Star Wars: The Old Republic

[Poisonenvy]

Some of you may be aware of a new MMORPG on the horizon called Star Wars: The Old Republic. There has been a lot of anticipation for this new online game which is due out very soon. If you fancy a taster, various sites are currently giving away beta keys for a forthcoming beta test, expected to be within the next week or so.

One place advertising keys is Curse: http://www.curse.com/betas/swtor-eu

The requirements are:

1) Grab your beta key from Curse.com

2) Visit www.swtor.com/redeembetacode, log in to your Star Wars: The Old Republic account or create a new one and opt-in to the game testing program (www.swtor.com/tester)

3) Enter your beta code when prompted

4) You must redeem your code prior to 11:59PM CENTRAL STANDARD TIME on Friday 11/18/2011. Codes are not redeemable beyond these cut off times.

5) Each participant will receive an invite at a later date. Invites will be sent to the email address associated with the participant’s Star Wars: The Old Republic account. Please add the email address no-reply@bioware.swtor.com to your ‘safe senders’ list in your email client to ensure delivery.

6) Program requirements and guidelines:
- Have a valid SWTOR account
- Must be signed up for the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Game Testing Program (http://www.swtor.com/tester) and have accepted the Game Testing Agreement.
- Must have redeemed The Old Republic Beta Testing Code by the requested deadline.
- Must be 18 years or older

For optimal gaming experience, should meet the following min sys spec:
- OS Windows XP, Vista/7
- CPU AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4000+ or better • Intel Core 2 Duo Processor 2.0GHz or better
- RAM Windows XP: 1.5GB • Windows Vista and Windows 7: 2GB • PCs using a built-in graphical chipset, 2GB RAM recommended.
- Video ATI X1800 or better* • nVidia 7800 or better* • Intel 4100 Integrated Graphics or better*

DVD-ROM 8x or better *Minimum of 256MB of on-board RAM and Shader 3.0 or better support.

[Poisonenvy]

For anyone interested, I'm not sure if I'll be playing yet, but I've set up a temporary guild for it just so that people can stay together, if they wish:

http://www.swtor.com/guilds/248566/dark-wolves

It appears to need 4 people to have registered as pre-ordered in order to work properly.

[Poisonenvy]

The Star Wars Guild has (just) become ready for deployment. This means that, as long as we maintain a roster of at least 4 members who have pre-ordered, the guild will automatically be created at the time of pre-launch access to the game servers.

The game is due to be launched on the 20th December 2011, however, those who have pre-ordered will gain access earlier depending on the date of pre-order - the earlier you pre-ordered, the earlier you gain access to the game, up to 5 days prior to official launch.

I therefore assume that the guild will be created on the 15th December 2011, at which time no further applications can be made via the Star Wars guild website and will instead need to be done in-game.

See http://buy.swtor.com/uk/ for more information on how to pre-order.

Our guild site, in order to join the guild prior to launch (and thus automatically be invited when you log in to the game) is http://www.swtor.com/guilds/248566/dark-wolves

If you are planning on playing (especially if you have or will be pre-ordering), please apply at the above website in order to guarantee that the guild will be created.

[Poisonenvy]

As you know, I set up a guild page for Star Wars as a few people were asking for one. Since then we've had enough people (4) join the Star Wars guild site who had pre-ordered, resulting in the guild being created automatically once the game launches.

In effect, this means that the guild will be assigned a random server that complies with the requirements given when I created the site, ie, PvE, non-roleplaying, Sith, etc.

From what I gather, when someone who had already signed up to the guild logs in for the first time to that server, they will be asked if they wish to join the new guild with that character and, I assume, be given the relevant rank (Leader, Officer, Member). If you say you do wish to join, then you will be invited automatically and you will not receive any further invites. If you decline the invite, you will then be invited each time you log in with a new character, unless you switch that option off.

Anyway ... I was intending to change the rankings a little bit on the website prior to launch - their FAQ's stated that prior to launch the website would be locked in order to assign a server etc to it, but that I would receive an email before that happened to give me chance to ensure it was correct. I never received that email and the site was locked.

The only thing I was planning to do, as I'm not planning on getting the game straight away, is assign someone else the Leadership - that someone else being Reapz (sorry Reapz!). Even if I had decided to start playing at launch, I wouldn't have the time, nor the inclination, to run two seperate guilds.

There is a possibility that, once they have sorted out servers, they may unlock the sites again in order to make rank and character changes, but if they don't, it means that you may need to wait a couple of weeks before Leadership can be changed to a different person.

If the site unlocks prior to launch, I'll change it ... if not, its down to you guys to sort yourselves out

[Poisonenvy]

The realm has been assigned for our guild:



Anyone who wants to join, please join that server and look it up. Unfortunately kad and I won't be joining you straight off, but hope to soon!

The relevant information, in case its' not easy to see above:

Allegiance to: The Sith Empire
Server: Peragus Mining Facility
English, Europe (GMT)

[Poisonenvy]

I received the email regarding the above, today. It gives the following additional information:

Quote:

When Early Game Access begins, server assignments will also be highlighted on the in-game server selection screen with a guild flag.

If your guild was assigned a server, you'll have an in-game invitation waiting when you join the assigned server. This invite will expire on 1/2/2012 at 11:59 PM CST. If you haven't accepted the invite by then, you'll need to contact the guild leader or officers in-game for an invite.

 

[Poisonenvy]

There is a guide on the Torhead site (basically Wowhead for Star Wars) about how SW compares to WoW and how to get started.

http://www.torhead.com/guides/swtor-for-the-wow-player

[Poisonenvy]

As there are now quite a few WoW dark wolves members also playing Star Wars, I've added a new channel to the vent server for their use.

There are now the following channels:

- Lobby (default channel)
- WoW Channel 1
- WoW Channel 2
- Star Wars Channel

I have updated our Vent Server page to reflect the changes made, including instructions on how to automatically log into the relevant channel depending on which game you are playing:

http://www.darkwolves.eu/custom.php?gid=180473&page_id=71725

Please do note, however, that I am still currently only paying for 15 slots, meaning only 15 people can use our Ventrilo at the same time - if this starts becoming a problem we may have to revisit how it works.