SWTOR Confirmed for Oceanic territories
When Star Wars: The Old Republic was announced, many Oceanic fans were a little bummed or downright upset that the game wasn’t headed to their territory at launch. While they still have to wait longer than North America or Europe, The Old Republic has been confirmed for an Oceanic release in 2012. The game is currently targeting a March 1st release date in Australia and New Zealand, though that could change. The dev team is also working on a solution for players who have already imported the game to switch to their local servers.
We can confirm that Star Wars: The Old Republic will be launching in Australia and New Zealand in the spring of 2012.
Right now we are targeting March 1st, but that could change as our number one priority is making sure that customers have a great service to play on.
For those of you who may have already imported the game, we will be investigating solutions to allow you to continue to play on a local server once they come online in March.
EDIT: As pointed out, southern hemisphere seasons are reversed! When we say ‘Spring’ you can substitute ‘Q1/Q2 2012′. Apologies for that.
Friday Update: Inquisitor Progression Video, New Community Blog, Launch Events
Welcome to one of the last Friday Updates before launch! You may have been thinking it would never come, but the Sith Inquisitor character progression video has been released, with a full dose of Force Lightning. Check out what the different armor sets for the Sith Sorcerer and Assassin look like in the video below.
Even within the Empire, Sith Inquisitors are respected and feared for their deception and control over the Force™. Channeling their hatred, they bend the Dark Side of the Force to their will to crush their enemies while manipulating their allies. See for yourself just a few of the many paths of advancement for this wielder of the Force in Star Wars™: The Old Republic™.
Starting today, a new Community Blog has been added to the official website. The blog will feature more frequent updates from the dev team, and get this – they won’t always be posted on Fridays. Currently, with the forums to be wiped soon, they will be re-posting some pertinent dev posts from the forums to the blog to make sure everyone has a chance to read them. Also expect some future entries that showcase different aspects of the community. Check it out here.
In anticipation of the upcoming launch of Star Wars™: The Old Republic™, we wanted to ensure we have a place to communicate the latest game status updates, community-focused news and developer thoughts as efficiently as possible to our fans. While our Forums are a great place to go for discussion and debate, this blog allows us to talk about things in greater detail, and to keep updates collected in one place.
Unlike our previous schedule of Friday Updates, this blog will be updated more frequently and at any time during the week, with updates being both big and small. Over time we plan to expand the blog to showcase the passion and excitement of our community, but we’ll start small and get bigger as we move forward. Initially, we’re going to use the blog to re-post a few recent (and important!) posts from our Forums, as the Forums are going offline for an overhaul before launch.
Excited about the launch of TOR? Live in a major(ly lucky) city in the US or Europe? Then make sure to attend one of the launch events for Star Wars: The Old Republic, which will have official presence from BioWare. In the US, head to Best Buy Union Square in New York City and the Best Buy South Austin in Austin, Texas on December 19. In Europe, events will be held at the Virgin Megastore in Paris, France and at Oxford Street GAME in London on December 14. If you are able to attend, know that we are extremely envious, and we expect photos.
On December 20th, 2011, BioWare and LucasArts will be launching Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. To celebrate the game’s release, we are hosting a series of launch events in several major cities in both North America and Europe!
Early Game Access moved up to December 13
Thought you were all ready for SWTOR Early Access to start on the 15th? Requested work off and everything? Well we are in for a nice surprise, as it has been announced today that early game access will actually begin in less than a week – December 13.
To prepare for that, you can begin pre-loading The Old Republic now if you have pre-ordered the game. After early access has ended, there will be a short period in which the servers will go down for short maintenance. Afterwards, players will be required to enter a product registration code to continue playing. There will be no grace period for players waiting on their copy of the game to arrive. See the Official Site for more details, and make sure to refer to the pre-order FAQ, which has been updated.
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!
SWTOR Beta client will patch to launch version
For those of you in this past weekend’s game test (read: pretty much everyone) dreading having to re-download the game client come early access and launch time, fear not: Stephen Reid has confirmed that BioWare will be patching the client, so you can preserve your bandwidth. As long as you have the most recent version of the game client installed from the Thanksgiving weekend test, you will be good to go. If you were in testing before Thanksgiving weekend, it is recommended to reinstall, but not required. The Internet will appreciate it.
FAQ: if you played this weekend you do NOT need to uninstall the #SWTOR client. We are planning to patch it to Early Game Access / Live.
If you played before this weekend we will recommend a reinstall just to clean up, but otherwise no.
Early Game Access will be up to 5 days
Since pre-order information was released, fans have been speculating on how long early access to Star Wars: The Old Republic would be. Stephen Reid has said in the past that it will be a matter of days, not weeks. Now we know that the earliest players with pre-orders will receive access is 5 days in advance of the game’s launch, or December 15 in both North America and Europe.
One of the benefits to pre-ordering Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ is that you will gain Early Game Access before launch on December 20th. This is a chance to start your epic Star Wars saga early, as you’ll be able to create and play your character ahead of the official live game launch.
Many of you have been wondering how long Early Game Access will last, and we are now happy to announce that depending on when you redeem your Pre-Order Code, you will gain Early Game Access up to five days before the official game launch date.
Early Game Access is staggered over five days to ensure a quality experience for players at launch. Staggering access aids server stability and a gradual increase in player population through the game.
Star Wars: The Old Republic to be a global launch
Today LucasArts and BioWare announced that the release date for Star Wars: The Old Republic in Europe has been bumped up to December 20, the same date it is being launched in North America. Now the game will launch simultaneously across both regions. Launch information for Asia and Oceania are still pending, but BioWare has been performing small scale game tests to help determine the launch in Oceanic regions.
SWTOR Release Dates, Subscription Fees Announced
“This is an incredible moment for everyone at BioWare and our partners at LucasArts who have dedicated their lives to build this extraordinary game. We appreciate the patience from the millions of fans who have been waiting for the game’s release.”
Announced in a keynote address by Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk at the Eurogamer Expo 2011, the release dates for The Old Republic have been revealed as 20th December for North America and 22nd December for Europe.
All copies of the game will come with 30 days of playing time, before players can choose from the following subscription options -
- 1 Month Subscription costing $14.99 (£8.99 /€12.99)
- 3 Month Subscription costing $ 41.97 (£25.17/€35.97)
- 6 Month Subscription costing $77.94 (£46.14/€65.94)
And as already announced, everyone who has pre-ordered a copy of the game will also be eligible for the Early Game Access program.
SWTOR release date depends on beta feedback
EA exec Frank Gibeau has revealed that the release date for Star Wars: The Old Republic is “definitely tied” to fan reaction of the ongoing beta.
“We’re driving towards a date,” said Gibeau in an interview with CVG, “but the very issue you raised is why we’re not announcing a date yet because you want to make sure that these services can last a decade.”
EA is being very careful about avoiding what has happened with other games, and wants to ensure as smooth a launch as possible. “We don’t want to happen to us what happened to WoW and a couple of other services where in the first week there were queues trying to get on to the servers, the entire service crashed – we don’t want that to happen. So we need to nail and make sure that it’s up 24/7 and it’s high quality.
“We need to nail and make sure that it’s up 24/7 and it’s high quality.”
While Gibeau says feedback from the beta has been “so far, so good,” they are “totally focused on quality” and will not make concessions to get the game out the door.
“Beta Weekends” To Start in September
In conjunction with pre-orders starting today, BioWare has also announced information about beta access for the game. While game testing has been going on for a while now, this sounds more like a traditional closed beta.
As anticipation grows, BioWare also proudly announced today that Star Wars: The Old Republic will open “Beta Test Weekends” starting this September. These weekend play sessions will be open to selected players worldwide and create an opportunity for fans to get a sneak peek of the epic stories, worlds, quests, battles and characters in the game.
In addition, Dr. Ray Muzyka commented on the game’s upcoming release, fueling speculation on a potential release date: “We are targeting Star Wars: The Old Republic to be one of the biggest launches of holiday 2011.”
Read the full press release here.
“High-Scale” Beta for The Old Republic to Begin Soon
Speaking during a conference call with Chicago-based William Blair & Company, an investment firm, EA CEO John Riccitiello made mention of a “high-scale beta” for Star Wars: The Old Republic to begin at the end of June. It was not clarified how this would differ from the current game testing that has been ongoing. Following this phase at the end of June, a decision would be made about the release date. When asked for comment, BioWare simply stated that “game testing is ongoing”.
Update: Stephen Reid has posted some clarification on the official forums:
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.
