Hopefully your guild has one of these to guide you into SWTOR Beta!

In the latest podcast from TorSyndicate, David Bass and Stephen Reid talk about the possibility that we might soon see testing invites going out for guilds leading up to the September beta weekends plan.  When does this mean that they will go out?  While we are not sure of the actual date it does appear that it will be very soon.

Here is what David Bass had to say on the subject:

(1:12:00 into the podcast)    In addition to phase 2, we’re also going to be starting up a guild testing program. We’re obviously continuing to expand out invites for testing and we’re going to start including guilds in that list. So if anyone is interested, I don’t know if that is something people would be involved in or not. It’s more about trying to get an entire group of people who enjoy playing together into the game together. As we’ve said before, guild testing invites are random and so you get some people grouping up and playing together but it’s nice to have an entire guild there playing together so they can plan out…they can be more coordinated in-game which really helps us see how that is going to happen at launch when you have all of those guilds in the game, playing the game.

So hopefully you are already part of and in a established guild for SWTOR.  If so you might just be getting guild testing invites soon!

Watch those email boxes and pester your guild leaders cause it’s coming.

🙂

 

UPDATE:  Shortly after making this post “Doctordake” AKA David Bass had this to say on twitter,

doctordakeDavid Bass

We are very pleased to announce the start of Guild Testing for STAR WARS: The Old Republic! This program will allow guilds to be considered as a whole for inclusion in the Game Testing Program, allowing us to gather important data regarding how guilds play The Old Republic, as well as how organized groups deal with various mechanics and systems in the game. The program is already underway, as we’ve invited the first wave of guilds into testing, however we’ll be adding more over the coming weeks alongside the general Game Testing invites.

How do I sign my guild up for Guild Testing?

All you need to do in order to have your guild considered for Guild Testing is to have an active guild with at least 10 members registered in our Guild Headquarters. We also recommend creating a recruitment thread on our forums, but please make sure you are following the Recruitment Guidelines we’ve set forward. Guilds that spam recruitment messages after multiple warnings, for example, will not be considered for Guild Testing.

How are guilds selected for Guild Testing?

In general, guild testing is done randomly from all eligible guilds (that is, those with at least 10 registered members in the Guild Headquarters). Throughout the program, we will be looking to let in both large and small guilds, so as long as your guild meets the minimum requirement, you have an equal chance of being invited to testing. In addition, we may, at our discretion, choose a few select guilds that are active and helpful in the community, since we could use that sort of helpfulness in-game and on the Testing Forums. Note that this will be done in rare circumstances, in order to reward our dedicated community members. Please do not contact any BioWare staff requesting access to Guild Testing, or else your guild may be removed from consideration.

How do I know if my guild has been selected for Guild Testing?

Guild leaders will be contacted directly with detailed instructions when their guild gets selected for testing. It’ll be their job to pass the appropriate information to the rest of their guild in order for everyone to be sent testing invites.

What is involved in Guild Testing?

Guild Testing works the same way as Game Testing does, however by being invited as a guild, you gain the advantage of being in the same testing group and being on the same server, allowing for more coordination amongst the guild for testing group content. You’ll still be a part of the general Game Testing population as well, and will have access to the general testing forums as everyone else does.

Are European guilds eligible for Guild Testing?

European Guild Testing will begin at the same time the European Testing Program begins in the near future.

If you have any other questions about the program, feel free to post in this thread or email us at guilds@swtor.com. Again, please do not contact us asking for Guild Testing consideration or your guild may not be considered for testing.

 

 

 

 

Here comes the money!

 
Today we get word from Doug Creutz, analyst with Cowan FInancial Group  and a article from Forbes website  that they project that SWTOR might hit 3 million copies sold within the first year.  With a quote from his statement we hear that…..

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According to Cebo in his thread on the official forums for Star Wars the Old Republic MMO, Gamestar Magazine had an exclusive interview with Gabe Amatangelo from Bioware regarding “operations” (Bioware’s term for raiding in it’s MMO) .  He talked about different sizes of operations, plus he also revealed that there would be adjustable difficulty levels for you and you group.

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Today marks the day when Star Wars: The Old Republic pre orders have been made available on swtor.com. There are three different editions available in 22 countries for initial pre-order of the game. It has also been unveiled on Electornic Arts investors site that Dr. Ray Muzyka, Group General Manager and Co-Founder, BioWare and Senior Vice President, Electronic Arts, said that:

We are targeting Star Wars: The Old Republic to be one of the biggest launches of holiday 2011

Beside these two huge announcements there is also this:

As anticipation grows, BioWare also proudly announced today that Star Wars: The Old Republic will open “Beta Test Weekends” starting this September.

We are guessing that those that pre-order will have access to these beta weekends, but I am sure most questions will be answered today at a panel Bioware will be holding during San Diego Comic Con, which is scheduled to start today.

After years of speculation, end is in sight.

Source: http://investor.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=593263

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.

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Update no.2: I wanted to make one final update to this news so everything is as clarified as it can be. Here is the full transcript of the SWTOR related part of John Riccitiello’s speech (thanks to swtor.com user Gumstumdar):

From: 20:09

“We’re very confident in the title umm but we did give a range of potential ship dates. It depends really on the beta that we’re now in. We’re in mid-scale beta now, we’ve got a high scale beta at the end of June umm and umm only the foolish assume they know the outcome of beta in terms of uh umm you know whether it’s a six week hit or not. Uhm we intend to make sure that this is a very successful launch and while we’re very very confident umm the reason for range in guidance is to bracket around the possibilities is what we’ve done.”

Stop: 20:40

Stephen Reid, Senior Community Manager at Bioware, had a few things to say about this (you can read his full post on the subject bellow). Game Testing is on-going and they recently started a more long-term, longer-lasting version of it. It is highly likely that the six week comment was in relation to what happens when the game comes out and not how long the beta will last before the game is shipped. In a later post Stephen also said that “European Testing has not fully started yet.”. What all this basically means is that yes, beta is getting bigger and it is changing its shape, which is great news because things seem to be moving towards release. The fact that this is now know publicly changes nothing really, but it is good to hear.
 

During some investor conference (it is called 31st Annual Growth Stock Conference and it was streamed at this URL) that is happening as I write this (8:30 PDT), John Riccitiello, CEO of Electronic Arts just announced that SWTOR High Scale Beta will start by the end of June. It was also said that ship date will depend on the beta. If high scale beta goes well there might be NO MORE DELAY before release. This puts possible SWTOR release much closer than most of the more optimistic predictions. I would like to thank the ladies at Corellian Run Radio for spotting this first and the official forum speculation thread on release date that broke the news. We are still waiting for official confirmation or denial of this news. We hope to get it soon and we’ll keep you posted on the developments.
 
I have one thing to say to their marketing department if this turns out to be true. You should have said this at E3!
 
Now I am off to dance naked in the grass from pure joy of knowing things are about to get real, real fast!
 

Update: Stephen Reid, our beloved Community Manager, just made a post on the forums regarding this news. Here’s the complete post. I am not commenting at all on this, better let everyone form their own opinions.

Take a deep breath, everyone…

Game Testing is currently ongoing for Star Wars: The Old Republic. This isn’t news – it’s been ongoing for quite a while. At different points in the process, we have invited a number of people to test. Some of those people tested for short periods, some for longer periods.

We’ve recently transitioned into longer-term and larger-scale testing. We have more people testing the game now than ever before. We are allowing them to play for longer than ever before. We’re also continuing to invite people to test, so if you haven’t signed up for testing yet – now is a good time.

We will be allowing more and more people to test The Old Republic before launch, and that means occasionally we’ll spike in our invite numbers. It doesn’t mean everyone who’s signed up for testing is going to be invited in one block.

What we’re doing now, essentially, is similar to a ‘Closed Beta’ for other MMORPGs, but we call it Game Testing. It’s invite-only, and it’s limited in size. That gives us the most ‘bang for our buck’ in terms of getting meaningful, actionable feedback. However, we’re still ramping up, we’re getting more people in… and we’re still aiming to launch in 2011.

We had a pleasure of sitting down with Daniel Erickson, lead writer for Star Wars: The Old Republic, and he was nice enough to answer us some burning questions that the SWTOR community suggested us to ask. Here’s a recap of the most important information and you can view the video bellow.

• It is highly unlikely that there will be a pre-release character creator like the one that was present in Dragon Age and Mass Effect.
• There will be different size raids for different difficulties. It is not yet fully defined what those sizes will be for the bigger raid, but smaller raid will be 8 man
• No dynamic content in the same sense as in Rift
• Number of characters per server not defined yet. Guess is that you can have enough to play each class per server, but not yet sure.
• Kicking people off a cliff in PvP matches – YES
• Changing character look after you create it (barber shop) – probably not at ship
• You can have 5 companions on your main character and 5 companions on all your alts and they will all be able to craft at the same time (offline queue) (please watch the interview for better explanation)
• Crafted equipment is what you will need to go into a raid to get the best equipment ever on the server (please watch the interview for better explanation)
• Vanity pets (sly smile – no comment – watch the interview – you will know)

Here’s the Audio version of the interview. The video file is taking forever to upload and we will have full video version as soon as we can get that edited. Thank you for your patience.

Breaking News

• Raid info at Gametrailers.com; Belsavis has various enviroments (Snow, Jungle, Lava); Ancient prison from ancient race is on the planet; Belsavis trailer being shown.; Imperial vs Republic conflict compromised the prison; Guy that got released ruled 20.000 years ago over 10,000 planets; You have to defeat him.
• 4 minutes of gameplay footage from the show floor. This is the full length version of our previous video
  
  

Latest News

• Up next on Gametrailers Live Stream TV is SWTOR. Watch the stream here.
• Razer, maker of gaming peripherals, has created SWTOR themed gaming gear. They have a trailer and images of it on their site and there is also a contest going on. We will have more on this once we talk to Razer ourselves.
• There was a Live Show on Gamepost before Daniel Erickson did his Live Stream for the fans. Here’s a link to the Youtube recording of the Gamespot Live Show (Gameplay and comments included)
• Ask A Jedi has posted their gameplay video footage here
• Massively has an article up about their hands on experience.

Recap of live stream with Daniel Erickson

Watch live streaming video from electronicarts at livestream.com

• Tatooine is absolutely huge. Even with a mount it took a while to get from one place to another
• Blizz is a Jawa companion that only Bounty Hunters receive. He is a DPS gadgeteer.
• Companions have their own equipment screen, but not all of them change their look (like the Jawa companion). Those that don’t change look with gear have special “different look kits” that we’ll here more about soon
• Player mounts (vehicles) have different designs, speeds and cost
• There are Sarlaac in the game and you can chuck people into them. Whether they were thinking PvP or PvE is unclear.
• Droid companions get their own unique type of armor plating, as in the KOTOR series
• There is one more warzone that has not be announced and that people will be excited about because it is “special”.
• Tatooine is visitable by all classes, Dune Sea will be a huge PvP server hotspot
• When you die, there is a Medical Probe option that revives you exactly where you died. Upon revival you have 12 secs of Ultra-Stealth that no one can see.
• You can not level purely through PvP

Due to the previous post getting humongous I have decided to create the Part 2 of our live blog. Hope you stay with us because we still gave about 4 hours of coverage left.

Breaking News

• First Gameplay video from E3
  
• JAWA COMPANION
  
• Live stream of Tatooine with Daniel Erickson and Stephen Reid has started at this page (2:05PM PDT)
• Patrick Buechner Marketing VP of Bioware and Dr Ray Muzyka will be hitting the SWTOR booth stage in 15 minutes (via twitter)(11:50AM PDT)
  
  Click for full size

•  First official image of the SWTOR booth (via Stephen Reid) (11:40AM PDT) (updated with image @2 at 12:00 PDT)
  
  Click for full size

Click here to read older and less important entries (the post got too long)