Posted by Cormeister | 4 Comments

Yellow Posts: Origin and the Beta

As we get closer and closer to the release date, developer activity on the forums plummets. This is to be expected since they are all hard at work preparing the game for launch; making final modifications and fixing bugs. As a result, what we have this week on the forums is a lot of talk about beta testing and a few other administrative tidbits.

Once again it seems that people are getting confused as to whether EA’s download service, Origin, will need to be installed in order to play SW:TOR. In the continuation of the thread “Origin Is 100% Not Needed For Tor,” (originally started by CelCawdro) Allison Berryman, Senior Community Coordinator, clarified again that the service is not needed to download, install, update, or play SW:TOR:

Hi everyone! We’ve seen some continuing confusion over this topic. Some of you have quoted text that appears on the Pre-Order Page that indicates you’ll need to install Origin software to download the game. We are working to update the information on that page: you will not be required to install the Origin software in order to download, patch, or play the game (even during Early Game Access). You’ll do that through our own site and launcher.

Some people have been quite confused about when the next beta testing weekend will be. You know, the one where EVERYONE who pre-registered for game testing will be invited to. Responding to his own FAQ post, Stephen Reid, Senior Online Community Manager, let everyone know that the next beta testing weekend is coming…soon:

You’ll be able to play in the next Beta Test Weekend – but we haven’t announced that date, yet. Whenever it is, you’ll play in it. As it says in the FAQ, we’re expecting this future weekend to be the last Beta Testing Weekend.

Additionally, I would highly recommend the official FAQ that Mr. Reid posted about the upcoming, massive, and probably last beta testing weekend. It is sure to answer quite a few of your questions.

The EU got some love in terms of general beta testing invites over the last few days. Responding to a thread started by Darth_Pen and titled “EU Beta update coming today! “, Mr. Reid said that a “significant proportion” of those who have signed up for EU testing have just been invited:

Never assume…

Over the course of today (and possibly into tomorrow) we’re inviting more Game Testers from the EU than we’ve ever invited in a single ‘wave’.

It’s not the entire number we have signed up, but it’s a significant proportion. There will be other invites before launch.

I’d like to point out that not everyone who receives an invite is going to post on the Forums, much as you may want them to…!

Be sure to check www.swtor.com/tester to see if you were one of the lucky few!

And that was the majority of what went on this week. I hope that those of you got a short glimpse of the game over the weekend liked what you saw. Hopefully, a ton of feedback was submitted and the devs will be able to improve the game that much more before launch!

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Posted by Cormeister | 2 Comments

Yellow Posts: Lots of Imperial Agent Information

I’m usually not one to believe in coincidences and the recent postings by a certain developer definitely made me continue that belief. Georg Zoeller, Principal Lead Combat Designer, spent the week leading up to the release of the Imperial Agent Progression Video talking about the Imperial Agent on the forums. Even saying this on Wednesday:

Quote: Originally Posted by Lenali

I took matters into my own hands to find out information about the Imperial Agent. Bioware isn’t going to give us information about the class and i’m willing to bet that they definately won’t give us the progression video until after Swtor is released.

How much are you willing to bet?

Oh you crafty developer you, Mr. Zoeller. I see what you did there ;)

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Posted by Cormeister | 4 Comments

Yellow Posts: Darkside Disfigurement and Tanking

Every week in Yellow Posts, we dive head-first into the depths of the Dev Tracker for you and eek out every tasty developer morsel worthy of your eyeballs. If you’ve missed anything, this is the place to catch up!

This was a pretty slow week for developer posts so I’m going to dip a little bit into last week. I am really looking forward to my Dark side character getting disfigured and misshapen the further he falls to the Dark side. But some people my not share my enthusiasm for a Palpatine-esc visage. Never fear, BioWare has included a feature to toggle off the grissly appearance should you desire. As Georg Zoeller, Principal Lead Combat Designer, explains:

Like ‘Hide head slot’ or ‘Unify colors to chestpiece,’ this is a game option, on by default, which can be toggled on a per character basis.

Forum poster torsjn started a thread titled “I *Really* Hope SR Misspoke Here :(” about something that Stephen Reid, Senior Online Community Manager, said at New York Comic Con.  Basically he said that the Shadow/Assassin ACs are off-tanks which was a departure from what we had heard before regarding tanking in SW:TOR. Torsin was understandably confused, and Georg Zoeller provided clarification on Mr. Reid’s remarks:

Nope.

By design, all tank capable ACs can spec to be fully capable main tanks.

There are no ‘off tanks’ unless you intentionally spend your skill points into different trees.

So, no need to worry, every class can main tank unless the player chooses talents specifically to off-tank. Stephen Reid also clarified his statements a little bit later:

As you’ll see from Georg’s latest posts, I did mis-speak. My tanking experience is limited (in MMOs generally; as I said in the interview, I’m a DPS lad) and I did point that out in the interview.

I think my confusion came from playing a Sith Assassin in our Eternity Vault demo many, many times, who was specced to be an off-tank, not main tank. However, as Georg has now corrected me on, that’s not a limitation of the AC, it’s a choice on the part of the player.

Sorry if I confused everyone for a minute. This is what happens when you ask questions of the Community Manager that are better suited to the development team. It’s not their fault that they can’t make it to every show, we want to keep them hard at work on the game. 

Apparently, Amazon.de reported (for a time) that the release date was sometime in April 2012. Jasdemi got an email from them saying that the release date had changed which was quite strange, he though. So it took to the forums and asked about it. Stephen Reid responded, saying that this was just an error in Amazon.de’s system:

…our release date has not changed.

According to our investigation there was some confusion between Amazon.de’s warehouse and the main site, hence the update.

Nothing’s changed regarding our release date. To ease confusion and to ensure this is the last message anyone sees in this thread, I’m closing this now.

Until next week, keep the yellow text flowing.

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