SW:TOR Pre-order Mayhem!!!!

San Diego Comic-Con 2011 has come and gone, and as Stephen Reid says "The train is coming!" 


After years of waiting, Bioware have finally announced the pre-order details for SW:TOR and narrowed the release date period to "a 2011 holiday release". Some great information has come out of Comic-Con, but the follow up on some of those announcements doesn't seem to have gone as planned....


 

Pre-Order information is finally here, WOOHOO!!!!

Before I get into the "bad follow up" on certain announcements lets go over the good stuff. Here is a quick summary of what we have been told at Comic-Con:-

• You can customize the way your Companion's look (clothing/skin colour etc).
  
• Traditional speeder bikes have been added to early/midgame & land speeders have also been included.
  
• 900 voice actors have worked on the game (and that's just in English!).
  
• Nadia, who is one of the Jedi Consular's Companions, was revealed.
  
• They are adding tactics for Companions as seen in Dragon Age.
  
• Companions no longer die permanent deaths in game.
  
• There are no duplicate missions in class stories (i.e. a Sith Warrior will never do the same quest as a Jedi Knight).
  
• Players will receive bonuses if they reroll a different class once they reach maximum level.
  
• There is an entire planet (Ilum) for end game solo play.
  
• The player will have about 30 abilities by level 50.
  
• Each class story is several hundred hours long.
  
• The game works on a Mac by using Bootcamp.
  
• Large scale game testing weekends are arranged for September.
  
• Pre-order information was announced.
  
• Collector's Edition information was announced.
  
• Collector's Edition owners will gain access to a VIP area & store within game.
  
• There will be a head start period for people who pre-order.
  
• 'Join the Fight' video shown for the first time.
  

A large amount of the information was regarding Companions. Arguably the biggest announcement of them all is regarding the customisation of Companions. Many people (especially those from the Role-Playing (RP) community, were worried about that fact that everyone would be running around with Companions that look the same as everyone else's. It now seems as though Bioware will allow players to change everything except, species, sex and voice.

You can make your companion look unique 

Another big piece of news regarding Companions was about the tactics. Having played Dragon Age I know that the level of control you as a player have over your group members allows you to control every part of the action. For example you can have a Companion heal any group member once there health is less than 25% or you can only have them attack mobs targeted by the player. This is one of the major problems MMO players have with pet classes in other MMOs. You would get into combat and your pet (or more likely someone else's, as no-one in their right mind would play a pet class would they?)  would run off and draw the aggro of another group of mobs before your group is ready for them, this can cause the whole group to wipe on many occasions.


So as a Dragon Age player talking to MMO players who are worried about Companions turning out like Pets in other MMOs, don't worry. I have a feeling these will be completely different to that (by that I mean they will actually work).


However Bioware have removed the ability to kill your Companions. This has divided the community with many players annoyed that another choice has been taken away from them. The Developers are saying that a lot of testers are coming to them saying that they accidentally killed there companion/didn't mean to do it/the games too difficult to play without them.

In the words of James Ohlen (Senior Creative Director at Bioware) "Testing rules everything". If the result of testing is saying that this option should be removed from the game then I am inclined to agree with him. I will always listen to the opinions of those who are playing the game ahead of others. If the testers don't like it, get rid of it!

The other big news was about pre-order information and the large scale testing weekends coming up in September. The large scale testing weekends are what will really give us an idea of the final release date. If those weekends go well, we may see the game released as soon as early to mid October. However if they go badly, the game may not come out until late November/Early December. It is a case of wait and see with this.


As for the pre-order info, there were 3 types available;

The Standard Edition

• The Game
• 30 Days Game Time Included
  
  

The Deluxe Edition (Downloadable only from EAs Origin Site)

• The Game
  
• 30 Days Game Time Included
  
• Digital Items
  • Flare Gun
    
  • Training Droid
    
  • Holo Dancer
    
  • Holo Cam
    
  • STAP
    

The Collector's Edition

• The Game
  
• 30 Days Days Game Time Included
  
• Exclusive Darth Malgus Statue
  
• Game Disks Collectible Metal Case
  
• The Journal of Master Gnost-Dural as annotated by Satele Shan
  
• The Old Republic Galaxy Map
  
• Custom Securty Authentication Key
  
• Music of Star Wars: The Old Republic CD
  
• Digital Items
  • Flare Gun
    
  • Training Droid
    
  • Holo Dancer
    
  • Holo Cam
    
  • STAP
    
  • Exclusive Mouse Droid
    
  • In Game VIP Store

The Collector's Edition in all its £130 Glory

After waiting for this game for several years there was no way I was not going to buy the Collector's Edition (CE). I was still shocked to find out it would cost £130. With any luck, when I get my hands on it may find that it is actually worth the money.


However as I said at the top, it doesn't seem to have gone as planned. I pre-ordered my CE from Game UK Thursday evening and received my confirmation order almost immediately. It was however missing one very important thing. The Pre-Order code. This code you are suppose to register on the SWTOR website ASAP, as when you register your code decides when you get to enter the game in the Head Start period, i.e. if you register your code in the first couple of days you will get into the game on the first day of Head Start access. However you wait a week you may not gain access until day 2 or 3 of Head Start.



As people were not sure how many people would pre-order and get this code, or how many people would be given access on day 1 of Head Start, people wanted to get there codes registered ASAP. I therefore emailed Game UK on Friday morning, and to be fair to them they replied within a couple of hours. However they said that they would send out the first batch of codes to people who pre-ordered the following Thursday, and then sends codes out every Thursday from then onwards. I replied to them Saturday morning stating the reasons why I needed my code now. They emailed me Tuesday afternoon with my code and an email apologizing for the confusion.



I cannot fault Game UK for the way they responded to the situation, if anything I commend them. However I was still confused with what they said in the email. First of all the said that it wouldn't make a difference when I registered my code as everyone would be given access at the same time. They also seemed to think that what I was registering for was an Open Beta period that started on Thursday the 28^th of July (not a Head Start period which is what it is actually for). Any one who knows anything about this game knows that Bioware have said time and again that they do not intend to have an Open Beta period, and as the game is not due to be released for several months, Bioware wouldn't start an Open Beta yet.



There seems to have been poor communication between Bioware/EA and their Distributors. Hopefully this will be the only hiccup regarding the launch of the game. Rift had arguably the best launch of any MMO to date, launching earlier this year with very few crashes and little to no lag. The only problem Rift had (if you can call it a problem) was their long queue times. MMO players expect this and are prepared for it, but Bioware are also trying to draw players from the single game player base. These players are not use to it and may be put off playing permanently by it if they have to wait several hours to log in to the game for the first time. I guess you can therefore forgive Bioware for limiting the launch of the game to North America & Europe to start with, even though many players from other parts of the world are understandably annoyed by this.



Bioware have gone on and on and about having a quality game with a quality service attached to it. That includes having a top quality launch , and everything they are saying and doing says they are going to do this. I guess the only downside to this (besides the fact that certain countries must wait to get their servers) is that if Bioware don't have an absolutely perfect launch, then they are setting themselves up to receive a hell of a lot of criticism.



Here's to a perfect launch...