Month of July will be remembered as special because none of the Friday Updates were a Fan Friday (although I think Fan Site spotlights are a great idea and Biware should make sure those continue – they mean a lot to hard working fansite people). It will also be remembered as a month that ended with a 13 minute long, epic gameplay video showcasing the Esseles flashpoint. For those of you that have been following the game for a while, you’ll probably notice that Esseles turns out to be the instance they showed a part of when they first showed group content for The Old Republic.
Watching this video really made me feel like I was watching one of the scenes from the original trilogy, or, worst case, one of the Clone Wars episodes. Felt very Stars Wars-y. Also, once again, they chose the dark side option and actually flushed some people into space – sans space suits. This is one of the videos that definitely deserves your time.
Before I get into this anyone who whines about the CE being too expensive and are from the US “SCREW YOU ALL”.
*Rant Set To Maximum*
You already have one, if not the lowest priced CE additions on earth how dare you. You only pay $150, I’m paying £129, which is around $200. And then I’m a lot better off than those poor Australians who have great trouble just getting the game and after import tax and such are looking at over $300. So, stop it, right now.
*End Rant*
Now to address all this bitching.
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.
After the flood of info from San Diego Comic Con came in I decided to have some fun with it and ponder just what was my top ten info releases for me personally. I start with number ten and work my way to the one I felt to be personally the coolest. I wonder if your interests are similar to mine, or if you have even seen all this stuff yet?
I wanted to give you an overview of news that have come out of this year’s San Diego Comic Con and SWTOR’s presence at the event. As all of you probably know Bioware held a panel dedicated to The Old Republic on the first day of ComicCon and there is also a Bioware Base setup in a hotel near by the convention center where many fans are able to get their hands on the game and experience other games Bioware has to offer. I would like to suggest that you closely monitor www.torwars.com and www.darthhater.com because they are the only fansites reporting live from the event and they have the most up-to-date news available. Here’s a summary of things we’ve learned so far.
Official SWTOR site had a pre-order page made available with all the details on how to obtain a copy of digital standard or collector’s editions of the game or standard and CE boxed version. A number of well known MMORPG sites have had an advertising campaign for the pre-orders launched at the same time.
This compilation of information was done thanks to articles and live blogs by Newsarama and TorWars.
For everyone waiting for this game for 2+ years, making it available for pre-ordering was a dream come true and a sign that finally, the wait is over. Unfortunately, things have not been as satisfying for all the fans around the world. Here’s the story. If you want to purchase SWTOR in digital form, you can only do that from Electronic Arts’ online store called Origin. For boxed version you can order online or go to many of the major retailers around the world, full list to be found here by clicking on the pre-order button.
The problem is that if you do not live in one of the 22 countries listed here you will not be able to make a purchase of the digital version on Origin. Retailers in your country might, or might not carry any copies of The Old Republic come launch day. Retailers in countries listed on the links provided above might not ship to your country or you will not get the game on time because of shipping abroad. In short, everyone not in the countries that are in the “Green zone” might encounter significant troubles in acquiring a copy of the game.
This has made a lot of people angry and there has been a thread going on in the official forums that reached several incarnations (because of the 1000 posts per thread limit) and had more then several hundred thousand views so far. In all honesty there is a lot of trolling going on, but there are some legitimate concerns and posts there as well.
Now that the initial tantrum has passed most people outside the “Green zone” are looking for alternate ways to get their hands on the copy of the game. Australians have been making orders through Amazon.com, although shipping to them will probably be delayed and the game will arrive post-launch. European countries that have been left out are mostly ordering through European version of Amazon sites like amazon.co.uk, amazon.de (which still has boxed collector’s editions available) and amazon.it. I must warn all that Amazon has its own shipping policies and you should look at their help pages to see if they will ship PC games to your country! There is currently no info available on how Brazilian (and South American in general), Asian and African gamers can successfully get their hands on the game right now. If any of you have any valid methods of getting SWTOR to those areas of the world please let me know and I will update this article with new info.
What remains to be seen is whether they will go as far as blocking the countries outside the “green zone” from accessing the game servers or being able to pay with local credit cards. This is highly unlikely, but just to be safe I’d recommend everyone to monitor the situation closely until official information on this has been made available.
I would also recommend patience and not being tempted to look at unverified and shady offerings that are bound to pop up to take advantage of this situation. Your credit card info, game account info and other sensitive and personal information may be put at risk if you succumb to some random offer by some unknown web store or retailer.
In their well known fashion Bioware released another enticing video trailer to celebrate the start of their pre-orders and their presence at San Diego Comic Con. Trailer features all the playable classes delivering great one-liners that tell you straight away what that each class is about. As always, they get me excited about the game no matter what.
Comments Off on ComicCon trailer – Join the Fight
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
The title of this article makes no sense to you? Let me explain. David Bass, SWTOR’s community manager, tweeted these two gems yesterday:
OH MY GOD. Has anyone seen this leaked info that’s all over the web? About the Avengers and Spider-Man trailers?!
Really excited to watch them, but I kind of feel like I should hold off until they’re officially released in theaters.
If you don’t know what this is all about, you should spend more time on the SWTOR related interwebs. If you do, please take David’s advice.
To make things a bit more interesting, here’s a random Star Wars image:
