Do you, like me, have questions surrounding the “weekend beta testing” or just “testing” in general? Well you are in luck today folks because hot off the transmitter waves we got this information from Stephen Reid;
Plus we now have an additional update from @Rockjaw on this info as well!
Read On——->
After the initial announcement of the start of beta weekends at PAX Prime there were still many unanswered questions that remained. Stephen Reid, Senior community manager, tweeted some of the final answers just now. Here’s a summary of the most important information pertaining to the first SWTOR beta weekend:
I hope this helps answer some of your questions.
We have have very little in the way of new info when it comes to TOR of late. Huttball is the only thing since the map update, which in itself was not well received by the TOR faithful.
Before that you would have to cast your mind back to the 10th of June when we got the Game play Features news article. This is the last new info we had.
Though we can not forget the sneaky update on the crew skills that almost went unnoticed.
GamesCom did bring Huttball and for me one of the better features that TOR has to date, this was followed by a lack-luster PAX where we just had info that some may find new but these things have been said before.
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During the Star Wars: The Old Republic panel at PAX Prime convention held in Seattle it was revealed that previously announced beta weekends in September will already start on the first weekend – September 2nd. There will be a huge wave of new beta invites going out for this beta weekend to new beta testers. This beta test will be held on a new server, different from the one being used for game testers currently in the beta. Huge number of people will be invited in all subsequent September beta weekends. You need to be signed up for beta testing on the official swtor site, if you want to have a chance for an invite into this beta weekend. We’ll see if we can get more news and details posted soon.
It’s amazing how a day of two can give you a new view on a given subject. What once was greeted with great anticipation and high hopes falls at the very first hurdle.
I’m thinking about Origin and the new wave of beta invites.
Firstly Origin, EA’s answer to Steam.
I was kind of indifferent to this news when it hit. I don’t have many Steam related games on my account as I tend to play MMO’s and you don’t need a second party platform to enjoy them fully. Also I though having SWTOR exclusive for digital download from Origin made good business sense. After all, doing it yourself gives you a greater income before the more important subs start rolling in.
Usually when I wake up in a good mood and begin pouring over twitter, facebook, swtor, swtor-life, darth hater, CRR, MER, etc… it only takes about 15-20 minutes of reading before my mood is shot to shit and I develop an urge to commit homicide by tossing swtor forum members into a Sarlacc. Today, I am unusually surprised to find one hell of a gem buried in the pile of rehashed shit and whipped to death horses. This of course got me thinking, and well all know how badly that usually turns out.
The Official SWTOR forum user Revchong posted a GREAT idea and topic. A mobile Pazzak App. Thats right. A WoW inspired idea that doesn’t make me want to pour acid on Jawas until my rage subsides.
There are tons of possibilities that I personally hadn’t thought of.
This would provide BioWare with a micro-transaction or as they like to call it “service” (which I believe is Latin for “gimme all your money dumbass”) option that didn’t make them appear to be greedy money whoring, space bitches. They would be extra services that really add functionality to the game that really only affect people who give a crap about that particular section of BW/SW cannon. The rest of us would never know it was even there. Nor would most of us even care. God knows I wouldn’t. Well maybe the Space Donkey show idea…
Now as much as I hate the idea of micro-transactions and people running around with little flying Jawas or pet Wamprats that do cute little things like OD on death-sticks every 30 seconds or nibble your bum when you stand still, this idea I think is sound. Additional revenue for game funding without impacting a subscription plan and forcing us to endure a glowing button ingame that flashes every time they release a new pet Mini-Wookie [mini-wookie 2011 Flagg – Patent pending] that glitters like a barbie doll after a 3 day crack binge.
We all know BioWare and EA are on this moronic and silly yet persistent “social networking” kick to exploit the huge market of internet stalkers and pedophiles around the world (THANKS FACEBOOK!) because, well, lets face it. The majority of them are idiots and have more money than common sense. I guess in retrospect I would milk them for every penny too. In the immortal words of my hero Forrest Gump: “Stupid is as stupid does”. If they choose to implement something like this, the sheer volume of “tweens” (once again, latin for “to young to have a job but old enough to spend money”) that will bolster the games income could be justified, not to even mention adults that think $50 for pixels of a see through wanna-be pegasus is a sound investment. I have some great beachfront property on Hoth if you are interested…
In conclusion I would like to point out that I am an opinionated bastard with a lot of issues pent up having to do with my uncle forcing micro-transactions on me at a very young age. I think he works for Cryptic now. Anyway….
If I had my way I would go to BioWare and smack a release date out of them, then proceed to hide all the office snacks until I got a beta invite, but as much is in life: It just ain’t like that. So I wait and seethe.
It’s no secret to anyone who knows me, that I despise micro-transactions and simply will not play games based on pay-to-win. So why do I think this is a good idea? Simple. I don’t have to see it, experience it, or deal with it in any way. Out of sight, out of mind. I respect BioWare and their talent and skill, but I remain steadfast in one opinion. Someone should force-pimpslap their PR department. With less than 8 months until the announced window closes, we know exactly enough to cover less than 4 minutes worth of commentary on G4. That’s so sad I think i’m gonna go adopt a kid from one of those Sally Struthers countries. At least that way I can meet Jabba and get a cheap lawn service while I wait.
The Old Republic is a strange beast. It has more than 1 million registered forum accounts, more than 260.000 Facebook Likes and more than 25000 registered guilds and the game hasn’t even entered closed beta stage. There’s another oddity we are now seeing. There is a scam going around offering game testing access for money. Scam, for a game that is not out yet. That must be some kind of first.
All jokes aside, I can understand being eager to play the game, but giving money for something that you are not sure even exists should be a big no-no for everyone. If you receive an offer or and email telling you you can purchase access to the game testing program, know that your credit card info can be stolen, you can receive a non-legitimate game testing account and rest assured that even if the aforementioned plights do not strike Bioware will notice the account is now being played from another IP, town, state or country and will ban you for life. Let me spell that our for you F O R L I F E. You don’t want that, now do you?
Here’s the official word on recognizing and avoiding this scam:
It has come to our attention that there are multiple individuals and sites claiming to sell testing accounts, “beta keys,” or other offers of access to our Game Testing Program. All of these offers are false. BioWare is not issuing invites to Game Testing via any method other than those we outline here on SWTOR.com.
We must caution you that these offers are often scams designed to steal your money, credit card information, or identity. While we understand that you are eager to participate in Game Testing, your security is extremely important, and attempting to participate in these offers could put you in very real danger.
Furthermore, the sale of accounts with access to the Game Testing Program is strictly prohibited by the Game Testing Agreement. We closely monitor the activities of all accounts involved in the Game Testing Program, and are quick to notice accounts that change hands. In the event that an account in the Game Testing Program does change ownership, we immediately take action to the fullest extent possible, including permanently banning the account from the Service.
You may also encounter e-mail scams that indicate you have been invited to the Game Testing Program. If you are invited to the real Game Testing Program, you will receive an e-mail with instructions from no-reply@bioware.swtor.com. Any other e-mail address claiming to offer an invitation is likely to be a scam. If you receive an e-mail and are in doubt or are concerned about its validity, please forward your concerns to bwacommunitysupport at bioware DOT com. If you do receive a genuine testing invitation from us, you will also be able to view the invitation and testing information at www.swtor.com/tester.
If you discover a scam pretending to offer access to the Game Testing Program, please forward all relevant information to us at bwacommunitysupport AT bioware DOT com. Your security and the security of your fellow community members is important to us, and we appreciate your help.
In their latest interview from the PAX East convention of 2011, Darth Hater sat down with Bioware’s creative director, James Ohlen.
Darth Hater: “We also heard that in your dialogue system, you are tracking metrics on when people are pausing to see how long they’re taking to make decisions and things like that to really work on the dialogue. So you are getting ton of information from the testers?”
James Ohlen: “We keep on getting more and more information as the testing groups get larger. We had two groups of a thousand players on a shard and that got us a lot of information because it was a lot more people playing together. We were able to see a population that was not indicative of the final game, but it was closer to it because the populations were so much bigger than just a couple hundred. We’re able to use that to make a lot of adjustments; it also validated a lot design decisions we made months earlier. The game really gets a lot better every single month. It is pretty impressive. The developer teams are getting faster at making changes and making adjustments to feedback. Two years ago it would take so long to see a change in the game, but now you see changes every month.”
From what I remember in the past, we have never really gotten a definitive number from a developer about just how many people are involved in “game testing”. If I remember correctly the only estimations of a number came from the statement of “more than I could fit in my office” or something to that effect. (the actual quote escapes me at the moment but it was very similar to that statement)
When they tell me that they have two groups of a thousand players on a shard that gives me a better idea as to how far they are along in the numbers of people that they have allowed in at this point. I figure it is more than two thousand at this point, but at least I now have a baseline reference.
The comment that they were “on a shard” also makes me wonder if they also have the ability of running more than one shard at this time with their current server structure. I am thinking they do and that they may be currently operating several shards at this point in time. Maybe a private in house version for the developers only that showcases the latest builds, maybe a couple for outside the office testers, and etc. I may be way off base, as this is just speculation on my part.
In the end though, with this developer interaction I feel better about the testing process going on at Bioware. One of my fears from the past was that they didn’t have the amount of people testing their game that they needed to find out all that was necessary. That a small minority of people testing would sway the design decisions in directions I as a MMO veteran did not approve of for my gaming time.
With a number of at the very least two thousand testing the game, I feel much better that a wider view of MMO mechanic and game play design is being addressed.
Now if I could just get my hands on it and test out the “Crew skills system” I could die a happy man. 🙂
Let me be honest with you. I looked for and found the beta leaks. I was burning with curiosity. The footage was not spectacular, as it mostly showed things we saw before, but it did reveal some of the things we haven’t seen so far. Let me tell you why we haven’t seen them so far, because THEY ARE NOT FINISHED YET. It was glaringly obvious that some of the things were in beta stages and if they showed an image there saying “PLACEHOLDER” it would have the same effect.
This is what bothers me the most about this leak. Some other MMO player or innocent bystander will not go deep into analyzing the leaked footage and will say how Bioware is doing a poor job and that this game will suck. It feels as if this leak was created for just this purpose, to hurt the image of this game. It doesn’t feel as if it was made available to show us what the game is really about. Let me explain why. The things that look good and finished are the things we already saw previously from official sources. Some of the things we didn’t see so far felt unfinished. You can see great potential in some of them but all in all they were not too impressive from a finished game’s standpoint.
In light of all this, we here at Swtor Life, have decided to join the rest of the fansites and declare our resentment with the unapproved leaking of material from the game. We will not be posting, endorsing or supporting sites that post unauthorized materials in any way. We here declare that we will honor the Fansite agreement we’ve signed by creating this site.
To lighten the mood a bit, here’s a girl in a pink Darth Vader costume:
Image via babiesmakingfaces.com
Not a day went by since the announcement of the beta testing being underway and already leaked footage from the game hit the net. VG247 reported about this and provided a link to the video. They labeled it as rumor but seeing the video already being pulled from Youtube under a copyright claim by EA we can only imagine it was some real footage.
FOTOR reports that it was “16 minutes of nothing we haven’t already seen”.
It is a rather worrying development because Bioware is sure going to make further beta invitation even more scarce. On the other hand with a game as anticipated as SWTOR is things like this are bound to happen.
Sean Dahlberg updated his thread about Game Testing with the following:
Being able to have the community help us test The Old Republic is very important and valuable to the development process. The Game Testing Program allows community members to give us quality feedback so we can make adjustments and have a highly effective service and entertaining experience when we do launch. Since we have some time until the game is complete, some of the information testers have access to has not been released and may actually drastically change based on tester feedback before we go public with it.
This is why we take violations of any of our user agreements very seriously. Our expectation is that players of The Old Republic will follow the terms of the Game Testing Agreement and ensure that the confidential pre-release information we’re sharing with community members remains confidential. We will take action if that is not the case.
Anyone caught promoting confidential information (such as linking to, reposting, quoting, etc) will be contacted and such information removed from our community. Actions that can occur due to this can be simply removing the post to being suspended to being completely and indefinitely suspended from the entire service (including after we launch).
He also mentioned that you can report leaks to the Bioware community team:
If you find one on these forums, definitely Flag (report) the post so the Community Team can quickly react to it. If you find them off-site, you can always send them to bwacommunitysupport at bioware DOT com
UPDATE: I saw one of the videos and it shows some 7 minutes of smuggler gameplay. It is the starting area and very low level quests. The video shows some combat that really isn’t anything we haven’t seen before. Makes me more psyched for the game than anything, but I can imagine it could be hurtful to game promotion because it is obvious this is a not finished product and may leave an impression to the casual crowd as something that is broken instead of awesome. That is why such leaks are just wrong.
