STAR WARS™: The Old Republic™ - Eternity Vault Developer Walkthrough

Hi. I’m Dallas Dickinson, Director of Production on Star Wars: The Old Republic, the
new story-driven MMO from BioWare and LucasArts. Today I'll be guiding you through the opening
minutes of the Eternity Vault, a high-level multi-party Operation involving an ancient
prison that's been uncovered on remote world of Belsavis.
Inside this prison, a terrible evil has broken free that now threatens both the Republic
and the Empire. At level 50 in the game, whichever side you’re
on, you’ll be dispatched to deal with this threat.
Today we’ll be watching the first part of the experience from the Imperial perspective,
beginning with the conversation with General Threnody
My Lord, forgive the lack of protocol but war has broken the chain of command and my
purpose is grave. I am General Threnoldt, commanding officer
for the Imperial Reclamation Service. I understand you’re familiar with us.
You run archaeological expeditions to uncover Sith and alien artifacts.
And with the threats that they represent. We uncovered a new section of Belsavis prison
during a bombing run. It’s been sealed for 20,000 years.
No exit to the surface. Its alien builders, the Rakata, called it
The Eternity Vault. It's where they kept the prisoners and technology
they could never afford to release. This doesn't sound promising.
We've been translating the Rakata inscriptions. Most are indecipherable but a few refer to
a prisoner called the Infernal One. The legends say it took an army to stop the
Infernal One before. The Rakata and the other ancients locked him
away with his weapons. If we don't do anything, though, well the
war against the Republic may be nothing next to what will come.
The weapons in that vault could give us an advantage over the Republic ñ if we play
this right. That will be up to you. I wish you luck.
General, we can fly to the Eternity Vault as soon as your team is prepped.
General Threnoldt has briefed our group on the situation, and our heroes know what the
have to do. We’ve hit Belsavis atmosphere. Proceeding
to surface. All hands, prepare for enemy fire! The Eternity
Vault defenses are active! Coming into Belsavis’s atmosphere, the Imperial
ship has come under fire from the prison’s turrets and is going down.
The Players must get to the escape pods! Each player takes his or her own pod to land
at different points on the planet’s surface. Weather conditions are extreme on this part
of Belsavis. Players have to run through the snowstorm
to gather up around a burning escape pod. I hear them enter my domain. Children unknowing.
They will serve. That voice belongs to the Infernal One.
He knows our heroes have come for him and he has prepared his prison fortress to repel
their attack. Our players wisely take a quick moment to
activate any abilities that can give the group defensive and offensive bonuses.
They’re going to need them. As the battle begins, you can see the Sith 0: 03:00.970,0:03:04.420 Juggernaut he’s the primary tank for the group and he’s rushing ahead to draw fire
from the turrets and the enemy droids. The Sith Assassin is the group’s second tank,
and he’s getting in there also, drawing one of the Eternal Sentinel droids to him with
his Force Pull ability. The Sith Assassin has more than just his lightsaber.
He also uses lightning attacks and his Wither’ ability
The other members of the group are focusing their attention on the left-side turret.
These turrets pack quite a punch, so they need to be taken out quickly.
Switching to the Sith Sorcerer, we can see that he’s come under attack by some of the
droids. Fortunately, the Juggernaut blasts by and
gets the droids’ attention. The Sorcerer gets some heals now from the
Agent who is one of the medics for the group and now the sorcerer can fire off some Shock
blasts and a lightning attack at the turret. The turret has focused its sights on the Mercenary.
That white ray means a powerful area-of-effect attack is coming, so it’s good the Mercenary
is off to the side. The Mercenary fires off a few Heatseeker Missiles
and you can see on the bar that the group’s burning down the turret’s strength.
Alright, they finished off the turret before it could fire its charged blast at the Sorcerer.
Nicely done. The majority of the group is now focused on
taking out the remaining droids while off in the distance the Sith Marauder works on
weakening that second turret. Here we see the Powertech use his Retractable
Blade on one of the droids but even as one falls, more are coming in.
You can see the Sorcerer here unleashing Force Storm a wide area-of-effect attack to damage
as many droids as possible. All right, the last of the droids is down now
they’ve just got to deal with the second turret.
And with one last barrage of missiles, that’s down too.
My finest creation. Machine of machines, metal enemies welded together and allied towards
destruction! Before they get into the Eternity Vault, however,
the Infernal One has another surprise for the group.
This is going to be a harder fight. The Sith Juggernaut Force Charges in to kick things
off. We switch perspectives to the Operative, who’s
already firing off some heals Note that he’s got larger icons to show group
members’ health front and center. A nice UI option for medics.
So far, so good. The Juggernaut and Assassin are keeping the droid’s attention while the
others lay down damage from range. The Annihilation Droid has laid down a sweep
there to blast back the group members who were standing too close.
Now here’s where it gets complicated. When the droid starts firing off those swarms of
missiles, that’s deadly. Fortunately, the group knows this and you
can see them taking cover behind the destroyed turret.
So most of the group is hiding, but the Juggernaut and Assassin are actually able to withstand
this kind of firepower, so they’re just charging right back in.
As soon as the missile barrage is over, the rest of the group emerges to continue the
fight as well. We switch to the Sith Sorcerer, who keeps
his distance and keeps a steady flow of lightning streaming out to weaken the droid.
The player slides in to first-person view to get a better perspective on the battle.
Ooh, looks like the Sorcerer got a little too close and got knocked back by that sweeping
arm. Now the droid is beginning another bombardment
with his rockets. This time, the group doesn’t hide, however,
and instead collapses in and keeps fighting. It’s critical here that the healers use Area
of Effect heals on the entire group. Even so, that’s a lot of damage very quickly
and the Marauder goes down. Luckily, the second Sorcerer, skilled in healing,
has Reanimation, which revives downed group members even in the midst of the battle.
Storm Protocols, another phase of the droid’s attack.
The red targeting reticule over our Sorcerer healer indicates that he’s been targeted
for a heavy missile attack. This attack will slam not only him, but anyone
standing nearby, so he smartly moves away from the rest of the group to take the hit.
Ouch! Another swinging strike from the Annihilation Droid’s cannon sends the Juggernaut flying.
He won’t stay down long though. Running back, he Force Charges right into the fray.
Our heroes maintain their blistering assault, chipping away at the droid’s health.
Enemy weapons analyzed. Engaging storm protocols. And here, the droid is launching another missile
barrage, but his health is low, so the group just converges on him they’re going to go
for it Oh! The droid’s attacks are just too much.
They’re dropping; 1,2,3, and even 4 of group members are down. But it’s not over.
They’re so close, and there you go! One final attack from the Powertech, and the Annihilation
Droid is going down. So that was just a small part of the larger
Eternity Vault’ Operation. We hope it’s given you a good feel for what
playing through the Operation will be like for you and your friends.
Thanks for watching. We’ll leave you now with a sneak peek at
what the Infernal One has in store for players inside the Eternity Vault