For this Friday’s update we were treated to a video from GamesCom of the play through of the Eternity Vault, operations raid, narrated by Dallas Dickenson. This raid or as Bioware likes to call them “Operation” looks like a blast. Groups of 8 or 16 players Republic and Empire alike will discover this mysterious location on the planet Belsavis and attempt to confront ancient force-wielders and other serious contained prisoners that who’s release could threaten the entire galaxy.

Continue Reading »

 

If you are a current follower of the game Star Wars The Old Republic MMO currently in development by Bioware, then you already know about them bringing the SWTOR love to PaxPrime 2011 in Seattle Washington, August 26th through the 28th.  If not then read on because you need to know this info!

Continue Reading »

Sitting here last night playing the beta of the Neverwinter heroes facebook game, I happened to do my nightly stroll across the swtor.com web page on crew skills before I went to bed, just to check on my pretties you understand, when I saw that the rest of the blanks had been filled in.  I have been waiting for this day and still it took me by surprise.

Continue Reading »

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.

 

 

 

 

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?

Continue Reading »

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

I am not sure how this skipped everyone’s radar, but this last Friday update, entitled “The Old Republic at Comic-Con“, said that there will be some sort of announcements at the show. Here’s the exact quote:

This year is looking to be another big year for the event and both BioWare and LucasArts will be there to make some announcements about Star Wars™: The Old Republic™

It might be that people have grown tired of catching every little glimpse of what might possibly turn into big news, but I am still a sucker for hype and I will take this bait with open arms and share a few of my thoughts on what these announcements might be.
read more of my SWTOR geek out

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.

Going to a convention for a game you are following is always a magical time, especially if it is Star Wars The Old Republic MMO by Bioware! Join me, SwtorCrafter,  as I get ready to go to E3 in Los Angeles on the 6th!

Bring the awesome Bioware, I double dog dare you!  😛

Continue Reading »

One of the big items of news that came from the UK player event SWTORGB, that I especially liked was the information we got on the mysterious “Datacrons”.  Credited by Daniel Erickson as the first known person in a community play event to discover one, “Kandycane” brings us this tidbit on the discovery and it’s use from his game play impressions…..
Continue Reading »