That's cool. There's definitely a part of me that envies you... weekend gaming binges are fun... but impossible with kids. ;)

Word from NY Comic-Con earlier that there are 15 flashpoints in for launch, 12 of them shared between both factions.

Today's update video (unrelated):

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Very cool. I can't wait until 12/20. After last weekend's beta test, I'm finding it hard to get back into playing WoW.

I've heard a lot of people say that. I'm not in any MMOs right now, but after my first weekend I had a hard time playing any other games at all.

im probably going to play a bit, but then again i havent seriously played an MMO since like 2009. So, it should be fun. Just not going to play like i used to in the early to mid 2000's lol.

So, if you ignore the ventrillo mumblings of the guys in the background, this video does a pretty good job at getting across the sheer scale of Tatooine. It's pretty huge. Like if I'd been playing last weekend I might have ridden around for 45 minutes on my speeder and not done much more than skim around the edges.

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That's awesome. Glad to see some open-world stuff. And you're right, the ventrillo commentary was annoying :)

I got a chance to beta last weekend, and I am quite unimpressed, the game feels like a grind.

Where is that info?

What other MMOs have you played? Just curious, because I thought this felt like less of a grind than pretty much any other MMO that I've played.

I lean to your way of thinking. To me it feels much more like an RPG than an MMO. Which is ironic since they're all supposed to be MMORPGs. Either way, in the 100 or so hours I've put in I've never hit a point where it felt like I was grinding in any way. I might even go the other way and say the leveling is too fast.

But different people have different tastes.

It's funny because I was actually going to say "it's like a multiplayer single-player RPG", then I realized how stupid that sounds. :) But I think there's some truth in that. It feels like a single-player RPG that just happens to have other players running around.

I liken it to the love-child of Mass Effect and KOTOR, but co-op.

Looks like we'll be getting a flood of "official"-type media impressions starting tomorrow:More from Stephen Reid:While none of it's going to affect my own impressions (let's just say I haven't cancelled my CE pre-order after playing...), it'll be interesting seeing what the press says.

Servers are being taken down this weekend for a new build, too, so I've heard.

ROFLMAOWTF?!

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(weren't the pandarens originally a joke?)

Is that legit?? That's the dumbest damn thing I've ever seen....

As far as I know it's completely legit. That's one of the big announcements at Blizzcon today. That and that people who had 12-month subscriptions to WoW get free Diablo 3. And talent trees are revamped:I was expecting some kind of Titan announcement to counter TOR, and they deliver this....whatever this is...

Kung Fu Panda?

I have no idea if this is legit or not. I haven't played WoW for years, but people seem dumbfounded right now:Apparently there's some kind of new pvp arena that's basically a xerox of huttball, too.

Wow....uhm I am speechless. If the silly Cataclysm content and changes didn't drive me away, then holy hell this would.

I am unsure about it being a goof but someone doesn't make all that graphical stuff and then put it in a mini trailer for no reason. If it was April 1st then I know they have done some wacky things to do the April Fools Joke but we aren't anywhere close to that.

This would be almost Sony / Star wars Galaxies foolish if they did that.

*on edit after reading more: The creators of Kung Fu Panda should be suing the crap out of Blizzard.

They really need to make WoW free to play

Ironic that you would say that. Pandarens were originally an April Fools joke. They predate Kung Fu Fanda by years, so they should be okay there.

http://classic.battle.net/war3/pandaren/

Speaking of free-to-play, it looks like DC Universe is going free-to-play soon™. Might give that a few weeks as something to hold me over until early december.

The wait for TOR's getting real bad for me.

DC Universe had SOOOO much promise, but level 30 was ****ing ass, and their chat system was ****ing terrible all because of the ps3 version.

SoE always ****s up games that have much much promise.

I like the idea of a new class and new race that can be either Alliance or Horde, but other than that it seems like a whole lot of meh. But I'm more of a casual WoW player, so maybe there is something there to get excited for.

I'm just trying to wait patiently for SWTOR... trying :evil:

Was talking to the wife about getting two copies of this, one for me, and one for my 9 year old so we can play it together. I told her I thought he was old enough to think it was awesome once he figured it out, and to test it out without ruining any suprise, I asked him to take a look at the video posted in the link above that has the opening cutscene of the game.

So I pull up the video and start playing it with him there with me and he says..."Oh! The old Republic! I was trying to sign up for that game." I was suprised he knew the name of it on sight, but thought he might have just been reading it from the screen, so I asked him what he meant by "sign up" since it was a game that wasn't out yet. He said "yeah, I know, but they are doing some sort of testing thing." I said "beta test?" "Yeah, that, I tried signing up for it, but they wouldn't take my e-mail for some reason, I found it on (some random starwars site that has little kid games on it)."

I only laughed and said cool, and then told the wife later, Yeah, I think he would be good with getting that for Christmas...he was already trying to sign up for beta testing. She said...what is beta testing?

I'd like to find a good Old Republic podcast, but the ones I've found so far have just been "meh". Which is understandable, since the game isn't even out yet. But I'd still like to find one with hosts that don't annoy me.

The only ones I'm familiar with are darth hater's, mos eisley radio and corellian run radio. I don't really listen to any of them though. They don't generally cover anything I don't already know...

Im doing the same for my 8 year old, he knows he's getting it tho. Im also beta testing so he's seen it and cant wait to play with Dad :) good times ahead

I pulled out KOTOR2 and have been playing it since he showed interest in Old Republic and he has been hooked on watching me play that. He is grounded currently, so he can't play though.

I need to get another computer for us both to be able to play when the new one comes out though, gotta get moving on that.

Should donate $1500 to me so I can build a new one and dump this 2002 Dell.

I'm going to finish kotor sometime in the next week or so, and then going to install kotor 2 and the tslrcm restoration mod. It'll be the first time I've played it since it was released.

If I had $1500 to burn like that, I'd already have a new rig and not have $1500 to burn any longer.

Since I probably won't be able to get a good computer paid for by Christmas with needing to do the actual Christmas shopping as well, I am thinking we will probably just get one copy that is my son's and play the crap out of my own character on his account as well, and then shoot for a new rig and a second copy when we recover from the Christmas spending.

My Bday is Jan 20th, so I have all sorts of excuses to get the ball rolling.

Hey an update for everyone. I know I joined in on the Right fifty three guild but we might need more people. There is a Guild Phase 3 incoming beta release. Let me copy and paste....

Phase 3: Deployment will see any guild that meets the pre-designated criteria be transferred into the game for launch. Before we begin this process, though, we want to give all of you who are in guilds the opportunity to make sure your guild meets the following requirement for transfer:

Four members of the guild must have pre-ordered the game and redeemed their Pre-Order Code at the Code Redemption Center.

I got this information from here:

http://darthhater.com/category/swtor-news

OK, don't we have 4 at this point?

I just checked the guild page and it says that four or more members have pre-ordered and that we are ready for deployment. So I think we're good to go. Thanks for the heads-up, though. I wasn't sure what the actual pre-reqs were going to be.

Also, just an FYI, the guild has its own public and private forums. But I think we should still keep most of the chatter here. That might entice others here to come join the fun :)

I have applied bitches!

For those of you that have gotten to test it, how does the game "feel" in comparison to WoW, if you played that.

So much of the stuff that I have seen just looks like WoW with blasters and lightsabers, from the talent trees, to PvP/PvE setups, etc. Looks like instances are called flashpoints, and I've seen talks of raid types of those as well.

Not saying that it is a good or a bad thing, I am just hoping I can avoid getting into the trap of 2-3 hour 40 man instance raids where I have to deal with the wife aggro for a week just to make a run in MC or whatever the raid of the night is.

You'll get a lot of different answers to that one. It's pretty common to hear people say it basically is WoW with blasters and lightsabers, but it feels a lot more like an actual RPG to me than it does WoW. Maybe it's just the cutscenes and the dialogue wheel, but when I've played, it's felt like it's part KOTOR, part Dragon Age 2 and part Mass Effect 2. The talent trees are very similar, but outside of that combat is pretty different. There's no autoattack, to start, so you're constantly doing something. There's a ton of combat skills, as well, and when you fight (with your companion, if we're talking solo play here) you're usually fighting groups of 3-5 enemies. The regeneration system is pretty unique, too, which is something I think a lot of beta players don't even realize, in that you rengerate faster the more power/energy/ammo you have, so instead of burning all your pool and waiting for it to regen, the focus for better players will be utilizing skills in such a way that you're always in a sweet spot, with fastest regeneration, rather than in other games as, say a healer, where you're just spamming heals, and counting on either potions or other players to give you more power when you run low or run out.

I did not group at all in the time I played, primarily because it was limited, but also because I wanted to enjoy the group content fresh with my friends later, so I can't really comment on that stuff. Mostly I hear that people love the flashpoints. The operation hasn't been on general test yet, so I haven't seen very much leaked information about that.

I think the best way I can describe it is to say that it's very traditional MMO gameplay with some innovation in the areas for which BioWare is most well-known. The companions are pretty fantastic (not just pets), the dialogue and cutscenes make it feel like an actual RPG instead of just a grind-fest (this is not a negative, fwiw, that's part of the reason I've played them, the grind...) the way MMO's have been previously. I would say it's basically taking the best elements out of a number of traditional MMOs, making them all a little better, and handing out an extremely polished, and for me extremely enjoyable end product.

It does not, however, reinvent the wheel...

What is the WoW-equivalent of a flashpoint? I'm not sure I really understand that terminology.

Flashpoint = Dungeon = Instance. I think.

Instance. Although in TOR they're 4-man rather than 6. There's I think 15 of them total, starting around level 10.

Operations are raids, and they can be run 8-man or 16.

Everything has a variety of difficulty levels. They had normal and hard versions when I played (solo story instances could be tuned this way as well in the last build I played), there's rumors of a third difficulty level at some point as well as level 50 heroic versions for all the flashpoints.

That pretty much sums it up. I can't speak much to raiding, because I actually enjoy grinding more than raiding and end-game content. Once I hit level cap, I'm more interested in running 5-man pug instances or starting a new character than I am in joining a raid team. I think it's mostly because I'm a casual player that can't commit to playing on a schedule.

The story and cutscene interactions are what I enjoyed the most. I can't wait to dive in again and really get immersed in the story. To the point where I look forward to "what happens next" rather than just getting to the next level.

I grouped a bit for some lowbie quests (about level 4-5). It was decent, but there are no chat bubbles which made it kind of hard to communicate, especially because the chat window isn't in a corner that I'm used to.

All in all, I'm counting the days until 12-20. I've tried to get back into WoW, but I usually end up wanting to play something else within half an hour. I guess I just didn't realize how burnt out I was on WoW.

The main thing I am looking forward to on this is playing it with my son. He is 9 now, and it will be his first time playing a real game that I have an interest in. He plays a lot of WII, and DS and iPod games, and I've played some of them with him, but they are typically always games that I'm only playing because they are ones he was interested in and I could "get past" something he was having trouble with.

An MMO like this is one where I think it will be a blast to jump into something and have him in tow or leading the way and we can go down in flames, or wonder how the heck we got through something together. I know he will Leroy Jenkins my ass here and there, but picturing his little shit eating smirk of "oops" afterwards is a lot of what I'm looking forward to.

I think it'll be good for that. There's stuff on every planet you can do together beyond just the class missions that take you there. heroic 2s and 2+s. You might need to find a couple of other friends to do the 4s or flashpoints.

I think it should be mostly okay for a 9-year old, too. There's some stuff he may not understand, and there's some dark, mature themes (mostly on the empire side, but also on the republic) but I don't remember much that was like 'oh god, they can't let kids see that".

Yeah, we will probably roll with some of the other CP people here in the right 53 guild, and pickups as needed. It depends some on how well he picks things up. I'll try to teach him things mostly with just us two so he doesn't make things harder on others if he is feeling things out, but he has gotten pretty damn good and finding what works.

I am hoping he can be a nice wife aggro dump as well. If he is begging me to play with him, she can't be mad, right? Right?

I'm more worried about his kid getting absolutely hooked. Thankfully, he can rely on daddy to apply the brakes for him. Us adults - not so much. LOL

FYP


Kidding of course. I'll definately use it against him the more and more he gets into it. Homework done right, room clean, keeping his nose clean, showers longer than 15 seconds, brushed teeth and all that. He earns it, and I'll vouch for him tearing it up in a game like this.

Yeah. I'm so worried about that game just destroying my life in 2012. I played it 18 hours a day both beta weekends. LMAO

For you Right 53 guild folks, who is planning what sorts of classes? I saw we had a mix of like 4 Jedi Knights, a few Consulars, and some others I can't remember right now because the site is down for maintenance, but what sort of builds are you planning?

I am leaning towards going with a tanking build, JediKnight myself. Planning on playing a lot with my son, and figured that a personal tank will be the best option for whatever he ends up wanting to do. Can't talk it over with him yet since it will be a Christmas present for him, so can't really talk about it yet.

Some friends of mine and I formed a Sith guild.

Would be fun to to be Adversaries of the Right 53.

Will the GL send me a pm if interested.

I played a variety of classes over my weekend, and I'm still not sure which class I'm going to play :) I was thinking Jedi Knight, but I may go with Smuggler since we have so many JKs already. Or we could just be a JK-heavy guild.

What does being Adversaries do for the guilds? (I'm the GL, btw)

I am thinking now that I might have two characters going starting out. The tank to play with my son mostly, and keep pace with him leveling, and maybe a consular shadow as well because it sounds pretty cool.

"Do Allies and Adversaries have any in-game effect on our guild?

Allies and Adversaries are a web-feature only. This phase exists solely to help determine your guild’s server placement in-game.
"

So....all it would do is help their sith guild get on the same server as us.

Cool, thanks for the info. And thanks for providing it without the "let me google that for you" link :)

I'd be down for having a Sith guild as an adversary.

I would say not to worry too much about which class you start with. You'll probably end up playing more than one. Alts aren't just something to burn down time with in this game.

I also wanted to add that I know that The Right Fifty Three is a Republic guild, but should any of you want to try the imperial side after the game is launched, just hit me up and I will add you to my guild, Wookie Crisps.

Please note, not competeing for members, just an alternative for anyone that wanted to try out the dark side.

Looks like they're doing another test weekend starting Friday.

Yeah, I'll definitely be creating a Sith toon at some point. I'll hit you up after I create him.

The Right Fifty Three are now adversaries with Wookie Crisps.

As I was saying to Huff, it would be really cool if it would match adversaries in the pvp warfronts.

That would be an awesome feature to the game.

I'm hoping to add a Gunslinger to the Right 53. But I'm worried that I'm not going to be available enough to be a contributing member of a guild.... I've never really been part of a guild before though, so I'm not sure how that's looked upon. Is there a participation requirement or anything?

Depends on the guild, I'm sure. Ours is going to be uber casual.

You will be required to be my DPS biotch any time myself and my son require it and you are online and looking for something to do. Your job will be to shoot things, and the only rewards will exp, and phat lewts suitable for a gunslinger or an equal split of things no one really needs. I know it is strict, but you will just have to suck it up.

i <3 phat lewtz

Yeah, I'd even go so far as to call it "half-assed" :)

Seriously, though, The Right Fifty Three was mainly created as just a place CPers to gather for launch. Help each other out in-game, ask questions in guild chat, discuss the game here when we can't play, etc, etc. As I was telling Kaplin, if it turns into a long-term guild, that would be great. But we're definitely not expecting any kind of commitment from any member. Stay as long as you like. If you play with us for a while and find another guild you'd like to join, go for it.

Anyone is welcome to join, CP member or not.

WHOO!!!

You Have Been Selected to Test STAR WARS: The Old Republic!

Well hell, I just got this in from Bioware.....

This is the phase you've been waiting for. We're ready to begin importing* your guild, The Right Fifty Three, into the game. Your guild must have at least four members who have pre-ordered the game and redeemed their pre-order codes at The Code Redemption Center before the end of the Pre-Launch Guild Program††. Check your guild's qualification status now.

But I don't have a "you have been selected" thing yet.

Awesome! Have fun with it. It goes by really quick!

Yeah, I got that same email. It doesn't have anything to do with testing. We will probably be getting another email soon that tells us which server the guild will be on.

Is this PC only? Anyone have a link to spec requirements?

Sent from my ADR6350

Gratz!, I've been tryin to get in forever, this will be the first MMO I've played that I didn't Beta first, but i think it will be nice going in blind.

I'm pretty sure it's PC only. Here are the System Requirements from Wikipedia (the official site is down for maintenance):

System requirements:
Microsoft Windows

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4000 or better / Intel Core 2 Duo Processor 2.0 Ghz or better
Memory: At least 1.5 GB RAM for XP / 2 GB or better for Windows Vista/7
Graphics: ATI XT1800 or better / NVIDIA 7800 or better / Intel 4100 or better. 256 MB minimum video RAM, shader 3.0 or better fully compatible graphics card.
OS: Windows XP / Vista / Windows 7
DVD-ROM: 8x or better

And be sure to check out the forums for your testing group (squadron). In the days leading up to the test, I found a lot of useful information in there that really helped me hit the ground running when they finally opened up the servers.

But my squadron had testers from the previous test weekend (like Keg), so I'm not sure how much info there will be for yours.

Are you going to test it with your son? Or are you going to try and keep it a secret?

Yeah, I am going to let him watch and play some himself as well. Still keeping it a secret that he is getting it, but this is perfect because now I can talk to him about it more unitl Christmas.

Only bad thing is we have plans to go to my parents for the weekend, but I'll try to hang at my brothers (mom and dad don't have internet) and play from there on the laptop, which should give me a chance to see if my brother might take up the game as well. I might be my saving grace though...will be away from the wife and her finding excuses for me to not be playing, and will also have some build in breaks so I don't play for all 55 hours.

I got my invite, am downloading it now. However its from Nov 11-13 so stress tests sounds like. Not sure if we will get to continue after that.

If it gives a date range, then that's it. I think I read on the forums dev tracker that this weekend's beta is to stress test the east coast data center.

Have fun!

Well I spoke too soon, I got my invite. I went to accept it and it says the site is down for maintenance. LOL oh well. I will keep trying. I at least brought my computer to work so I can cheat and use the fiber connection we have to download the game from here. :P

couple of my guildmates got in as well. It'll be interesting seeing their reaction. Father/son team, but not like with you guys. The son's around 20, they're both good friends of mine. They started gaming together with lotro in 2008, met them back then.

I haven't posted a whole lot of leaks on here, but I thought this one was worth it. There hasn't been anti-aliasing for any of the builds I've played, the game's looked fantastic artistically, but rough-edged. But now...enter anti-aliasing.