I didn't notice anything in the forums about this recently, but bioware's new Star Wars MMO is slated to be released sometime this year in 2011.

Main site:
http://www.swtor.com/

Cinematic trailer:
http://www.swtor.com/media/trailers/hope-c...railer#comments

Hungry Star Wars nerds:
http://www.swtor.com/media/trailers/pax-ea...highlight-video

I'm not a huge SW fan, but I like bioware style RPGs so I'll give this a shot.

I like the looks of the republic commando class.

Gameplay vid from E3

I like how they are handling dialogue choices if you are in a group. That was the one thing I was concerned with. I thought this game would be mostly a single player questing experiencing, with the dialogue choices made by group leader. But, they are using a roll system. I like the way they described it, saying it is similar to pen and paper RPGs where you might have a friend roll playing an asshole character and decides to be a jerk by killing an NPC.

Yeah, its pretty cool how you can still get light side points for your own personal decision. So you could potentially partner up with someone on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, role playing-wise and there would still be little conflict in the ability to play together. It was kind of funny to watch that conversation though, how the girl's responses were so caring, like "You will not die today." And then suddenly the darth maul dude just whacks him with the light saber. Haha.

It's a full timeline of the Star Wars Lore, via storybook style FMV on the official SW:TOR website. I can't embedd it, because it's a sliding timescale and each timeframe shows a different FMV. I will provide the link instead. It's definately worth the watch if you're not familiar with the non-movie star wars lore.


http://www.swtor.com/info/holonet/timeline

Pre-order for SWTOR is now avaliable.

You can opt for the collectors edition. If you get the physical collectors edition (disc and all) it comes with:

Pre-Order Exclusive:
Early Game access (Play the game before the actual release date. Pay to be a Beta tester, lol)
Color Stone (virtual item) (changes your light saber or blaster color)

30 Days Game Time included

Limited Collector's Edition Includes:
Exclusive Gentle Giant Darth Malgus statue
Game disks collectible metal case
The Journal of Master Gnost-Dural as annotated by Satele Shan
The Old Republic galaxy map
Custom Security Authentication Key
Music of Star Wars: The Old Republic CD
High-quality Collector's Edition box

Includes 7 Additional Digital Items:
Flare Gun
Training Droid
HoloDancer
HoloCam
STAP
Exclusive Mouse Droid
Exclusive Collector's Edition Store

Altogether its about 150 buck. The digital edition includes all the ingame goodies, minus the tangible bonuses. It's 75 bucks. The Pre-orders for The Collectors Edition are already sold out for the physical copy on EAs official website. I am sure other retailers still have it in stock.

Here is the link to show what the ingame goodies are: http://www.swtor.com/preorder

I pre-ordered already. Oddly enough, there is no release date, but people are expecting a Sept or Oct release.

150 bucks? Eat a dick, Lucas.

You mean EA, Lucas didn't have anything to do with it, besides the statue alone with 50 to 60 bucks. beats the the tiny spartan helm you can't wear with the legendary halo's

I think the Halo legendary editions are just as stupid. Maybe if you're the type to spend 60 bucks on a statue of something this is a good deal, but it just seems like an excessive cash in to me.

Not to mention 60 bucks for an unproven MMO game. EA try to pull some weird shit for their digital pre-sale. Put up warning that their are limited quantities. Really? On a digital distribution service? What are they trying to pull?

Here is the Gentle Giant Darth Malgus statue. Really, it's for the fans of starwars and we all know they will pay 150 bucks for a CE. The statues run about 60 bucks, so if you factor in everything it's about right. Hence the reason it sold out. I don't trust EA with most anything they do, so I am sure they intentionally sold-out their products for the purpose of creating more hype. The retailers have way more in stock. I don't see how the digital CE version can be limited quantities either, when it's FUCKING digital. EA is pulling some shit, where you might not be guaranteed an early play-through period on the CE purchases and the normal purchase. If it's digital, there in theory can be no limitation of product. Moral of the story, just buy the regular edition, unless you're into collectibles.






I'd rather have the Shae bust in the CE edition, but that's just me:

I think its limited due to not wanting their servers crashing, etc, due to load issues from downloads, look at recent mmo's such as Rift and it's issues. This is their first mmo, so I can see the caution with digital preorders. Also they could be throwing a bone to the retail outlets.

Comic Con panel. Seems they are banking on the game being more of a multiple playthrough type of MMO (rerolling alts); as in creating new characters to experience the other classes/storylines or play again with same class to make a different choice. Rather than focusing solely on endgame content. Seems quite ambitions, not to mention when you add in its fully voiced acted. If it is actually hundreds of hours per class that is unique as promised I'm down. Lots of content is always good. But, I want to hear more about actual multiplayer content of the game instead of adding additional players (grouping) to what is basically a single player experience.

Hope they don't have the same issue as Galaxy with large planets. The problem with that game was the huge planets had very little content outside the city hubs.

This game is fucking amazing! Looks like I will be playing this and WoW for the time being.

Only bad part is the races sucks ass. In The Old Republic it's like "here is a human with horns, ohhhh here's another human with tentacles." In WoW each race has it's own identity which enhances the social aspect and banter of the game ( For the Horde/Alliance, or Gnomes deserves to be punted like footballs, Blood Elves are fairies). Not to mention in WoW you know you are looking at a freakin Orc or Tauran, and the armors fit each race. Here I can see everyone looking to same. Unless they really flesh out the social, specialty, and light side/dark side items.

Will this beat WoW? It potentially can. Really comes down to what endgame is looks like. As far as level-up content goes, this game is everything WoW is and better (Dat Bioware!). Coming from someone that can't stand level-up content (I'm a raider) this stuff is pretty fun. And it's mostly due to the fact you have dialogue choices, optional objectives, and the choice of light side or dark side outcomes. Not only that but combat is fluid, the sound is great, and the animations are top notch. I can just quest and kill things where I am not even looking at my exp bar or quest log to see how many of "X" have I killed.

Sad I only get to play for this weekend and have to wait until mid December to play again.

Weekend beta is officially over! I danced my way til' the servers shut down.

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Overall, it's pretty much a bioware Star Wars rpg, but with contemporary MMO gameplay. The blending of bioware story telling within a MMO setting is really the selling point here. Also, there's a good blend of solo and group gameplay elements. If you want to be the lone wolf you can, but if you want to team up, the social points help make grouping fun, versus being a chore. Game comes out Dec 20th, ergo, lightsabers for the win.

Ki'ta Kren is an east coast PvP server. It's the one i'll be on, and I'll be headed to the empire!

Is the empire the good guys or the bad guys?

Empire is the Sith, the badguys. I'll be on the Republic side on the Bondar Crystal server

We should probably pick some official AT server before the games release. I'll be on the east coast server, most likely. My main will be on the Jedi side, but I will also roll an empire character too.

Like WoW you can play on either faction, with the Republic being the Jedi and the Empire being the Sith.

I'm trying to find a server too as long it's East Coast. Most likely do Sith because I want to play Imperial Agent. But, I played Smuggler in beta, and don't mind playing that either. PVP or PVE don't matter too me. A few in my WoW guild are going to be playing too, so I might start an Old Republic guild for doing stuff on off-nights when we are not raiding on WoW.

I'm pretty much promised to Ki'ta Kren since I guilted loads of folks there already to try and keep the people I know local and on one server.

I'll just play wherever the hell Wiryu is.

I'm sad I can't be a chewbacca.

I'll most likely end up on a west server sith side. Play with some of the coworkers and local ex wow people I chill with. Though with as much as I love the lore and story stuff of the game I am sure ill have one of everything.

I am getting an early invite, So i'll let u guys know the servers that are initially up.

Screenshots show the exisiting servers that are up. Ki'ta Kren isn't currently a server option that is available. I am not too picky about the server so long as no one takes my character name. I will absolutely not play on a server where my character name is taken, so let's be quick about it. Is PVP versus PVE a big deal for some of us?

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I made a character on the Shii-Cho server (eastcoast PVE).
Also made a character on The Twin Spears and Saber of Exar Kun (eastcoast PVP). (Me and Kaz will prob be one of these server)


I am siding with PVP this time around, and as a result, it's really not an environment for soloist. At the end of the day, the server name is irrelevant, what matters is that we're playing together (well, those of us that can. I don't how the latency will be for east or west coast players on a differing server).
Let me know if there are any issues with the server choices.

They changed Bondar Crystal to pvp from the beta, looks like I'll go elsewhere for pve. Went ahead on Shii-Cho

Most of the dudes I know headed to "Saber of Exar Kun" however I havn't received my invite yet.

I'll see where the majority of you all end up. I may be able to get squeezed into early access. I decided late that I wanted to try this. I also appear to be the point man for a handful of friends that are getting this. A PVP server is fine with me.

If you pre-ordered late, you're guaranteed to get early access for at least 1 day before release. I am already leveling my character on Saber of Exar-Kun, especially if Wiryu has people there already and him and crush will most likely be there, it's probably a good place to start for the AT on the PVP side.

I got my Early Access today! I guess I'll go Saber of Exar-Kun so I can run into you guys. Are you guys doing Empire right?

I actually rolled Republic. I think a few of us are doing republic. Although I intend have an empire character as well.

Ok rolled republic on Saber of Exar Kun

Yeah, I'll be rolling a Jedi Consular when I get my invite.

"Wait, but what if we're the bad guys?"

I have a 21 Sith Sorc on Space Slug. Had to pick the server for the name. lol

I'm on Saber of Exar Kun with Wiryu.

I really have to say this game does start off kind of slow for the first 10 levels, as it eases the player into basic MMORPG mechanics. But once you leave the noob area holy shit things get amazing.

I honestly thought that this would just be WoW in space with light sabers, but it's so much more. And if you enjoy the traditional single player Bioware games, this game will be worth it. They really captured the feeling of being in the Star Wars universe and that your character and story is important. As a Jedi Knight you feel like your walking in the footsteps of Skywalker or Obi-Wan.

I love the presentation of quests and heroic instances. It's really immersive and makes you feel like your playing out an episode from the films.

Haven't had this much fun in a MMO for a long time. Also, Force Leap. Force Leap everything.

For me the game is still mostly holding up to my first impressions during beta, mostly. Though there is a lot of archaic design choices, mostly in the UI and how the game tracks buffs/debuffs and DoTs/HoTs. It's going to make endgame raiding a bit annoying for seasoned raiders. Hopefully, Bioware listens and makes these minor changes or at least give the option to change it.

But this game feels great. Have not been this sucked into an MMO since classic WoW. And man the combat is awesome, feels dynamic. I think it is the fact there is no auto-attack helps. A lot more twitchy, which is what I like. PVP feels a lot better to me because of it. Very satisfying to force push someone into a pool of acid, then combo into a stun to make sure he dies.

If anyone ends up sith side on space slug (pve west), you can catch me on oddrei or mistmoore.

I hope they don't allow ui mods. They ruined wow raiding so bad. Let us move the ui around and call it done.

So now that the game is officially launched, who else is planning to join? What's the status Crush, Dive, Wiryu?

I'm in. Still trying out classes but I have rolled a few on Saber of Exar Kun. I'll be keeping these characters for the long run and deciding on which one to use as a main.

Sith Empire:
Dive - Sith Marauder
Cryptman - Imperial Operative

Galactic Republic:
Caliban - Trooper
Divewire - Jedi (still deciding on type)

Bounty Hunter on Exar Kun named Wiryu. Lovin it. ;)

I still don't have it, I want to play but I don't really have the time right now

Scankid - Jedi Shadow on Exar Kun

Using this character mostly to learn the game and run into you guys. People in my WoW raiding guild will be getting the game this week or next so I will be rerolling to start SWTOR version of my guild on another server.


I disagree on mods ruining WoW raiding. The problem with the default UI in WoW initially is it did not convey important information properly to allow the player to perform optimally in order to down the more challenging content. A lot of stuff that was in mods has been implemented into the default UI because Blizzard realized hiding, or not properly displaying, information from the player is bad game design and very 1990s. For example, before buff/debuff filters were added to the default if you played a Warlock (DoT class) good luck figuring out which DoT is yours if you play with another Warlock or more in a sea of 100s of debuffs on the boss.

But I do agree the game does not need mods. It does need buff/debuff filters and better visual cues for procs. The only way to discover your procs is through buff/debuff searching in a sea of dozen; not to mention the icons are tiny. It really takes you out of the game to have to search the buff/debuff area after you hit an ability that may proc something important to your rotation.

Just started Sith assassin, Mistmoore, on Exar Kun.


Blizzard added those mods to default because they tuned to raid encounters around the assumption players had them, leaving anyone without handicap. Watch some of the ex wow players in swtor try to heal without healbot and grid, its pathetically hilarious. Let alone if there are instances where you have to move out of the fire and no DBM to yell at em to move. I agree buff/debuff filters are needed, specially for chance proc stuff. Moving the UI elements is a biggy as well, beyond that I would prefer the game not be reduced down to a point that wow is at where enough addons and you're only 1 step away from the game playing itself. Also, as a former EQ hardcore raider, there are no challenging raids in wow.

Let alone the endgame shit in FFXI, I would love to some wow players fight that crap, they moan about fights lasting long then 5 minutes, let alone the 3 hours some bosses had

Most of that was artificial difficulty and artificial longevity, which is usually considered bad game design by today's standards. There is a reason that type of stuff rarely exists in games in this decade of gaming. A game should test actual skill and not be a bladder bending endurance match. Nor should you have to take days off work in order to progress. Consequently games are not suppose to be a substitute for work or cause health issues, like holding your bladder for the 3 hour marathon boss. Cause let's be honest all that crap was designed that way to keep players playing longer, which equals more money in subscription fees. It's generally understood the old model had flaws because it was designed to keep players playing because of length, with psychological placement of rewards, that kept you on the hamster wheel. To be fair WoW has it's own hamster wheels that needs to go out the door too.

Seriously, do you miss that? I would be with you if I were my younger self, but at some point we get older and are not able to do that anymore even though we enjoyed it back in the day. That's where I am at and coming from. The game industry has realized this too because a lot of the gamers who made gaming mainstream are getting older, however they are still buying games. Some of those people are taking the helm of game design while the Miyamoto's of the world will be retiring in the near future.

I am not saying you are wrong to like that design, just it is unfair to say WoW players are incapable of something that takes that long when in fact the demographics and numbers say they have no desire to participate in that kind of gameplay. It's like trying to score points against a team that has no interest in showing up.









First off, I was never originally talking about addons, I just realized this might be a misunderstanding based on your response. When I said the "option to change it," I meant in the preferences. As in something you check off to change how buffs display. I worded it that way because I thought that while I don't like how the UI displays information I am used to, it may not be fundamentally broken. To determine that would require a sample of people completing multiple Operations over different types of mechanics (1 tier is not enough imo).

In other words Bioware may not think their UI is broken in this regard. Therefore, they may not want to force a straight up change on everyone just because I THINK and many others think it will be better for endgame, you know. Like, I don't think being able to move the UI is that important, but you do. Different preferences vs Bioware's design choices and implementation.

The only tuning Blizzard made because of mods was it challenged them to try and come up with new types of mechanics that could not be overly-simplified with mods (Wrath had this problem). They have gotten better at this. This is not a bad thing. But, they did in fact add stuff to the UI because they felt information was not available right away to the player. It was brought up in Blue posts with the reasoning behind the Dungeon Journal as a relevant example.

Some ex-WoW players are failing at healing in SWTOR because they don't have mods, especially Healbot and even more so Grid as examples? I understand where you coming from. However, those two mods work functionally the same as what you can do with the Operation frames in SWTOR (minus buff/debuff filtering and incoming heals). Even if you do think mods are the issue, you must also consider the problems with SWTOR's UI you and I have mentioned; not able to move it and even resize it to where the UI would work optimally for those players coming from a different UI setup. Maybe those people are looking for health bars in the wrong place because they are used to finding it in a certain place out of long term habit?

That or they are just typical bad WoW players. I've ranted about how most WoW players are bad at gaming before. They are a bad demographic example to measure any type of skill in a MMO. So saying "fail WoW healer" is not saying much because there is a ton of those people out there with and without mods: and they've been waiting to jump on the next MMO SWTOR hotness.

So to blame mods and say WoW's player-base is handicapped without them, which is largely made up of non-gamers that wipe on the new "brain-dead-just-hit-buttons-collect loot" mode Looking For Raid, is not taking a hard look at that specific demographic as a whole. It just does not hold water if you've actually pugged easy as hell content, or spent time recruiting for progression. No mod can fix a "not paying attention" handicap. No mod can fix a "not putting enough time in to learn the game or understand encounters" handicap. All of this is regardless how idiot proof mods, like DBM, are or Blizzard's updates to the UI seem. These people are just handicapped when it comes to gaming. I am speaking based on my experiences with other WoW players, WoWProgress statistical data, and why certain nerfs were made.

You do know now in WoW that if you die to something the game whispers you info on how you died and what to do about it? YET PEOPLE STILL FAIL THE NEXT ATTEMPT! Now you got me started, sorry.

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It just takes some adjustment, that's the heart of that issue I think. I'm playing Jedi Sage healer for my guild and I have no problems healing and moving out of shit. It feels exactly the same as WoW, in which I've healed on and used Grid and mods. Indeed, there is no mouse over functionality on the Operation frames like I'm used to in WoW. So clicking on frames then pressing my heal is a bit inefficient for my taste. But, it's still not an issue if you are worth your salt.

However, there is self-targeting and focus target modifier bindings in SWTOR which do in fact work functionally the same as mouse overs or mouse clicks in HealBot. Good for flashpoints and main tank healing and keeping yourself up. I am going to play around with those more this week.


Anyway, I found the the color of the UI in SWTOR can be an issue for some too. My guild leader is color blind and is having a ton of issues with the reds on reds for the health numbers on the bars. So if he was playing a healer he would have a very hard time. He's really struggling. So some color blind options should be in the game.

Other things, let's see, I don't understand why you can't display all of the map icons on the World Map. You can only do one at a time. They have the magnifying glass that can show everything in area, but that is an extra step to show information that should be available at a quick glace. The mini-map has proper filters but not the World Map. It's odd design choice.

One thing I like that bothers other people. I like not being able to queue up for individual Warzones. Fixes issues of people gravitating to one Warzone over the others, and even people farming the easiest Warzone. It's also a plus that PVP is pretty damn good, as is the maps.

Stats stats stats! Very simple stats and formulas. Once you get around the language barrier of it being Sci-fi Star Wars instead of fantasy is quite easy to understand. You don't need to be a number cruncher to understand how much of something you need. For example, I need 20% more accuracy to hit 100% of the time with my attacks. WoW is unnecessarily complicated with stats. The equivalent in WoW is I need 791 Expertise rating to get my Expertise to 26 which will translate into a percentage of how often my attacks will not be avoided. Very good how stats are handled. Though I don't quite see why there needs to be a Power and Force Power stat, when Power handles everything. My best guess right now is how they itemized things at endgame, as it could possibly upset the balance on what certain classes can obtain loot if they got rid of Force Power.

Characters:
Dyne :Jedi Guardian
Adol: Jedi Sage


It would be good to see if we can create an Apocalypse Tribe guild on both the republic side and empire, but that's going to depend on the population of ATer's that jump on this *cough getthefuckoncrush&DJ cough*. Don't let FF14 traumatize you, this game is actually really good.





Personally I want Macros for this game. It needs them

I never considered a color bind UI function. I won't make a cynical response about it, but you definitely don't want to downgrade a feature to appease the minority, yet take away from the flexibility of the majority. Something like adjusting color or add different textures to stat bars would be an option.

All those WoW gamers are definitely adjusting to SWTOR's UI, mostly because it doesn't hold your hand. Learn to play, as they say. As for me I have ZERO issues with the UI as it stands, minus the stat-debuff visibility/awareness, which to me would be a nice bonus. Even then I don't "QQ" about it, because I do this radical thing... I look at my buff and debuff bar often *gasp*. On the healer side, there will need to be something to show them larger and more pronounced, since many of the icons are reused and it can be tough for healers. If you have skypee/vent, a quick shout out doesn't hurt either "oh shit I am bleeding Heeelp" or "taunt it off me". I don't always need a UI to tell me taunt something off a team member. Shouldn't I be paying attention to their health bars too? Maybe if I had ADD I could justify the need for giant words popping up on my screen. I am like the one dude in WOW who tried to use as little mods as possible. I would see screenshots of certain people's Mods and I'd think they're on the deck of the starship enterprise, with all this added crap on their screen. After they made the UI changes in Cata, I shut off all my mods and just manned up. Look guys and gals, the SWTOR UI is not perfect and IMO it could use some changes to make things easier, but in the mean time were just going to have to be more visually aware of what's going on and communicate.

To me I always saw Mods as a luxury and shouldn't of been mandatory to play well. I do agree that through the evolution of WoW, changes had to be made to the UI to reflect the increased complexity, but things like deadly boss Mod just totally made boss fights easy. Also, getting one shot wiped because your eyes were in a different part of the screen for 2 seconds isn't exactly "fun" either, so for that purpose I could justify its use.

As for the mini-map vs the world map. Yeah, it annoys me that the world map is so vague, but it seems like it is intentional, as a reason to go out and explore.

Well yeah the color blind issue, like in WoW, Blizzard has ini file settings to change how the game displays colors for the different types of color blindness.


Thing about DBM is that if you are a progression guild, like mine, DBM does not even work properly for hardmodes because top guilds do not submit their combat logs until weeks after stuff has been cleared. So you do it the old fashion way, look through combat log, figure out visual cues, and boss emotes. But WoW is not hard. It really comes down to paying attention, understanding the fight, execute the strategy. Stable connection is a plus too. I wonder why no one mentions boss videos on youtube as to ruining WoW raiding? How do you tune a boss that the majority of raiders are going to just watch a video on how to beat?


A good portion of in my guild use default. I think more than one would think does. A lot of justification for it is that when you pushing new content you don't want stuff breaking in the middle of raids. Or even worrying about updating stuff because it's broken. Me, I just change the look and move stuff out the way to the sides. I keep a clean UI. I don't even need an ability bar because I have the bindings to my abilities memorized. So I keep that out the way and reduce the size.


Another weird thing in SWTOR is when you hold CTRL as if you were using it as a modifier you cannot move. It's because they have CTRL + A bound that can't be unbound currently in the preferences. CTRL + A is a non-functioning Ambiance toggle setting. Me, people in my guild, and a lot of folks on the forums bind their Push-to-talk to CTRL. Freakin annoying at first. Can't DPS or move while talking. I know this will be changed eventually. None of the other modifiers like Shift and Alt work that way.


Who else loves datacrons? Man I love "gamey" stuff in MMORPGs. That's my problem with a lot of MMOs is they don't feel like games to me, but chat rooms with graphics. DC Universe Online added "gamey" stuff with it's challenge mission. Platforming and environmental puzzles in an MMORPG? Great stuff. Even if you have a guide on their location, it still can be challenging to get them. Really good design imo. Though kinda bad design that they are mandatory for endgame. Also, annoying if you roll alts I can imagine. Some of them are a real pain in the ass.