Here are the names I'm leaning towards...

Antifreeze
Urandidiots
Auxilia Ligno ('AIDS tree' in Latin)
Planetae Majores (Chiefs Planet in Latin)
Order of 58 (or 37)
Legion of 58
Pantheon of 58
_____ of 58 (insert your own cool sounding noun)

Thoughts? Preferences? I kinda like the simplicity of Antifreeze.

Auxilia Ligno

LMAO

I like it. I like it a lot.

How about

The Right 53

Matriculating Jedi
The Lucky Few
The Arrow's Head Brigade
58th Striker Battalion
Dawson's Dragoons

This is pretty money as well.

Alright, the guild is created. They don't allow you to use numbers in the name, so it's called "The Right Fifty Three". You can use the link below to search for the guild and apply. Or you can PM me your email address and I'll shoot you an invite.

http://www.swtor.com/guilds

Looks like the Friday update came early. Really nice video on what was one of my favorite things from my brief time in beta: the companions. I don't think I can really describe just how awesome I thought they were. It's something you've just got to see for yourself. They aren't quite as fully realized as, say, Mass Effect crewmates, but I thought they were so far beyond standard MMO pets that it wasn't even funny. As the video mentions, they do level up with you, and they do acquire new skills along the way. You can tell them exactly what skills you want them to use, and best of all, they have personality. They'll interject themselves into conversations, they'll occasionally make random comments as you move through the world. It's just...really cool. I was really impressed by them during the beta weekend, at least the two I was able to see (1 smuggler, 1 bounty hunter).

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Wait, the Chiefsplanet guild is going to be "good guys"? Playing on a PVE server? Say it ain't so. Might have to create an Empire guild on a PVP server myself. Think I'll name it, "The Process".

Just saw something on G4 about a delay in Tor


probably a repost, but whatevah :)

I didn't see it, but i would guess it's yet another (mis)quote of the 2012 comment made during the investor call earlier in the week. Which is actually something the EA financial people have been saying for months. So it's not really news.

I think realistically the only way the game slips to 2012 is if they have significant hardware problems with the larger-scale stress testing in upcoming test weekends.

I think there are some recent signs that it's coming sooner rather than later. It seems to be that they've shifted their marketing into overdrive this week. The game is being advertised everywhere right now (there's a pretty cool banner ad/trailer on IGN.com right now). They had the companion update on Gamespot that I linked last night and now today there's an interview up on Gamersutra about BioWare "wrapping up The Old Republic".

So I may be misreading things, but it does seem like they're moving swiftly in the direction of the launch push.

I think we'll get a release date as soon as they're satisfied with the stress testing (which won't start this weekend), maybe as soon as two weeks.

Just my own guess, but I'm still thinking they go live mid- to late-November.

New beta invites started going out today (no I didn't get one). So (external) testing is starting on the new build tonight.

Found something interesting digging through the HUGE patch notes, something I didn't expect at all. They apparently weren't kidding when they were talking about having more flashpoints, because they introduced two new ones in this build that I'd previously never heard so much as a whisper about: 'Bringing Down the Hammer' and 'The Tomb Opens'.

No idea what level they are. As I understand it, up to this point you had the starter flashpoints at 9-10 ('The Black Talon' for Empire; 'The Esseles' for Republic), intermediate flashpoints around level 30 ('Boarding Party' and 'The Foundry' for Empire; 'Taral V' for Republic') and then the level 50 flashpoint ('Directive 7' for both sides; it's been in beta but I've never seen so much as a screen shot from it to this point). So where the new two fit in, I have no idea, but I think it's pretty exciting that there's more.

well I just got this in the mail. Launch date is 12-20-2011

http://www.swtor.com/news/news-article/20110924

Yup, I got the same email. I'm glad we have a release date, but it kind of sucks that it's right before Christmas.

Wow. Almost exactly a month later than I thought. Being extra-cautious with the testing I guess.

Although I suppose you can't get much more "holiday 2011" than December 20th.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/G6N4TsgdOKU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Early game access (non) information:

Hey keg, when you were beta testing, were you able to pick your faction and class, or were they dictated to you? Just curious.

There weren't any pre-generated characters my weekend. I chose a character from each faction.

My weekend was basically their first dry run for launch.

Just a minor note, but stupid OCD completionist no-lifers (namely me) will be happy: achievements are in.

When it comes out I'll get it. Let me know what servers you guys are on and junk so we can get a CP Guild going. Though I'll just be a lackey. Don't like important roles.

Ok I am going to be slightly angry if I missed out on something here.

I just got an email from Bioware stating this:

Now that you've had a chance to experience your own Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ saga, make sure you don't miss out when the game launches. Pre-order* for Early Game Access and lock in your copy today.

I have already pre-ordered and have listed it under my subscription. Did I miss out on some beta invite???

I just got the same email and I've also preordered. I'm not sure what's going on. I would guess that somebody screwed something up.

I probably shouldn't say this (NDA garbage...), but I also got a second email asking me to fill out a short survey (with a broken link - I can't even get to the survey) about my testing experience and an invitation to discuss my thoughts with other testers on the forum. However, as a former weekend tester, I've never actually had access to the beta forums (we had our own).

One thing, you might want to check swtor.com/tester just to make sure you haven't been invited. They did invite a whole bunch of new people over the last 48 hours.

I got the same two emails, but never got one about being picked for beta. My guess is someone or something sent out the emails in error.

Yeah, it looks like somebody made a big mistake, and sent the emails out to everyone, instead of just the beta testers.

d'oh

Okay, now it looks like it didn't go to everybody, just to a lot of people.

I would say relax for now and see what they have to say about it tomorrow. My personal theory (since I'm exempt from closed beta now thanks to my first weekend) - and this is completely unsubstantiated in any way.... - is that the people that received the email tonight may be the next test weekend group (since I am going to get one of those). Stephen Reid did tweet earlier than they would have some kind of statement to make about testing tomorrow, so maybe it's beta weekends starting up again in a week, and somehow mail was sent out of order.

But it's probably something else completely. That's just me throwing shit at the wall.

The funny thing is that my first thought when I was reading the emails (and realized that there was no invitation) was to come here to see if anyone else had gotten them by mistake. Sure enough, Barret had already posted :)

her is something off the forums. I don't know the truth of it but don't click on anything in the email.

Might want to not click anything on those emails, this is a tweet that Stephen Reid responded to (I haven't looked into it myself):


@Rockjaw The code td valign="top" width="650"><img src="http-bp-specificclick-net?pixid=99062343" alt= inside the mail
5 minutes ago
James
JArnoldOK James
@Rockjaw Steve, that email contains an encoded malware link to. its bp-specificclick-net hijack virus.
8 minutes ago

Yeah, I saw that about an hour ago (when the malware stuff first showed up). I don't think it's phishing. The sender information is b.email.swtor.com which is the same as every other Old Republic Community e-mail that's gone out. It wouldn't have made it to my inbox if it wasn't a legitimate address, in fact, although that was the first thing I checked anyway (yes, I'm that paranoid). Beyond that, if you take the email external it's an ea.com root address.

I've also run a complete scan of my system since I got them, just to be safe, with both spybot and malwarebytes and they both came back clean.

So I could be wrong, anything's certainly possible these days, but they appear to be official emails.

(I also suspect that if they weren't, they'd have said immediately that they weren't).

We'll find out one way or another tomorrow.

From Allison Berryman

Earlier today, two e-mails were sent to members of the Star Wars: The Old Republic community. These e-mails were sent to a larger group than intended, and have caused some confusion in the community. We can confirm that these e-mails were from EA and BioWare and apologize for any confusion they have caused. Please note that receiving these e-mails does not affect your chances to be invited to test the game. Thank you all for your understanding!

Galaxy map added to the holonet. Make sure you install the 3d software.

http://www.swtor.com/info/holonet/galaxy-map

So are planets basically like the "zones" in other MMOs? Or does each planet have multiple zones? (This may be explained in the holonet link, but I can't access it from here).

And did you get to try the space flight, keg? (feel free to just say "NDA", if you can't discuss it)

I think planets have multiple zones, but I could be wrong. From what I understand, the game world is absolutely massive.

Each planet has multiple zones but there's no loading, so it's seamless. Basically the starter worlds are fairly small and then they get progressively larger. I made it to the third planet on each side (this is level 16ish) and they were freaking huge in comparison to the starter planets. I haven't played WoW in years, but going on my distant memory of the Vanilla game I would say Taris and Balmorra would compare to the larger WoW zones from the vanilla days. The planets after that supposedly get steadily larger, but I was not high enough level to explore them (you can go there in your ship, but if you get attacked while you're running around you're toast).

I did play the space combat mini game and I actually liked it, to my surprise. I didn't think I would, but I ended up running several missions on both my toons. It was hard. Like...brutally hard. I hear it's been nerfed into oblivion with the latest build, and now it's ridiculously easy, but my guess is they'll swing that pendulum back to a middle ground.

As for what it is, it's exactly what it was billed to be. It's space combat on rails. I ended up enjoying it a lot considering the limitations, but there was still a lot of "it's not open space combat like SWG" crying on the beta weekend forum. I would say give it a shot, and keep an open mind about it. And it looks amazing, artistically-speaking. It's very cinematic and feels star-warsy (as you can see in the few vids they've released, or if you've happened to catch any leaked videos).

Awesome, thanks for the info!

Was there any point to the space combat? I mean, did you have to do it every time you moved between planets? Did you get anything out of it, like credits*, loot, crafting materials, etc?


* And I assume they're using credits as the currency?

Well, since they're in testing things could change, but when I was in, space combat was completely optional. You don't ever get jumped between planets like in KOTOR (god I hated that) or get forced to do the mini-game to get somewhere like in Jade Empire (god I really, really hated that).

The way it works (or rather worked) is that there's a terminal on your bridge near the galactic map that gives you space mission quests, which could be repeated daily when I played, for space commendations. As you advanced through the missions you got a new set of quests (I only completed the first uest, I was not able to complete the 2nd and 3rd space missions, which were both required to finish the 2nd daily quest). You could also just run the missions without (or after) the daily quest, but you didn't get many commendations that way. In my build you used those commendations to purchase ship upgrades. The ship right when you start with has blasters and missiles. You can add shields, or add hp to the ship, or improve the blasters and missiles, or carry more missiles, etc. Now I'm told you can actually purchase upgrades with credits, although i can't say for sure if that's true.

There were also bonus missions, objectives you could complete beyond the requirements you had to finish the mission, but I think most of those would require an upgraded ship to complete, meaning the way it was in my build, you probably wouldn't really be able to wipe out bonus objectives until your character was in his 40s or 50 (because in my build, upgrades had level requirements).

Basically the only reason to run space missions was for a change of pace from the ground game (and it was great for that...) or to earn commendations to improve your ship in space combat missions. It wasn't in any way required, at least not when I tested.

So how did they balance the combat? You obviously can't die in space. Did they just take you out of it saying you sustained too much damage and had to retreat to get it repaired (thus failing the mission)?

No, you blew the **** up.

Beta review I just watched. Matches my own impression, and he's playing the new build:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/F97QeiwCSGE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

PC Gamer has a pretty lengthy preview up: http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/09/30/th...ublic-preview/

Maybe that means I actually am eligible to test again.

Huttball video just for you Pants. Total Biscuit trying to play as a Jedi Sentinel.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/juNABCw5338" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

That was awesome. Don't know why he said he was a Guardian in the beginning, Guardians don't dual-wield do they?

Yeah, he thought he was on a tank rather than melee dps for whatever reason, at least at the start.

And you're right, guardians can spec for DPS, but even then they only have 1 saber.

I really liked the little touches BioWare put into that Huttball. You can hear a Zerca Corp advertisement on the PA system at one time. SWEET!

Also, dude kept walking into the fire over and over and over again. :facepalm:

I'm a little concerned that the repetition of the announcer will get grating in time. It looks fun, though, and should be even more so when people start figuring out how to play it (i.e. running plays and actually passing the ball around).

Yeah, that was just pretty much straight CTF action the way they played it. A good team will be able to roll without even getting too many kills. And I think like anything else, you'll be able to tune the announcer out.

"Someone kill somebody already!"

I haven't watched the video yet, but there's a huttball leak out recently that shows a team getting a 6-0 blow-out. Apparently there's a mercy rule. LMAO

I could see good teams stopping at 5 and just using the clock to get a bunch of kills. :D

Might not be worth it if you get more valor out of quick wins.

Even as somebody who has virtually zero interest in PvP, and probably won't do it very often, I'm curious to see some skilled PvPers play some TOR, just to see how the systems really work. I'm accustomed to WoW-style burst PvP, instead of skill and group based pvp where healing and tanking actually have some value.

Although there's currently a lot of bitching about snipers and gunslingers in PvP, and how cover doesn't work for PvP because it makes you stationary, and PvP is all about mobility. So PvPers want cover taken completely out of the game (which would piss me the **** off, I loved the cover system in PvE, made the classes feel so unique).

I checked out the Huttball video and looked up some other gameplay videos on YouTube this weekend. I thought it was interesting that most of the combat encounters were groups of 3 or so mobs. And the scenery was absolutely gorgeous.

I cannot wait to play this game.

As I am big time into PvP, I am really looking forward to see how Bioware balances PvP between the classes.

I know TOR is not a PvP game, but hopefully it turns out to be fun and well balanced.

Stephen Reid later added that invites will go on throughout the day.

Hey Keg, Good news for you....

Stephen Reid
@_ymmit Actually we opted to re-invite everyone this weekend, and bulked numbers to compensate.

I've been downloading for an hour. I didn't want to rub it in. :)

FYI, it looks like they sent the re-invites in a single batch first. So the new invites are still yet to come.

Okay, looks like all the invites have gone out now. So if you didn't get in, you'll be waiting on another weekend. (I'd still check swtor.com/tester just to make sure).

Woot! Just got my invite about 15 minutes ago. I'll start downloading the client when I get home tonight.

Awesome dude, hope you have a ball.

did not know this: tor now holds the guinness world record for the largest voiceover project in entertainment history

Wow, that's impressive. But that's also one of my biggest concerns. I'm hoping that there won't be too many cutscenes with lengthy dialog. And if there are, I hope the dialog is interesting enough to keep me from wanting to skip through it.

I guess I'll find out tomorrow :)

CP guild
 

Cp guild sounds cool - name it "7 Parsec Cassel Run" =)

There are a lot of cutscenes but I wasn't ever tempted to skip one (well, except when aliens are talking, you'll see...). They're extremely well-done. From a cinematic and storytelling standpoint this is easily among BioWare's best work.

To put some persective on the hugeness of it, I spent more time playing TOR that first weekend than I did my entire first run through Mass Effect 2...and I only managed to get two characters into their mid-teens. Now you can burn through the game faster than that, in a leveling standpoint, but I'm pretty convinced now that it's going to take me in the neighborhood of 200 hours to reach level 50 on my first toon(s), based on my initial weekend.

There will be a point later on (probably not this weekend) when you're repeating world arcs for the 3rd or 4th time that the spacebar will become active, but I would be surprised if I ever skipped over a cutscene that's part of a character class arc, at least not the first time through that class.

Wow, 200 hours to hit level cap is massive. That should give them plenty of time to work on the first expansion before people get burned out on end-game content. Luckily, I prefer leveling over end-game content (at least I do in WoW), so that suits me just fine.

And just a reminder to everyone that the official non-official CP guild has been created. Just go to www.swtor.com/guilds and search for "The Right Fifty Three", or shoot me a PM here with your email and I can send you an invite.

Thanks for the invite. I joined. How did you guys select your classes already?

I am so ****ing pissed right now.

I should be finishing up a video project right now, I'd cleared my schedule completely of work until Tuesday so I wouldn't get behind on anything. And I get notification at 5 ****ing 45 tonight that the association I'm working with has rejected a client's ad, and that client can't get in touch with the association contact because he apparently left as soon as he sent his message out and isn't returning calls (he was sent this ad a week ago, and then another copy around 11 am).

So now I either get to plug in an alternate ad, and work all night starting about 9 pm, or I get to start working on this tomorrow sometime and probably miss a significant portion of the first day of the weekend (which is probably the last time I get to touch the game until December...).

I could ****ing kill somebody right now.

When I set up the guild, it asked me which class I planned on playing. I chose the 'undecided' option, but I'm leaning towards Jedi Knight.

That sucks, keg. Hopefully you can get it all taken care of quickly and get some quality testing time in.

I'm heading in right now. Hopefully done by dawn.

Found out tonight that one of the guys in my guild (for launch) is in this weekend.

So I worked until 6:30 am. How I managed to stay awake I don't know. But I made it home and passed out about quarter after 7. About 9:30 I hear hammering from the apartment upstairs. Maintenance guys sound busy. Sleep through that. Must be tired... Wake up about 15 minutes ago. Turn on my PC to make sure nothing's up with work. My internet's down. So today's basically been a comedy skit so far. LMAO

Oh man, that is ****ing rough.

That freaking sucks, man. I was about to say that after working all night, at least you didn't have to wait all day and could play in a couple of hours. But no internet makes that kind of hard (I assume you're posting from your phone). Does the cable company have any idea when it'll be back up?

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.

Time to pack up the PC and head to someone with some freakin internets if no signs of packets soon.

Oh,I got the internet up and running fine, I was just laughing at the Murphy's Law of it all...

I'm going for a bike ride now, burn another hour off the clock.

Well, once I make sure my video drivers are up-to-date.

Right on. I thought you meant that your internet was still down. :thumb:

I'm going to head home in about an hour, spend some quality time with the fiance, and then log in later this evening.

This is one of those weekends that reminds me why I'm so happy with being divorced since 2003. If I want to spend 60 hours in TOR, there's nobody to bitch about it.

Totally missed that there was a friday update today, including the following video:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/FT4cLHU3Yd0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<---

This is an honest question, stemming from my days as a single gamer: do you ever get sort of depressed or disassociated from spending that much time gaming? It used to really **** with me when I would be online for 18 hours at a time mudding. I'd like get in my car and drive, and be like a zombie... didn't even really realize that I was in my car or what I was doing except that I had to get the F out of my house for a while (I could see your biking and exercising helping that, though).

Uhm, yeah, that can happen, although as you mention the exercise helps a lot. Eating better and sleeping like a regular person seems to help, too.

My job isn't a whole lot different than gaming binges, either.

Basically it's like anything else: if you go to extremes there will be bad side effects. I can do this for a weekend. I won't play like this after release though. At least not after the first couple of weeks (which will be crazy...). It'll balance out to a few hours a night eventually.