In preparation for launch (ah, those words sound so good) there are several things happening in the SWTOR hemisphere and a lot of them involve deleting/wiping all sorts of data. Earlier today some of you may or may have not received an email suggesting you uninstall your SWTOR Beta client. Things are not as straightforward as that. It is suggested that everyone that played the beta since before November 25th should uninstall their client. Still, it is also said that if you played the beta after that date you should be able to patch up to the launch version. If you participated in the beta earlier than the Big Beta Weekend you might have a lot of leftover files that will just take up space or worse break your SWTOR installation. In that case you might want to just uninstall the damn thing and download it anew once early access downloads are available. This and more is explained in the thread posted on the official forums here.
While we’re on the topic of forums … the official ones will be wiped come December 10 and they will be replaced by bigger, better forums. If you want to save any private messages or important threads the time to do so is now! Among the changes there will be new forums and subforums including a community blog feature. You can read the official announcement here (before it is wiped from existence).
There were 750.000 unique players during the Thanksgiving Beta Test and more than two million applied for the beta out of 2.4 registered on the official swtor.com website. In case you don’t know (which means that: a) you never participated in a MMO beta before or launch; or: b) you were hiding under a rock) ALL of the characters created by those players in the beta will be wiped as the servers are prepared for launch.
With all the above said – 10 DAYS LEFT – before people will be able to create their first permanent characters in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Never thouhgt I’ll see the day.
James Ohlen (updated)
Hey Everyone,
This build has our first iteration of the Legacy System! At its core the Legacy system is about allowing players to create a family tree of characters. Family is pretty important to the Star Wars universe, with the Skywalker family having one of the most interesting dynamics in movie history. This version is just the foundational components that we will use to build upon in the future. Here are the features of this iteration:
- Once your character has completed their Chapter 1 storyline, they will be able to choose a Legacy Last Name. This Legacy Last Name must be unique and is shared across all characters on that server – so choose carefully!
- Once you have unlocked your Legacy, any and all characters on that server will now contribute to that player’s Legacy Experience Points. Much like normal experience points, when you reach certain Legacy thresholds, you will increase your Legacy Level.
We already have plans for how we will expand the functionality of the Legacy System in one of our major post-ship patches. This will include being able to shape your Legacy’s family tree, and give you a reward for all those Legacy Levels.
We look forward to reading your feedback on the Legacy System!
–James
So announced today is a Legacy System. This system is going to allow you to choose a legacy name for your character, once they complete chapter 1. Now up to this point we have heard that last names will not be available in game. I get the feeling this particular feature has been on and off the table so many times that saying it is not going to happen is the safest route, cause then if it does it is a bonus. Continue Reading »
Return Flight from Fan Summit #2
Quietly the embargo for the Fan Summit #2 dropped today. When I say quiet, I mean that we didn’t get an announcement about incoming media blitz. What we have gotten is a volume of posts that are making me try to prioritize for myself. Not only do we have the North American sites, we also have the European sites. Continue Reading »
Hundreds of thousands of beta keys for Star Wars: The Old Republic have been handed out through various web sites over the past couple of days. It was near impossible to get into the beta just a couple of weeks ago and now everybody seems to be given a chance to preview the game before official release. We now know when this Big Beta Weekend will commence. It was announced over twitter official SWTOR account that they are targeting to start on Friday November 25 and close on Monday November 28. You should expect your invitation emails on/or around Tuesday (these will contain a link to client download).
While we are on the subject of beta, it has been reported that during the previous beta weekend testers spent more than a million hours on the game. I hope they found all the bugs and will make the game launch that much smoother. Great news for all those that tested during that beta weekend is that their characters will be carried over to the upcoming beta testing weekend and they will be able to continue leveling their characters.
While you wait for next week, bask in the glory of this week’s Facebook image featuring Eternity Vault.
He wrote the Imperial Agent story. He wrote Blood of the Empire and The Lost Suns comics. He is one of the nicest guys on the SWTOR writing team (lets face it, they are all cool). He was present at Paris Game Week this year and he talked to Guild Chimaera about SWTOR. For all you US visitors – Guild Chimera is one of the most prominent fansites in France and you can find great footage from the convention held in Paris on their site (click links for day 0 and day 1 footage). I have two questions for them though – does their guild have a large number of French women as members (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) and did I see right – did Alexander Freed cut his hair while he was in Paris?
By the way, isn’t that just a great news title? In what other line of work would you be able to write that Chimaera interviewed someone?
Just as it was announced yesterday, The Old Republic media blast has begun and articles with reviews and impressions have been popping all over the place. The press was allowed into the beta and they can talk about the Republic side of things for the first 15 levels or so. We’ll try and make a comprehensive list of links below:
All of the reviewers have promised more articles in the coming days and it seems that the Imperial side will get a proper treatment as well, but that the embargo for them has not dropped yet. I think the general consensus is that the story is as good as advertised. The choices feel real and are cool to make. Multiplayer dialogue works. Companions ‘just work’ (quote from mmorpg.com article). None of the reviewers are calling SWTOR revolutionary, but all of them seem to think it is a quality game.
It seems that Press has been beta testing The Old Republic recently. Guess what – they will talk about their experiences with the game starting tomorrow. It was first mentioned on IGN that tomorrow at 9AM PDT you can expect a pile of new content and then Monday (24th) to Friday new article each day (news spotted at Darth Hater). It has been confirmed now by Stephen Reid, Bioware Senior Community Manager, that this is in fact true and that tomorrow we can expect loads of articles all over the web. Here’s a quote:
- As others have noted, we have a press embargo on #SWTOR dropping tomorrow. We’ve had press in for a while. Testers are still under NDA.
- That means if you’re in testing, you’re still bound by NDA. Only press who have been admitted will be sharing their impressions.
- Watch the @SWTOR account for retweets of coverage btw.
We’ll also try and gather all the press coverage in one convenient post for you to browse through, but all of that tomorrow 9AM PDT. Gonna be a hard wait for hardcore fans. In the meantime – we give you the facebook image of the week just to spice this article up with some media and because this image is actually very cool. It represent a trooper in some kind of very large hall (apparently it is The Gormak King’s Hall) running towards what could be a King’s throne (perhaps the said king is present as well). This feels like an instance footage to me.
Click on the image for full size
I loved the galaxy map in Mass Effect. It was just Sci-Fi enough to make my nerdy senses tingle. We heard before that there will be a similar map in The Old Republic as well. This Friday update brings us an unexpected new feature on the official Holonet portion of swtor.com site – an interactive Galaxy Map. This is probably a preview of the map we will find in the game, only you view it in your browser. The interactive map features each of the planets we will be able to visit in-game together with all the information and videos that we could find on “plain old regular” web pages about those planets. There is also a special section dedicated to personal spaceships each of the classes will be getting. You can view details about each of the spaceships as well as look at their 3d models (and rotate them to see every detail from every angle). Although this is just a fluff update, I enjoyed it nevertheless. The feature is just that cool.
If you are like me and woke up to find a couple of emails from EA/Bioware mentioning SWTOR game testing – do not get your hopes up. There has been a mistake in the Bioware offices last night and a huge number of emails were sent to swtor.com members. One of the emails asked people to take a survey about their game testing experience (as if you are a participant) and the second email thanked you for your participation in game testing and offered to pre-order the game. Both of these were not intended for all the recipiants and were sent to a much larger group than they should have. Just a human error. So, no – you did not somehow miss your game testing invite email. This was just a honest mistake. As always, the best way to see if you are a tester or not is to log into www.swtor.com and check www.swtor.com/tester page. Here’s the official statement:
Earlier today, two e-mails were sent to members of the Star Wars: The Old Republic community. These e-mails were sent to a larger group than intended, and have caused some confusion in the community. We can confirm that these e-mails were from EA and BioWare and apologize for any confusion they have caused. Please note that receiving these e-mails does not affect your chances to be invited to test the game. Thank you all for your understanding!
Am I the only one that cried a little inside when I realized the emails were an error?
Stephen Reid has once again come to the forums and reaffirmed something that should not need to be said.
Since the pre-orders went out we all knew was that it was a first come first serve basis and that by entering your pre-order code would determine when you would gain access to the game.
I took this as a given, and this is not a debate about who got shafted by what company’s on the pre-order codes that got held back. I know mine did as many others in the UK.
This following yellow text post was just to say that nothing had changed and that access would be granted to in the order of which the code where entered on the site.
Continue Reading »
