Eirc Musco posted an update on the official forums regarding the upcomming Star Wars: The old Republic update – Shadow of Revan. There wil be no testing on the public test servers this time, as the game update will be tested purly on a closed servers. Just like a regular beta test as we also experienced with Rise of the hutt cartel. It would seem like this is a way for BioWare, to stop miners from leaking new game infomation, from the upcomming expansion, for as long as possible. Hey Minisep! Let me answer your questions, and explain a bit about how PTS will work for Shadow or Revan. There will be a PTS for Shadow of Revan. However, similar to Rise of the Hutt Cartel, this PTS will be on a closed server. This closed PTS server will be testing all of the expansion! As a note, for Rise…
Beta
Bioware sending out e-mails for beta testing
Some lucky players are reporting that they have received an email from BioWare regarding Beta testing. It not known what they are supposed to beta test yet, but giving the recent announcement of Star Wars: The old republic upcoming expansion Galactic Starfighter, it’s obvious what players are going to test. So guys, check out your mail box, and let us know if you got a mail like this: Hello, We wanted to let you know that the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ team is looking to recruit testers for an upcoming release and we have identified you as a candidate for possibly helping us in this effort. To participate in this testing program, at a minimum, you must be at least 18-years of age, have played SWTOR for 6-months or more, and have an active subscription for SWTOR. Participation in this program will also require you to sign a Beta…
Thanks for the amazing beta Bioware
Now the SWTOR beta has officially come to an end and we are all awaiting the December 20th launch that is just a couple more weeks away. While some were able to game test for an extended period of time, others were at least given a weekend to check it out and the reaction from the community of testers was mostly positive. Nearly everyone who tested and was surveyed said they would recommend the game to a friend. In honor of the end of beta and the upcoming launch of SWTOR, we are asking you all to share with us your favorite moments or experiences of beta testing- no matter how long or short your experience was. Did you play with friends or solo explore? Did you rush to level as quickly as you could or take your time to experience all of the story line? Did you try different…
SWTOR Brings in 2 Million Game Testers
We know that SWTOR is popular. In fact, unless you’ve been living the past few months under a rock, you are aware of the hype that surrounds this upcoming MMO. What you might not know is just how much interest there really is in the game. There is such a strong interest in SWTOR that Bioware has broken records with pre-orders and possibly records with game testing as well since they brought in 2 million game testers- all volunteer testers at that. Testers averaged 12 hours each over Thanksgiving, according to Gamespot.com. Instead of enjoying turkey with the fam (or maybe after enjoying their dinners) there were still tons of gamers who found time to pop in and check out SWTOR for themselves. EA says more than 725,000 unique players joined the game over the Thanksgiving weekend, making it “one of the biggest beta tests in history.” 2.4 million gamers…
A detailed SWTOR Beta Review by a MMORPG veteran
When it comes to SWTOR reviews, we’ve got you covered. In addition to writing our own, we like to bring you the best of what we find on the Internet from other fans, game sites and more. We stumbled across another SWTOR beat review from an MMORPG veteran who has a lot to say about the game. And when we say a lot, we really mean it! Merecraft of Far Beyond My Capacity wrote over 8,000 words about SWTOR beta. That’s like a small book! If you want to learn more about the game from someone who has firsthand MMORPG experience, this one is worth your time. Even if you just skim over the sections that interest you, it’s worth it to check it out. Merecraft is a 12-year veteran of MMOs who has been playing the game for some time now and the drop of the NDA means he…
Your guide to this weekend’s beta.
The purpose behind this final weekend beta, is to gauge performance of the game’s current server architecture. Previous betas have had some minor problems with performance, and this test will be the final chance for some meaningful feedback for launch scenarios. So, what can you do to help the most? Attempt to log in AS SOON AS YOU CAN. We want to hammer these servers to hell and back, don’t let up if you have the time to spare. Keep trying to connect if you have problems. Be ruthless. The more performance issues we catch during this beta mean that BioWare will know what to tackle before launch. Don’t start a post on reddit, or the official forums saying “the servers aren’t letting me log in””. Just keep attempting to connect, the server logs they’ll gather will tell them you can’t log in. Severe lag? Log out and use the…
Beta client is now available to download!
The Beta client for next weekends beta testing is now available for download. If you haven’t gotten the mail yet, you can go to www.swtor.com/tester and get it. Some people have experienced a problem with the client, as the orange bar below downloading, fills up immediately. This orange bar tracks the total download, the bar above it tracks the download of each piece. So there’s a chance that – if it’s going wrong – it can fill up for a second time before the actual process is done. Restarting the launcher a few times seems to Fix this. If it fills up right away and you leave it be thinking you can come back in a day to the downloaded client you could actually come back to find it redownloading itself for the third time without actually installing. Another issue is that people “down under” get an error message along…
Sabacc, futur mini game in TOR? new pazaak?
This table appears in the esseles since the last build. If we click it say “this table does not accept new player at the moment””. To me it seems like BioWare are finally including pazaak into SWTOR. It would be pretty strange not to really, as pazaak was a big deal in the KOTOR games. Now we only need swoop racing.
BioWare Targets November 25-28 for Last Beta Weekend
Earlier today , the official Star Wars: The Old Republic Twitter feed, and Senior Community Manager Stephen Reid (AKA @Rockjaw) confirmed that the ‘everyone is invited‘ beta weekend is on track for November 25-28. This is basically an open beta event and the invites should be coming this upcoming week. But now we also know when we will be playing in this massive beta event. Some have asked if this date for the weekend was intentionally chosen on Thanksgiving weekend, a holiday for those in the United States. Maybe they were thinking fewer people would play during this time? Or maybe the exact opposite was true and they were thinking that people would be off for the holiday season, giving them more time to play and enjoy the weekend. Will you be changing your holiday plans in order to beta test SWTOR? How much time do you think you will…
SWTOR OPEN BETA!
Still not in beta yet? Are you itching to get your chance to try SWTOR for yourself before launch? You are in luck because we found a great little piece of info today straight from the source himself, Mr. Stephen Reid. Stephen Reid tweets: “Everyone who signed up for #SWTOR testing (yes – everyone), including those redeeming keys from our partners, will get invited next week.” This means everyone! Basically this is now going to be an open beta situation where anyone who is interested in getting to play, will get to play. It’s beneficial for them to do it for a variety of reasons. For one, they get to test the servers and make sure they have stability for the loads of people who are going to want to play. Another benefit is that this will give more people the chance to be sure they want to fork out…
Should SWTOR Drop the NDA Already?
The NDA, or non disclosure agreement, on SWTOR is what prevents testers from talking about certain aspects of the game when they play it. These types of legal agreements are in place to protect a company’s creative licenses and for a game like SWTOR that is highly based in story, it’s to be expected. MMORPG writes in a column that they believe it just might be time to drop the NDA already. They think since beta testing is being offered to basically everyone, that it’s time to drop the NDA. They write: “Recently, BioWare concluded their largest Beta Test Weekend yet, and they’re already in the process of revving up for a final big smash of a Beta Test Weekend. If you thought this past weekend was big, well it looks like everyone who has signed up for Game Testing, as well as those who never bothered, will have a…
SWTOR had over 1 million hours of testing last weekend
We know that last week’s SWTOR game testing weekend was massive. It was the largest beta weekend so far and quite possibly the largest beta weekend for any MMORPG in history. Just how massive it was, we had no idea. But BioWare has now revealed that over a million hours of testing went into the MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic last weekend. 1 million hours!Tens of thousands of people played the game in order to test for a smooth launch coming December 20th. With only a month to go, it was the perfect time for BioWare to see if the servers would handle such a large influx of players. It’s also a fantastic opportunity to get more gamers into the SWTOR rage who may not have previously pre-ordered the game. BioWare co-founders Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka told Eurogamer about the weekend game testing event in an interview at…
New beta build coming in.
A new beta build is coming in this Thursday. This time testers have to download 20GB to keep on playing. The good thing is characters from the last phase of testing will not be wiped and will carry over to the new build. Hello testers! We are preparing to deploy a new build of the game! This Thursday, 11/17, at 7:00AM CST (13:00 London, 14:00 Paris/Berlin), we will bring the servers down for maintenance. Then, at 10:00AM CST (16:00 London, 17:00 Paris/Berlin), the servers will become available again with a 20GB patch, which will contain the new build. You do not need to uninstall your previous game installation, but we do recommend uninstalling in order to save space on your hard drive and to assist with any necessary troubleshooting. Good news: characters from the last phase of testing will not be wiped and will carry over to the new build!…
Random gameplay videos and screenshots
The internet has been surging with new beta gameplay footage since this weekends beta session. Here is a compilation of the best material found on Reddit. Check it out: The Smuggler, world’s greatest actor! How to properly play the Jedi Consular. Bounty Hunter Healing PVP Huttball Lots of beta screenshots in 1920×1080 resolution More screenshots:
More Beta video impressions
Yesterday MightyMonkeysGaming was host of so many cool beta videos that was so cool. But Yesterday All my troubles seemed so far away. Now it looks as though they’re here to stay…Or are they? Were MightyMonkeysGaming chickened out, Mobility-Gaming E-Sports takes over. So today I have the honor of sending over a new bunch of beta videos. Enjoy!
Weekend Beta Testing #3 Invites Going Out
Allison Berryman, Senior Community Coordinator, explains on the official SWTOR forums that invitations are being sent for a weekend test this weekend! That is super exciting news for anyone who’s still been waiting for their chance to get into a game testing weekend to try out the beta. Her post explains: Sent Nov. 8: Beta Testing Weekend #3 Invites Who was invited: Testers from North America What was sent: Beta Weekend #3 Invites Server locations: US East Coast Invite status: We are currently in the process of sending these invites, and will continue throughout this evening and into tomorrow. So have you checked your email? Refreshed it a few times? Checked and rechecked the spam folder? There might still be a chance for you to get into a beta weekend. If you don’t, then just head back on over here for more updates, news and SWTOR strategy, previews and reviews….
No New SWTOR Game Testing Build This Weekend
While those who had been game testing anxiously await news of when the servers will be back up with the new build, Senior Community Coordinator, Allison Berryman eased the anxiety and let the game testers know that they might as well find something else to do this weekend. There will be no new build over the weekend (October 28th, 29th and 30th). So now that you know it’s official, you can stop refreshing the beta forums over and over and find something else to do. Why don’t we ponder for a bit on what this new build might entail? How close do you think the new game testing build will be to the final version of the game that will launch in less than 60 days? You don’t have to be testing the game right now to join us in speculating what might be in the new build. These are…
SWTOR Game Testing Forums to Merge to One Forum
While SWTOR game testers wait around for the servers to be back up once again, they check the forums regularly for any updates. Some, I’m sure, are obsessively refreshing their browsers, awaiting the news that the newest game client will be ready and they can once again resume playing their favorite game before official launch. Today, there was news in the beta forums but it wasn’t about the servers being back up. Instead, Allison Berryman, Senior Community Coordinator, had news about the SWTOR game testing forums and upcoming changes. She made this post, explaining that while the new build is not here yet, there will be changes to the testing forum structure. From the time the new build is available (which it isn’t yet), all testers will share the same testing forums. This means all players will see English, French and German testing forums. This might actually be good news…
General impressions of SWTOR beta from a WoW veteran
One game tester posted today while the servers were down for maintenance about his impressions on the game so far. As a WoW veteran, he had some opinion about SWTOR so far. This is a great write-up on one person’s perspective from the game and what they have gotten out of it so far. Since so many people keep comparing SWTOR to WoW, it’s interesting to hear from WoW players who are getting to try their hand at SWTOR. A snippet to start: First of all, I’m a real sucker for animations. I think that, for MMOs in particular, the animations make or break a game. I have, for instance, played Rift and feel like the characters are stunted, wooden puppets without much range of motion. The attack animations in Rift (et al.) are boring and unimaginative to the point that, by level 10 you’re really hoping for something new…
SWTOR Video Extravaganza
It has been a week now since the last Beta weekend, and my oh my have we seen alot of gameplay videos hit youtube. If you don’t have any plans for today, you might as well spend some quality time checking out the selection of beta vidoes we have found for you. Enjoy!
Tatooine Imperial Agent / Bounty Hunter video
Warning, lots of flaming incoming, This guy was complainin over at betacake that he couldn’t find any republic at 11am on a beta server, your discretion is advised.
Screenshot Extravaganza
The second Beta weekend for Star Wars the old republic is over and tons of information has started to hit the net. So far all impressions i have been reading has been positive, and people is already missing the game. Below is a bunch of screenshots from the beta, all hosted in standard Imgur albums, so be sure to use the arrows to check out the everything the album contains.
First look at the SWTOR Collector’s Edition Store
Edit: This is just in from a beta tester Aparently the elevators take you to the VIP section: We aren’t allowed up the elevator at the moment. When you step on the elevator it boots you off immediately saying that you need a VIP card to access the elevator. No one has actually been able to go up inside of the VIP area that I’m aware of. I’m a CE owner and beta tester and I’m not allowed up there. The area around the elevators is NOT the VIP area, that is just a general social hub/cantina area in the middle of the new space station hub. Anyone is allowed in that area, just not up the elevators to the penthouse room. This video was mailed to us last night. It shows the area that will be available for people who ordered the Special edition or the collectors edition of SWTOR….
SWTOR Game Tester Experience Email
“This is not the email you are looking for. Move along…” Feel like you were just a victim of Jedi mind tricks? If you got the very confusing email asking you if you enjoyed your tester experience in SWTOR and if you would like to fill out a survey to share your opinions- don’t panic! First, you are not alone. Second, you are not invited to the beta with this email. Sorry to burst your bubble… When the email came in to me last night, my cell phone, Facebook and email blew up with friends asking me if I got it, too and if I knew what it was about. (When did I become the authority on such matters?) So I headed straight over to Twitter and asked Stephen Reid (that’s his job, right?) but he was in flight coming home to Austin so it took a little while for…