Hello! I'm part of your community waiting patiently for SWTOR. I've been watching this game for what seems like forever but has only been a mere 3 years. I've lurked on your forums, I've posted a few times on an account, and I've signed up for beta.
So far anytime I've read something the majority of the reviews are positive. This makes me happy. You have set hopes high with promises of thrilling character stories and rich detail, but have you listened to some parts of the community?
Yes yes I know... this isn't SWTOR. It is kind of related, but SWG holds a dear place in my heart. It was only the second MMO I had ever played, but it really sucked me in while I did play it. I quit it before the CU was released, and moved to WoW. Looking back, I think I should've probably stayed with SWG, but oh well.
Today's Fan Friday update wasa visual look at Aldaaran Highlights. While entertaining and enjoyable, it's not exactly the fun filled updates that we all always hope for. Though not the same, many felt it was eerily similar to the video shown on E3 – feeling like it was more of a “recap” vs an update.
So it was obvious that a few people were interested on any information about the Comic-Con. The people roared in anticipation, the Dev's eventually answered. While they couldn't give away all the details, here are a few of the snippets Dev David shared with us.
Yesterday, BioWare announced that there was space at the Hilton Gaslamp hotel across the street from the convention. The post was directed to the BioWare fans waiting to hear news for Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age II DLC. Though, as we all know, SWTOR is planning on being there as well, and the Hilton is open to any of us as long as there are rooms available.
Today the dev's stop by to answer a few more questions on the forum. Here's a quick recap:
Class Quest Replay Value
Each class has their own class quests, so you get “excellent” replay value because they all have completely different class quests.
My thoughts : We'll see. It all depends on how many "class" quests there really are..
What did you enjoy most from our E3 coverage?
The poll reveals that it's almost a toss up of the Intro Cinematic and the Tatooine Developer Walkthrough (the cinematic winning out slightly). There were quite a few comments of appreciation about the operations walk through.
Among a few of the grumbles were people wanting more information about crafting and of course “Where was the release date?!”. A lot of people were holding their breath at E3 and begrudgingly have accepted waiting a little longer.
What is your favorite piece of extended universe content relating to Star Wars: The Old Republic?
By a landslide, Deceived won the poll about best extended contest, with Blood of the Empire coming in second (by quite a large margin). While reading the thread, there were quite a few people commenting on how nothing had excited them thus far. I'll have to admit, I haven't had time to read any of this, and ToR just wakes up my want of writing “fan fiction” style stories again. Doubt I have the time anyway!
Of course, there had to be a moment where SWTOR had to pat itself on the back.
This year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo was a resounding success, with over 46,000 people filing through the doors of the Los Angeles Convention Center to see the latest the video game industry has to offer. Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ was one of the most popular games on the show floor, attracting large crowds of people throughout the week, many of whom stood in line for up to five hours to get some hands-on time with the game.Read More
Today was also Fan Friday, which we covered earlier today. While the art was wonderful, a lot of people were wanting more. That seems to be a reoccurring theme.
This actually interested me quite a lot. Kudo's to Ian for taking the time to walk us through this. Unlike the above topics, virtually all of the feedback was positive and impressed by how amazing the screenshots were. Can you blame them?
Darth Hater: No cover locations on Tatooine?
For those worried about the cover locatoins on Tatooine, Dev Stephen let us know that Tatooine just hasn't had a complete “cover pass” yet.
Would you come to San Diego Comic-Con?
Nearly 80% of people responded that they didn't have a badge and couldn't come to San Diego. That response may not have helped the dev's out, but at least 184 people would happily make the drive or flight if they knew they could play the game. 37 people said they'd come even if they couldn't play!
For a full listing of their events, check out the SWTOR Events Page.
As was expected, today's update was a Fan Friday. It consisted of new icons for the forums, some really great fan art, and a Fan Site Spotlight on Ask A Jedi, and a concept art shot of the destruction in Coronet, Corellia.
Some people might be upset with only receiving a Fan Friday today, but who can really be surprised. They did just come back from a large convention where they showed us quite a bit of info. And even devs need to sleep sometimes. Still, many people are disappointed I'm sure and no information of a release date or pre-order information.
To read the full article for today's Fan Friday, have a lookie here
The convention might be over but the awards have just been released. SWTOR won big, being nominated in 20 it was the winner of 15 awards. Whether they were from Electric Playground to MSNBC, they all seemed to really enjoy the game so far, praising it as a "perfect storm for nerds".
While this is great news to hear, it just means I want to play the game even more. /sigh
Today, EA was featured by William Blair & Company (streamed here). Though John Riccitello was feeling a little under the weather, he certainly brought us a little bit of news that might be music to our ears. Not without humor, hoarse voice and all, he commented on the physics and beauty of the game to come. Stocks aren't the only thing that are rising for EA, it's the excitement and anticipation for SWTOR.
What's going on with ToR? What matters to you – John announced that the SWTOR High Scale Beta will start by the end of June. He went on to say that the shipping date will depend on the Beta, and from what we've seen though there's some improvement needed right now, it's not far off. It was mentioned that it could be as soon as 6 weeks (or not) after the High Scale Beta is released. Could August be the month? Don't hold your breath, as John reminds us, “Only the foolish assume they know the outcome of the beta in terms of if it's a six week hit or not”.
We do wish that they would just spit the facts out, but we have a few theories about that as well. We believe after the release of Firelands it's likely that EA will be sharing more information with us. It seems reasonable to assume that during the San Diego Comic-Con (July 21-24) that we may hear about the pre-order release dates.
Edit: By the way, apparently my spell check hates me, so if you saw the other spelling and are laughing horribly...I understand why.
Today's Friday Update wasn't really "new" if you've been paying attention to E3 coverage. We got a video that had been released before the convention, with a few edits, like the change of "Raids" to "Operations" in the text.
While many expected this, since the convention did just end yesterday, it seems that many in the community are not happy with what they got. Many believe they were entitled to more, like new videos and a large release. It was expected by many that today would bring us a release date. Why, I have no idea. If you watched the live stream dev walk through on Tuesday it was obvious the game still needs some work, sure it might not be that much, but if Bioware wants to wait to release it's product until it's up to their standards then it probably won't be released for a bit longer.
We were given possible evidence during E3 that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. During a Darth Hater interview with Razer for their SWTOR Peripherals, it was announced they would be made available sometime in November. While this made many people excited, it doesn't mean the game will be released at that time, complications could arise.
Bioware remained silent regarding the date, but this didn't stop people from speculating when the game would be released. To add fuel to the fire, during the EA E3 2011 Analyst Event, a slide was displayed showing the fiscal year for EA. It showed a projected launch period for SWTOR. From the looks of it EA and Bioware are hoping for a launch sometime between Q2 and Q3 of their Fiscal year. This ends up being sometime in the fall.
This prompted the hungry community to want, and in some cases demand, a release date be announced at E3. When this didn't happen, the forums lit up with angry posts about hype for the game dying, it becoming the laughing stock of the gaming industry, and claims of disappointment about their showing at E3.
Personally I would love to see the game come out sooner rather than later, I've been waiting for 3 years for this game to be out. That being said, I want the game to be released when they believe it's ready, not a moment sooner.
I really feel bad for the crew at Bioware right now. They are stuck between a rock and a hard place. They are in a no win situation. They release the game unfinished, everyone will complain about how the game fails and is broken. They wait and release the game when they are ready, and they will be constantly hounded with demands for more information and why the game hasn't been released. This hasn't even brought up the reasoning behind WHY they haven't released any information on a release date, or pre-ordering details.
Right now their top competitor is in the process of bringing out a new content patch, which will provide a new raid instance to players. Do you think Bioware wants to compete with that? They haven't released info on pre-ordering because they don't want their thunder stolen by another game.
Patience is a virtue, waiting for a game will just make that first moment you log into it sweeter. Give the devs a break, and just wait, in due time we'll be in that galaxy far far away.
While waiting on ToR to come out, there's not much else a person can do but watch and wait. Yesterday many fans were twiddling their thumbs waiting to watch a boss fight on Bioware TV. Instead, they got extra footage of Mass Effect and Stephen Reid claiming he didn't know anything about a boss fight.
What did the viewers get? About 5 minutes of talking and the same “exclusive” footage of Tatooine that we saw in the live stream the previous day.
Reid then tweeted that he found about DE was going to be on G4TV talking about the flashpoint/group arc in Alderaan instead of showing the raid boss. Online? Nope, just on TV. Obviously it's been online by now, and yes we've watched it. It was neat, but pretty short.
The one good perk of the day was that they confirmed the release date is in 2011. If you follow the forums, it looks like it might be Sept/October – but I know better than to get my hopes up.
So what do you do when you're watching and waiting, but nothing is actually going on? We tend to check out Youtube, and dream a little dream about what it'll be like when ToR comes out. Oria spends most of her time trying to finalize just what class she'll be. Honestly, from what I can tell, she switches every time she see's new footage. I'm sure I'll get a b*tch slap for that though!
Now that I've finally made our Twitter account, I'm watching for news and feeds. Hopefully that means more articles and updates on this end to!
Yesterday those of us who were not lucky enough to get to E3 were treated to a live stream demo of SWTOR with Daniel Erickson, Lead Writer for the upcoming MMO. He played a level 26 Rattataki Bounty Hunter, showing us the second to last planet in Chapter 1 of the player's story arc.
It was explained during the stream that graphics were low to make streaming easier. Even with the lower settings the game looked fine. We saw that SWTOR still has several bugs that need to be addressed, but the game itself is currently playable.
Daniel explained to us how the Rattataki race and the GUI had been redone, and gave answers fielded by community members who were watching the stream. As a special treat for E3, we were shown a BH companion, Blizz the Jawa. Apparently from other interviews it's been explained that Bounty Hunters will add Blizz to their companion crew on Hoth later in the game. He was added early just to show at E3.
We got to see the map, and quest objective interface, as well as character screens and inventory. Inventory can be expanded by purchasing new slots, there wouldn't be bags that we would need to equip. Also it was explained that quest items would have their own section in the inventory window, that would grow as needed without costing anything.
We got to see planet transportation. Even though there are currently a few bugs with speeders we were told that as of right now they are available around level 25, and there are different speeds and styles of speeders. Also it was hinted that you would be able to "steal" opposing faction speeders.
After the audience was treated to seeing a small cut scene, with a choice between letting a dying Sith lord live or die, Daniel rode around the planet showing off the death system and scenery while he answered more questions.
Overall it's obvious that the game still needs work but it is beginning to actually look like an MMO now. While I watched I enjoyed what I saw, while it reminded me of that other Star Wars MMO out there, it was obvious that it was different.
This being said I wish we could've seen more of the actual game play instead of just riding around looking at scenery. In 45 minutes we only saw 1 quest get picked up and another quest get discovered while we were out in the world. I enjoyed listening to Daniel while he played giving insight into some of the issues that we were seeing.
Overall, the live demo left me wanting more. I find myself wanting the game out now so I can experience the it for myself. Watching previous flashpoint demos it looked as though the game was polished and close to being releasable, but it's obvious that there are still some issues that need to be worked out before we can all get our hands on a copy. But I'm prepared to wait and let Bioware release a product that is up to their standards. Now I just have to figure out what character I really want to make first because this video made Bounty Hunter look appealing.
Community Manager Stephen Reid posted earlier today on the official SWTOR forums regarding what's being covered at E3 this week, information available on the community site, and an update on a release date of the game.
'Choose' was always going to be shown at the E3 press conference. Unfortunately for us, we had a timing issue which put it live on Origin.com before the conference started.
'Return' we saved for our fans worldwide, debuting it on The Old Republic website at the same time the press conference started. If you haven't watched it yet, see it here. 'Return' is also the intro cinematic to The Old Republic - you'll see it when you start the game.
There will be no release date announced during E3 2011, and no pre-order details either. Our release date window has not changed. We are still aiming to release Star Wars: The Old Republic in the second half of 2011.
While I know many of you believed a release date announcement was going to happen - which is understandable - as I've said before, an announcement of that size will effectively be 'pre-announced', and we will not 'bait and switch' you. We aren't going to lay a trail of subtle clues that lead to a release date announcement. We'll be obvious. We're just not there yet.
E3's not over yet, though. This week we'll be allowing the world's media and fan sites to get hands-on with The Old Republic at the EA booth, and they'll be reporting back on their experiences on Tatooine as well as seeing gameplay on Alderaan. Last but not least, they'll get a glimpse at Operation: Eternity Vault, some of the high-end content in The Old Republic.
We're bringing much of this to you on The Old Republic web site this week, so keep checking back - although I will pre-warn you, our Alderaan coverage will be slightly delayed (look for it in a few weeks).
I know many of you are disappointed. I know you want a release date - believe me, all of us know that. It is coming, I promise, and you'll hear about it before it arrives - not through subtle clues, but through obvious signs.
As anticipated today at EA's E3 conference we were shown a glimpse of a new cinematic trailer for Star Wars: The Old Republic. It was short and amazing but left us wanting more.
To the delight of all fans, a full length Intro trailer can be found over on SWTOR's site. To say it is mind blowing is an understatement. It is labeled as an intro cinematic, so that says to me we might be really close to possibly finding out a release date.
Grab a wad of tissue, watch the trailer for yourself, but I warn you.. you WILL nerdgasm.
If you've heard of the newly launched Origin download service, I'm sure you've heard that it will be part of SWTOR. The Origin store will offer a large amount of EA Games for digital download. The publisher is hoping that having exclusive availability to SWOTR will help boost the service's popularity.
On Friday EA announced that the digital downloads of SWTOR will be available exclusively through Origin. If you're already a member of their EA Store service, you can use your existing account on their new Origin service.
Origin will have two specific features. As a download service, you will be able to grab any of your favorite games (and watch for exclusive digital deals). If you prefer to have a boxed copy, you will have the option to order one through the service as well. Origin
offers a social function which will connect your own profile to your friends – creating a cross-platform feed that shows what your friends are playing.
Origin will offer purchases outside of just the PC realm, including : Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, PSP, and DS. Unfortunately at this time, you'll be unable to download or install demos – however that could change over time. If you're normally on the go (except when you're playing of course!) Origin will offer a mobile platform to give you quick access to your profile and connect through your friends. It will also offer various mobile games like SCRABBLE and Battlefield 3.
CEO John Riccitiello says that they hope “Origin will grow with new functionality and unique new content that consumers can't get anywhere else.” I guess we'll just have to wait and see how that turns out. All we care about is that it is THE place to grab SWTOR once the release date finally hits.
There have been recent whisperings around the water cooler lately, mostly about the size of possible raids in SWToR. There has been speculation because of recent screen shots that have been released showing a group of 8 players taking on a possible raid encounter.
This has opened up discussion within the community about if this size of a raid is acceptable or not. Many guilds who are currently recruiting and preparing for the release ahead of time may be frustrated by this news. Since the smaller raid size would make it difficult if they had a large player base. This brings up many questions though. Will there be other raids for larger groups released at some point? Or will ToR adopt ideas used by other MMO's allowing for both small and large sized group going into the same flashpoint/raid and completing the content. It also has people expressing their opinions on the matter on the community forums. Many believe that having smaller groups is a good thing. There would be less room for failure since groups would not be able to bring in undergeared players. It may also help establish a sense of camaraderie among guild mates. Others use some of those same points as cons for the small group size, stating this means smaller groups would need to be more focused and would not be able to have poor players brought along. That they wished this information had been released sooner so they could change their recruitment strategy. Many also feel that this goes against what a true MMORPG is all about, feeling that it takes the Massive out of the equation. The fiery debate has raged on for well over 30 pages on the community forums, with Bioware not saying much in response other than:
StephenReid General Discussion -> Max raid size - 8 man?
Yes, you might very well be reading too much into one screenshot. As you can tell from the article, you'll see more of the Eternity Vault next week during E3.
I am taking a "wait and see" mentality. I have raided many different size raids, from 40 mans to most recently 10 mans. While I miss the grand scale of the old 40 mans in WoW, I also do not miss the fact that 25% of the people in that raid were being carried. However now in smaller groups while you must ensure every person is doing their job to their fullest, it's more challenging to balance a raid by bringing specific classes. While this is a challenge in itself, after awhile it becomes more of a job at times. While it appears the smaller raid groups have more of a challenge fight wise, it does seem to be a fair bit easier for larger raid groups to walk in and achieve success. I do not feel they should be rewarded for that though with better quality gear, as I feel this promotes elitism. For now the only thing we can do is to wait and see what is released next week at E3. Until then let us know what you think about the issue? What are you in favor of and why? UPDATE: Earlier Gamespot released an E3: 2011 Preview video detailing what would be shown this year. At the end of the video it briefly mentions Raids, and shows two short clips of a raid group taking on the encounter. I was able to take a screen of part of the raid portion, blew it up and was able to count most of the players that were shown.
As you can see I was able to pick out 14 players. This would lead one to believe you can have different amounts of players. Hopefully more information about group size will be released during E3. ~Oria
Pull up a chair, grab a drink and listen to some music or just discuss the upcoming MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic. Stay tuned for more info since E3 begins soon!
What do you think will be released this year at E3? What do you hope gets released? Are you looking forward to another amazing cinematic movie? Let us know.
Hello! I'm part of your community waiting patiently for SWTOR. I've been watching this game for what seems like forever but has only been a mere 3 years. I've lurked on your forums, I've posted a few times on an account, and I've signed up for beta.
Yesterday, BioWare announced that there was space at the Hilton Gaslamp hotel across the street from the convention. The post was directed to the BioWare fans waiting to hear news for Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age II DLC. Though, as we all know, SWTOR is planning on being there as well, and the Hilton is open to any of us as long as there are rooms available.
Bioware remained silent regarding the date, but this didn't stop people from speculating when the game would be released. To add fuel to the fire, during the EA E3 2011 Analyst Event, a slide was displayed showing the fiscal year for EA. It showed a projected launch period for SWTOR. From the looks of it EA and Bioware are hoping for a launch sometime between Q2 and Q3 of their Fiscal year. This ends up being sometime in the fall.
What did the viewers get? About 5 minutes of talking and the same “exclusive” footage of Tatooine that we saw in the live stream the previous day.
