BioWare announced yesterday that SWTOR is officially coming to new areas of Europe and the Middle East. Players in those regions will be able to purchase either the Standard or Digital Deluxe editions, both of which come with 30 days of free game time. Prices for subscriptions will be as follows; One Month Subscription (automatically billed every 30 days): €12.99/$14.99USD/549RUB per month. Three Month Subscription (automatically billed every 90 days): €11.99/$13.99USD/499.67RUB per month (one-time charge of €35.97/$41.97USD/1499RUB). Six Month Subscription (automatically billed every 180 days): €10.99/$12.99USD/466.50RUB per month (one-time charge €65.94/$77.94USD/2799RUB).
Any answeres about the launch can be found on the Additional European and Middle Eastern Launch FAQ. The big question some players in this region may have is if there will be additional servers brought online for this launch? The answer is no, and players are encouraged to find a home on one of the current European servers. You will find a list of all the countries included in this launch below. Continue Reading »
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Today marks the much anticipated day where The Old Republic officially brought servers online for the Oceanic regions. Though players in those areas could play during the US/EU launch they were forced to log onto servers located across the globe, forcing them to deal with all the latency problems one would expect from not having servers devoted specifically to their region. Now these players will finally get a chance to play SWTOR on localized servers. Three servers have opened up for these players; the Dalborra, the Gav Daragon, and the Master Dar’Nala, each being a PvE, RP, and PvP server respectively.
However there is some bittersweet news to go along with this story as well. Players have been told that they will be able to transfer their current characters to the Oceanic servers, as long as they meet a list of requirements that qualifies them for the transfer. But it turns out they will not be able to do so until sometime in late April, and any characters made on or after this day will not be transferred. Also, full guild transfers will not be possible, forcing guilds to basically start from the ground up on these new servers. This is forcing players to choose between what they consider more important right now; playing their high level characters on their current server, or starting fresh on localized servers. To make matters worse some players are reporting a might higher latency rate on these new servers, making the decision to start over even more difficult.
despite these issues it is still a great day for players in the Asia Pacific Territories. BioWare has set up a handy FAQ thread for these servers to help answer any questions players might have. We here at SWTOR-Life and SWTOR-Spy would like to extend a warm welcome any new players from that region into the game, hopefully your Star Wars experience is a great one!
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BioWare announced recently that they will soon be officially launching Star Wars: The Old Republic in Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and Singapore on March 1st of this year. This means opening localized servers for those regions and making the game more available to players in those areas, who until now could only play the game by ordering online and playing on a European or North American server.
But what about those players who live in that area but are already in game you ask? Well BioWare will be offering these players a limited chance to transfer their characters to a localized server in order to mitigate some latency issues by player on a server in their region. Players who qualify for the character transfer will be contacted in early March with details on how to move their characters to the new servers. Some players are wondering if this is a sign that BioWare will allow all players to transfer characters between servers sometime in the future, but the developers have not commented on that matter at this time. We here at SWTOR-Life are happy to see the Asia Pacific region get some server love, and hope that both new and old players in this region enjoy all the benefits that having localized servers gives them.
You can read the original post about the upcoming release here.
The day Star Wars: The Old Republic got officially released has come and gone. There were many great events to celebrate this momentous occasion an we decided to compile the media from several of those. What you will see below are the documentary video about the making of the Old republic that was released on the official site. There are images from the New York and Austin midnight launch events at Best Buy stores. There was a Freeze Mob in Times Square depicting the epic Empire versus the Republic conflict. Bioware founders also rang the NASDAQ starting bell. There is the SWTOR TV ad available for your viewing pleasure included as well. On to the media…
It is three days before launch and it feels like Christmas. This Friday was the last that we’ll see a regular updated from swtor.com. Bioware took up an amazing responsibility of producing something newsworthy every Friday for about two years now and this is about to change because launch is upon us. To send off the Friday update into its well deserved retirement we were shown the Sith Inquisitor armor progression video (one of my favorite classes) that you can watch below:
The Friday update is gone as such but there is a new feature available on the official site. It is the Community Blog section where developetrs and members of the Bioware team will share their important thoughts and articles with the community at large. The first post on the blog announced launch events to be held in Austin, New York, London and Paris. The event in Austin will be held in Best Buy South Austin and James Ohlen and Rich Vogel will be attending. I am guessing the guys want to be close to HQ if they need to react quickly:). The New York event will feature Bioware’s good doctors Ray and Greg. I wonder if Dr. Greg will share his beard at the event? There is additional information to be found at a special web page located here.
In the meantime the official forums are down and the trolls are lurking the internet in search of new victims. The forums should be back fresh and clean come launch day so don;t despair it is only THREE DAYS AWAY!
Just to make myself perfectly clear. Personally I consider the launch to be when first customers will be able to create their first persistent characters. Early access is exactly that. On the 13th those that pre-ordered early will create characters that will last as long as the game is live. This is the beginning for me despite the “official” launch date is the 20th. I intend to celebrate the 13th by shaving my #launchbeard and hopefully creating my first character. We’ll have videos of that as proof :).
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.
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!
