Posts Tagged ‘beta’

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.

Feedback from Testing

As the testing of the Old Republic rages ahead, developers are receiving ever increasing amounts of feedback from their avid supporters and community. All involved are very interested in how SWTOR is developing, and nobody can bear to wait for the approaching release date.

SWTOR was announced almost three years ago, and since then Its forum community has been far more active than many actually playable MMORPGs. In fact, the number (and quality!) of daily forum posts on The SWTOR Forums has been larger than those of the Star Wars Galaxies Forums consistently for the last four months. This shows just how popular and abundant the games lovers are, and we are still many months out from release!

The developers have shown in their weekly blogs just how much input they have taken from the general community. Many player invented ideas have already been implemented into the game, and since testing began a large number of changes have been made in response to the various complaints and praise received.

Hype

One problem with the huge community and hype surrounding Star Wars The Old Republic is what will happen if the game does not turn out to be as successful as many are hoping. One other Star Wars production that did this, The Phantom Menace, will go down in history as one of the biggest blunders in the hype department. Although hype generally translates to publicity, It is very much possible to have too much. When this happens, it is impossible for any production to live up to expectations, so no matter how ground breaking or amazing the finished product is, the public will still want more.

 

Testing will continue for SWTOR until the release date, and we hope many of the needed changes will be made by then. Some hoped for additions, such as a proper space flight component to the game,  are looking increasingly less likely but with any luck we will still see some good updates closer to the release date.

Results from Early Testing

It is official then, SWTOR public testing has begun. A number of players are already in the game, and this number is increasing exponentially as the release date approaches.

Many people have been INCREDIBLY keen to become one of these testers, but the privilege has  only been offered to relatively few so far. If you are one of the players who has not been accepted, but is interested to be so in the future, here are a few tips that will get you noticed by the producers of The Old Republic and hopefully into the testing team.

• Post regularly on the forums in a constructive manner.
• Try to post in developer’s threads and converse with them if possible.
• Ensure all parts of your account details are up to date. It may be useful to have an age over 21 years and a location in the United States for legal reasons.
• Do the system scan on a reasonably powerful windows desktop. Avoid laptops, Macs and super computers.
• In general the producers want enthusiastic and decidedly average players, try to be so if at all possible.
• Constructive criticism on the forums is OK, but don’t out and out insult or otherwise defame The Old Republic or the team working on it.

So that is it folks. By talking to a few of the current testers these are the attributes they all have in common. In a way Bioware seems to reward its most enthusiastic supporters by allowing them to test, so lets hope that is you in the future!

As mentioned in the producer note the testers so far have been incredibly pleased with the state of the game, many saying the story is its strongest aspect. Many more serious players (such as PvPers) had been sceptical about what story can bring to a MMORPG, but from the early results it seems to be very engaging and entertaining.

Evidently, SWTOR is not a game about grinding. like the original KOTOR games, you never farm or kill enemies repetitively to gain experience. It will be more of a play through the story to get to the top level then you are free to go kind of affair. This will hopefully make it very popular with almost everyone, as it will remove the boring re-runs that are a hallmark of most MMOs.

We have not heard any of the negative comments from testers, mainly because what we do know is coming straight from Bioware. It is also unlikely that any of the current testers are very serious players. Chances are they are the SWTOR lovers from day 1, so many of their observations may well be tinted by rose coloured glasses. What to read out of the producer notes on the subject is up to you.

All in all, from preliminary testing SWTOR looks like it will deliver much of what it will promise. Although there are clearly areas that need substantial development, all in all the game is looking very interesting, and should carry with it many of the traits which made its predecessors so spectacular.