SWTOR - Australia and New Zealand
UPDATE: local online game store Dungeon Crawler has SWTOR on sale for $71.50.
Just a quick heads up for anyone still looking to buy a copy of SWTOR. Retail chain Game are now selling imported copies of The Old Republic at the price of $78.00.
So if you are still looking for a copy head to your nearest store or shop online here.
See you all in-game!
Now that the embargo on talking about the SWTOR beta has lifted, we’ll start giving you some impressions of the game. Starting out is our own Mark Duncan, Flash Point co-host and arguably the TOROZ staffer with the longest time in-game.
Having taken part in two betas now, I wanted to give you all my opinion of the game and perhaps give you a little insight in what to expect. The short answer is: it’s all good!
In my opinion MMOs have become stagnant over the last few years. Since World of Warcraft, I have tried many MMOs from Star Trek, Rift and Aion to DC Universe and quite a few others. They all lacked something that WoW has, and the only way I can describe that something is one word: polish.
Star Wars: The Old Republic now enters the fray and trust me, if your looking for polish, this most definitely has it.
Every thing about the game speaks quality: a whole galaxy of work has gone into making sure we have an amazing experience while playing our characters and progressing through content.
Probably the most compelling aspect in my opinion is the story. I have tried most of the classes in the game to at least Level 10 and am simply blown away by the story of each class as it unfolds. It’s like a good book that you cannot put down, I just want to keep playing to find out what my toon has in store next. It is clearly evident that the writers and the developers who implemented all this work are very passionate about the game.
Right and Wrong – those are decisions that will be a major factor for you when you play the game as both light and dark side. Decisions are common and can make a large change in how your story plays out. I won’t include any spoilers here, however having played solely as a dark side player, some of the decisions I made were downright nasty – evil just flows out of my toon and I love it!
Every class has a role and in beta I am glad to say that I have seen all classes represented well and I cannot say I have seen any particularly weak class.
As a disclaimer, please understand that all of my opinions are based on the build I have been playing which is an older build and should not be compared with the finished game that we will all play in December. If this beta is anything to go by I know what I will be doing this Christmas, and it won’t be eating Turkey!
New video showing all the goodies included in the Collector’s Edition, I have a spot for my Darth Malgus statue already arranged on my desk.
Check out the following link on Youtube.
Thanks to the Jedi Archives Online, the sneak preview of the cinematic trailer launching at E3 in a few days, is available for your viewing pleasure. As you’ll see below, not surprisingly there’s not much given away but it certainly provides a taste of what we can expect. There’s already a huge discussion thread running on the preview on the official forums or our own discussion thread.
Onto the viewing:
I few days back I wrote about being excluded from the beta-test, due to trying to sign-up on a Mac. Sean Dahlberg, BioWare’s Community Manager, has followed up with a response:
I wanted to apologize for the previous response you received in regards to your issues signing up for STAR WARS™: The Old Republic™. While we recognize that there are other operating systems and platforms available for games today, our development is specific to the personal computer (PC) using the Microsoft® Windows® operating system at this time.
Our technology provider for the system scan is not compatible with a Macintosh running Windows, so we are unable to validate your system for testing at this time. For the purposes of providing the most stable testing environment, we are currently limiting our testing participants to those using the Windows operating system on a PC. At some point we will be evaluating compatibility with the Macintosh running Windows and we may put out an additional call for testers at that time.
We apologize for any inconvenience and that this has caused and for it not being well conveyed to begin with.
It’s a positive sign that BioWare at least haven’t rules out the option of people on Macs testing SWTOR. There’s obviously the wider frustration of SWTOR not being available for the Mac natively, but that’s another whole mountain that’s likely never to be climbed.
If you haven’t heard already, BioWare have invited applications to join the SWTOR beta program. This may surprise you greatly, but the response has been enthusiastic, with the SWTOR site down due to the influx of applications:
All you can do wait for the site to return and to wonder at the infrastructure challenges facing BioWare when SWTOR actually goes live. Here’s hoping they’ve purchased a small country somewhere in which to house the servers required to run things when everyone logs in at the same time. Anyway, here’s where you need to go to sign up for the beta program, just expect an image similar to above in the short term.
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