SWTOR

[caladein]

Just got a notification from Amazon estimating the arrival date as 12/22. Nice headstart.

Assuming it's like every other headstart they'll just allow you to download the client (through Origin ) and let you play through the headstart and a week or two after launch until you have to put your retail key in.

[Sky]

They said you will be able to pre-load the head-start, so it's not eating up your head-start time. But yeah, if you head-start, you won't be suing EA over anything. But to be fair, I don't think it was ever intended for the headstart to be anything but a download, you're not going to get a physical box before the release date.

[Surlyboi]

Yeah, kinda figured. but with a 4,000 terabyte download, by the time I get it all the headstart will be over.

[Nebu]

Yeah, kinda figured. but with a 4,000 terabyte download, by the time I get it all the headstart year will be over.

I'm not looking forward to that download.  At all.

[Viin]

Don't panic! It's probably just the noob zones anyways. (Because the rest aren't even *close* to done yet!)

[Ingmar]

I had to wipe my computer and start afresh this weekend, no single download can terrify me anymore.

(Related thought: how the fuck is Blood Bowl over 5 GB?)

[Evildrider]

Soo Bioware has made Ireland upgrade their Internet!

Quote from Stephen Reid from the Q&A at Eurogamer about the EU servers being based in Dublin:

And here's the reason you're not allowed to freak out. Ireland, as a country, is upgrading its internet infrastructure for our game. Which is a big damn deal, right? I had a conversation with the guy who's doing the server build a few months ago. They were talking about the fact that if you look at the gap in time between when we were guessing to launch and then when we were starting to do our servers, because you're obviously locking down the server hardware and what you need to buy and everything else. The time between that point and launch is so small that we are ramping up and buying hardware faster than any tech project ever. Faster than Google. Faster than Facebook. And this is what we're hearing from the server guys who are working on it, they're like, "This is unprecedented scaling you're talking about." So when you combine that and you go to the Irish government or whoever it is who runs internet in Ireland, and you say, "Hey, look at the bandwidth requirements of our game." And they're like, "Uhm, we might need to get something bigger than a T1 line." So they are literally upgrading the internet infrastructure of the country itself. Which I think is damn cool. And then the US servers are going to be on east coast and west coast. So it doesn't really matter where. Any major metropolitan city in that case is going to be fine.

[Sobelius]

EQ2 Extended and (arguably) Guild Wars should be the model for downloads of MMOs -- I was able to get in and play both of these within mere minutes since only the files necessary for beginning play were downloaded initially -- the rest downloaded in the background as I played. Very good model.

Yes, come on down and work at Bioware Austin. You can look forward to late September outdoor activities such as the Celtic Festival this past weekend -- where it reached a mere 99 degrees in the dry and dusty shade of the withered pines.

[Evildrider]

Yeah I am not sure how our guild stuff is going to work out if I'm not in right away due to holiday whatnot.

This is from the TOR guild FAQ Ingmar.

What if our guild is transferred into the game during Phase 3, but then our guild leader does not buy the game and log in at launch?

If your guild has been imported into the live game during Phase 3, then you have two weeks after the game’s launch for your guild leader to log in and activate your guild in the live game.

If your guild leader does not log in after two weeks, another member of your guild will be promoted to guild leader. The first officer to log in will be chosen first, but if no officers log in, the first member to join will be promoted.

[Ingmar]

Gah, the vultures will be circling!

[Fordel]

Your throne is mine Ingmar!

[Kageru]

I care more about the NDA dropping than I do about the game's launch. Hopefully that will happen sooner rather than latter.

There's also an advantage to having the classic "bunch of huge archive files" method of download. That's much easier to mirror or distribute than some sort of background streaming mechanism. And if it's mirrored by my ISP then it's just a question of leaving the computer on overnight (or for a couple of nights if it's really that huge).

[Evildrider]

With no open beta ever coming, I don't see them dropping the NDA anytime soon.  I really don't know what flood of info people will see with it dropping other than story spoilers.  Which I still think is the main reason it will remain in place.

[Kageru]

Mainly if the combat is as bad as it looks and the depth of the content.

Story spoilers? In an MMO? Yeah.... I'd really log on for "days of the young and Jedi".

[Evildrider]

Mainly if the combat is as bad as it looks and the depth of the content.

Story spoilers? In an MMO? Yeah.... I'd really log on for "days of the young and Jedi".

Then this game isn't for you.

[Kageru]

It may be. I'm in the "train-wreck appreciation society" and have hopes SW:TOR still has something to offer.

Like the fan's grinding their gears when all of the stories have optimal walk-throughs posted the week the day the game goes live.

[UnSub]

The time between that point and launch is so small that we are ramping up and buying hardware faster than any tech project ever. Faster than Google. Faster than Facebook. And this is what we're hearing from the server guys who are working on it, they're like, "This is unprecedented scaling you're talking about." So when you combine that and you go to the Irish government or whoever it is who runs internet in Ireland, and you say, "Hey, look at the bandwidth requirements of our game." And they're like, "Uhm, we might need to get something bigger than a T1 line." So they are literally upgrading the internet infrastructure of the country itself. Which I think is damn cool. And then the US servers are going to be on east coast and west coast. So it doesn't really matter where. Any major metropolitan city in that case is going to be fine.

Sounds reliable and something that will have absolutely no issues. 

[Nyght]

So not only will the patches hammer my bandwidth cap, just playing the game will too? 

[Mrbloodworth]

The time between that point and launch is so small that we are ramping up and buying hardware faster than any tech project ever. Faster than Google. Faster than Facebook. And this is what we're hearing from the server guys who are working on it, they're like, "This is unprecedented scaling you're talking about." So when you combine that and you go to the Irish government or whoever it is who runs internet in Ireland, and you say, "Hey, look at the bandwidth requirements of our game." And they're like, "Uhm, we might need to get something bigger than a T1 line." So they are literally upgrading the internet infrastructure of the country itself. Which I think is damn cool. And then the US servers are going to be on east coast and west coast. So it doesn't really matter where. Any major metropolitan city in that case is going to be fine.

Sounds reliable and something that will have absolutely no issues. 

Link?

[disKret]

http://darthhater.com/2011/09/26/eurogamer-expo-2011-meet-and-greet-qa-highlights/

[Mrbloodworth]

Tanks.

[Nebu]

The question was "How are we going to stop specific classes getting cornered into specific roles," and actually what we've seen is that's not really a problem because things are so flexible. Nobody cares what your class is actually. People do not advertise for an "Inquisitor Shadow." People say "I need a tank." So what we actually see a lot is - and we're actually - we can't talk about all of this. We're doing more things to make your role more visible to other players, because that's actually what people are looking for. They don't care if you're an Inquisitor tank, or a Juggernaut tank, or you're playing a Bounty Hunter tank. They care about getting a tank, so because you've got the different pieces, you've actually got a lot more flexibility to play the story you want, and then pick the type of player you want to be.

What is old is new again. 

Joking aside, they better allow the ability to change specs on the fly or this game is going to struggle early.  At the very least, respecs had better be accessible and cheap.  Few people enjoy playing a tank and fewer still are any good at it.  If my class can fill multiple roles, I want to be able to play all of them at the push of a button.  The new standards for this have been established.

[Sky]

I agree, but will be surprised if they get it in for ship. I think the best you can hope for is a dual spec thing, since it's what WoW has, despite Rift showing people how to handle multi-spec properly. They seem pretty adamant against switching advanced class after 20 or so, which is a shame since they've already said it doesn't affect the class story at all. I'd like to see, at minimum, cheap respec (including AC) with four presets, two for each AC.

[DraconianOne]

The time between that point and launch is so small that we are ramping up and buying hardware faster than any tech project ever. Faster than Google. Faster than Facebook. And this is what we're hearing from the server guys who are working on it, they're like, "This is unprecedented scaling you're talking about." So when you combine that and you go to the Irish government or whoever it is who runs internet in Ireland, and you say, "Hey, look at the bandwidth requirements of our game." And they're like, "Uhm, we might need to get something bigger than a T1 line." So they are literally upgrading the internet infrastructure of the country itself. Which I think is damn cool. And then the US servers are going to be on east coast and west coast. So it doesn't really matter where. Any major metropolitan city in that case is going to be fine.

Sounds reliable and something that will have absolutely no issues. 

Sounds like a load of Stephen Reid bollocks to me. Google, Amazon and Microsoft have had data centres in Ireland for years and there's a load of top tech companies who are based out of Dublin. Claiming that EA/Bioware have some sort of political clout that these others don't is pretty arrogant - as is assuming that the data infrastucture they require is far greater than that of other companies too.

[01101010]

The question was "How are we going to stop specific classes getting cornered into specific roles," and actually what we've seen is that's not really a problem because things are so flexible. Nobody cares what your class is actually. People do not advertise for an "Inquisitor Shadow." People say "I need a tank." So what we actually see a lot is - and we're actually - we can't talk about all of this. We're doing more things to make your role more visible to other players, because that's actually what people are looking for. They don't care if you're an Inquisitor tank, or a Juggernaut tank, or you're playing a Bounty Hunter tank. They care about getting a tank, so because you've got the different pieces, you've actually got a lot more flexibility to play the story you want, and then pick the type of player you want to be.

What is old is new again. 

Joking aside, they better allow the ability to change specs on the fly or this game is going to struggle early.  At the very least, respecs had better be accessible and cheap.  Few people enjoy playing a tank and fewer still are any good at it.  If my class can fill multiple roles, I want to be able to play all of them at the push of a button.  The new standards for this have been established.

This really all depends on how they handle tanking. Blood tanking vs evasion tanking needs to balance out or else it will still come down to: You need Tank class A to be able to defeat Boss C on Dungeon F because Tank class B takes too much damage per hit and healer T can not keep the HP up.

I am brimming with anticipation.... 

[tmp]

The question was "How are we going to stop specific classes getting cornered into specific roles," and actually what we've seen is that's not really a problem because things are so flexible. Nobody cares what your class is actually. People do not advertise for an "Inquisitor Shadow." People say "I need a tank." So what we actually see a lot is - and we're actually - we can't talk about all of this. We're doing more things to make your role more visible to other players, because that's actually what people are looking for. They don't care if you're an Inquisitor tank, or a Juggernaut tank, or you're playing a Bounty Hunter tank. They care about getting a tank, so because you've got the different pieces, you've actually got a lot more flexibility to play the story you want, and then pick the type of player you want to be.

Unless each class can perform every role, that really doesn't answer the initial question at all, does it?

[Malakili]

The question was "How are we going to stop specific classes getting cornered into specific roles," and actually what we've seen is that's not really a problem because things are so flexible. Nobody cares what your class is actually. People do not advertise for an "Inquisitor Shadow." People say "I need a tank." So what we actually see a lot is - and we're actually - we can't talk about all of this. We're doing more things to make your role more visible to other players, because that's actually what people are looking for. They don't care if you're an Inquisitor tank, or a Juggernaut tank, or you're playing a Bounty Hunter tank. They care about getting a tank, so because you've got the different pieces, you've actually got a lot more flexibility to play the story you want, and then pick the type of player you want to be.

Unless each class can perform every role, that really doesn't answer the initial question at all, does it?

Its just a dodge.  There will be tanks and healer shortages, and plenty of dual wielding jedi all comepting for one slot in a group.

[Torinak]

The time between that point and launch is so small that we are ramping up and buying hardware faster than any tech project ever. Faster than Google. Faster than Facebook. And this is what we're hearing from the server guys who are working on it, they're like, "This is unprecedented scaling you're talking about." So when you combine that and you go to the Irish government or whoever it is who runs internet in Ireland, and you say, "Hey, look at the bandwidth requirements of our game." And they're like, "Uhm, we might need to get something bigger than a T1 line." So they are literally upgrading the internet infrastructure of the country itself. Which I think is damn cool. And then the US servers are going to be on east coast and west coast. So it doesn't really matter where. Any major metropolitan city in that case is going to be fine.

Sounds reliable and something that will have absolutely no issues. 

Sounds like a load of Stephen Reid bollocks to me. Google, Amazon and Microsoft have had data centres in Ireland for years and there's a load of top tech companies who are based out of Dublin. Claiming that EA/Bioware have some sort of political clout that these others don't is pretty arrogant - as is assuming that the data infrastucture they require is far greater than that of other companies too.

Yeah, that claim is complete and utter crap. The only way they could realistically claim it is if nobody on their team ever did any HW or bandwidth estimates until now, and then they had that "uh-oh" moment when they found they'd need more than a few dozen servers.

I have direct experience with data center capacity and deployment by the kind of "other companies" they compare to, and there's just no way EA/Bioware is anywhere in the same ballpark...probably not even within a few orders of magnitude.

Fake edit: Unless they're talking about the initial digital distribution and patching, which as I understand it is on the order of 523412467 GB. :)

[caladein]

Its just a dodge.  There will be tanks and healer shortages, and plenty of dual wielding jedi all comepting for one slot in a group.

Of course there will be, but making 75% of the ACs dual-role and having fully automated companions closes the gap a bit.  Would dual-specs close it even further?  I believe so, although less than in a game without companions.

[Ingmar]

It's been said before but not in a while I guess - there won't be dual specs at launch, but they're planning to add them 'soon' thereafter. I'd guess in whatever the first big content patch is, but that's nothing more than a guess.

[sam, an eggplant]

SWTOR will have dual-specs similar to WoW, but currently the plan is not to allow respeccing your advanced class. So if you pick an advanced class that doesn't support a role, you're out of luck. Like everything else, it's an unambitious WoW clone. It doesn't innovate, even within strict boundaries, like Rift's soul and multi-role mechanic.

[koro]

SWTOR will have dual-specs similar to WoW, but currently the plan is not to allow respeccing your advanced class. So if you pick an advanced class that doesn't support a role, you're out of luck. Like everything else, it's an unambitious WoW clone. It doesn't innovate, even within strict boundaries, like Rift's soul and multi-role mechanic.

I've actually heard nothing but the complete opposite: that there will be no dual-specs within an AC, but you can switch ACs for a rapidly increasing fee.

[Ingmar]

That's the respeccing, which I think will be in at launch?

So - respec at a trainer for a fee if you want to change ACs, but also you have dual speccing on the fly within an AC at some point down the road.

[koro]

That's the respeccing, which I think will be in at launch?

So - respec at a trainer for a fee if you want to change ACs, but also you have dual speccing on the fly within an AC at some point down the road.

I've no clue. Bioware's had some really weird, inconsistent, vague communication of late, both with the public and with their testers.

[Simond]

I'm guessing their "We don't need dual-spec/dungeon queues/etc" Vision ran head on into the feedback from the first beta weekend and died quietly in a corner.