Just as it was announced yesterday, The Old Republic media blast has begun and articles with reviews and impressions have been popping all over the place. The press was allowed into the beta and they can talk about the Republic side of things for the first 15 levels or so. We’ll try and make a comprehensive list of links below:
All of the reviewers have promised more articles in the coming days and it seems that the Imperial side will get a proper treatment as well, but that the embargo for them has not dropped yet. I think the general consensus is that the story is as good as advertised. The choices feel real and are cool to make. Multiplayer dialogue works. Companions ‘just work’ (quote from mmorpg.com article). None of the reviewers are calling SWTOR revolutionary, but all of them seem to think it is a quality game.
It seems that Press has been beta testing The Old Republic recently. Guess what – they will talk about their experiences with the game starting tomorrow. It was first mentioned on IGN that tomorrow at 9AM PDT you can expect a pile of new content and then Monday (24th) to Friday new article each day (news spotted at Darth Hater). It has been confirmed now by Stephen Reid, Bioware Senior Community Manager, that this is in fact true and that tomorrow we can expect loads of articles all over the web. Here’s a quote:
- As others have noted, we have a press embargo on #SWTOR dropping tomorrow. We’ve had press in for a while. Testers are still under NDA.
- That means if you’re in testing, you’re still bound by NDA. Only press who have been admitted will be sharing their impressions.
- Watch the @SWTOR account for retweets of coverage btw.
We’ll also try and gather all the press coverage in one convenient post for you to browse through, but all of that tomorrow 9AM PDT. Gonna be a hard wait for hardcore fans. In the meantime – we give you the facebook image of the week just to spice this article up with some media and because this image is actually very cool. It represent a trooper in some kind of very large hall (apparently it is The Gormak King’s Hall) running towards what could be a King’s throne (perhaps the said king is present as well). This feels like an instance footage to me.
Click on the image for full size
I loved the galaxy map in Mass Effect. It was just Sci-Fi enough to make my nerdy senses tingle. We heard before that there will be a similar map in The Old Republic as well. This Friday update brings us an unexpected new feature on the official Holonet portion of swtor.com site – an interactive Galaxy Map. This is probably a preview of the map we will find in the game, only you view it in your browser. The interactive map features each of the planets we will be able to visit in-game together with all the information and videos that we could find on “plain old regular” web pages about those planets. There is also a special section dedicated to personal spaceships each of the classes will be getting. You can view details about each of the spaceships as well as look at their 3d models (and rotate them to see every detail from every angle). Although this is just a fluff update, I enjoyed it nevertheless. The feature is just that cool.
If you are like me and woke up to find a couple of emails from EA/Bioware mentioning SWTOR game testing – do not get your hopes up. There has been a mistake in the Bioware offices last night and a huge number of emails were sent to swtor.com members. One of the emails asked people to take a survey about their game testing experience (as if you are a participant) and the second email thanked you for your participation in game testing and offered to pre-order the game. Both of these were not intended for all the recipiants and were sent to a much larger group than they should have. Just a human error. So, no – you did not somehow miss your game testing invite email. This was just a honest mistake. As always, the best way to see if you are a tester or not is to log into www.swtor.com and check www.swtor.com/tester page. Here’s the official statement:
Earlier today, two e-mails were sent to members of the Star Wars: The Old Republic community. These e-mails were sent to a larger group than intended, and have caused some confusion in the community. We can confirm that these e-mails were from EA and BioWare and apologize for any confusion they have caused. Please note that receiving these e-mails does not affect your chances to be invited to test the game. Thank you all for your understanding!
Am I the only one that cried a little inside when I realized the emails were an error?
Stephen Reid has once again come to the forums and reaffirmed something that should not need to be said.
Since the pre-orders went out we all knew was that it was a first come first serve basis and that by entering your pre-order code would determine when you would gain access to the game.
I took this as a given, and this is not a debate about who got shafted by what company’s on the pre-order codes that got held back. I know mine did as many others in the UK.
This following yellow text post was just to say that nothing had changed and that access would be granted to in the order of which the code where entered on the site.
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Ok, first let me start by saying like many other followers I’m stocked that we have a release date at long last.
But could SWTOR have picked a more awkward date to release a MMO ?
Also the way it was announced was very strange indeed, with no sign that the formidable train was entering the station.
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It was reported two days ago, by various fansites, that Star Wars: The Old Republic received Teen rating from ESRB. This means ESRB believes that the title is suitable for ages 13 and older. Upon review they found the title contains Blood and Gore (combat with lightsabers – what can you do), Mild Language, Sexual Themes( companion lovin’ FTW), Violence (I think this relates to the Sith Warrior – he feels to be so violent). Getting an ESRB rating also means that release is in sight, because for ESRB to give a rating, the product they are reviewing must be very close to the final, release version.
I am reporting on this because for the first time now I have seen the ESRB rating on SWTOR advertisements that have popped up all over the net today (in line with the Eurogamer Expo). I’ve included the screenshot of one of those ads above, but you can see it for yourself here, here or here.
Every time the CFO of Electronic Arts, Mr. Eric Brown, has one of his financial conferences with the investors community managers at Bioware get a headache. This is because Mr. Brown always talks about the hottest topic on the block, and that is release date and beta details. This was the case yesterday as well. As you all know the release window (for now) is Holiday 2011. The running joke in the community is that we would at least like to know of a date when they will tell us what the release date will be (release date of a release date – is that a dateception?). In that regard Eric Brown said:
In terms of timing, again, we haven’t given a street date yet. We won’t do so for some time, possibly at our next upcoming earnings call towards the end of October.
Click here to read the rest of statements as well as Stephen Reid’s reactions
Before I get into this anyone who whines about the CE being too expensive and are from the US “SCREW YOU ALL”.
*Rant Set To Maximum*
You already have one, if not the lowest priced CE additions on earth how dare you. You only pay $150, I’m paying £129, which is around $200. And then I’m a lot better off than those poor Australians who have great trouble just getting the game and after import tax and such are looking at over $300. So, stop it, right now.
*End Rant*
Now to address all this bitching.
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For everyone waiting for this game for 2+ years, making it available for pre-ordering was a dream come true and a sign that finally, the wait is over. Unfortunately, things have not been as satisfying for all the fans around the world. Here’s the story. If you want to purchase SWTOR in digital form, you can only do that from Electronic Arts’ online store called Origin. For boxed version you can order online or go to many of the major retailers around the world, full list to be found here by clicking on the pre-order button.
The problem is that if you do not live in one of the 22 countries listed here you will not be able to make a purchase of the digital version on Origin. Retailers in your country might, or might not carry any copies of The Old Republic come launch day. Retailers in countries listed on the links provided above might not ship to your country or you will not get the game on time because of shipping abroad. In short, everyone not in the countries that are in the “Green zone” might encounter significant troubles in acquiring a copy of the game.
This has made a lot of people angry and there has been a thread going on in the official forums that reached several incarnations (because of the 1000 posts per thread limit) and had more then several hundred thousand views so far. In all honesty there is a lot of trolling going on, but there are some legitimate concerns and posts there as well.
Now that the initial tantrum has passed most people outside the “Green zone” are looking for alternate ways to get their hands on the copy of the game. Australians have been making orders through Amazon.com, although shipping to them will probably be delayed and the game will arrive post-launch. European countries that have been left out are mostly ordering through European version of Amazon sites like amazon.co.uk, amazon.de (which still has boxed collector’s editions available) and amazon.it. I must warn all that Amazon has its own shipping policies and you should look at their help pages to see if they will ship PC games to your country! There is currently no info available on how Brazilian (and South American in general), Asian and African gamers can successfully get their hands on the game right now. If any of you have any valid methods of getting SWTOR to those areas of the world please let me know and I will update this article with new info.
What remains to be seen is whether they will go as far as blocking the countries outside the “green zone” from accessing the game servers or being able to pay with local credit cards. This is highly unlikely, but just to be safe I’d recommend everyone to monitor the situation closely until official information on this has been made available.
I would also recommend patience and not being tempted to look at unverified and shady offerings that are bound to pop up to take advantage of this situation. Your credit card info, game account info and other sensitive and personal information may be put at risk if you succumb to some random offer by some unknown web store or retailer.
