Bioware’s creative director James Ohlen recently spoke at the Game Developer’s Convention about SWToR’s launch and provided a plethora of details about the game’s launch. Among other things, he mentioned that Bioware significantly underestimated how quickly players can burn through content and found itself in a difficult spot. The development team originally expected that story lines would keep gamers engaged for at least five months – an expectation that as we all know didn’t prove to be true. Bioware’s creative director James Ohlen During launch, subscribers spent an average of 40 hours per week playing SWToR, while in some cases they would reach 80-120 hours on average per week. These extended gaming sessions lead to having close to half a million players at endgame content within a month’s period since launch.
SWTOR launch
In Defense of SWTOR’s Subscription Launch from Gamasutra
Gamasutra writer Simon Ludgate has an interesting blog today about SWTOR’s subscription launch and his experience in the beta of the game, which was fairly short-lived. Find out why he believes BioWare did the right thing by launching with a sub model and moving to a f2p model once they were unable to hold the numbers in subscriptions. Here’s a snippet: When I played the Star Wars: The Old Republic beta, I thought to myself that the game was fun, but that I would never pay a subscription for it. It lacked the key element of MMORPGs: players playing together in a persistent, mutable world. While it had nice graphics, decent gameplay, interesting storylines, and an amusing group story participation dynamic, it had no strong foundation as a “massively” multiplayer game. At best, a one-time box purchase with private multiplayer, kinda like Borderlands; but certainly no justification for a subscription. He goes…
SWTOR Launches in the rest of Europe and in the Middle Eastern Countries
Star Wars: The Old Republic has now officially launched in the rest of the European countries that missed out at launch, as well as throughout the Middle East. If you live in any of the following countries, you can now buy the game via buy.swtor.com or pick it up at local retailers. Europe Albania Andorra Belarus (only available at Origin.com) Bosnia and Herzegovina Bulgaria Croatia Cyprus Estonia (only available at Origin.com) Gibraltar Iceland Kazakhstan (only available at Origin.com) Latvia (only available at Origin.com) Lithuania (only available at Origin.com) Luxembourg (not available at Origin.com) Macedonia Malta Moldova Romania Serbia Slovakia Slovenia Turkey Ukraine (only available at Origin.com) Middle East Afghanistan Algeria (not available at Origin.com) Bahrain Egypt Israel Kuwait Lebanon Libya Morocco Oman Qatar Saudi Arabia Tunisia (not available at Origin.com) United Arab Emirates Yemen Check out the official statement below or at the official webiste We are excited to announce…
SWTOR gives players 25 friend invites
EDIT. If you are looking for trail accounts, or you have one to give away, go to our forum and share/request I was super excited to hear we were going to get friend invites for SWTOR. Then once I saw it was limited to three, I was a bit bummed. There were so many people I wanted to give invites to- my mother wanted to try it, my sister, some gamer friends online, other relatives… how would I choose who would get my three? Well, BioWare really wants people to try out this game because they have now released the news that they will up that count to 25. Are you ready? Start inviting friends! Electronic Arts is awfully keen for you to try Star Wars: The Old Republic. After holding several free trial weekends, BioWare’s midichlorian-powered MMORPG has now doled out heaps more friend trial invites to every…
SWTOR Numbers Continue to Grow after Very Smooth Launch
Do we know if SWTOR had a smooth launch or not? While some will speculate and others will claim otherwise, you can see the evidence in the game forums, as well as by playing the game itself and you will learn if it had a smooth launch. The same can be said for any MMO, as Gamasutra reminds us. They spoke with Dallas Dickinson, production director at Star Wars: The Old Republic developer BioWare Austin at GDC earlier this month and learned a few more things about SWTOR launch and how the numbers continue to grow. “The launch went really, really well. I think sort of surprisingly smoothly,” Dickinson said, with hint of real actual surprise. But it’s true: the biggest MMO to launch in years might not be perfect, but it went off with no major hitches. “A smooth launch was one of our goals,” he added. “”We had…