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Some Clarity Emerges: Bioware on Oceanic access

July 25, 2011 by

What a few days it has been. The threads continue unabated on the official forums on the staggered release issue. Until now the only response has come in intermittent tweets from Stephen Reid whilst wrangling the masses at Comic-Con.

Today, one of the other Senior Community Coordinators, Allison Berryman, has posted a response to the ongoing concerns. Although it only repeats the tweets from over the weekend, it at least puts a more official backbone behind them:

Hello everyone. We know that you have questions about this topic, and we hope to have more clarification for you all very soon. For those who may not have seen Stephen Reid’s tweets from this weekend regarding some of these subjects, I’d like to share that information here.

Regarding whether the game will block players from some regions by IP address: currently, there is no plan to block players from the game by regional IP blocking. Playing on servers physically distant from your location might mean you experience some issues with latency, but at this time we don’t plan on blocking players from a region by IP. On a similar note, anyone who pre-orders the game (and redeems their code) would receive the early access that is part of that pre-order.

We are continuing to investigate payment methods (specifically regarding credit cards billing addresses), and should have a definitive answer on the topic very soon.

I know you’ve probably seen this link a ton already, but please make sure to consult the pre-order FAQ if you have any questions related to pre-order (aside from these that we’re investigating). We really appreciate your patience as we get more information for you.

So there’s a little more clarity than 72 hours ago:

1. You can order the game from overseas.
2. You will get early access as per the conditions of the pre-order program.
3. There will be no IP blocking / regional blocking of those who order from overseas.
4. You’ll be able to pay your subscription via PayPal
5. Regional blocking of credit cards for payment remains an unknown but will be clarified in coming days.

It’s overall a small step toward setting some groundwork for the future. Hopefully the communication continues to improve – it’s hard for it to go a lot further backwards…

Over to you: what’s your thoughts?

UPDATE: Allison Berryman has clarified the credit card issue:

Hello everyone! We have some more information regarding subscription payment options.

Currently, any payment method supported by EA in a particular country will be accepted for subscription payments for Star Wars: The Old Republic. This includes major credit cards. We will provide further information as we approach launch. As we have mentioned previously, if you choose to play on a server that is physically distant from your location, you may experience latency issues that impact your gameplay experience.

Thanks again for your continued patience as we continue to answer your questions and provide clarification on these topics.

Filed Under: News, Opinion Tagged With: ,

Regionally locked out of SWTOR? Maybe not

July 24, 2011 by

Well it’s as close to ‘official’ as we’re likely to get over the weekend. Darth Hater posed a question to Stephen Reid at the San Diego Comic Con, on the pre-order shenanigans in the 50+% of the world not included. The question and answer:

Darth Hater: We know that publishers have a variety of problems when trying to launch a game overseas that range from regional politics, ratings boards, server infrastructure, localization, distribution, and more. Why did you choose not to launch in certain regions?

Stephen Reid: The answer is “none of the above.” We didn’t make that decision because of ratings board issues, localization or whatever else. What it ultimately comes down to is simple, but it is kind of a difficult concept to grasp: it is about quality of service. We know the level of demand for Star Wars: The Old Republic is pretty much unprecedented in MMO history. We know realistically the number of players we can deal with on launch day and the launch period. We made the difficult decision to say the player experience is paramount. We don’t want them to have a bad experience on launch day. And that led inevitably to certain decisions and one of them was reducing the number of territories we go into at launch.

The process of putting a boxed product in any territory is difficult. The process of deciding whether or not we want to put regional services into an area is also difficult. So it is a combination of a lot of different factors, but ultimately it comes down to the two competing factors: one is demand for the game, and two is what we can supply at that level of service we really want to give. And this is the result. We understand many people want to play the game from all around the world, and we’re absolutely going to get to as many territories as we can over time, but we’re not ready to commit to a specific time frame on that yet.

There’s certainly no hint of a change of tack in regards to the issue, which isn’t a great surprise. Over on Twitter, Reid has also made a mention of the concern that credit cards from regions not able to pre-order locally would be blocked if they chose to pay a subscription that way after securing a copy of the game from overseas:

So to sum up: you can still try buying from an overseas retailer and it seems you’ll be able to play the game if you’re happy to pay your subs via PayPal or you are willing to wait on the above information.

As we discussed in detail on the podcast last night, it just seems really strange that these issues weren’t foreseen before the pre-order launch. We also discussed the fact that it’s understandable that Bioware want to create a good experience via a staggered release. Using geography as the filter is the cause of the majority of issues. A random allocation may have just worked a little better…

Over to you: do you feel there’s more certainty around the issue or not?

Filed Under: News Tagged With:

Oceanic release for SWTOR: the state of play 24 hours on

July 22, 2011 by

Wow, what a period of 24 hours it’s been. Since the launch of the SWTOR pre-order scheme, with it’s exclusion of Oceanic areas, Asia and South America (as well as parts of Europe), it’s fair to say the reaction has been…animated. The official forums have a rather large thread on the issue, and there’s no shortage of activity on Facebook (including a protest) and Twitter. It’s always difficult to summarise a situation as fluid as this, but here it goes:

1. You can order box copies of SWTOR from online retailers in the US or anywhere willing to sell them. Reports are that the Collector’s edition is sold out across most online retailers.

2. Although Bioware’s Stephen Reid gave some encouragement on the abilility to play the game if you get a copy, he’s put some disclaimers around it in the past 30 minutes:

3. Oceanic retailers who have listed pre-orders appear not to have any basis in fact for assuming deliveries of the game at this stage.

4. There is absolutely no information on when there would be local availability and when full access to the game would occur.

So there you have it – it seems there’ll be no further update until around 24 hours time i.e. after another day of Comic Con is done. We’re devoting tomorrow’s Flash Point podcast to the issue and we’re investigating a live stream so stay tuned.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: ,

Oceanic players: no local pre-orders

July 21, 2011 by

Well, pre-orders for Star Wars: The Old Republic are now up and running, and unfortunately for any Oceanic players, there’s no local options for us to take part. The pre-orders offer three options:

1. Collector’s Edition

As mentioned yesterday this is a mighty nice piece of gear. A whole bunch of US / UK and European options are given, but none for Asia, South America or Oceanic players.

2. Digital pre-order via EA’s Origin Service

This graphic says it all if you try this route as an Oceanic player:

3. ‘Normal’ boxed edition

See point 1.

Some key points

Aside from the obvious disappointment, there’s some key issues that need to be emphasised:

a. This does not mean we won’t be able to play the game: you can obviously order the game from overseas. I’ve asked Bioware to confirm that such orders are valid i.e. that there’ll be no regional / IP block on regions taking part in playing. The Oceanic server issue seems a little optimistic at this stage to say the least – we’ll let you know of any response on the stance with ordering from overseas.

b. It appears there will be a staggered release: according to the pre-order FAQ:

c. No-one particularly cares but us: there is the reality of being part of a ‘smaller’ region. There’s just no urgency around this for anyone but the people affected. That said, South America and all of Asia are in the same boat.

d. If preordering from overseas: there’s a few glitches in the links to pre-order retailers. Amazon US’ site lists SWTOR as being for Mac and Windows. Amazon UK says it’s not available at all. Find a retailer that suits you and go from there. I’ve done a pre-order but with the full awareness of the (small) risk that I may not be able to play it if there’s some sort of regional block on playing. I still can’t see that happening though. This Tweet from Stephen Reid puts paid to the idea:

As does this follow-up to an Aussie SWTOR player’s question:

e. It’s just a game: I’ve already seen a lot of aggro over this issue expressed on the forums, Twitter and via emails we’ve received already today. It’s understandable but at the end of the day it’s a game. Don’t do anything rash and don’t make threats – that’s a surefire way to alienate people from the get-go.

As I mentioned above we’ve submitted some questions to Bioware on the issue. Given they’re in the middle of San Diego Comic Con I can’t see a prompt response but you never know.

Over to you: what’s your take on the situation?

Update: Stephen Reid has started a new thread on the SWTOR forums with this post:

To all of our fans outside of North America and Europe:

Today we’ve announced the pre-order details for the initial launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic, and as you may now know, we’ve taken the difficult but necessary decision to limit our initial launch supply for the game. BioWare and LucasArts are completely focused on building an exceptional game and an exceptional game service to go with it. We decided to constrain our launch capacity to ensure we deliver a great experience to every player.

Part of the reason this decision was made was because of the overwhelming demand for The Old Republic, and we’re humbled by that level of excitement and anticipation. We fully intend to deliver to you an amazing game when we expand our service post-launch, but right now we cannot commit to any timeframe for when that may happen. As soon as we have more information about additional launches in more territories, we’ll let you know.

We are committed to delivering Star Wars: The Old Republic to BioWare and Star Wars fans around the world, and to growing a truly global community.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: ,

SWTOR box-shots and more ‘wait and see’

July 20, 2011 by

Lots of excitement overnight about some Spanish and Polish websites showing pre-order information and box shots of Star Wars: The Old Republic. One of the more fascinating ones (labeled as ‘work-in-progress art‘) is this shot of the Collector’s Edition pre-order:

For what it’s worth I love the look of the whole set and on first look it’s convinced me to fork out for the Collector’s Edition. Although it may only be a mock-up, for that it’s looking mighty nice. There’s also plenty of dicussion about some boxes already shipping and release dates coming up close. Here’s hoping, but I think both should be taken with an enormous grain of salt.

Bioware’s response to the pics has been a little more jovial than I expected. Senior Community Manager for SWTOR, Stephen Reid, posted this in response:

So it seems that San Diego Comic Con could be one interesting platform for announcements. We’ll be covering those in detail here and on this weekend’s Flash Point podcast.

Over to you: do you like what you see?

A big thanks to Darkflare on the forums for the initial heads-up: you can hear him as a guest on this week’s podcast as well.

Update: Kotaku amongst many others, have a run down of what they believe the collector’s edition contains:

Exclusive Gentle Giant Darth Malgus statue
Star Wars: The Old Republic game disks in collectible metal case
The Journal of Master Gnost-Dural annotated by Satele Shan
Old Republic galaxy map
Custom Security Authentication Key
Exclusive Music of Star Wars: The Old Republic CD
High-quality collector’s edition box

Includes 7 additional digital items:

Flare Gun: Fires flares into the air.
Training Droid: Hovers at your side for combat assistance.
HoloDancer: Project your own holographic dancer.
HoloCam: Keep visual records of in-game adventures.
STAP: Sleek and unique in-game vehicle.
Exclusive Mouse Droid: Spunky droid to join your adventures.
Exclusive Collector’s Edition Store: Unique in-game vendor with a dynamic assortment of items.

What’s not to like?

Filed Under: News, Opinion Tagged With: ,

You’re our only hope: 3D holograms are here!

July 18, 2011 by

Well not really, but this demonstration of an iPad, Microsoft Kinect and a sense of adventure, shows how it won’t be that long before we can record our own distress messages and save them to a droid.

Have a look for yourself:

[via Gizmodo Australia]

Filed Under: News Tagged With: ,

Class intros and Q&A goodness

July 17, 2011 by

Comic-Con, Class intros, and  Community Q&A are all on the menu for this week’s update. Comic-Con kicks off Wednesday July 20th for a three hour preview night, then on Thursday the real fun begins.

 At 3:30PM on Thursday, July 21st our panel for Star Wars: The Old Republic will be held inside room #6BCF

– Bioware

 

Bioware will also be taking over the Hilton Gaslamp Quarter Hotel, having plenty of hands on with SWTOR and also holding a Q&A session. Bioware will be holding hands on sessions on four different days, Thursday through Saturday 12:00pm to 7:00pm. On Sunday they shut it down at 5:30.

Senior Video Editor Bryan Arndt takes us through this week’s studio insider on creating the class intro videos. The design team sat down and watched all six intros to the Star Wars saga, analyzing every second. After reviewing all six they decided to go with Empire Strikes Back as the template for the crawl in the intro videos. Arndt says the hardest part was getting the angle of the crawl right, among the complexities of the crawl dealing with exacting the color of text to the speed and margin used. After the crawl was designed they started work on the cinematic aspects of each class and go into detail about the Sith Warrior and Republic Smuggler. The Sith’s intro is a simplistic styled view very reminiscent of the movies with a larger destroyer cruising into the top of the screen. As the Destroyer comes into view a lone shuttle descends from the destroyer and blasts towards Korriban.

The Smuggler”s intro is much more intricate, involving the Smuggler breaking through a Sith blockade around Ord Mantell to get supplies to the Republics troops. The intro has the Smuggler pulling off fancy maneuvers while out-flying a Sith fighter, very cool cinematic start for the Smuggler.

As usual the Q&A is just too long for me to cover all of it so be sure to read the entire Article here on SWTOR’s official site. Here’s a taste:

Q: Will the NPCs have monologues or dialogues with each other that players can hear while walking nearby? – mmZero

A: Yes, they will. As in other BioWare games, ambient conversation is a part of the world and will help the player tune into the general goings-on of his or her surrounding area. Companions will sometimes voice their thoughts and opinions as well, as you travel the different worlds in The Old Republic.

I really enjoyed this in… well, every Bioware game, especially Dragon Age and Mass Effect. It really adds to the immersion and lore of the game – glad to see it made the cut.

Q: How many voice actors voiced this game? – DigitalMaster

A: We are working with a very large number of voice actors… possibly more than any other game made so far. Recent counts put the number at over nine hundred actors across all three languages, and that number is still growing.

Over 900…. Wow.

Q: Does The Old Republic use any of Ben Burrt’s original sound effects from the films? – MorgonKara

A: We’re definitely tapping into some of Ben Burtt’s classic material and integrating it into the game in different ways, sometimes as a layering approach and sometimes processing it to make something new. You’ll definitely hear some of his original material from the films too (it wouldn’t be Star Wars without it)!

Q: What percentage of the in-game music is original for The Old Republic and what percentage has already been used elsewhere (movies, other games, etc.)? – Nahte

A: We’ve written a huge amount of original music for the game. There are over six hours of original score that have been produced specifically for The Old Republic, plus an additional hour and a half of brand new cantina music. In addition to the original score, you’ll also hear the scores for both Knights of the Old Republic I and Knights of the Old Republic II. Lastly, the game just wouldn’t be complete without John Williams’ material from the Star Wars films.

Now these two questions are hand in hand for me. John Williams makes Star Wars what it is, his music drives the emotions that run so deep in the films. The lesser known Ben Burrt had just as much impact on the movies – his sounds are so iconic that SWTOR would be missing out on not using/sampling from them.

 

Alec “Dekin” Bailey signing out. For the Republic!

 

Filed Under: News, Opinion Tagged With: , ,

2012 Release Date for Star Wars: The Old Republic? Someone thinks so

July 15, 2011 by

Narboon, an eagle-eyed Aussie SWTOR fan spotted this little gem in a Queensland EB Games store today:

Now I’m going to jump in at the first opportunity to state the obvious: this could be pure guesswork by EB Games. Alternatively it could be an indication of the release year for the game for Oceanic players. We’ve asked the ever-helpful folks at Bioware for their thoughts and will update with anything that comes forth.

 

Update from David B at Bioware:

No date is official unless you hear it from us. Retailers use placeholder dates all the time, this isn’t news.

Filed Under: News

Flash Point 11: Boba Fett Was A Bad Guy

July 11, 2011 by

A fun-packed episode covering everything from the danger of firearms through to a discussion on adding a third amigo/amigoette to the Flash Point Team.

Points of discussion:

– Bounty Hunter character progression
– Maps in SWTOR
– San Diego Comic Con and potential announcements
– Oceanic release update
– Oceanic servers
– Discussion on adding someone else to the podcast team
– Google Plus
– An ad hoc Skype video chat to determine what we each look like!
– Thanks to our iTunes Store podcast reviewers
– Shout outs for our forums, Facebook page, Oceanic Guild listing, and Twitter account.

Listen via iTunes or right here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 43:33 — 59.8MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Filed Under: News, Podcast Tagged With: , , , ,

I’m the Map, I’m the Map!

July 10, 2011 by

Georg Zoeller posed a simple question to the design team: “Which part of the user interface is opened more than any other when playing Star Wars™: The Old Republic™?” It was a simple question, but the answer wasn’t any of the UI parts you might expect: not our character sheet, inventory or the Crew Skills window. No, the winner was the World Map. And it won easily – by more than an order of magnitude.

– Damion Schubert

This week Damion Schubert, Principal Lead System Designer for Star Wars: The Old Republic™ takes us through the tremendous task of building, functionality, and utility of maps for SWTOR. Maps are extremely important in any game, even more so in a MMO. Thousands of players on planets up to six times larger than any “Zone” on other MMO’s all trying to find their way across new and familiar worlds alike is a daunting task for a map maker.

The map process starts with a designer drawing a “Trigger Box”  that allows the designer to render only the objects inside the trigger box, then this basic map image goes through revision and enhancement several times to remove any objects that are misleading or were accidentally rendered that shouldn’t be there:

The end result is that we have maps that can show astonishing details about the game world. Chairs, crates, statues – all manner of items show up on the map from a birds-eye view, giving the player a real sense of where they are in the world.

– Schubert

 

Everyone hates searching for a quest objective for hours only to realize you’re in the wrong  section of the zone, and I personally don’t like a giant exclamation mark telling me the exact location – it kinda takes the point out of the quest. In SWTOR it looks like they’ve found a good balance by utilizing a semi-transparent circle around an area of the map that your quest objective can be found, so it still takes some searching but not aimless wandering.

The Breadcrumb system is another mechanism the designers at Bioware have added to make the traversing of massive planets a little less arduous. The Breadcrumb system works by showing the fastest routes to your active quest, which on most MMOs would be a nice add-on but on SWTOR it looks like this will be a extremely helpful tool. SWTOR has much larger “Zones” or “Worlds” than other MMOs, many with a lot of indoor complexes and entire planets that are cities. Schubert compares these to other MMO “Dungeons”, so navigating these could turn into a tedious task. The Breadcrumb system shows you which exits, tunnels, doors, and transit systems to take to get you into the action and back to your quest.

The last thing Schubert talks about is the ability to see your party members quests on your map and any shared quests (when hovered over with your mouse) shows all party mebers who currently have that quest. Combine this with the Breadcrumb system and the fact that your map goes partially transparent when your moving, makes it very easy to streamline chains of quests and side missions for grinding/static grouping.

May the Force be with you.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: ,

Oceanic release dates: no news is what news?

July 5, 2011 by

In the few weeks since the rumours surfaced of a delayed oceanic release for SWTOR, there’s been no shortage of debate, with some lengthy threads still discussing the issue on the official forums.

Unfortunately things are no clearer than when the issue arose and although I remain semi-confident the rumours may not translate into reality, that confidence has waned a little over the last fortnight. We’re still trying to get some more clarity so stay tuned.

In the meantime, here’s a story I’ve written for the ABC’s Technology site – there’s nothing exciting in it for the avid SWTOR follower but it’s a useful overview of the issue for a beginner.

Image courtesy of Dead Cow Girl.

Filed Under: News, Opinion Tagged With: ,

Bounty Hunter Progression – ugly killing

July 2, 2011 by

Feared and respected throughout the galaxy for the unrivaled ability to track their targets, Bounty Hunters must learn new skills to compliment the powerful armor and weapons they will acquire on their missions

– SWTOR

This week Bioware brings us the Bounty Hunter progression video. The progression  videos are always some of my favorite updates, they let you get a glimpse at your favorite character or nemesis, and usually a glimpse at some abilities we haven’t seen or have only seen very little of.

Ths progression video starts just like all of the previous ones, showing a Bounty Hunter on his starting planet in his basic starter gear.  The low level bounty hunter shows off some of his skills such as a stun dart and a jet pack uppercut. The second set of armor shown in the progression video is very cool, resembling an assassin complete with a face covering turban – reminds me of an Immortal from 300 without the mask. The masked bounty hunter shows off some more skills including a wrist rocket and his iconic flamethrower.

The video then branches into the Advanced Classes the first being the Powertech. The Powertech’s first set of gear looks like it was inspired by the Mandalorian Crusader gear. The Powertech shows off his carbonite spray, Grappling Hook, and spinning Flamethrower. The second Powertech shown is a more heavily armored character, easily identifiable as a “Tank”. The second Powertech uses the jetpack to get airborne then rains down blaster bolts followed by a wrist rocket before floating back to the ground. He then shows how the bounty hunter can close the range gap to utilize his flamethrower and carbonite freeze by way of a jetpack powered punch. After the Bounty Hunter gets into close range in this segment of the video he dodges some swings from a lightsaber then uses a melee weapon on his wrist to dispatch the Jedi.

The progression video then switches to the Bounty Hunters second advanced class – the Mercenary. A damage dealer who can also walk the path of healing, the first Mercenary gear looks like an armored Calo Nord, with the goggles and duel blaster pistols. The abilities the lower level Mercenary shows off are a damage shield and the Jetpack rocket. The second gear set shown for the Mercenary is very Madalorian looking, personally I think the best Bounty Hunter gear so far. The Mercenary shows off some pretty cool abilities including a short range explosion skill, some sort of altered fire on his blaster pistol causing them to fire green blaster bolts that looked as though they were homing bolts, a dual wrist rocket and again using the flying uppercut.

This progression video is one of the better ones released – a very cool update. The Bounty Hunter should be a great character to play or a deadly enemy for us Republic players, Either way I am excited to meet the Bounty Hunter on the battlefield, be it a Tanking PowerTech or a DD Mercenary.

As always may the Force be with you.

 

Filed Under: News, Opinion Tagged With: ,
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