Yes you heard it right.  If you are like me and are jonesing for your SWTOR fix then you will be happy to know that early access has been moved up two days to December the 13th instead of the 15th we had previously thought.

In a news announcement on the swtor.com website we  got the following,

Early Game Access* for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ is only a few days away! Starting December 13, 2011, The Old Republic will begin emailing invitations to start your Early Game Access. Invitations will be sent throughout the Early Game Access period offering rolling access to the game in the order in which you redeemed your Pre-Order Code, so be sure to check your email inbox!

To ensure that players can get into the game as quickly as possible when their Early Game Access begins, we are now allowing everyone who has redeemed a Pre-Order Code at our Code Redemption Center to pre-load the game to their computer.

In order to download the game client before Early Game Access begins, you need have already logged into your account and redeemed your Pre-Order Code. Once you have done this, you can download the game client by clicking on “My Account” in the upper-right of the window and then click “Pre-Order.” On your Pre-Order page, click the large button that says “Download Game Client” to begin download of the game!

If you participated in our recent Beta Testing Weekend between November 25th and 28th and still have the game client installed, you will be able to patch this client instead of re-installing by simply launching your client, logging in and allowing the download to complete. If you did not participate in the November 25th – 28th Beta Weekend, first uninstall the Game Testing Client and then re-install to ensure your game client will function correctly during Early Game Access.

Learn more about how to get ready for Early Game Access!

If you haven’t pre-ordered Star Wars: The Old Republic yet, you still have time. Visit our Pre-Order Page, secure your copy of the game and redeem your Pre-Order Code at the Code Redemption Center to pre-load the client and qualify for Early Game Access.

If you have any issues installing or patching the game client for The Old Republic, check visit the Customer Service Support section for information and assistance.

*Customers who redeem their Pre-Order Code at the Code Redemption Center prior to launch will be able to pre-load the Star Wars: The Old Republic Game Client before the official Game launch. Pre-loading the Game does not grant you access to the Game. Pre-Ordering the Game only allows you access to the Early Game Access period and your Color Crystal. Early Game Access may be up to 7 days. The length of your Early Game Access depends on the date and order in which you redeemed your Pre-Order Code. In order to continue playing the Game after the Early Game Access period, you must redeem your official Game Product Registration Code at the Code Redemption Center.

 

Plus we also got the news via the announcement that the download can now be pre-loaded!  This truly is a magical time for us, happy TORmas!

According to the online retailer Amazon you can now order a pre-paid 60 day time card for your account.  The price is stated as $29.99 and it shows to be released on 12-20-2011.  I do not do much shipping from Amazon so I am not really sure about their shipping times or what to expect from them but from what I have heard from friends that do they seem to be pretty reliable.

If you have pre-ordered or if you buy a physical copy on launch day you should get 30 days free game time with your initial install per account, so this is not a must have right at release day, but it still is cool to see things like this happen.  All the more evidence that SWTOR will be with us soon!

8 days and counting…

 
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.
 

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 »

Today we have beta invitations going out again. This will be the third beta weekend, but it looks to be a limited invite. The servers located in US East Coast are the ones participating.

Today , 12:37 PM
Invitations are being sent for a weekend test this weekend! Sent Nov. 8: Beta Testing Weekend #3 Invites Who was invited: Testers from North America What was sent: Beta Weekend #3 Invites Server locations: US East Coast Invite status: We are currently in the process of sending these invites, and will continue throughout this evening.

All of the invites will be sent out through-out the day and finished by this evening and you should have them in your mailbox. If not, check your spam folder or check your beta testing status on www.swtor.com/tester.

Edit:

Some addition information has come out via Stephen Reid a bit ago.

Continue Reading »

Server Types Announced For SWTOR

Continuing in the trend of basking us in SWTOR knowledge on a day that’s not even a Friday, Bioware’s David Bass made an announcement of the server types in Star Wars The Old Republic MMO!

This is information I have been wanting to hear for quite some time.  To allow me to plan ahead is always something I am thankful for and with this knowledge at least we can be ready for which server type we want to choose at launch.  This information also coincides nicely for guilds who just a hour ago found out the news that guild phase 3 was beginning.

Be sure to read the article in full and comment on the SWTOR.com official forums here.

Here is what was posted by David, choose your server armed with this information!

Continue Reading »

Guild Phase 3?

Hey wait this is a Thursday you say?  We don’t get news about SWTOR unless it’s Friday!

Even though we still got great news from Bioware today, via the official forums and Alyson Bridge we got the news that Phase 3 for guilds would be started with the first step of “Deployment”.  There are guidelines and things that have changed in this latest installment so be sure to read it and discuss it here on the Official forums.

Here is what was said, better get your house in order guilds the clock is ticking….

Continue Reading »

Dumbing Down!

As a person who is still not in beta testing at this time I have the freedom to speak my mind and theorize on certain in game mechanics in SWTOR because legitimately I do not know for sure what some of them truly are like.  I have not as yet been infiltrated and absorbed by beta testing knowledge so I am still pure in my speculations and ramblings.

Take crew skills and crafting in SWTOR for instance, they have released a lot of general information in the past from mainly one dev diary and a lot of fansite interviews and some various Q&A’s found on the internet at different sites.

There is information out there, but it is just so up in the air right now what with all the rumors and hub bub I have been hearing floating around about how they are changing so many things about the crafting system at this time.

While I understand that they must change things as a result of feedback from the testers and actual time people have spent kicking the tires and such, the things I am hearing are worrying me to no end.

Why you ask?

Well OK, you twisted my arm.

Continue Reading »

 
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?
 

September was not a particularly good month for beta testing of The Old Republic. There were problems with executing the planned Beta Weekends and there was considerable downtime because a new build was being prepared for testing. This caused even further delays to larger scale European testing. With only 1 and a half days left unti lthe end of September we get news that will probably make up for all the misses that happened this month. Chris Collins, the recently employed European community manager, posted on the official forums that a batch of invites has been sent out today to EU players. Here’s a snippet:

Today, we’re excited to announce that we are sending out a batch of invites! In particular, this initial batch marks the start of a series of invites to our larger European player base, who get the chance to join the Star Wars: The Old Republic Game Testing program and provide feedback during the months up until launch.

To further the excitement it seems that tomorrow we might get even more news about the upcoming beta weekends and testing in general. Everyone is hoping that his means an all out widening of the beta testing program so that a lot more people get to experience SWTOR before launch (and help splash those nasty bugs). This was hinted at in Chris’ forum post, but also, Stephen Reid tweeted the following:

We sent both NA and EU invites in the last 48 hours. More news on testing is coming tomorrow.

Considering all of the above I think tomorrow’s update will not be disappointing.