Posted by Lethality | 5 Comments

[UPDATED] High-Scale TOR Beta To Begin End Of June?

This morning on a conference call for William Blair & Company, a Chicago-based investment firm, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello made some interesting remarks in regards to the current and future Game Testing phase of Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Riccitiello noted that a “high scale beta” test of The Old Republic would begin in late June, following that statement up with “the release date would be dependent on the results” of this testing phase.

Now, it’s not clear what “high-scale” means, specifically, and we shouldn’t jump to any conclusions about anything like a public beta, or anything of that sort. But at the very least, we hope it means many more Game Testing invites will be hitting our inboxes.

The conference call is still ongoing (though it covers much beyond EA) and you can listen to it here. It’s possible it will be available later as an audio recording, and we’ll link to it then if that’s the case.

Stay tuned as we work to find our more about this breaking news for The Old Republic!

[UPDATE] We checked with BioWare, and no further comment is available at this time, other than testing is “ongoing.”

[UPDATE #2] The full transcript of the call is now available. A very sloppy transcript.

[UPDATE #3] BioWare Senior Community Manager Stephen Reid made a post on the official forums regarding John Riccitiello’s comments from earlier this morning:

Take a deep breath, everyone…

Game Testing is currently ongoing for Star Wars: The Old Republic. This isn’t news – it’s been ongoing for quite a while. At different points in the process, we have invited a number of people to test. Some of those people tested for short periods, some for longer periods.

We’ve recently transitioned into longer-term and larger-scale testing. We have more people testing the game now than ever before. We are allowing them to play for longer than ever before. We’re also continuing to invite people to test, so if you haven’t signed up for testing yet – now is a good time.

We will be allowing more and more people to test The Old Republic before launch, and that means occasionally we’ll spike in our invite numbers. It doesn’t mean everyone who’s signed up for testing is going to be invited in one block.

What we’re doing now, essentially, is similar to a ‘Closed Beta’ for other MMORPGs, but we call it Game Testing. It’s invite-only, and it’s limited in size. That gives us the most ‘bang for our buck’ in terms of getting meaningful, actionable feedback. However, we’re still ramping up, we’re getting more people in… and we’re still aiming to launch in 2011.

 

 

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Posted by Lethality | 2 Comments

Electronic Arts Q4 2011 Earnings Call – TOR 2nd Half of 2011

At 2:00PM PDT (5:00PM EDT) today, Electronics Arts will hold their quarterly call for investors to report results and provide guidance going forward.

That’s all well and good, you say, but what about TOR?!

Welp, prior to the call, EA releases their financial support documentation, including a list of key upcoming title releases for all platforms. Conspicuously absent from that list proper was Star Wars: The Old Republic, however upon closer inspection, the release chart had a footnote:

Fiscal Year 2012 Key Titles by Label and Platform — this list excludes Star Wars^®: The Old Republic™, which is scheduled to launch in the second half of calendar 2011.

So, with this bit of information, the release date of TOR remains status quo – calendar year 2011.

You can listen to the conference call here for yourself, or follow along here as we liveblog any highlights that might pertain to The Old Republic.

Liveblog:

5:16PM – Guidance assumes Star Wars: The Old Republic will ship in calendar year 2011, with the outside possibility of a January 2012 launch.

5:18PM – Additional guidance does not include Star Wars: The Old Republic, which will launch as a digital service.

5:20PM – Expect significant subscription revenue from Star Wars: The Old Republic

5:24PM – “We close the year with Star Wars: The Old Republic in operation”

5:29PM – “The biggest event of the year” will be the launch of TOR

5:29PM – Subscription-based MMO

5:31PM – Q&A beginning

5:35PM – How long does beta last for TOR? “Typically about 6 month cycle for MMOs”

5:37PM – What’s the high end guidance for Star Wars: The Old Republic? “90 cents per share, but not giving subscriber metrics” “interest in beta highest we’ve ever seen”

5:40PM – Expect to sell some of the clients digitally

5:50PM – Significant capital expenses in FY12 for Star Wars: The Old Republic infrastructure/service

 

 

 

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Posted by Rashiva | 22 Comments

Officially Speaking: The Science Of Release Date Speculation

Welcome to Officially Speaking, a weekly column focused on the most hotly debated  topics ever to grace the official Star Wars: The Old Republic forums. Do you have something to add? Feel like it gets lost in the shuffle over there? Join in the extended discussion right here on Ask A Jedi.

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In the realm of consistently debated, reposted, and ever-expanding threads on the official Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ forums, few come close to achieving the notoriety and sometimes surprising ingenuity of the “Release Window Speculation” topic, which in its current iteration boasts close to 300,000 views. Much of the current zeitgeist seems to center on the frustration of the legions of hopeful beta testers and future players, who had been waiting on the former “Spring 2011” release window until its adjustment earlier this year to a more general “when it’s ready/2011” response from developers.

While much of the conversation tends to devolve into pettiness and bickering, some of the more ingenious posters follow specific criteria and clues to inform their projected release dates; one poster even went so far as to chart out the release date of every major MMO, cross-referencing that data with Bioware’s release dates of former titles to conclude the most likely outcome, all done in an Excel spreadsheet. Unfortunately that particular thread has been buried beyond my powers to retrieve it, but to give a sense of what these more hardcore speculators focus on, let’s take a look at a post by zewi [edited for general readability]:

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Posted by Lethality | 1 Comment

The Old Republic vs. World of Warcraft – Round 2

Another shot has been fired in this recently rekindled war of sorts.

Early on, BioWare made it clear that there’s room enough for everyone in the MMO space and they weren’t out to “kill” anyone. But recent comments from Electronic Arts executives have thrown a little bit of fuel on the competitive fire.

This time around, EA Games’ Frank Gibeau sends a volley toward the Blizzard behemoth.

IndustryGamers.com talked with Gibeau recently and has filed a report on the discussion:

“When I play World of Warcraft, you go and get your quests, and you go and do your quests, but it feels more like doing a shopping list at times,” Gibeau explained. “Our game is more about talking to characters, learning what’s going on, investing in it, getting emotionally attached to it.”

Further, Gibeau is quoted as saying:

“Yes, it’s late, and it’s expensive, but these are tough games, and you’ve got to get them right. You don’t want to ship the game prematurely. It has to be BioWare quality; it will be,” he stated.

Head on over to IndustryGamers.com for the full read!

 

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Posted by Lethality | 2 Comments

Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Due After July 1st, 2011

Arguably, the biggest news out of Boston about TOR in the past few days didn’t come out of PAX East.

If Electronic Arts CFO Eric Brown’s satements at the Lazard Capital Markets Annual Technology & Media Conference in Boston today are accurate, Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ won’t be hitting store shelves (electronic or otherwise) any time before July 1st, 2011.

The fine chaps over at Darth Hater have filed a report based on information learned today during a financial presentation:

Eric Brown: So we said it’s going to launch sometime in calendar, but not within Fiscal 11. So that basically pens down between you know, April 1st and December 31st of this calendar year. It’s also reasonable to infer that it’s not in our Q1 guidance.

This means that the soonest we could see TOR is on July 1st, the beginning of EA’s fiscal second quarter.

So what does this mean for fans who are chomping at the bit to play?

I think it’s important to remember 2011 is BioWare’s target for release. You’ve now got a solid 6 month window for the release. And I don’t think there’s any more time you need to spend thinking about it than that – it’s coming out this year.

The report also quotes EA’s Brown on aspects of Game Testing:

The next phase will be to expand the beta testing. Up until now it’s been kind of the EA friends and family kind of testing program. We need to expand the testing universe to make it more open scalability, back-end systems, etc. Figure out concurrency etc. Where there are choke points on different maps etc., tune it accordingly. We will be increasing the beta.

Head on over to DH for the full transcription of the call as it pertained to The Old Republic, or you can also head over and listen to the audio for yourself right here. (Registration required.)

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