Nov 25, 2011

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Blue Milk & Cereal: So, Are You Gonna Play Some TOR This Weekend?

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!

The day has arrived! Literally millions of players have been waiting to get their hands on Star Wars: The Old Republic, and beginning today they will get their chance – from the comfort of their own home!

The massive beta weekend, known as an “open beta” in other MMO circles begins later today and while it’s technically invite-only, everyone who has signed up on SWTOR.com has been invited, in addition to hundreds of thousands of others via beta key giveaways from various gaming sites. It’s safe to say this will likely be the largest MMO beta test in history.

What remains to be seen, however, is if this is the last beta weekend – or for that matter, the end of the entire Game Testing program. Will BioWare continue testing right up until launch?

So today’s question is pretty simple! Are you going to be playing this weekend? Do you have time set aside? Or are you going to fight the urge and hold out for the official release?

Are you going to play TOR in this weekend's "open" beta?

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Nov 18, 2011

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Blue Milk & Cereal: Do You Think The NDA Will Be Dropped Next Weekend?

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!

We’re in the home stretch, folks. The launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic is imminent (relatively speaking, of course!)

As part of the race to the finish line, most developers hold large open tests to get as many people as possible to stress their systems and BioWare is no different. Next weekend will be the closest thing to an open beta you can have. Everyone that has signed up on SWTOR.com before November 11th will get invited (that’s over 2 million people!) and if for some reason you didn’t, you can get a free weekend key from almost any mainstream gaming site around the net.

Currently, BioWare is still keeping the NDA in place, which restricts what players who have played the game can say in public forums. But with so many players being invited next weekend, is there even a point to it anymore?

Today’s question is simple: Will BioWare drop the NDA on or before next weekend’s big beta test? Let us know!

Do you think the NDA will be dropped for next weekend's all-hands-in beta?

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Nov 17, 2011

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Next Beta Weekend: November 25-28 – As Open As It Gets

Although not yet otherwise formally announced, BioWare has dropped a pretty strong hint on Twitter as to when the next Beta Weekend will happen:

@SWTOR:  We are targeting November 25-28 for our upcoming #SWTOR Beta Testing Weekend. Get a code via http://www.swtor.com/news/news-article/20111111-0

Senior Community Manager Stephen Reid followed up with some more clarification:

@Rockjaw: Everyone who signed up for #SWTOR testing (yes – everyone), including those redeeming keys from our partners, will get invited next week.

Yes, this is the big “everyone’s invited” weekend! If you were already signed up on SWTOR.com before November 11th, 2011, you will be invited. For those of you who weren’t, you just need to follow this link and grab a beta code from your favorite gaming site!

Here in the US, it’s Thanksgiving weekend which means many people will have extra time off to play. On the other hand, many folks will be traveling and/or have plans to spend time with family, so it could be a mixed blessing. Will you be able to spend time in what will be the biggest TOR test yet?

The countdown is on, my friends!

 

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Nov 16, 2011

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Beta Weekend Clocks In At Over 1 Million Testing Hours

Eurogamer, in an interview with BioWare Co-founders Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk at BAFTA this week, learned that over a million testing hours were put in by players during the weekend test:

Against that we’re testing. This weekend we had a big test – tens upon tens of thousands. One crazy number is we had over a million hours of testing over the weekend. It was a huge test, and there are even bigger ones coming. The key thing is for us to take those learnings, apply them and make the service really stable. We’re happy with the game.

Zeschuk also discusses the previously mentioned limited availability of the game:

One of the ways we can ensure the service is good is we’re not selling beyond a certain point. Like, at a certain point it’ll sell out. We will release more units based on the stability of the service, then we will turn that dial carefully. For example, through Origin we can very quickly and responsibly add more units depending on availability.

Head on over to Eurogamer for the full read!

 

The Co-Doctors!

The Co-Doctors!

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Nov 12, 2011

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Blue Milk & Cereal: What Will You Do In Beta?

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!

Just yesterday morning here in Blue Milk & Cereal we were asking if you had ever been invited to any phase of testing for Star Wars: The Old Republic. Well, after yesterday’s Friday Update announcing that EVERYONE is invited to an upcoming Beta Weekend, that poll would look a little different this morning! We’d like to think BioWare saw our poll results and felt bad, and decided to give everyone a shot. Yes, I’m sure that’s what happened.

So now that you all know that you’re going to be in testing at some point soon, at least for a weekend, how will you play? Maybe you’re going to jump right into your main class choice. Or, perhaps you’ll play the opposite faction just to see it. At any rate, this morning the question is simple: what will you do in beta once you get there?

What will you do in beta testing once you get there?

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