SWTOR

[Paelos]

Its hardly raiding when it's either 8 or 16 people.

Requiring 16 people to do anything is raiding, chief.

Requiring more than one person to craft a sword because you have to get it off the boss at the end of the location isn't crafting. That's just delayed gratification for raiders.

[Amaron]

Its hardly raiding when it's either 8 or 16 people.

I fervently wish that raiders agree with you.

[Lantyssa]

I consider anything over two people to be raiding.

[Sir T]

Oh hai

Old Republic in short supply [PC]
Monday August 22, 11:25 AM

Electronic Arts is expecting high demand for its online multiplayer game ‘Star Wars: The Old Republic’, but is only launching it in limited quantities. Why is that?

EA is capping the number of physical and digital copies of the game at launch so that servers are not overwhelmed by too many gamers trying to play at once. Everyone should be able to enjoy a “smooth and high quality game experience” as EA tells Gamasutra.com.

The downside to this noble intention is a controlled supply of games until EA decides that the time is right to add more servers. There’s no official word on when that might happen, but EA is already advising potential customers to pre-order the game good and early, because “...Once they are gone, they are gone."

So is this an act of prudence on EA’s part or has it taken leave of its corporate senses? A bit of both, we suspect: Star Wars games sell by the million so EA really should have enough servers in place for everyone who wants to play. On the other hand, EA has probably learned lessons from other massive multiplayer games such as Rift and Aion, where sudden demand swamped server capacities and customers had to endure lengthy waits before playing. And nobody wants that, do they?

The only problem with EA’s plan is how the company is going to know to add more servers when the current provision is based on the fixed number of games it’s releasing. Ach, we’ll let them worry about that further down the line. Meantime, the web is awash with enticing trailers that really aren’t helping to control demand – see below, then try denying that you want a copy.

Star Wars: The Old Republic is scheduled for launch on PC this Holiday season.

Get your popcorn in early for the nerd rage.

[Reg]

Have you been reading this thread at all T?

[Evildrider]

Old news is old.  They haven't been keeping this a secret.

[Sir T]

Have you been reading this thread at all T?

TO be honest no. It popped up on yahoo news and I thought it was a new announcement. Sorry guys.

[Rasix]

Urge to kill.. rising.

I'm getting sick of this Rip Van Winkle shit.  If you think you know something new about SWTOR, we knew it 5 pages ago.

And it was.. 5 pages ago. My anger borders on precognition. 

[Amaron]

And it was.. 5 pages ago. My anger borders on precognition. 

Release date announced!   K guys I've done my part let's get 5 more pages in here.

[Evildrider]

And it was.. 5 pages ago. My anger borders on precognition. 

Release date announced!   K guys I've done my part let's get 5 more pages in here.

Yeah it's marked as Dec. 31st, 2011 on Amazon!   

[Sir T]

{deleted}

[koro]

So how many of you are actually in the beta? I really want someone to talk to in-game. General chat is maddening.

[Evildrider]

So how many of you are actually in the beta? I really want someone to talk to in-game. General chat is maddening.

I hate you.   

[koro]

So how many of you are actually in the beta? I really want someone to talk to in-game. General chat is maddening.

I hate you.   

My girlfriend has you beat, I'm afraid. She has to actually sit here, watch me play it, and seethe.

[Rasix]

Does she pace back and forth regaining both health and force power?

[Evildrider]

Does she pace back and forth regaining both health and force power?

Don't all women?  For at least 5 days every month?   

[koro]

Does she pace back and forth regaining both health and force power?

Occasionally.

Mostly she fidgets until I take a break, then she sits in the chargen for an hour trying to figure out what she wants to play because this class is appealing but she played a Smuggler in SWG and Smugglers in TOR look fun and are voiced by Kath Soucie but the female Trooper is Jennifer Hale, but maybe a Sith would be nice but but but...

It's very amusing and kind of cute when she tries to vocalize her thought process.

[Sjofn]

So how many of you are actually in the beta? I really want someone to talk to in-game. General chat is maddening.

I hate you.   

My girlfriend has you beat, I'm afraid. She has to actually sit here, watch me play it, and seethe.

See, I just beta for Ingmar when he's not home. 

[Chimpy]

FILTHY NDA BREAKER!

[Nebu]

FILTHY NDA BREAKER!

It's ok.  Most of us cover our eyes before we click on this thread.  Especially Rasix. 

[Sjofn]

FILTHY NDA BREAKER!

It's true, I break NDA like that whenever I get the chance. 

[FieryBalrog]

Edit by Trippy: no

[Evildrider]

Edit by Trippy: no

Pwned?

[Kirth]

So speaking of total biscuit, did anyone watch his 40 minute orgasm over what looks like a wh40k mod for gears of war.

[Nebu]

Check out the Totalbiscuit Gamescom reviews.  He's got a fully 40min demo on there and you can see a bit of the scripted events.

Thanks for the site.  I'll check it out. 

[jakonovski]

I'm getting a bit of hype blowback from SWTOR. It's like the whole thing is tired and old even before it has been released. And I haven't even followed the hype too much.

 

[Samprimary]

I'm getting a bit of hype blowback from SWTOR. It's like the whole thing is tired and old even before it has been released. And I haven't even followed the hype too much.

Maybe a hundred more pages of pre-release talk will fix us.

[UnSub]

We're all excited about being able to pay $15 a month to play a BioWare title that we used to be able to play for just the box cost.

[Hawkbit]

Yeah, I just removed this from my buy list last week.  I'm sure I'll check it out at some point, but Rift showed me exactly how tired of WoW I was.  In turn, it showed me how tired I am all together with the MMO genre lately.  It doesn't help that I went back to school recently, too.  I can't imagine trying to do a 30hr/wk MMO along with 13 credit hours at school.  I'd go crazy.

[sam, an eggplant]

I'm curious what Blizzard will do to fight it. They can't get the next major content patch out in two months, right? Maybe they'll revamp a couple more old dungeons and make them drop sweet, sweet purples.

[Paelos]

I'm curious what Blizzard will do to fight it. They can't get the next major content patch out in two months, right? Maybe they'll revamp a couple more old dungeons and make them drop sweet, sweet purples.

If the release date is before Christmas, they will fight it with the Deathwing release. If it's after, I believe they will try to fight it with a new expansion in March. I think the smartest thing Blizzard can do now is spend all of their available assets putting Cataclysm behind them and pushing Pandas out ASAP

[Draegan]

Its hardly raiding when it's either 8 or 16 people.

I'd call anything over 6 people a raid.  So would Rift and WoW.

It comes down to group sizes.  SWTOR has max group of four people.  The definition of a Raid, I guess, is multi group content.  Rift that's 10 and 20 man (2 and 4 group) and WOW is 10 and 25 man (2 and 5 group).  In SWTOR it appears that they will have 4 man groups, 8 and 16 man raids (2 and 4 group).

The question is, if you continue to shrink group size, does the small raid size really become a raid?  In SWTOR you have 8 people.  That's not much at all, that's only 3 extra people that in your normal WOW/RAID single group dungeon.  I would think the largest complaint about raids is the organization of so many people.  That's the stigma anyway.

Do you think getting 8 people together is going to be difficult to do?

Let's take it a step further and say groups are 3 people.  The raids consist of 2 and 4 group content.  Thats 6 and 12 people.  Would you consider 6 people a raid at that point?

What is the threshold for when something is considered a raid in some abstract definition?

[Nebu]

Do you think getting 8 people together is going to be difficult to do?

Yes.  It was difficult enough to find 8 good players in DAoC.  My guild couldn't keep 8 people together in Rift, which ultimately resulted in my quitting the game.    Finding 8 adults that I can tolerate for hours in a vent channel is hard.  Especially adults with families and a life. 

We're all excited about being able to pay $15 a month to play a BioWare title that we used to be able to play for just the box cost.

Like many new MMO's, there's no guarantee that most of us will pay the sub fee.  I will definitely get my value out of the box cost.  It remains to be seen if the game is good enough to hold me for a second month.  You've heard about Bat Country guilds, right?  How many last beyond the first month with a significant population?  Answer: none.

[Paelos]

Anything that requires you to not only get more than 5 people and requires you to balance classes to the exclusion of others is a raid in my mind.

I considered old school 8 man DAOC pvp groups raids. They were exclusive, tightly defined, and only accepted certain classes.

[Draegan]

Why is 5 people your line in the sand?  Why not 6 or 4?