Star Wars: The Old Republic

[Shrinweck]

Available for pre-order today with the $150 (!!!) Collector's Edition already sold out. I decided to pre-order it but be warned they charge you the second the pre-order goes through and for some reason feel like they have the right to charge you an extra $5. Also it looks like pre-ordering probably doesn't get you anything until December when the game (maybe) releases.

Maybe the cash infusion of what is likely millions of dollars will quicken their pace.

[kali o.]

December? I was pretty sure we were going to see a September release, last I heard.

?

[Eric]

There's still no release date, Amazon has December 31st because it's definitely coming out this year. :p

[Shrinweck]

When I ordered it there was a receipt page that said the targeted release was "Holidays 2011" which I took as meaning late November to December. If the game was meant for September there would be a release date set. A September release basically means that the game needs to go gold in the next few weeks which ain't happening.

[Eric]

Well the CLOSED beta has been going on for a long time now. They could very easily make a gold copy in the next few weeks then do an open beta the last month. Depends on how confident they are with the product. Blizzard did something similar when WoW was first released no?

[Shrinweck]

It's certainly possible and I'd love it.

But, from my pre-order receipt e-mail "Anticipated Released Date: Targeting Holiday 2011" and I ordered it directly from them.

[Alec]

Got mine from Amazon.

[Shrinweck]

Getting a physical copy, Alec? I figured with all the downloading involved with owning a physical copy of an MMORPG any way, that I would just go with digital distribution.

[Alec]

We live in a material world, and I am a material girl.

Truthfully...you know how on your Blizzard account it shows what type of key you purchased for WoW and it's expansions?



It always bugged me that I didn't have all of the CE keys. It makes me feel...uneven.

[Eric]

I own every Blizzard CE ever. :>

[Don]

It seems like they stop selling even the digital version of the preorder because they want to stagger the release. So what, is EA afraid of too many people playing this game? Having huge queues is almost like a ritual for a new MMORPG anyway. It's the same way why people line up for midnight launches. I mean this isn't exactly some no name publisher planning for a 10K sub game and then wouldn't have any idea what to do if they get a million. Even if EA only planned for a modest 1 million and got say, 5 milion (more than WoW) on launch, once you get into the million range, scaling up is just not very hard because you've to already have massive infrastructure to support 1 million subs.

[Shrinweck]

Yeah they way they word it, it is as if there are limited quantities. It is possible that they're just trying to cover their asses if something unexpected happened. There were certainly limited quantities of the Collector's Edition since the EA store ran out of copies in what I am pretty sure was less than twenty-four hours.

[Don]

Apparently SWTOR set some record for most preorder but it's only most preorder for an EA game which may not say very much since they don't make the kind of games that'd get huge pre order numbers (this field seems to be dominated by MMORPGs especially when you count people who 'preorder' an expansion as if there's really a choice there). Some numbers I saw said it's 'more than 400K' but that's actually not a very impressive number for MMORPG. I mean people thought RIFT had 1 million pre orders (didn't come close) and no one even thought that was a huge number for a MMORPG.

[Shrinweck]

It's only been a week and they basically aren't offering any incentives yet. Rift at least had the beta. TOR will definitely keep selling like crazy as more previews come into play and if they were to offer a place in the eventual open beta I wouldn't be surprised if they sold another hundred thousand that hour.

[Anarky]

I own every Blizzard CE ever. :>

I remember when my parents moved I trashed my Diablo 2 CE Box. What was I thinking

[Shrinweck]

Peruse parts of the TOR forums here and there and apparently there will be an announcement tomorrow. It will be about... well no one knows.

[Don]

There is some kind of guild testing going on if you have at least 10 people in your guild. We should all just claim we're part of the same guild and try to make up some niche you think Bioware might be interested... like say 'guys who aren't interested in Star Wars but still want to give it a shot".

[Shrinweck]

That's a good idea. I threw something together - http://www.swtor.com/guilds/157901/otherworld-shrine

With the options given there is no real way to differentiate ourselves and from what I've read the devs are pretty adamant that they're taking random samples with the parameters being as simple as "some big and some small" guilds.

[Don]

Well I guess we can only go for the small guild. It's worth a shot though!

[Shrinweck]

Developer post in the release date speculation thread said they're still aiming for release before the end of the calendar year but if they aren't happy with "scalability testing, and wanting to tune it for several extra weeks" that it will slip to their "March quarter." Guess that's why they still can't manage to announce a release date. There's also a maybe in the post about having a date by the end of October.

[Don]

I think it's pretty bogus to talk about scaling issue in this day and age. We're not at the days of EverQuest where people didn't even expect to have 100K subs. It's not like MMORPG architecture has changed in the last 10 years or so. Assuming they have a standard server that holds 2000 max concurrently as per MMO norm, there shouldn't be any scaling issue. Sure if you have 200 servers there's got to be some that inexplicably fail but it's not like people expect every server to be perfect. Most likely it's just an excuse for some other problem, because if they really have scalability issues that means this game is a lot worse than people thought.

[Shrinweck]

The thing is, I don't think they're doing anything with standard servers, considering planets alone are being designed to have hundreds on them at once. With seventeen planets, they're definitely breaking new ground here.

[Flip]

I think it's pretty bogus to talk about scaling issue in this day and age. We're not at the days of EverQuest where people didn't even expect to have 100K subs.

However, might be off topic, i realized recently how sad it is that I have had T1, cable, or DSL since I was in college. I graduated in 2003, why is there not super ass fast magic infrastructure down now 8 years later. I still have DSL.

[Shrinweck]

Putting up new wires that can service entire communities in a monumentally expensive task.

[Don]

Many zones in most recent MMORPGs can handle hundreds of players at once. Doesn't mean they're expected to be filled with hundreds of players at all times or even most of the time.

I've seen no indication that the equivalent of a server in SWTOR is like any other server entity in other MMORPG, i.e. something that holds about 2000 people concurrently max. It doesn't really matter what they're doing with the zones themselves. As long as the total is under 2000 then the problem is well known and solved. Now if SWTOR has some totally different technology compared to previous MMORPGs then sure there might be problems, but that's their own problem.

[Shrinweck]

You have a point there but it sounds like what they're testing on this side of things is how many people can be on the same instance before another one should be created and how people feel about instancing. Doesn't really sound like a huge task to me, but they may be dotting their i's and crossing their t's.

[Don]

EQ2 did this and that was like 7 years ago. Rift does this for its tutorial zones. It's not exactly a revolutionary concept, and honestly outside of the initial launch days, it's something that probably will never get used outside of a handful of zones because people spread out in the zones very quickly.

[Flip]

Putting up new wires that can service entire communities in a monumentally expensive task.

Cell phone speeds get upgraded every couple of years... Maybe when 6G comes out it will be so significantly faster than ground lines that most people will hop on that as opposed to cable/DSL.

[Shrinweck]

NOT TALKING ABOUT CELL PHONE PLANS IN MY STAR WARS THREAD :P

[Shrinweck]

Now I just feel like an ass (although that dev in the forums looks like a bigger one). They announced a release date of 12/20/2011.

[Shrinweck]

I've been checking my spam a couple times a week in case my impending (please?) beta invite gets filed there and thank god. Apparently there's an online casino that I can trust tight, a package getting delivered today by the FBI (!), the BBC is giving me a one million pound prize, and if I take an herbal supplement that the FDA just approved I can rest assured to hit the G-Spot.

[Lox]

I've been checking my spam a couple times a week in case my impending (please?) beta invite gets filed there and thank god. Apparently there's an online casino that I can trust tight, a package getting delivered today by the FBI (!), the BBC is giving me a one million pound prize, and if I take an herbal supplement that the FDA just approved I can rest assured to hit the G-Spot.

THE G-Spot???

[Shrinweck]

Indeed.. also to actually add some information to the thread, a dev just posted that they are staggering HOW early your "early access" to the game is depending on when you redeemed your pre-order code. Glad I got mine in in the first 24 hours... I guess. They're staggering it so beginners areas aren't constantly hosting way too many people in areas at launch. Good idea in theory. Gonna be lots of whiners wanting to get in at the ground floor but won't be able to.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'll sell my account that'll get in early for $200 :D har har

[Don]

Staggering population is dumb unless it means 'we won't let more people than the server capacity in', in that case that's common sense. Usually on a launch the login server gets hammered since no login server is designed to handle nearly 100% of its population trying to log on at once, but that's okay because when 100% of your population is trying to log on, you hit your server's capacity cap pretty soon anyway so it really doesn't matter if the login servers are slow or dead if there's no room for them on the server anyway.

The whole way SWTOR is been handled makes me think either the guys behind it are total newbs or they've a way to make the most mundane tasks in MMORPG sound like a revolution. Launch day crowd is almost like a rite of passage. Unless you've some really special designed hardware that's designed to fail when 300 people log in your newbie zone (and you actually have to try pretty hard to do that, EQ1 could handle that many in a zone easy), there's nothing particularly unusual about being swamped on the first day or even month. If people didn't enjoy having your average mob stay up for 1 second before it's killed by 10 guys, they wouldn't be playing your game in the first place (not to mention there's always servers with low population to move to no matter how popular is). Yeah they're going to go to the forums and post how there are 10 times the players compared to mobs, but that's like complaining you lined up 5 hours for PS3 launch even though only 2 other guys were waiting total.

As an aside, having various degree of early based on when you pre order is just dumb. It's not like the early access is really that big of a deal but it'll make people angry for no reason. I have no problem if they give the guys who paid $150 for the super deluxe version, or even the $70 deluxe version some kind of advantage, but if you got the cheapo $50 standard version it should be the same no matter when you preordered. I think most places lets you cancel a preorder at no charge anyway? So it's not like you get more value out of someone preordered early unless getting that $5 3 months earlier is really that important for cash flow.

[Flip]

Now I just feel like an ass (although that dev in the forums looks like a bigger one). They announced a release date of 12/20/2011.

Thats my bday! It would have been more fitting if that was the release of D3, though. I doubt ill play any stupid ass SW game, the whole franchise has been bastardized out SOOO much the last 10 years that I dont give a shit about it anymore.

[Shrinweck]

Bioware has done nothing but aid in restoring the franchise. Also the Clone Wars TV show is semi-decent. Better than the prequels.

Also staggering won't be too big of a deal. Head starts are typically only a few days and they're going to be letting in people pretty quickly who pre-ordered. First come first serve is the only way to do this kind of thing. Letting people willing to spend over a hundred dollars on crappy merch in first is a little too class war-y for them not to get flamed even more.

[Don]

Early release is generally an euphemism for last minute update.

But you're never supposed to tell your customers that they get to play less, even if it's good for them.

There's nothing particularly bad, but the whole deal strikes me like whoever launching this is some kind of ultra MMORPG newbie who thinks anybody will either fall for some of the gimmicks (limited copies for a game said to be the greatest launch ever!) they're running. It's probably going to turn out similar to any other MMORPG launch unless they're trying to hide something, i.e. hectic but otherwise not all that noteworthy besides some press release that you can ad lib your way through.

[Shrinweck]

I don't care if there are daily updates where the servers are down for 3 hours a day as long as I get to stab people with lightsabers in between.

How long has it been since I last killed something with a lightsaber in a game? KOTOR2 or the last Jedi Knight game? Either way it has been way, way too long.

[Shrinweck]

Got two e-mails tonight that imply that I've ALREADY been beta testing this game. A quick look on the forums suggests that Bioware is being a big tease and this is some kind of mistake. Jerks.

Edit: Their site is down now. I'm guessing so many of these e-mails got sent out that so many people went to the website that they knocked it out. Lol.

[Don]

I think I got one of those too, but if you don't see some kind of key information it's pretty clear you won't be getting anywhere.

The whole SWTOR thing seems pretty amateurish, not necessarily in say technical side, but it's almost like the advertising team is doing their first MMORPG ever. The other day I saw news about how SWTOR announced they'll have achievements. It's like what game these day doesn't have an achievement system? What's next, SWTOR is going to feature lightsabers?

[Shrinweck]

How much of the forums do you read? Leaking ANY information for those people unleashes people who analyze any little thing. Also Bioware is so tight lipped about everything that until it's implemented perfectly, they keep a lid on it. It's nice having a developer team that doesn't promise gold and deliver bronze. What they announce you get. It's nice in a way.

[Shrinweck]

They released a video with a better look at what you get for buying the Collector's Edition. I think these people have been ripped off even more than I did before.

[Zeus]

They released a video with a better look at what you get for buying the Collector's Edition. I think these people have been ripped off even more than I did before.

link?

[Shrinweck]

http://www.swtor.com/media/trailers/col ... xing-video

[Shrinweck]

They've announced that Early Access starts five days before release (so Dec 15) with them staggering who gets let in first by who registered their pre-order code first.

[Don]

I got in on this beta weekend but all I see is this thing spinning around forever without any clue of what it's doing. I mean I know it's probably really congested but something like 'attempting to connect to server' would be kind of helpful so I know that the program didn't somehow crash or whatever.

I think BioWare or whoever running this is very amateurish when it comes to MMORPG. I have been in plenty of beta before and I can understand their server can be hammered but I've never seen a game where you just have the 'waiting' screen animating indefinitely without any kind of message. A simple 'cannot connect to server' (presumably the most likely cause for getting nowhere) would at least let people know what's going on here. I keep on thinking the program crashed but it actually didn't because I can alt+F4 instantly.

[Don]

Wow this is retarded, once you select the queue for a server you can't leave it.

So what happened was everyone (including me) selected Darth Malak because that sounds like a cool server name, realized the queue was 12389120312 people, and hit quit, and then realize they can never leave the queue. When you load up the game again, it puts you back in the queue in Darth Malak (or whatever server you chose earlier) and since there are 129102390123 people in front of you, you obviously never get there (in any reasonable time) but you can't pick a new server either.

Even RIFT had a server that regularly had 2000+ people in the queue for months. This means if you picked on a popular server, you can't play the game at all because you have to go through the queue first even if you wanted to play on another server.

[Don]

Turned out you have to block SWTOR from running to get out of the queue. After I got out of the death trap servers it's actually pretty smooth. There seems to be like 3 servers with 10K+ people queued and you got to either block SWTOR or disconnect your Internet while it's connecting to get out of the queue. Otherwise it looks manageable.

[Shrinweck]

Got an invite today for the next weekend beta test but with Skyrim out I'm not sure I really care about the unfinished product. Stress testing is something I'm not sure I feel up for. With my spot in early access solidified, I imagine my first step into the game would be tempered better by whatever they'll be doing to control the population by then, as opposed to chaos.

I may feel different when the next beta test weekend starts though.

I think I recall them saying the beta client will be able to be patched to the retail version at release? I may get on it just for that.

[Don]

The game puts people into different instances (i.e. newbie area 1, newbie area 2) so you won't see an unreasonably large number of people around you.

Other than the fact that if you select a super high population server you're pretty screwed (because you can't leave), the game is seems pretty polished so far.