Update on the EU beta invite status
Today on the official forums we got this update from Chris Collins,
As promised, we have an update on the batch of Game Testing invites being sent to players in the EU.
After a lengthy discussion here at the BioWare offices, the decision has been made to postpone the proposed Game Testing invites for EU players for a number of reasons.
Firstly, there’s a new build of the game on the horizon. This is a major build, meaning there will be character wipes and a new client to download. As you may be aware, the current client download is around 27GB in size. If we were to invite players en masse today, those players would have to download the entirety of the client to access the game. There’s every chance that later this week, the service will go offline and this new version will be rolled out, meaning everyone currently in Testing will have to not only download the entire client again (another 27GB download), but will also have their characters erased and have to start afresh. This is a relatively large amount to download in such a short space of time and not an experience we want new testers to be exposed to.
Secondly, this new build will bring about the first localised versions of Star Wars: The Old Republic, which means those of you that speak French and German will have the chance to play the game in those languages, for the first time ever. We’re extremely excited to be able to offer this to our players and as such, we’re keen to get a lot of feedback from European testers in particular.
For those of you that may have missed the messages we put out on the subject already, last week saw a number of issues arise with key systems that prevented us from sending out invites to EU players. Had everything gone to plan, we would have been able to offer two weeks of testing time to new users. However, given the issues that arose, this was physically not possible.
So while we understand that this news may not be what a lot of you wanted to hear today, we hope that you’ll understand our position. Given the news of this new build, it’s now more important than ever that we invite European players into the Game Testing environments, so you have my word that this batch of invites will happen, it may just mean you just have to wait a little longer.
It’s also important to remember this is just the beginning. In the future, we’ll be inviting more and more testers to the EU Game Testing environments as well as future Game Testing weekends. So even if you’re not invited to this next round of testing, there will still be plenty of chances to get involved.
As ever, as soon as I get any firm news around the matter, I’ll make sure to update everyone.
12 Responses to “Update on the EU beta invite status”
i am disapoint
how come?
are you from the EU?
if you are, aren’t you excited that you will get to play a localised version in your native language? thats huge.
I know its a struggle to keep up the excitement factor when a segment seems to be less than connected hopefully it will be resolved soon and we an get some great insight and updated from the fans across the pond.
Yeah because all of EU speaks french and german. I am so happy to wait a few more weeks in order to get the game in my native language… or oh, right, in sweden we speak swedish and I dont know 2 words in french or german…. but yeah you are right, I should be excited….
Good job yet again, Swtorcrafter. I got a friend in Germany who is pumped about playing the game in German 🙂 I’m sure he isn’t the only one. Sucks for non German or French speaking peeps tho 🙁
Yeah sorry about that I didnt mean to assume that everyone from the EU region speaks those languages.
I just am excited about it though because to me this is a huge milestone in the games development. For them to have localised copies in an almost finished state is huge, that means they are more progressed in development than I even thought.
that had to be a huge milestone for them as the voiceovers and all the cinematic stuff makes up a huge part of this games development and they are looking like they have it together even more now with the release of this news.
it is great the progression keeps moving along, i am just 1 of them many ppl who do nothing other than scan the web and chacking my inbox hoping for the beta to arrive, due to how amazing this game looks and after the long wait it is so close i cannot find myself playing any other game while im waiting due to it just not being even close to how good TOR looks, guess im going to be suicidal for a few more months untill the launch is here, just got to keep my hopes up for beta
What is the difference in letting people download 27 gb for 2 days play over the weekend versus downloading it for 2 days over the weekdays? Poor exscuse at best, blatant lie covering for something else gone wrong at worst.
@grenith
I may be reading it wrong but it sounds to me like this is concerning full time testers and not just the beta weekend players. If that is the case it makes sense for them to wait and just have testers playing the newest version of the game possible. As Mr. Collins stated it would be unfortunate if players only got to play for two days, then had to download the game all over again and lose their character. I know our EU friends have waited a long time for this and the thought of having to wait longer when it seemed that invites were so close but having the localized version of the game will be huge for those players who wish to play in German or French.
Keep in mind that weekend testers are mainly there to test server stress levels, while the full time testers are supposed to be looking for bugs and at skill balance. I know most players would not have a problem with having to download the new version after playing for a couple of days, but Bioware does not stand to gain much info from having EU players playing a version of the game that they know is going to be updated in a few days. With this being the case I can see why they want to wait and give the EU players the most up to date version as possible.
@joshrooms No matter how i look at it, i end up with it being a smokescreen, new build or not, after their invite/download issues last week, I would think they would be even more interested in sending out invites to test their fixes, I don’t believe for 1 second that a new build is the only reason, its just what they chose to make public.
If they still havent found the glitch with letting people download the client, say so, you’re in a testphase, personally, I’d rather their invite/download thing crashes now than at launch.
Most of all though, I am just getting tired of their communications, when they finally post on forums its all so shaded it could mean anything, meaty answers is usually gotten on twitter, and, really, if you release information you know wont include everyone, make it 100% clear, makes your company look honest and forthcoming, instead of shady and deceitful.
Thanks for the update
BTW> dev tracker has been updated again ;D
new SWTOR build incoming!
At long last the soon is getting sooner, and not before time.
Any game that limits itself to just one area no matter how large and basing a game around that is asking for trouble.
I still say it’s too little too late the EU peeps are going to have very limited input on how the game plays out and if we as a group see things that would need improvement from our point it’s going to be far to late to implement these in-game.