Posted by Lethality | 24 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: What Month Will TOR Release?

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!

Heading into PAX this week, we thought it would be a great time to take the pulse of the communuty and do a release date check! The Penny Arcade Expo is the last major gaming convention in the US remaining in the release window for Star Wars: The Old Republic, which as of right now is still “Holiday 2011”. There are still other events on the schedule, but arguably none of them have the hutzbah of PAX!

Obviously, as of this writing we don’t know what announcements will come out of PAX, but assuming one of them isn’t a release date, that will leave 4 full months left in 2011 in which BioWare can meet its stated launch goal. September is unlikely, as that’s been stated when Beta Weekends will be taking place. Realistically, that leaves 3 months.

So today’s question is simple… what month do you think TOR will finally launch? I’m not sure there’s an 0ffical Vegas line on the odds, but we knew the TOR community will have lots to say on the topic! Let’s hear it!

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Posted by Lethality | 13 Comments

Guild Beta Testing Underway + Release Date Hiding In Plain Sight?

Thanks to TORSyndicate’s recent chat with BioWare’s Dynamic Community Duo Stephen Reid and David Bass, we learned that guild beta testing of Star Wars: The Old Republic will be starting soon!

David Bass: In addition to Phase 2, we’re also going to be starting up a guild testing program. We’re obviously continuing to expand our invites for testing and we’re going to start including guilds in that list.

And now, thanks to Twitter it’s been confirmed that guild testing is indeed underway!

David Bass: Yes, #swtor Guild Testing has started. We’ll make a post soon with all the details. Please do not contact any of us with invite requests :)

This is no doubt a huge milestone in the development and testing process for TOR!

So let this serve as fair warning for guilds anxious to test Star Wars: The Old Republic to stay tuned to the official forums, Twitter, fan sites and maybe even CNN to get the information you need to get your guild on the invite list!

In other, non-related news, Stephen Reid posted some pics from the gamescom show floor this morning, and we thought we saw something suspicious etched on the hand of European Community Manager Chris Collins, so we took a closer look.

Shockingly, we learned those sneaky devils were hiding the juiciest piece of information in PLAIN SIGHT! Behold our discovery of the release date for Star Wars: The Old Republic in the diagram below!

Stay tuned for gamescom coverage from Ask A Jedi all week long, beginning Tuesday at 10AM EDT with the EA Press Conference right here!

 

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Posted by Lethality | 21 Comments

Beta Test Weekends In September – Holiday Launch

Electronic Arts issued a press release today celebrating the beginning of the pre-order program for Star Wars: The Old Republic. But there were several other interesting tidbits in there.

First, was the announcement of Beta Test Weekends beginning in September:

As anticipation grows, BioWare also proudly announced today that Star Wars: The Old Republic will open “Beta Test Weekends” starting this September. These weekend play sessions will be open to selected players worldwide and create an opportunity for fans to get a sneak peek of the epic stories, worlds, quests, battles and characters in the game.

Next, BioWare Co-Founder Dr. Ray Muzyka made the following statement looking forward to launching for the holiday season:

“We are targeting Star Wars: The Old Republic to be one of the biggest launches of holiday 2011,” said Dr. Ray Muzyka, Group General Manager and Co-Founder, BioWare and Senior Vice President, Electronic Arts.

This should give fans of The Old Republic a little more to look forward to, and a more solid release window.

Click here to read the entire release. We’ll have more information as it develops…

Thanks to @jfollm for the tip!

 

 

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Posted by ReDDoT | 8 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: What Would You Like In A Collectors Edition Of TOR??

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!

As we found out earlier this week in BM&C, many of you are expecting the collector’s edition details and a release date as part of the announcements coming from BioWare at SDCC this week. The community has been buzzing over the last couple of days, as there is a huge amount of speculation currently present on the SW:TOR official forums. Even Stephen Reid, on his Twitter feed, had to make a remark about all the ongoing speculation on the forums with the following:

For those demanding answers: this the ‘wait’ part of ‘wait and see’. (And btw, no, I don’t need Polish/Spanish help, thx. :) )

This makes the wait even more intriguing and interesting! Collector’s editions of various games are always considered the ultimate versions of the game,  and are made with the hard-core fan in mind. Most of the time, these editions include a bunch of physical goodies likes art books, soundtracks, maps and other collectibles. In addition to that, especially in MMO games, a collectors edition usually gives players some unique in-game items that will set him apart from the crowd. Of course, most of the time these items are purely cosmetic – but they are really awesome to have nonetheless!

Personally – I am extremely excited for SSDC, regardless of what it will bring to us. If we do get some information on the collector’s edition and perhaps (gasp!) something about the mythical release date – this will take me to new levels of happiness and hopefully set me straight on which version of the game I will purchase. I also have complete faith in BioWare that they will make the CE worth it by including something that is awesome as both physical item(s), as well as an in-game item(s). So as Stephen Reid said himself – “wait and see!“.

What about you? What do you want to see in the collectors edition? Is there a particular item you’d like to see? Do you think you will be getting a collector’s edition? Let us know!

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Posted by Lethality | 9 Comments

Analyst Postulates Star Wars: The Old Republic Is Coming In November

An recent article in financial publication Barron’s has analyst speculation that Star Wars: The Old Republic will be released this coming November.

You must be a subscriber to read the full article, but thanks to the Galactic Holofeed, we have the pertinent quote/excerpt:

We are officially moving the expected Star Wars launch from September to November. PopCap is not the key to getting ERTS right. We like this acquisition, but this is not going to make or break your ERTS trade this year. The success of Star Wars and Battlefield, on the other hand, will. All eyes now shift to them.

Now, it’s important to point out that this is not a statement from EA or BioWare, or “inside info” obtained by Barron’s. It’s complete and total speculation on the part of the analyst. Analysts like to predict a lot of things, because it’s their job. But even industry analyst Michael Pachter points out he’s “occasionally right.”

We the fans know that BioWare has said the game will release in the second half of 2011, and that gives anyone who wants to just about a 20% chance of guessing the launch month correctly. Either way, we’re in the final countdown. Who needs these analysts anyway?

Source: Galactic Holofeed

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