massively.com said:Star Wars: The Old Republic accidentally taunts potential testers [Updated]
by Eliot Lefebvreon Sep 29th 2011 10:15PM
Betas, Sci-fi, News items, Star Wars: The Old Republic
What's the worst thing that can happen when you're waiting for a chance to play a highly anticipated game? Being inadvertently taunted about the fact that you aren't in the beta. Star Wars: The Old Republic recently sent out a short survey asking for beta testers to take part, in the hopes of improving the overall testing experience. The only problem was that it wasn't sent out to testers... it was sent out to everyone who had signed up to potentially be a tester.
A thread on the official forums has already reached absurd length, causing server hiccups and intermittent inability to properly access all areas of the site. It's unknown how BioWare will apologize for this mishap (aside from a mention on their Facebook page) -- certainly it's not hurting anyone, but it's probably the last thing that most people not involved in the current beta would like to see. And if you see this message in your email, rest assured, it's no scam... just poor cross-pollination of mailing lists.
[Update: BioWare has officially confirmed that the emails were sent in error. "We can't apologize enough for getting your hopes up. Sorry again. Those responsible will endure a thousand years in the Sarlacc Pit," said Stephen Reid over Twitter.][/url]
- More coverage: Official Site
Tags: accidents, beta, beta-testing, bioware, bioware-austin, bioware-ea, breaking, ea-bioware, electronic-arts, humor, snafus, star-wars-the-old-republic, swtor, test-experience, testing-surveys, the-old-republic, tor
massively.com said:MMO impressions from Eurogamer Expo 2011, part 2
by Brendan Drain
Of all the games I was excited to try out at Eurogamer Expo, Star Wars: The Old Republic was definitely the most disappointing. This was supposed to be a big week for fans of the upcoming title, with a firm release date announced during the expo's BioWare talk and a hands-on demo for attendees. But I found myself struggling to unearth both new information on the game and the motivation to lodge a pre-order. The queues to demo SWTOR were understandably long, and with only a handful of PCs at the demo table, players were limited to around 10 minutes of gameplay.
Testers were presented with a set of new pre-made characters, one of each class at the start of the tutorial story arc. When I figured out how to get into character creation, a nervous employee quickly canceled the process and informed me that I had to use one of the pre-made characters. Considering that the game is due for launch in just three months, I found the fact that character creation isn't ready to show to the public was more than a little worrying.
More of the same
While some players did get a chance to join an arranged PvP warzone match, most were given access only to the tutorial area. The fully voiced storyline at the start was a nice touch that brought some initial immersion, but I felt as though my responses to the chat didn't really make a difference. Surely I was going to be given the same quest to proceed with the tutorial regardless of dialogue choices. The occasional voiced chat with quest NPCs was great, but the feeling of being immersed in a story within the Star Wars universe always seemed to fade once the conversation ended and I went off to kill 10 space-rats.
I found myself invariably falling back into the same old MMO pattern of checking quest objectives and killing lists of monsters, which provided a comfortable familiarity at the cost of immersive gameplay. The difference in immersion between the story portions and the traditional MMO gameplay was so large that the game felt like a Star Wars-themed World of Warcraft punctuated all too rarely rarely with BioWare's typically high-quality storyline. It's possible that the tutorial area doesn't really do justice to the story and fully voiced dialogue at the core of SWTOR. If that's the case, though, then BioWare missed a massive opportunity at Eurogamer Expo to showcase the parts of the game that would impress people most.
Gameplay and controls
The biggest gripe I had with the game was with swordplay and force powers, which have been shoehorned into a classic MMO spell system. To perform sword attacks, I had to click an enemy, get into melee range and press number keys repeatedly just as I would in World of Warcraft. I can understand developers wanting to keep controls familiar to ease the transitions of those willing to switch games, but even as a long-time MMO junkie and WoW player, I still found the controls clumsy. While I didn't necessarily expect BioWare to innovate on basic MMO gameplay, the controls didn't really feel right given the game setting.
The key thing to remember is that MMOs have always used a select-and-cast ability targeting system for reasons of technical and financial feasibility. Standard MMO combat mechanics were designed to reduce the number of server calls and calculations required for a given action to the bare minimum. Those feasibility issues no longer exist on the current generation of server hardware, allowing developers to explore alternate gameplay options that would better suit their setting. Guild Wars 2, for example, has a large array of aimed abilities and real twitch-based evasion mechanics. The fact that Star Wars: The Old Republic didn't do something similar for lightsaber combat and force powers is almost baffling.
Final thoughts
Given how much money is being thrown at Star Wars: The Old Republic, I was genuinely surprised that BioWare had stuck with the WoW gameplay model down to the last detail, even when it didn't work very well or suit the setting. If all you're looking for is a new Star Wars-themed MMO with familiar gameplay, then SWTOR is sure to be a big hit with you. I personally left the demo at Eurogamer Expo distinctly underwhelmed and a little bit disappointed.
The announced release dates of December 20th and 22nd are sure to put SWTOR on a lot of people's Christmas wish lists, but given how little content has been released to the public I'd be surprised if the game will be playable and polished by then. Part of me refuses to believe that BioWare would knowingly set a launch date less than three months away unless the game were ready for release, but after the demo at Eurogamer Expo, the rapidly approaching release is setting off some alarm bells. The first wave of beta invites have already gone out, and I'll be following the game's development with interest.
SWTOR will fail because it's another wow but in space.
Nope it's not ,but i am 99.8% sure that i would enjoy playing a VN rather than World of Star Wars.
£129 for CE , Baby Jesus is crying...how much for the regular game then £80?
SWTOR seems to bring out the defence force harder than any other mmo i've seen though
It's kinda funny how invested in the brand some people are that they will defend a generic boring game for no reason.
isn't the patch suppose to remove them if you want to ?or was that only for tsukihime...Well, at least some of them any way.
Or quite few actually as i've had a really really hard time finding a good VN that doesn't suffer from awkwardly implemented pointless porn scenes..
F/S:N would have been so much better without them..
massively.com said:Star Wars: The Old Republic increases invitations to this weekend's beta test
by Justin Olivetti
Betas, Sci-fi, Events, in-game, Star Wars: The Old Republic
While Star Wars: The Old Republic's beta test weekends thus far have been small and intermittent, BioWare hopes to make it up to anxious fans by kicking off a much larger beta event. The studio posted that it is in the process of inviting "more players into testing than [it's] ever invited before in a single weekend" over the course of today in preparation for this weekend's test.
This next beta weekend will take place from October 7th through the 11th and is separate from the ongoing closed beta. BioWare also asserts that players who aren't accepted into this test will have future opportunities in the additional beta test weekends before the launch.
SWTOR beta test invitations will come straight to players' emails and can be verified by logging into your account to see whether the beta client is available for download.
[Thanks to everyone who sent in this tip!][/url]
- Source: Star Wars: The Old Republic
- More coverage: Star Wars: The Old Republic official site
Tags: beta, beta-test, beta-test-weekend, beta-test-weekends, beta-testing, beta-testing-weekend, bioware, closed-beta, ea, ea-bioware, invites, star-wars-the-old-republic, swtor
Reader Comments (25)
Schlifer said
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is EU covered in this?
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Yes, all EU regions covered this time. What I don't understand is, who is considered an EU player? Those who selected EU when creating their profiles?
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massively.com said:SWTOR asks who's better: Jedi Knight or Bounty Hunter
by Larry Everett
Sci-fi, Trailers, Video, Classes, New titles, Star Wars: The Old Republic
In the latest Friday update, the developers at BioWare ask one of the ultimate questions: Which class is better? In this three-and-half-minute video, the Jedi Knight and the Bounty Hunter of Star Wars: The Old Republic are pitted against each other. The criteria for winning ranges between the best story to the most powerful weapons, but ultimately, it's up to you. According to the video, it's time to choose your side.
Senior Writer Hall Hood expresses that although the Jedi are typically good guys, "you get to be whatever kind of Jedi Knight you think is best. You don't necessarily have to follow the Jedi Code. In fact, you can violate it pretty regularly." On the other side, Writer Randy Begel explains that the Bounty Hunter does not have to be the most evil all the time. "The Bounty Hunter can live by a code as much as the Jedi does. It's just that they don't always see eye to eye on how that plays out," Begel explains.
Decide for yourself after the break; we have the complete video for your enjoyment.[/url]
- Source: SWTOR News
