2 Million Make the Jump to Lightspeed
EA has announced that over 2 million people took to space over the past few weekends and jumped in to give The Old Republic a test run. However, perhaps the most promising statistic is that the 725,000 unique users over the Thanksgiving testing period, on average logged 12 hours of time with the game. While that may not seem like much, that is about 4 hours per day on a busy and festive 3 day weekend, countless keyboards will forever be tainted by delicious turkey gravy. At peak over a quarter of a million users were logged into the MMO at the same time, which hopefully provided BioWare Austin with a suitable stress test to prepare for launch. We here at StarWarsMMO.net certainly did our parts to contribute! Read the full story at Eurogamer.net.
Tom’s Hardware Benchmarks The Old Republic
Tech Hardware website Tom’s Hardware is well known for their extensive articles testing the performance of high end video cards and processors. This time though, they are testing the performance of The Old Republic on various hardware setups and graphics settings.
The article goes through both low and high quality settings in the game on several different cards for Nvidia and ATI with benchmarks for 1280×1024, 1680×1050 and 1920×1080, as well as different CPU clock settings. With anti-aliasing disabled in beta, Tom’s had to make some adjustments through the respecting Nvidia and ATI control panels to force AA in the game.
Check out all the benchmarks performed and their final thoughts over at Tom’s Hardware.
Clarifications on Item Modification
Many beta players noticed changes in the last build of the SWTOR beta on how item modifications work in The Old Republic. This caused a lot of confusion and so Emmanuel Lusinchi took to the official forums to write up a lengthy explanation on these changes and how item modifications are meant to work. Read on to find his entire response.
So, it turns out some of the patch notes regarding our modding system were probably poorly written (by me, I must add) and generated quite a lot of concern. I’ll try to explain the changes better and, while I’m at it, explain the logic for those changes. Read more»
Running a Successful Guild: Interview with Space Blasters
Starting your own guild is easy, but recruiting members and keeping that guild going strong into a game’s launch is certainly not. Guild management can seem like a full time job, but it doesn’t have to be. There are certain things guild leaders can do to make all the tasks surrounding running a guild more manageable, so we sat down with questioned Dillinger, the leader of one of the premier pre-launch guilds for The Old Republic, Space Blasters, to find out how they do it and how they plan to keep it up post-launch. Read more»
StarWarsMMO.net Overhaul: New Design & Wiki
Thought you came to a completely different site? You’re still on StarWarsMMO.net, but we’ve undergone some major changes, starting with a complete facelift. You have Lynk Former, our site developer, to thank for the new look. We hope you find the new design both easier on the eyes and easier to navigate.
We are also proud to announce Star Wars MMO Wiki. We are looking to catalog all information about Star Wars: The Old Republic in this resource. Come launch, the wiki will be full of info on quests, items, classes, and more. And the best part? You can contribute. Feel free to edit anonymously, or create an account and add or contribute to any page related to a game element in SWTOR. In the future, you will be able to log in with your LucasForums account.
These updates are exciting for us and we hope you enjoy them just as much. As always, you are encouraged to leave feedback on both items, or anything with our site in general. We appreciate any suggestions we can get.
Official Forum changes & Launch Client update
A few important notes surfaced on the official SWTOR forums today. First, the official forums themselves will be undergoing some major changes soon. This Saturday December 10, the forums will become unavailable. When they return for launch, they will be wiped of all posts, and only those with active SWTOR game time will be allowed to post. During Early Access, only those with redeemed pre-orders will be able to post. There will also be other various new features like a community blog and new forum sections. Read on for the details.
This Saturday, Dec. 10th, the Forums will become unavailable as we make preparations for launch. When they become available again, you’ll notice many exciting changes!
First of all, we’ll have many new forums available where you can discuss all aspects of the game, from Crew Skills to PvP. The Guild Hall forums will be expanded significantly and will include new “Looking for Guild” forums, class forums will contain sub-forums for each Advanced Class, and we’ll introduce a new Story and Lore forum for discussion of the game’s setting and story. To encourage constructive community building, you’ll also notice a “New Player Help” forum and a Community section that includes areas for regional check-ins and meetups, all kinds of fan creations and role-playing, and forums for server event organization. These are just some of the new forums we’ll be introducing. We’re looking forward to all the great discussion!
Another new feature we’re implementing is our Community blog, which will appear at the top of www.SWTOR.com/community. We’ll use this blog for important community announcements, updates, and to post articles of interest to our community members, so make sure to check it out frequently!
The launch Forums will be a fresh start: all threads, posts, and private messages will be removed and warnings and infractions on your account will be deleted. If you have any special posts or private messages that you would like to save, please do so now! When Early Game Access begins, only those who have redeemed their Pre-Order Code will be able to post on the forums, though everyone will be able to view them. Then, when the game officially launches, only those who have active game time will be permitted to post.
As we move forward, we will continue to improve our community forums. You can expect to see new features that make it easier to find developer posts and several updates to our skin to make everyday use of the forums easier for everyone.
We’re very excited about the changes that are coming, and we can’t wait to work with you to make the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ community a great experience for everyone!
The second piece of information concerns the beta clients installed on many of your computers. Today you may or may not have received an email from BioWare instructing you to uninstall the beta client from your computer before launch. What’s that? Couldn’t everyone keep it installed as long as they had the Thanksgiving client? Well today official clarification has been posted on the official forums. See the post below to determine if you need to uninstall the game client.
In preparation for the official release of Star Wars: The Old Republic, we wanted to make sure that everyone has the correct game client installed on their machine.
If you participated in our Game Testing Program before November 25th, we recommend that you uninstall the game testing client (refer to instructions below) and then download and install the launch game client. We’ll update this post with more instructions when they’re available. You will need 27GB of free space to install the launch game client. The actual size of the game client is approximately 19GB (without additional languages installed).
If you have played in our game testing program at any point from November 25th onwards, you will not need to re-install the game client, as you should already have the launch version installed.
To verify that you have the launch version installed, you can check for the “assets_swtor_main” version file in the following location on your computer: Program Files (x86)EABioWareStar Wars – The Old Republic (assuming default installation). If you have that file present, you do not need to reinstall the game client.
With that said, some users may notice that their game client folder is much larger than 27 GB on their system. This may be due to having redundant files from previous versions of the client. If you need to clear up space, we recommend completely uninstalling the client and downloading and installing the launch game client. Again, we’ll update this post with more instructions when they’re available.
The Old Republic Beta: Community Reactions
With The Old Republic beta testing officially ending with this past weekend’s test, it is time to get some feedback from our forum members once again. Since the past few testing weekends were stress tests that flooded the servers with participants the majority of our members got to try the game first hand, so take a look at their impressions. After all, who better to judge the game than the fans that are anticipating it the most! Read more»
Walmart pre-orders mistakenly cancelled?
The official forums over at www.swtor.com erupted overnight with news that several users who pre-ordered their copy of the game from Walmart had their reservations cancelled. Some users have reported receiving an automated message from Walmart confirming the cancellation of their order. Stephen Reid, the Community Manager at BioWare left a short response to the situation in the thread at the official forums.
Hello everyone,
We will investigate this issue ASAP, although we may not have further details to share before Monday.
I obviously cannot speak on behalf of any retailer, however I would like to let people know who have pre-ordered and redeemed their pre-order code, that their Early Game Access is still secured. You may apply any Game Code from any edition of The Old Republic to your account.
As I said, we’ll look into this ASAP and update you when we can.
We’ll update this post as the situation develops.
Update: You can rest easy Walmart-preorder-ers, as the situation was just a bug in their system and your pre-order has not been canceled.
Looks like you guys have been busy! Thank you for being patient, especially with any Walmart customer service reps you may have dealt with today.
While we’re still waiting on official word from Walmart on this issue, it looks like the issue has been acknowledged and fixed by them, judging by the emails many of you have received.
For any of you who may be reading this via our Dev Tracker, here’s the text of an email sent to affected customers – thank you to those who provided this:
Thank you for your recent Walmart.com order(s).
In checking your My Account order history for the order(s) below, you may have noticed that one or more items show a status of cancelled but you did not receive a cancellation email for this item(s). Please disregard the status as it is an error. (If you received a cancellation email for an item, then that item has in fact been cancelled.)
The incorrect cancelled status on your My Account was caused by a system issue that has since been resolved and your item(s) are currently processing and will ship as expected. You will receive a ship confirmation with a tracking number for these items in the next few days and the status on your My Account page will be updated to shipped.
We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused, and wanted to assure you that your products are in fact being shipped.
In other words, it appears everyone whose order status was ‘cancelled’ can now rest easy. That said, we’ll be talking further with Walmart to ensure we have all the facts straight, and I’ll update you after that.
Game Testing ends this weekend
Star Wars: The Old Republic is less than two weeks away from early access, and with that comes the end of the Game Testing program. Testing will end this Sunday, December 4 at 11:59pm CST. So if you’re still in game testing this weekend, get in while you can! You’ll have to wait an entire 16 days until the launch of the game.
Game Testing for #SWTOR will end Sunday, 12/4 at 11:59pm CST (5:59am GMT). Thank you for helping us make a great game!
Friday Update: Choose Your Side video, SWTOR Peripherals info
There are two updates to the SWTOR official site this week. The first is another video in the Choose Your Side series, which sees the BioWare developers debate the merits between two different classes and which would win in a duel to the death. Check out the video below.
In addition to that, the officially licensed peripherals for Star Wars: The Old Republic are now up for pre-order. You will be able to get your hands on the mouse, mouse mat and headset from Razer later this month. The keyboard, which includes the customizable LCD keypad, won’t be available until mid January. More info at the Razer Store.
Choose Your Side: Imperial Agent vs. Jedi Consular
In the latest entry of our series “Choose Your Side,” members of the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ team plead their cases for two iconic Star Wars™ classes, highlighting the many skills and abilities that set each class apart. This time around, Senior Writer Alexander Freed and Designer Ken Dilks argue in favor of the stealthy Imperial Agent, while Writer Jo Berry and Designer Jason Attard speak on behalf of the Force-wielding Jedi Consular. (Official Forums)
The Old Republic Peripherals Available For Pre-Order
During E3 2011 we announced that BioWare and LucasArts had partnered with Razer, the world’s leading provider of high-end gaming products, to create a line of premium PC peripherals based on Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. Now, as the game approaches its December 20th launch date, we’re excited to inform you that Razer has begun taking pre-orders for each of these incredible products!
To see all of these items for yourself you can head over to Razer’s Star Wars: The Old Republic products page, and you can pre-order these items right now through Razer’s Official Store! (Official Forums)
