We told you about the ex-BioWare devs leaving the company to start their own Indie game design company and begin building The Banner Saga. So how has that been working out for them? Well, probably a lot better than many would have imagined. The team is doing great and used Kickstarter to gain funds for their project and it paid off in a big way. “Stoic Studio, the Austin-based developer recently formed by veterans from BioWare, has already reached its $100,000 funding goal for its turn-based strategy RPG The Banner Saga. The indie developer managed to reach its goal on donation platform Kickstarter just two days after launching the campaign, and after receiving pledges from almost 4,000 people. It still has 30 days to raise more money to fund the PC game, which is scheduled to release later this year.” Gamasutra also tells us about some other games that hit…
bioware
SWTOR Subs Stabilize at 1.7 Million
If you’re wondering how many people are actively still playing SWTOR, then recent numbers will interest you. While it’s a been a great month for BioWare with the launch of Mass Effect 3 and the continued success of SWTOR, the numbers show that SWTOR subscriptions have stabilized at 1.7 million. Massively reports: It’s also worth noting that, according to EA’s John Riccitello, the “vast majority” of these active subscribers have already used their 30-day trials, which means most of those 1.7 million subscribers are shelling out $15 per month to play the game. It’ll be interesting to see how these numbers change (or don’t) in the coming months, but for the time being The Old Republic seems to be doing BioWare proud. After the recently released news about patch 1.2 and Game Update 2 for SWTOR, I’m expecting we will see those numbers increase more. There is also the tell-a-friend…
665 people worked on Star Wars: The Old Republic
Just how many people does it take to make a great MMORPG? BioWare has revealed the numbers on the team that helped make SWTOR a reality. Not counting the voice actors, 665 people worked on SWTOR. During a GDC panel, the company revealed the breakdown of the team members: 30 Production 75 Designers 80 Engineers 40 Platform 10 Localization 10 Audio 140 Artists (Both internal and outsourced) 280 QA (Both internal and outsourced) The game reportedly cost more than $200 million to make and BioWare says they are excited for what is on the horizon and still yet to come in the game. They have a dedicated team still hard at work making new content for the game. (I got to see this team in action myself at the tour of BioWare Austin this past Monday). It takes a full team of people, all working hard towards the same common…
SWTOR Friend Trial program detailed
Following up on Lisa’s live blogging from the guild summit, BioWare just announced Friends Trial. This system let you invite your friends to check out the game for free for a whole week! Check out the official press release below: BioWare and LucasArts are excited to announce the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Friends Trial starts tomorrow, March 6th!* For a limited time, players who have an active Star Wars: The Old Republic subscription will be able to invite up to three of their friends to explore the Star Wars™ galaxy.The Star Wars: The Old Republic Friends Trial is an opportunity for players to invite three (3) of their friends to take part in a 7-day trial of the game. During this trial period, invited players can explore each of the four Origin Worlds, and experience the opening adventures for each class as they start along their epic journey.Current subscribers can…
BioWare Wants YOU! (To Test Game Content)
It sounds like BioWare is working on endgame content. Joveth Gonzalez , Associate Online Community Manager has some good news for SWTOR fans in the Austin area: The Star Wars: The Old Republic team is looking for skilled SWTOR players in the Austin area to test out brand new content in the BioWare Austin office. We are looking for players that are experienced with endgame Operations, Warzones, and Flashpoints. Players that meet this criteria may fill out this survey and qualifying candidates will be contacted for more information. This is a temporary paid position and will require at least a weekend a month of your time. Thank you! This is really cool for those of you who live here in Austin with us- a chance to check out new game content AND get paid for it. It also shows us that BioWare is serious about finding out what the players…
BioWare’s Mass Effect 3 Coming March 6th
The big day is almost here for Mass Effect fans. The third and final game in the Mass Effect series has a lot to live up to and if the single and multiplayer demo (recently released) is any indication of how the rest of the game will play, fans of the series have nothing to worry about. Mass Effect 3 comes out on March 6 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. ($59.99 on Amazon) Here’s some interesting Mass Effect 3 news: Razer And BioWare Reveal New ‘Mass Effect 3’ Gaming Gear Minimum System Requirements: OS – Windows XP SP3/Vista SP1, Win 7 CPU: 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (equivalent AMD CPU) RAM: 1GB for XP / 2GB RAM for Vista/Win 7 Hard Drive: 2.5 GB of free space Video: 256 MB* (with Pixel Shader 3.0 support) *Supported chipsets: NVIDIA 7900 or better; ATI X1800 or better. Please…
Some Kudos for BioWare Customer Service
We have seen a lot of posts about Bioware being evil and SWToR support being horrible. We’ve even published quite a few of those complaints here on the site. But now we’ve found another good example of BioWare staff doing something good. Some players have received automated responses from the CSR team saying their account is suspended for spamming or other violations of the terms of use but they don’t provide any information on what they did. When these players then contact the customer service team to get more clarification on what they did wrong, they sometimes receive the same automated-type message back. But here’s a player who feels he was wrongfully banned, wrote to BioWare customer service to try to find out what he did wrong (and avoid doing it again) and he got a positive response. BioWare admitted they made a mistake, removed the ban and compensated the…
New BioWare video: A Look At Star Wars: The Old Republic
BioWare have just released a brand new video entitled ” A Look At The Old Republic” This video is properly meant to be used for marketing purposes more then for giving game updates for the players. It’s still a fun view, even though it doesn’t contain any new information for veteran players. Check it out below: Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ has been an incredible hit, becoming the fastest-selling MMO of all time with over a million players starting their own Star Wars™ saga in the first 24 hours! See for yourself what just a few of these players have to say about their experiences with the game in this new video!
Former SWTOR Devs Introduce “The Banner Saga”
Star Wars: The Old Republic is easily considered one of the biggest games of the year. It has yet to make its debut in Australia and already we’re hearing about it all over the world. Those of you who have been following for some time now know that it is a game that has been many years in the making. Some of the people who were involved in the early days of developing SWTOR have now moved on to other projects. Three of these devs in particular, are now introducing a new project called “The Banner Saga”. Games.on.net brings us the news about this new game: Under the new studio of Stoic Games, the talented trio have created what their website calls a “role-playing meets turn-based strategy, wrapped into an adventure mini-series about Vikings.” I am sold already a billion times, especially when I saw the bits about “pain-staking hand…
SWTOR Community Q&A February 17th
It’s that time of the week again- time for the SWTOR Community Q&A. I think this is going to grow into a fun and interesting weekly event. BioWare staff planned to answer 10 questions in this week’s Q&A but actually managed to get in the answers to 12. They have also openedup an officialthread for next week’s Q&A, which will stay open until 2pm CST onFebruary 21st (8pm GMT/9pm CET). So here’s a snippet of what this week’s Q&A covered: DarthBelkar:Can we look forward to server-wide special seasonal / short-term events? DanielErickson: Yes! Expect them to fit into the world andsetting, involve a fair bit of discovery, and offer special rewards that willbe there one day and then gone forever. And expect them soon. Darthinfimus: Doyou plan to implement a /roll or /random command for use in master lootersituations? DamionSchubert: Diceslingers of the world rejoice! /roll hasalready been implemented on our internal development…
Drew Karpyshyn Says Goodbye to BioWare
Drew Karpyshyn promised big news on his weekly blog updatetoday but we had no idea how big this news would be. He has now announced thathe will be leaving BioWare after 12 years of working together. He notes thatthe decision was 100% his and that he is leaving BioWare on good terms. Drew writes: Forthe past twelve years I’ve had the privilege to work at one of the bestcompanies in the video game industry, side by side with the most talented andincredible group of people I’ve ever had the good fortune to know. I’ve enjoyedmy time at BioWare immensely, but it’s time for me to move on. I’mleaving to focus more time and energy on my novels and other non-video gamerelated projects. But even though I’ll no longer be working on games forBioWare, I’m not going to be severing all ties with them. Many of my closestfriends still work at…
AIAS Awards: SWTOR Wins Outstanding Achievement in Online Gameplay
The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences has recently announced the winners of its 15th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards and not surprisingly, Skyrim took home big prizes. But SWTOR was also recognized as it took home “Outstanding Achievement in Online Gameplay” and we tend to agree with this assessment. According to Gamasutra: The AIAS is a not-for-profit organization that celebrates creativity in video games worldwide. The IAA ceremony took place last night as part of the 2012 D.I.C.E. Summit. Skyrim won a total of five awards, including Game of the Year, while both PlayStation 3 hit Uncharted 3 and Valve’s first-person puzzler Portal 2 took home three awards each. You can see the full list of winners on the Gamasutra site. So what do you think? Did SWTOR deserve the recognition? There were some big names in the running this year and I am happy to see SWTOR bring at…
EA Claims SWTOR Did Better than WoW in First Month
In the quarterly earnings call for Electronic Arts, they announced they had 1.7 million active subscribers to SWTOR. These are some pretty huge numbers but just what do they mean? These figures count the number of players who have subscribed to the game past the first month free trial you get with purchase. This means that Star Wars: The Old Republic has gained more followers in the first month than Blizzard Entertainment’s immensely popular World Of Warcraft (WoW) did during the same period. (via Hexus) Of course, these are just early figures and in the SWTOR vs WoW arena, Blizzard has a 7-year head start. The true test of MMORPG brilliance will come when we see where SWTOR is in the long run. Where will they be after 6 months? What about a year from release? What about 7 years? The true test of success lies in whether or not…
Incoming Ads for SWTOR
I know a thing or two about marketing- it’s part of my job in many ways. I often write advertising copy, help with social media marketing and article marketing and run online advertising campaigns for clients. This experience in marketing allows me to understand one common problem with many MMORPGs today- they lack the proper marketing to get noticed by the masses. Blizzard has the resources and the funds for a huge marketing campaign. They have ads everywhere you look, often right under our noses when we don’t even realize it. The problem is that most developers just don’t have the resources to compete, especially with a giant like Blizzard in the MMORPG world. But EA is preparing to carpet bomb you with SWTOR ads, as Dual Shockers explains: Thanks to a transcript of the Q&A Session held during the conference we can get a little more insight on what…
Companions Miss You When You Don’t Play for Awhile
What happens when you don’t log into SWTOR for awhile? Probably not much- the world goes on and your account sits dormant, right? Well, actually, when you don’t play for awhile, your companion misses you and you just might get an email like this one inviting you back. Is this a smart move on BioWare’s part or a waste of time? I have to say that it sounds like a pretty good idea. Not everyone who gets the notices will come back to the game to play but the honest truth is that there are some people out there who just get so busy, they forget to log in the game. You might get so wrapped up with busy life that you forget how long it has been since you logged in. A small message like this could be just the thing you need to refresh your memory and make…
EA Stock Surges after SWTOR Subscriber Numbers are Revealed
More good news for those holding stock in EA and more rebuttal for the nay-sayers that SWTOR is tanking and that it is causing EA stick to drop- EA stock reportedly surges after the recent Q3 2012 Fiscal Earnings Conference Call in which it was revealed that SWTOR now has over 1.7 million active users and growing. DualShockers brought us the story that quite honestly, was not a surprise to ushere at all. YesterdayEA stock closed at $18.44. Today, on the closure of the market a few minutesago, the shares of the publisher from Redwood were priced $19.565 showing avery solid 6.1% climb. By comparison the whole NASDAQ index gained only a 0.4%. Mostof the growth actually happened yesterday during the after hours tradingsession, that started as EA’s conference call was closing. Both in the afterhours trading session and this morning in the pre-market trading session EAstock was one of…
Mass Effect 3 Voice Actors
Martin Sheen, Freddie Prinze, Jr, Seth Green and more join the ranks of Mass Effect 3 voice actors. Tricia Helfer plays EDI and there’s Jessica Chobot with a cameo as a news reporter. Check out the video below to learn more and see clips. It’s easy to see why so many people are geared up and excited for ME3. They’ve also said that it was scripted so that you don’t have to have played ME1 and ME2 to jump right into the 3rd game and know what’s going on. Pretty smart on their part, for sure. This is a great time to remember why we’re playing SWTOR and why we love it- because of the story and the voice casting. Even if you’re already a Star Wars fan, it takes a little something extra to really make a game stand out. BioWare goes that extra mile with the voice acting…
Family Research Council against Gay Relationships in SWTOR
You will remember that some time ago, some SWTOR players complained that the game did not give the option for same sex companion relationships. BioWare first defended this decision by explaining that homosexual relationships did not exist in the original Star Wars worlds, at least not that were known to us from the storyline. However, it seems they have changed their tone to meet the demands of the fans as they have announced that they will be launching a same-sex romance component to the game in a future patch. This is completely optional and players will choose whether or not they want to romance companions of the same sex or not. Many gay fans are celebrating the news but of course the voices of those against it are just as loud (maybe louder?). The Family Research Council (FRC) is speaking out against the gay relationships in SWTOR and had this announcement…
Brokers Concerned about EA Stock Due to SWTOR
SWTOR is a big earner for BioWare and Electronic Arts. The extreme popularity of the game pre-launch and at launch led to great success for EA- at least from the start. All around, the company was recognized and this included with rising stock prices. However, with that fame comes great responsibility. EA has a lot to live up to with SWTOR. There are expectations not only from the gamers but also from those who have invested into the company, based on the proposed success from the game. Any sign of failure on this part will effect more than just the gamers who are playing. Recent reports of bugs and performance issues could be responsible for some investors to question their stock in EA. Could they be jumping too soon? Performance issues cause EA stocks to drop with concerns over SWTOR. This report on Market Watch explains: SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) —…
SWTOR Unsubscribe Option Missing for Some Players
If you’re trying to get into your account with SWTOR to cancel your subscription before the auto-renewal from the free 30 days, then you might be running into some problems. It appears that the “cancel subscription” button is missing for some players from their account pages. Since tomorrow is the day of the billing for accounts thatare set to be billed after the free initial month that you get when youpurchase the game, there are some people trying to get in there and cancelthose before they get billed. Imagine their surprise when the option is notthere for them! But before we start talking conspiracy theories, BioWare isaware of the problem and insist it was not intentional and that they are workingon it right now. There are some posts about workaround options but BioWare isrequesting that if you have this problem, you call customer service to cancelyour subscription and get it…
EA Has Invested Half a BILLION Dollars in Star Wars
In a story at MarketWatch.com, we learn a bit of interesting news about SWTOR. It’s an article/interview about Electronic Arts’ CEO Riccitiello, 52, but contains a fun tidbit about the BioWare hit of the year- SWTOR. According to the source: In a Dec. 23 statement, EA boasted that “The Old Republic” had attracted more than 1 million registered subscribers in just three days on the market. Doug Creutz of Cowen & Co. says that Riccitiello’s tenure as CEO has featured misfires along with its successes but that “Star Wars” may represent his biggest bet of all, considering both the purchase price of BioWare/Pandemic and the development costs poured into the game since then. “I think it’s safe to say that the total all-in investment in ‘Star Wars’ is probably approaching half a billion dollars,” Creutz says. “EA has minimized its risks as much as it can on this bet, but…
BioWare Developing SWTOR for the Longterm Future
We all know that for SWTOR to continue to be as successful as it has been on launch, they will need to do a lot more work on developing future content. Of course, BioWare knows this, too and they are already working on it. In an article on PC Gamer, they reveal that they are working on content right now that we won’t see for at least a year or more. “Our writers are working on content you won’t see for over a year,” game director James Ohlen told PC Gamer. “We have a lot of plans. Because of the voice overs, cinematics and moving parts, we have to look way into the future.” This makes sense considering the game took so many years to fully develop in the first place and that it has so many different elements that must go into it. “We want to show our fans…
BioWare on SWTOR Performance Issues: Blame Low End PCs
We reported previously on performance issues in SWTOR and also what you can do about it. Supposedly, BioWare reports that not that many people are having issues. I don’t know about you but just about everyone I talked to who plays SWTOR is having issues and most of us are long time gamers with really nice systems. “Most” Star Wars: The Old Republic players “aren’t really having performance concerns”, game director James Ohlen told Eurogamer this afternoon. He goes on to say that only about 5% of gamers are having problems, most of them with “low-end PCs”. “The thing is, for the most part, 95 per cent – oh I can’t give you the exact percentage – most of our players aren’t really having performance concerns,” James Ohlen told Eurogamer. Hmm… sounds like a made up figure there to me. And as for the low-end PC comment, I’m hearing a…
SWTOR Makes the Record Books
Star Wars: The Old Republic has been officially recognized by Guinness World Records which is a very cool honor indeed. Just shortly after its launch on December 20, 2011, the popular MMO was awarded a spot in the latest Guinness World Records 2012 Gamer’s Edition. The big title? the Largest Entertainment Voice Over Project ever. More than 200,000 lines of recorded dialogue were performed by several hundred voice actors, making it a far more ambitious recording project than any undertaking for a feature film. (via MMOSite.com) Because the record is such an awesome one, it received a full 2-page spread in the book, which I try to get every year because it’s great fun to read and have around. Here you will find a tribute to 30 years of Star Wars gaming with fun facts, new records, figures and more – all about Star Wars. The new Guinness World Records…