The Spirit World: Infiltrating Bioware – A Help Guide

So, you’ve taken on your spirit form and are now looking at Bioware HQ from across the spirit street.

 

Yep, that sums up my current situation.

 

What are you trying to achieve from this help guide?

 

I’m trying to get to the same floor Stephen Reid is on so I can ask him about the future of SWTOR.

 

What are you wearing?

 

Is that really important?

 

This is your first spirit heist isn’t it?

 

Yep.

 

You need to be wearing appropriate clothing for this or their spirit guards will catch and torture you.

 

I’m wearing a balaclava, t-shirt, jeans and thongs.

 

That sounds about appropriate for someone trying to pull off the “casual and about to rob you” look. However, Thongs?

 

Flipflops, sandals.

 

Sorry, the usual people that ask for my advice are American hippies.

 

Cool.

 

No its not, they argue with me every step of the way and then end up losing their soul because they didn’t follow my advice.

 

Losing their soul?

 

Sorry, did I say soul? I meant spirit …juice.

 

Are we going to start?

 

I was waiting for you.

 

I’ve been ready since I summoned you.

 

Ok, what do you see?

 

I see Bioware HQ and there is something that looks like a furry red Yoda standing around outside.

 

Furry red Yoda?

 

Yea, it looks kinda cute.

 

Furry red Yoda?

 

Yea, its looking at me.

 

Ok, the fury red Yoda must be a guard of some kind. What I suggest you do is walk across the street and inside as though you belong there.

 

It’s still looking at me.

 

Just tell me when you get inside.

 

I’m inside and I’m headed over to the elevator.

 

No, do not use the elevator that’s what they’ll be expecting. Take the stairs.

 

The stairs. But who knows what floor Stephen Reid is on?

 

If you take the elevator I cant be held responsible for what furry red Yoda will do to you.

 

Stairs it is then.

 

Try the top floor.

 

Why the top? I don’t want to walk all the way up there.

 

Think about it, the more floors you try the more suspicious you will seem, so we need to decide where he will most likely be – and because I dont think you would risk your soul juice just to be on the same floor as the janitor he must be important. Important people are on the top floor.

 

Sounds reasonable.

 

Also listen out for people following you.

 

I think I can already hear someone following me.

 

Why didn’t you say something?

 

Because you didn’t ask.

 

That is very childish considering you are the one risking your soul juice.

 

What is soul juice anyway?

 

It’s actually just soul, I didn’t want to scare you considering this is your first foray into the soul world.

 

What could possibly happen to my soul?

 

It’s link to your body could be destroyed, thus trapping you here.

 

Why wouldn’t you tell me that?

 

Um.

 

The footsteps are getting closer.

 

What floor are you at?

 

I’m on the top floor.

 

Go into the room and tell me we found him.

 

Yep I can see him… oh F***, there is some kind of crocodile man standing next to him.

 

What’s it doing?

 

It’s seen me, now it’s walking towards me… it’s got a lightsaber.

 

This ends the infiltrate Bioware via the spirit world help guide.

 

What, you cant leave me like this, what do I do?

 

For more help guides visit…

 

What, I need help now!

 

I would suggest the “Escape from Bioware HQ Via The Spirit World Help Guide”. However in the meantime I would recommend you… RUN

====================
Community involvement: Vote to decide what happens next.

  1.  Option 1) run into the bathroom.
  2.  Option 2) run back to the stairwell.

Voting will close a week after release. Post your vote in comments!

 

An original Ken Clark / TOROZ production

Bioware launch official SWTOR podcast

BioWare have entered the podcast fray with a pilot episode of their official podcast.

It’s a very polished product as you’d expect, and there’s no doubt they’ll have lots of interesting info to share ongoing. There’s no confirmation of how regular the podcasts will be, but they’l certainly be worth following.

Of course, you won’t get a lot of criticism or analysis of any issues SWTOR may be having – that’s what our own podcast is for of course!

SWTOR Asia-Pacific Launch Event: Live Blog

Welcome to the TOROZ live blog of the media launch of SWTOR for Australia and New Zealand. We’ll be updating throughout the launch with both information and pics. You will need to refresh this page manually to get the updates sorry. Enjoy!

UPDATE: head over to Capsule Computers for some great pics of the event!

3.35pm: The event this evening is for people who’ve registered via EA’s social media presences – so not an open public event. This will end the live blog, expect the video and further info later this evening. Thanks for reading!

3.30pm: Sorry for the delay, was pulled in to interview Gabe Amatangelo. Very open interview, all community questions have been answered. Not to be a tease but you’ll need to wait until I get home to upload the video ;) Can confirm definitely late April for the free transfers, delay is to ensure the tech is right and isn’t aligned with a wider server transfer program at this stage.

3.02pm: Time for people to play the game.

3.00pm: GA back on stage – discusses 1.1 update, 1.2 ‘coming soon’ and key new content given an overview. Ranked Warzones etc.

2.56pm: Couldn’t be happier with where the game is at right now. Lots of awards, great server uptime (95%+). Looking toward community for what they want. Starts video showing first 30 days of SWTOR, interviews with (US) community members. More than 14 million characters created. 6 million PvP battles daily. David Bass and Stephen Reid make cameos.

2:55pm: GA back on stage – vids not a reflection of class balance ;) . Context of the game given on timeline. Unique opportunity to craft SW pre-history. Class overview.

2:49pm: Hope trailer played

2:45pm: Game intro cinematic played (Empire)

2:41pm: Game intro cinematic played (Republic)

2:37pm: GA: servers – we’ll open more as demand increases. Free transfer overview (no details different from announced)

2:37pm: Gabe takes the stage.

2:35pm: And we’re underway.

2.27pm: lots of mingling, so while we’re waiting for the official stuff to get underway, here’s a shot of the SWTOR mural and the PCs with SWTOR installed for journalists new to the game to have a play with:

2.16pm: Slightly late start – but the atmosphere is building:

12.28pm: Still hunting for info. There’s definitely something on this evening but not sure exactly what yet. Stay tuned. Sydneysiders – maybe keep your social diary free just in case ;)

10.48am: Rumours of a SWTOR community event tonight in Sydney? Will find out and post any info as soon as I have it.

8.23am: Welcome to the live blog, expect updates to start a little before 2pm AEDT / 11am AWST / 4pm NZDT

———-
Don’t forget the official Asia-Pacific launch FAQ for all the nitty-grittys, and we’d love you to post your ping times if you get a chance.

SWTOR might have been a Game of Thrones MMO

PC Gamer has an interesting interview with Bioware’s James Ohlen on the early discussions at Bioware around developing an MMO.

I’d always thought it would have been a little like the United Nations meeting for the first time, but apparently it was a core of three people. And according to Ohlen, those three tossed around ideas, including options if the Star Wars franchise wasn’t used:

“We had backup plans,” said Ohlen. “In all the design team was like three of us at that point, in total. So we were looking at doing a Lord of the Rings MMO, a Silmarillion MMO, a kind of a Gunslinger-esque Dark Tower MMO, a Game of Thrones MMO.”

Now, is it too much to ask for Bioware to develop all of those options – I mean how hard could it be? I’m not 100% sure on the Dark Tower option, but I’d definitely play the other three. A LOTRO competitor would have thrown in one hell of a competition dynamic into the MMO field, that’s for sure.

Over to you: if it wasn’t Star Wars, what lore-base should Bioware have used? Any commenters suggesting a Gilligan’s Island or Twilight MMO will be banned – but I’d back a Happy Days game.

Bioware’s no Grinch: SWTOR Grace Period returns

Overnight, Bioware’s founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk have jointly announced that there’ll now be a 48-hour grace period for anyone who has pre-ordered SWTOR.

What does that mean for you? Once the 20th December rolls around, you’ll now have 48 hours to enter the code from your physical copy of SWTOR (or your digital copy if you’ve somehow organised one).

So on top of yesterday’s announcement that Amazon orders will ship a little earlier, Oceanic players who pre-ordered via Amazon can expect the product a number of days earlier than previously expected. The post also emphasises there is no option to extend the grace period beyond the 48 hours.

It’s an encouraging sign that Bioware have reacted relatively quickly to community feedback – a key part of success in any MMO.

WHat do you think?

SWTOR pre-orders break 800K in the Americas

VG Chartz have released their latest data on sales of game pre-orders for the Americas for the week ended 5th November.

It shows that Star Wars: The Old Republic has broken the 800 thousand mark for that region alone. Add in the European countries that are part of the initial launch and I’d say it’s a fairly safe assumption to say SWTOR will be going live on 20th December with a million-plus players on board.

Here’s the leaders on the chart currently:

Oceanic release for SWTOR: the state of play 24 hours on

Wow, what a period of 24 hours it’s been. Since the launch of the SWTOR pre-order scheme, with it’s exclusion of Oceanic areas, Asia and South America (as well as parts of Europe), it’s fair to say the reaction has been…animated. The official forums have a rather large thread on the issue, and there’s no shortage of activity on Facebook (including a protest) and Twitter. It’s always difficult to summarise a situation as fluid as this, but here it goes:

1. You can order box copies of SWTOR from online retailers in the US or anywhere willing to sell them. Reports are that the Collector’s edition is sold out across most online retailers.

2. Although Bioware’s Stephen Reid gave some encouragement on the abilility to play the game if you get a copy, he’s put some disclaimers around it in the past 30 minutes:

3. Oceanic retailers who have listed pre-orders appear not to have any basis in fact for assuming deliveries of the game at this stage.

4. There is absolutely no information on when there would be local availability and when full access to the game would occur.

So there you have it – it seems there’ll be no further update until around 24 hours time i.e. after another day of Comic Con is done. We’re devoting tomorrow’s Flash Point podcast to the issue and we’re investigating a live stream so stay tuned.

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