Posted by Lethality | 5 Comments

Friday Update: Biggest Beta Weekend – You’re All Invited! Plus DreamHack

In case you were wondering what Blaine Christine meant at PAX when he said “pretty much all of you should be getting into a Beta Weekend at some point or another”, now we know!  BioWare has just posted notification that an upcoming beta weekend will include EVERYONE who has signed up prior to November 11th:

How can you take part in this coming Beta Test Weekend? Well, for starters we are happy to announce that anyone who has signed up for our Game Testing Program prior to today, November 11th, will get invited! Invites will be sent in the coming weeks.

In addition, if you hadn’t signed up, there are sites all across the gaming web that will be running a special program, allowing you to get an invite as well! Click here to find a list of those sites.

Additionally, BioWare announced a big ‘ol SW:TOR LAN party to take place at DreamHack in Sweden later this month:

BioWare and LucasArts will be attending the event this year to give people the chance to play Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ before its worldwide launch on December 20th.

The countdown is on folks, less than 40 days to go until we’re all playing Star Wars: The Old Republic!

[UPDATE] BioWare has added an FAQ about this upcoming beta weekend: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=10672193#edit10672193

 

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Posted by Lethality | 29 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: There Is A Beta. Are You In It?

No day would be complete without the breakfast of Jedi: Blue Milk & Cereal.  Every morning, the team at Ask A Jedi will get Force-induced thoughts coursing through your head with delicious issues from around the galaxy! Join in the discussion below to make your voice heard!

It’s no secret Game Testing for Star Wars: The Old Republic has been going on for some time now. Luckily for fans, it’s also no secret that BioWare has been ramping up the number of players they’re inviting to these tests. As a matter of fact, earlier this week at the Fan Site Summit, Senior Community Manager Stephen Reid mentioned that the number of players invited to Beta Weekend #3 is staggering. In addition, European players are getting into the mix more than ever, with a new set of General Game Testing going out just yesterday.

With all of that in mind, there’s a good chance that many of you reading this have been on the receiving end of one of these invites! Ask A Jedi and other fan sites have audiences that are made up of pretty core fans of the game, so it might mean that there’s a higher percentage here than in the general gamer population, but it will be interesting to see.

So today’s question is, have you ever been invited to any phase of Game Testing so far? Be it a weekend, or be it longer… let us know!

But remember, you can’t talk about specifics and any NDA-breaking stuff. All you can say if you so choose is “there is a beta, and I am in it!”

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Posted by Lethality | 28 Comments

Beta Testing Weekend #3 Incoming!

In the midst of all the hoopla of the Fan Site Summit here in Austin this week, BioWare announced that the third, and by far most massive Beta Testing Weekend so far is slated to go down soon!

Senior Community Coordinator Allison Berryman posted the details earlier today:

Invitations are being sent for a weekend test this weekend!

Sent Nov. 8: Beta Testing Weekend #3 Invites

Who was invited: Testers from North America

What was sent: Beta Weekend #3 Invites

Server locations: US East Coast

Invite status: We are currently in the process of sending these invites, and will continue throughout this evening.

It was mentioned during the closing minutes of the Fan Site Summit that the scale of this test is truly massive, so good luck to all! It was mentioned that this was limited to North America due to the need to see large concurrency numbers at the same time, rather than spread out across time zones.

Remember, if you are unsure about an email you get, you can always go to http://swtor.com/tester and log in with your account to verify your acceptance into the Game Testing program!

 

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Posted by Momus | 7 Comments

Press Embargo Drops Tomorrow

IGN has posted an article that many readers here will appreciate:

IGN has been tooling around in the Old Republic beta for the last week or two, and we’re just about ready to spew forth (in the best way possible) a whole heap of information. Tomorrow at 9 AM Pacific you can look forward to a pile of new content. Then starting Monday (the 24th) and lasting through to Friday (the 28th) we’ll be posting a brand new Old Republic article every. Single. Day.

If you pay attention to the Developer Twitter feed (just to the right of the first article on the site), you have probably seen these Steven Reid’s warnings already, but in the interest of presenting the information in one place, here are the relevant tweets:

@Rockjaw As others have noted, we have a press embargo on #SWTOR dropping tomorrow. We’ve had press in for a while. Testers are still under NDA.

@Rockjaw That means if you’re in testing, you’re still bound by NDA. Only press who have been admitted will be sharing their impressions.

@Rockjaw Watch the @SWTOR account for retweets of coverage btw.

@Rockjaw Simple rule on press embargoes: unless you’ve been told you’re under embargo, you’re a tester. Ergo, no, you can’t talk about the game.

 

To wit: starting tomorrow, press entities that have been in the game (such as IGN, Buffed.de, etc) and testing will be allowed to cover the game free of any binding contracts. Next week, the 24th – 28th, IGN will be covering SW:TOR with a new article daily, so pay special attention there.

However, if you are currently in testing (or did the weekend tests), this means nothing for you; you are still under the NDA. Do not violate this! Reid has made it clear that you will face his wrath should you dare tread those waters.

Unfortunately, Ask A Jedi and other fan sites aren’t categorized as “press” so we won’t have anything to share but enthusiasm, and coverage of the coverage! But, just maybe, that will change soon ;)

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Posted by Lethality | 12 Comments

Game Testing Update + Beta Weekend #2 October 7th

In case you missed it, BioWare has stepped up their communication to fans about the Game Testing invite process and timing.

Yesterday BioWare Senior Community Manager Stephen Reid posted a thread o the official forums that serves to function as an “invite news ticker” of sorts. In the first post of the thread, you can quickly see what kind of invites were sent, who they were sent to and when they were sent

Then today, to the jubilation of many TOR fans, that thread was updated with new information! First, new Game Testing invites have gone out for players around the globe. Second, Beta Weekend #2 begins this weekend, October 7th, and invites have also gone out for that as well:

Beta Testing Weekends for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ began earlier this month and during our first weekend, we invited more players into testing than we’ve ever invited before in a single weekend! Now we’re getting ready for another Beta Testing Weekend, starting on October 7th and finishing on October 10th. With increased invite numbers from the first weekend, even more of you will get to play The Old Republic.

It appears that quite a few people have been invited, so if you haven’t already go check your email, or better yet simply log in to swtor.com/tester to see if you’ve been selected!

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