Testing

Choose Your Side, or Rather Class

The puzzlingly named Choose Your Side features have continued today, as fans count down the days until release, with a match up between Imperial Agent and Jedi Consular taking place.

Always keen to make their employees seem like real people to the public (rather than the un-sleeping computer maniacs we know they really are) some light banter was put up on The Old Republic’s website detailing the hot topic of debate in the Bioware office, which class had the upper hand in a Consular vs Agent battle.

Now, seeing as many of these fights have happened already during testing the developers are somewhat playing coy with the population, because as released seven weeks ago, we already have the number for one on one combat that has taken place.

Originally the article was to be found here , but due to the need for more content to go into the weekly news it has been removed, and hypothetical ‘class Matchups’ have been added instead.

But thankfully as we have the official site’s news archived here at SWTOR Republic we can look up the numbers to see which has the upper hand.

The real numbers show a slightly different side of the story as the “they are balanced” message sent in the Choose Your Side feature. For all one on one fights that have taken place so far the current winner is the Imperial Agent, but a 69% success landslide.

Perhaps this should not be surprising. A solo class matched up against a group play style class is always bound to present some imbalances, however generally we would have expected things to have been slightly better than we have seen.

As the release grows nearer, now only 13 days away, many are racing to pre-order the game to secure their cheaper, and fully featured copies. If market research done so far is anything to go on, the game may be scarce in standard retailers for quite some time.

Last Chance Guild Changes

Phase 3 of the SWTOR guilding program, now officially in full swing, has made its impact on player associations over the last few weeks felt near and far.

For months now players have had time to organise themselves and their friends into guilds pre-release, so that they are assured of being on the same servers, and being on the same servers as their enemies. This has meant we have seen a wild grab for players, a guilds try to judge who will be good months ahead of the game, with only reputation to go on.

Now that the final phase is in effect, this is all set to wrap up, with players being stuck where they stand and any enemies and allies being locked in for the long hall.

The advantage of this system is that it shall see people which know each other all put on the same server, but at the same time, this tells us just how Bioware plans to run the different game servers.

As it stands at the moment players will not be able to specifically choose which server they want to be on, it shall be chosen for them. This is very different to games such as Star Wars Galaxies and World of Warcraft where there was a comprehensive list of servers or realms which could be chosen when making a character.

The way that Bioware has chosen to do it does away with this system, which hopefully will not be to the detriment of the game. One thing is for sure, which is that it is vitally important to have everything in order before guilding closes off in a few days time. Otherwise, players will only be able to request a few of their friends, with only a small chance of getting into the server if it has heavy load or a far-off geographical location.

Beta Open to All

Over the past month the developers at Bioware have sent emails to all SWTOR accounts claiming that due to a security risk passwords must be reset. Now, this is 90% untrue, as no security risk has presented itself. Rather, this is a covert method to check which accounts are active still. Ones that do the reset are yes, and anyone that ignores is assumed to be a fake account, and will not be given the same privileges everyone else is afforded.

In this case, that is an invite to the now open beta. If you are one that hasn’t done the reset, then now is the time to stop reading and head over to the official SWTOR site to get it in, or you may find yourself excluded until release on the 20th of December.

With the open beta free for all, the number of players in game has sky rocketed, with more than a doubling of entrants within the first game.

Unfortunately for players Bioware has also released information saying that nothing they earn or complete in Star Wars The Old Republic beta will be transferred into the live game upon release. All in all this is good news for those that haven’t been playing already, as they will not be at a technical disadvantage to begin with. However, the will certainly be at a knowledge disadvantage, as the keen testers have had more than six months to master the game, so getting to the top level should be a very quick affair when done live for the first time.

Although the Beta is now open for play, this will only continue for four weeks until the game’s official release, which can’t come too soon for most.

Beta Numbers Swell Pre-Release

In the largest recruiting drive attempted thus far the Bioware executives have decided to more than double the number of current Beta testers of the past fortnight.

This has included the addition of the first batch of overseas players, including a large number from Australia and Europe. Supposedly this is with the hope to find flaws in the game’s combat system which will be exaggerated by the latency such locations entail, but far more likely is to bring news of the game to countries where it may not get quite as much direct advertising.

With the recent lift on confidentially clauses imposed on testers, we have seen a flood of screenshots and videos of the game make it onto social media sites such as Facebook and Youtube. Whilst this has not caused any problems so far, it has revealed that the game is not quite as flawless as it may have seemed from the early testing.

There are evidently quite a number of bugs with the player combat system, meaning so far battles have been far from balanced.
Trooper is the pick of the bunch as of now, with each being more than a match for 2-3 of any other class. This isn’t helped by the fact that classes such as consular are far from perfect, with many abilities misfiring right when the player is counting on them.

With more than two months to go before the game is released there is still plenty of time to iron these last bugs out. Lets hope this is done with plenty of time to spare, or players might be quite under-impressed after parting with their hard earned money.

The Esseles Flashpoint

The main new insight into SWTOR at the most recent Comic Con was that regarding a new flashpoint, the Esseles adventure.
As one of the more challenging flashpoints, the convention gave players their first chance to test out the high level player combat which until now had not been seen by the general public.

In the Instance a small team of players must work together to protect an extremely high ranking Republic Diplomat, after his ship is boarded by a heinous Imperial party bent on destruction. Videos have shown that this will be quite an exciting adventure, somewhat similar to the ones seen in previous release videos, such as the one where our friendly smuggler saves the day.

As players learnt from the video, in large groups team work is the name of the game, which means that the grouping mechanisms of the game will be more important than perhaps anybody had imagined.

For some time now we have known of the flashpoints in Star Wars The Old Republic, but it is only recently that the true extent has been shown to players. There are now numerous encounters suitable for each range of levels, and there are many even accommodating of widely varied groups, so the days of only allowing the ideal team to pass are certainly over.

So, as another group mission is released to the players of SWTOR we have found out yet more about the undertakings of everyday players when the game is released in a few months time.

Current Testers Keeping their Secrets

After being chosen to play Star Wars The Old Republic all players must agree to reveal nothing about the game to the outside world. Even further, they are encouraged to not even tell friends and fellow gamers that they have even be admitted to the test.

So far we have yet to have any major leakages from testing, but the developers and fans alike know that it is just a matter of time before one of the testers grows disgruntled and spills the beans.

Although this would undoubtedly be easy to do, such a culprit may well find themselves in a world of Legal Ramifications , especially if they do a good job of informing the public as to the contents of the game. In the past we have seen similar things, with testers being sued by companies after they decided they had had enough of the silence, and pushed ahead with their own Agenda.

Although it may be tempting for a would be conspirator to spill the beans, we have been assured repeatedly by the developers at Bioware that such an action would not only be foolish, but that it will hold back the game’s release and almost certainly invite legal action. That aside, it would also ensure that said player would never be allowed to play the game post release.

Tests are always a trying time for any development studio, and the early testing of SWTOR has been no exception. However, so far players have done a great job of playing by the rules and if this continues we may even see the game released early.

 

Writing Wraps up for SWTOR

Just today the developers of SWTOR at Bioware announced that the story of the game, now three years into production, is finally finished.

That means every conversation, every cut scene and every iconic moment has been decided on, and all of the lines are now off to be recorded.

However, as the recent blog post says, there is still much to be done. While the rich stories of all 17 planets may have been decided on, many of the environments and characters have yet to be designed, so with the aid of the completed stories 3d artists are now going into overdrive in order to make sure that everything fits together seamlessly.

Also in the article was a brief overview of the inspiration that went into many of the environments of the game, including that of Nar Shaddaa. Apparently the main inspiration for its glitzy glamour is a Las Vegas of the 1970s, although players would be excused for not guessing it.

Also in the article was a look at how the environments have changed over time. Again, the main promenade of Nar Shaddaa has changed drastically due to feedback from testers and story writers. In the Place of what was quite a small and diminutive statue, there now stands an enormous likeness of a Hutt.

Other wildly renovated cities include Coronet on Corellia. Originally the ship yard was just a few buildings, with only names to proclaim its shipyard-dom. However, now it is a towering vista of construction and Corellian superiority.

The development process at Bioware by no means stops when the story is written, or even when the landscape and the game has been designed. No, there are constant reviews of everything completed to date (which may be why release has been so slow) in order to ensure that the final product, when opened to players, is as perfect as possible.

Troopers make some Progress

Today we were blessed with a new release, this time on the progression and stats of the Trooper class.

Like the other classes, Trooper will have quite a number of ways to specialise in order to cater perfectly to each players particular style. This is bound to make it one of the most popular classes, and we haven’t even begun to take into account its survivability and serious damage output capabilities!

Troopers of SWTOR will be the archetypical heavy blast-em class. Think Terminator or Rambo. Most will roam the battle field with heavy armour, and even heavier weapons which should make short work of enemies.

Although they do not possess any force abilities whatsoever, their ever-so-elegant weapons will probably be more than a match for most Jedi.

As we saw there are a number of different armour and weapon combinations already available, including a helmet which is for all intents and purposes identical to those found during the times of Episode III.

Despite its un-canonical nature this armour suit does look sufficiently bad-ass that we should see slim to nil complaints about it.

The two trooper specialisations, Commando and Vanguard look fairly similar, however as always fights are decided in the details, so each will certainly have their own places on the battlefield. At this stage Commando seems to be the stereotypical lock and load, shoot em up class, whilst vanguard is a more tech-savy and environment-aware specialisation. It appears they will even be more than a match for the occasional Sith Inquisitor!

With the release of SWTOR growing ever closer we can only hope Bioware continues producing these revealing, and always appreciated videos. If nothign else, they give players a good idea of what to expect once they begin play, and how they might find themselves facing up with enemies across a galaxy far far away.

Fan Art Developments

Recently on last week’s fan Friday we saw some further glimpses of the vibrant SWTOR community’s creations. This included works such as the very menacing General Grevious look-a-like pictured below, which shows tremendous creativity and artistic skill.

Also released was information on other fan blogs, such as the femi-nazi Corellia Run Radio. These blogs seem to invest copious amounts of time into their SWTOR hobbies, which begs the question whether their supposedly original and accurate content is really respectable at all.

Also released was further information on the Fan Site kit which allows good sheep-like fan sites to have easy access to SWTOR’s content, for the small price of their own journalistic integrity. Many have taken up this gift from the developers, and it is them and only them that we see featured on the official web site, as acknowledging a non-compliant fan site is far from the top the bioware developers’ list of things to do.

Also with the fan site kit we saw the release of a wide variety of forum avaters and icons. These Further allow players to customise their free forum accounts to show a bit about themselves, and how they plan to play the game upon its release.

With the release date looming more and more fan sites are coming into being, some of which seem to offer valuable content, and others which give readers nothing at all other than regurgitated content from the official SWTOR website. We hope that the increasing trend of the later will continue, which should put the game’s community in good stead pending its release.

Environment Polish

Just today the Bioware developers over at SWTOR released a long article on the way in which they polish environments, characters and objects in Star Wars The Old Republic.

This includes many aspects, ranging from as simple as making the models, to adjusting their textures, finishes and interior and exterior lighting properties. It is vital that the visual designers have all these factors perfectly in balance, otherwise the Game can be hard on the eyes and run extremely poorly.

The number of objects on screen as well as light sources has a direct effect on Frame rate. In fact, it is pretty much the deciding factor in how many fps (frames per second) a players computer will be able to produce. Therefore, to ensure a game which is as smooth to watch as it is to play, developers must analyze all possible environments to ensure that none will excessively lag, or even crash players computers.

The development team also answered a huge wealth of questions, mainly regarding the planned classes of SWTOR. These rectified many issues players had with the game and told us many new facts about game play:

-Healing spec’d classes will still have considerable damage capability, so will be viable in Solo play.
-Different companions will become available as the game progresses, so players won’t grow too bored of their smelly old Wookiee.
-Companions will be upgradable with different armour, weapons and special attacks.
-Armour can affect the class an combat technique of players, such as with Jedi Knight.

All in all Bioware has taken a positive step forward over the last week and a half to ramp up their customer relations, which has brought them back to the front of the online gaming community.