Star Wars: The Old Republic Message Board older than one year ago

It's happened, internet. It's finally happened. For Star Wars fans, MMO fans, and BioWare fans, the wait has stretched on for what feels like, and also is, years, but Star Wars: The Old Republic has finally launched. As IGN's resident MMO expert (or MMPrO), reviewing The Old Republic will basically be my job for the next few weeks. I realize how murderously envious that may have made you...

#starwars When BioWare delivered my copy of their latest game last month they used some rather novel packing material: Razer's officially licensed Star Wars: The Old Republic gaming mouse and headset. I excitedly set the two packages aside and started playing the game. More »

Star Wars: The Old Republic: it's out, it's good, and it's popular. With the trial period about to end for those who bought the game at launch, BioWare is starting to talk about how various parts of its game will evolve in the near future...

#speakuponkotaku With players dancing their way out of trouble in BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic, commenter Raso719 wonders what's the big deal about taking advantage of sloppy programming to gain an advantage in today's Speak Up on Kotaku. More »

#starwars Meet Vette. She's the loyal Twi'lek companion character to my Star Wars: The Old Republic Sith Warrior. Or at least she'd better be, if she knows what's good for her. Beware, spoilers ahead. More »

#starwars It's too bad there's no option to just settle down and retire in BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic. After hours of questing amidst the tranquil sands of Tatooine, I'm ready for a lengthy break. More »

BioWare's Austin studio had some assistance in developing Star Wars: The Old Republic, which label heads Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka have described in the past as a collaboration between BioWare Austin, Edmonton, and Mythic. As it turns out, BioWare Ireland is yet another crucial component of The Old Republic's development harem, assisting the game with "multiple dimensions of support," from quality assurance to localization to networking. And that may not be all that the Ireland studio will be up to in the coming years.

"That's where it is right now," Zeschuk told me, before he noted that "over time, we'll see." For now, the Galway-based office is primarily focused on making sure SW:TOR servers aren't crashing and players aren't furious. "It's really a reflection of how important we value the service," Muzyka added. "The commitment as a premium service subscription game is to support it with high quality service every step of the way." BioWare apparently thought that commitment serious enough to bring on approximately 400 new employees to man its Ireland location.

And with initial subscriber numbers still on the rise, it looks like that commitment will pay off, at least in the short term. In the long run, however ... well, let's just say it won't be shocking to see the Ireland studio transform into something more than strictly support.

#humor Binoculars? Aliens don't need no stinking binoculars—especially when they have red eyes. More »

#starwars What happens when a crazy Smuggler is joined by, a Jedi Consular, a Trooper, and a Sith Warrior in week two of Kotaku's Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO Log? Opinions change, ideas form, and they all learn a little something about friendship (and possibly crafting). More »

EA has announced that Star Wars: The Old Republic has assembled more than a million registered players in its first week officially live, earning it the self-granted title of "fastest growing subscription MMO in history."

A million players is a solid milestone, but EA and BioWare still have some parsecs to travel to make SW:TOR a resounding success: The beta test, don't forget, was able to pick up twice as many players than are currently registered. EA's management expects at least two million players to call the game successful at all, according to previous reports.

But halfway there in the first week is pretty good anyway. EA says that players have logged in more than 28 million game hours (no word on how many hours spent waiting in login queues, of course), and in that time have created 3.8 million characters, split about half and half across Jedi and Sith. More than 2 billion NPCs have been killed in the eight days since launch as well, which is quite the virtual genocide. You can check out the official stats and announcement below.

#starwars Massively multiplayer games come into the world as wriggly things full of writhing paths of possibility. Things start changing as soon as those servers go live and players start interacting with each other and the content. Running beta tests can predict some exploits and behaviors, but the game's also still being built while those betas are happening. Nevertheless, every beat must end and the game in question's got to come out eventually. For Star Wars: The Old Republic, that time was this week. More »

Since there's a good chance you can't actually play Star Wars: The Old Republic right now - or even log into the website, for that matter - why not listen to this sweet hip hop track based on the game's theme music? You can head over to artist Richie Branson's site for a free download.

With eight (eight!) studios around the globe as of the end of 2011, BioWare label heads Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk have kind of a lot going on at any given time. When I spoke with them earlier this week at Times Square's NASDAQ building, though, they were remarkably calm after ringing the financial institution's opening bell (surrounded by and emblazoned in Star Wars accoutrement), and launching the six-years-in-development Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Beyond the aforementioned accomplishments, the doctors' division of EA has been rapidly expanding -- over just the last six months, BioWare has added a Sacramento office, a San Francisco office, and an Ireland office, to say nothing of "BioWare Victory," the studio heading up Command & Conquer: Generals 2. That's a whole lot of people (501 - 1000, approximately, according to LinkedIn)! How do two guys that started out with eight people in a studio apartment manage that kind of expansion without diluting the original values they began with?

BioWare co-founder and CEO Ray Muzyka offered an explanation by way of example:
"You're seeing how we're doing that in The Old Republic. We're merging story in in a really seamless way. It doesn't feel tacked on or added, it's actually there from the ground floor. It's actually adding to the experience and increasing that emotional engagement, which, you go back to our vision, that's what it's all about. Building that emotional engagement." The concept of "emotional engagement" was one that both Muzyka and his long-time business partner Dr. Greg Zeschuk touched on repeatedly during the interview. Muzyka called it a "pillar" of the label's vision, but also emphasized that story -- BioWare's traditional method for engaging players on an emotional level -- isn't the only way to evoke an emotional response from players.

Jeff and Ryan get their Empire on in this, the most recent of Star Wars MMORPGs.

#starwars Years and years ago, when the design team for what would become Star Wars: Old Republic was first sitting down to plan a video game, they knew they were going to make an MMO. Hopefully a Star Wars one. But just in case they couldn't, they had to have some backups. More »

This week, Star Wars: The Old Republic finally launches after years of development -- and it's those years that are the focus of this eight minute launch documentary. Believe it or not, in eight minutes you can pretty much cover every aspect of a major MMO launch.

With eight (eight!) studios around the globe as of the end of 2011, BioWare label heads Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk have kind of a lot going on at any given time. When I spoke with them earlier this week at Times Square's NASDAQ building, though, they were remarkably calm after having both rang the financial institution's opening bell surrounded by (and emblazoned in) Star Wars accoutrement, as well as launching the six-years-in-development MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Beyond the aforementioned accomplishments, the doctors' division of EA has been rapidly expanding -- over just the last six months, BioWare has added a Sacramento office, a San Francisco office, and an Ireland office, to say nothing of "BioWare Victory," the studio heading up Command & Conquer: Generals 2. That's a whole lot of people (501 - 1000, approximately, according to LinkedIn)! How do two guys that started out with eight people in a studio apartment manage that kind of expansion without diluting the original values they began with?

BioWare co-founder and Ray Muzyka offered an explanation by way of example:
"You're seeing how we're doing that in The Old Republic. We're merging story in in a really seamless way. It doesn't feel tacked on or added, it's actually there from the ground floor. It's actually adding to the experience and increasing that emotional engagement, which, you go back to our vision, that's what it's all about. Building that emotional engagement." The concept of "emotional engagement" was one that both Muzyka and his long-time business partner Dr. Greg Zeschuk touched on repeatedly during the interview. Muzyka called it a "pillar" of the label's vision, but also emphasized that story - BioWare's traditional method for engaging players on an emotional level - isn't the only way to evoke an emotional response from players.

It's no secret that EA has a lot riding on the success of Star Wars: The Old Republic. What is a secret, however, is just how big a risk the recently launched MMO poses for the company. As reported by Reuters, Robert W. Baird & Co analyst Colin Sebastian believes that EA may have sunk more than $300 million into the development of The Old Republic. Others estimate somewhere between $100 million and $300 million but, either way, it's a hefty investment to lose if Sith fever doesn't catch on - not to mention the loss of expected monthly subscription fees.

EA revealed in February this year that its Old Republic business would be profitable at 500,000 subscribers and at least one analyst, Sterne Agee's Arvind Bhatia, believes the game should handily reach that quota. Bhatia expects the game to sell 3 million copies and lasso 1.5 million subscribers by the end of the year. Should The Old Republic fail, Bhatia believes EA's 2012 earnings could be reduced by up to 20 percent.

It's also worth pointing out that one analyst, Cowen & Company's Doug Creutz, believes The Old Republic may have already hit the 1.5 million player mark. Of course, the best way to learn of the MMO's success is simply to crack open your window, because you can bet that EA will be shouting it from the hills the moment The Old Republic starts turning a profit.

It's now the day after Star Wars: The Old Republic officially launched and certain servers are experiencing long wait times to join. Around the IGN offices we're having the same problem, but we keep chipping away at our Star Wars: The Old Republic review in progress...

#starwars It's a mild, late-fall night, the holiday season is in full effect, and you want to go get some soup at Au Bon Pain. Life is good, but for how much longer? More »

With the assumption that BioWare's new subscription-based massively multiplayer online Star Wars role-playing game will one day succumb to the dark side of free-to-play running rampant, commenter Odin believes The Old Republic could flourish under the archaic monthly model in today's Speak Up on Kotaku. More »

#starwars While the rest of Kotaku dedicated themselves to squeezing every ounce of gaming out of the world we live in last week, I spent the latter half on vacation, and by "on vacation" I mean playing Star Wars: The Old Republic. More »

#starwars The Old Republic isn't just about waiting, running, and shooting. This is a Star Wars game, and what would a Star Wars game be without action-packed space combat? Just look at how much fun I'm having here, and try not to be too jealous. More »

#starwars Now that Star Wars: The Old Republic has officially launched, the long queue times that players experienced at certain times during the early start are now working around the clock to keep you from logging in. How can you get your Sith on without standing around in a queue? The options aren't pretty, but they're effective. More »

#starwars DC Universe Online's done it. Team Fortress 2's done it. World of Warcraft's done it (sort of). 2011's seen some of the biggest most ambitious massively multiplayer online game abandon the subscription-based business model and go free-to-play. Valve's shift to an F2P model takes advantage of a game already chock full of microtransaction content. And, in the case of DCUO, Sony Online Entertainment's been rewarded with an exponential increase in their player base. There's apparently plenty of upside in very big games going to F2P. So why is the freshly-launched Star Wars: The Old Republic charging a monthly free to engage in its online adventures? More »

#starwars It's a popular if tired trope to cast the bankers, traders and other functionaries of the financial industry as big, bad guys. So, either the EA execs who gathered at the NASDAQ this building to ring the trading service's opening bell this morning were there to cleanse the site of evil or showed up to consolidate their own malevolent power. More »

Today’s the day, then. The day the world finally discovers if EA’s long-gestating, mega-hyped Star Wars MMO is KOTOR 3+, WoW in space, Galaxies without the madness, a Wookiee or a Jawa, a winner or a loser, an Empire Strikes Back or a Phantom Menace, a Sarlaac or a Hutt. (I don’t even know which of those is better). Many John Walkers died to bring us thoughts on the game, which we hope to have next week. I too have a copy I plan to look at as soon as humanly/wookieely possible, though I’ve been too busy breaking my beloved record player today to get started as yet.

So, who’s in, who’s out, who’s Light side, who’s Dark side, who’s loving it, who’s hating it and who’s going to waste everyone’s time by posting ‘meh’ and having it silently deleted a few seconds later? Also, below is an eight-minute ‘launch documentary’, which is a fancy way of saying ‘advert.’ Warning: it seems to auto-play, which I can’t work out how to stop. Sorry.(more…)

You did know that arguably the biggest MMO since World of Warcraft in 2004 is launching today, right? No? Well we've been playing through early access phase of Star Wars: The Old Republic pre-launch to try and bring you as much of a review as possible at this point in time...

Welcome back to the Game Scoop! podcast, your weekly dose of gaming news and massive LOLZ. Your shepherds will be Daemon Hatfield, Greg Miller, Anthony Gallegos, and, by popular demand, Charles Onyett. Yes, Mr. Slime himself...

#gutcheck When the RPG masters at BioWare team up with George Lucas' beloved science fiction franchise amazing things happen, but is the developer's first foray into the MMO market worth your massively multiplayer money? More »