Windows Star Wars - The Old Republic Discussion

Apparently the Pre-Order Page has been updated to state Early Game Access for Preorders will now be "Up to 5 Days"

Clicky.

Pretty much in line with what i was expecting.

I assume that they'll tier out the Early Access either in terms of 24 Hours or 12 Hour slots dependent on when you registered the game.

 

when did you pre-order. i orderede on day 2 so i'm hoping to get in from the start but not sure if i'll be that lucky.

 

sorry, i missed this threat when i started mine earlier, btw

 

More the merrier.

 

BTW for to install this game.. you must have multi-CPU cores otherwise it'll be really slow.. shame that I only have 1 frigging CPU core! ... and I have no money to get a new computer!!

 

One word so far...

Blue Cog of Death.

 

Trying to play any modern game on 1 core is a challenge these days mate. I'm on dual core, and I still struggle with some of the newer ones. Multi-threaded games are the future, even for mmos.

I would think if you have a good GPU, then you may be able to get away with using a single core. But I cannot say for certain.

 

Those things still exist?
I feel for you, nothing worse than trying to play a game with an underpowered machine when you cannot afford an upgrade. Thought about selling a kidney?

Depending on your GPU you could give your machine a big overhaul with about £150, so get saving
AMD 770 motherboard - £50
http://www.ebuyer.com/241003-msi-870-c45-amd-770-socket-am3-gb-lan-8-channel-audio-atx-870-c45

AMD 455 CPU (Triple Core)- £60
http://www.ebuyer.com/249981-amd-at...cket-am3-retail-boxed-processor-adx455wfgmbox

8gb DDR3 (G Skill or Corsair) - £35
http://www.ebuyer.com/247674-corsai...mory-kit-cl9-1-5v-unbuffered-cmx8gx3m2a1333c9

Total £145 - I am sure even cheaper in US and Canada

Not a bad price for revamping the core of your machine. Triple core is a perfect gaming CPU for a cheap price. With the aded bonus that upgrading the CPU in the future will not require a new motherboard and may even be compatible with the newest CPU coming out in the future (no promises), unlike Intel where every series needs a new socket.

Even if your GPU is sucky, an increase to the CPU will be a huge boon to you as MMOs tend to be pretty CPU intensive.

Anywho, my bro is very excited about Star Wars coming ou, personally I am happy to stick with Rift for now, maybe one day I will try out Star Wars, but I am in no rush.

 

To be honest i can't see AMD sticking to this for long...

I mean ever since Core 2 Duo was released they've been on the back foot in terms of performance and trying to compete in other areas (upgrade-ability, "value" etc.).

As for not requiring a new motherboard... it's not always the case. The only thing you can say is that if you buy a new Motherboard, it'll be compatible with your current CPU, since we've been through AM2, AM2+, AM3 and now AM3+, each CPU iteration being labelled as incompatible with the former, but the motherboards are compatible with older CPUs.

Right now i think they're covering any losses with their graphics division as the HD48xx, HD58xx and HD69xx series were a good turn around for them.

Anyways, sooner or later AMD will have to ditch their current architecture which still has ties to Athlon64 and i'll look forward to when they do so.

I didn't enjoy Rift tbh although i didn't really play it for that long.

The setting didn't really appeal (i.e. fantasy) and the overall look of the game i found to be very dark and gloomy.

Also i felt as if there was very little feedback from combat and due to the nature of the GCD, i found i was looking more at my hot bar than i was at the actual combat.

I will say that the Class mix n' match system was rather nice though.

 

AMD will need to start from scratch sooner or later. Personally I would have done so with Bulldozer. But even if they did, the £145 set up would still allow for a modern Quad Core AMD CPU to be added (Though I doubt you would need it, the Triple Core will last until you want to buy a whole new machine in a few years). I am not a fan of AMD personally, but the best thing they ever di was create the Triple Core Processor, it's cheap and it works very well, in most cases 4 cores is more than required but 2 cores is just less, the Triple Core has a great place in the market.

As for Rift, as with all MMOs people love or hate it. I really didn't like WoW but I accept the fact many others love it. I enjoy the GCD, but that's because as far as I am concerned Vanguard had the best combat mechanic in MMOs and I enjoy GCD, I disliked EQ2 due to the mass spam fest it was without a GCD. Ultimately it was and still is the Soul System that won me over in Rift, that and the constant patches every month that bring something new

I personally enjoy fantasy settings and as far as I am concerned Rift is currently the best around (though GW2 looks likely to be awesome), obviously the WoW masses will strongly disagree and I certainly cannot argue numbers with them . Meanwhile, Sci Fi games I am not a big fan of- hence not a huge interest in Star Wars MMO, though a strong story does intrigue me.

 

When i mentioned the GCD on Rift, it wasn't really the use of a GCD in general, but more Rift's implementation with it and links into my "lack of feedback" comment.

Rift was very smooth and fluid in its animations, whilst that sounds like a good thing i found it almost too fluid. I haven't played it for quite a while so this may not bee 100% accurate, but from what i remember it was as if the abilities were designed so that they could easily link into each other (using the fact you could buffer a move in the last quarter of the GCD), however that meant learning the animations of all the moves and buffering the subsequent move at the correct time. Since i was new to the game, i was constantly looking at the hot bar and watching cooldowns instead of what was actually happening... and then because i was looking there, i wasn't paying attention to my HP in the top left (about as far away from the hotbar as possible) i kept dying.

However, like i said, the GCD isn't necessarily something i'm against, SWTOR does implement its own 1.5sec GCD and i didn't seem to have any issues with that. I think it's because the last quarter of the animation for the GCD is more of a "recovery" animation where they start to reset to a neutral stance. This made it very easy to see when a move started and ended and meant i could quite easily see when i wanted to buffer in the next ability. I still end up looking at the hotbar for a while in engagements to accurately track cooldowns, but overall i was watching the onscreen action more than the hotbar.

Maybe now with my experiences in SWTOR i'd be more used to Rift's system and not have as much of an issue with it. But since i'm able to Game Test SWTOR and it being released in almost exactly a month away from now (inc. Early Access), then there's no reason for me to go back and re-try it .

 

Not sure if this is common knowledge, but RPS have posted about a trial weekend coming up in the near future and have 12,000 keys to hand out. Linky

 

Anyone who signed up for Game Testing before 11/11/11 will automatically be included in this Stress Test.

All those who got in should already have received emails by now.

But this is a great chance to invite some friends along .

 

Fair enough, it's not something I have issue with but that may be because I am used to it. I know that there is an option for a long and short queue of abilities so that you can line some up, no idea if that helps people.

I tend to macro a lot of my main attack abilities, as a result I don'thave to stare at my hotbars, instead I can happily click/press away at an ability, once I see I have 3 Attack Points I can then go to my other ability - of course that may be another reason why I have no issue, I am spam happy and am pretty much always spam pressing a button even during GCD then moving on, so I guess no need for me to look at the hotbars. This gives me the freedom to be watching the screen, as a tank and raid leader that is very important and means I can use my other abilities as and when required because i am aware of my surroundings.
---------------

I have to admit, I have recieved a Beta invite for SWTOR weekend and I am tempted to give it a try, while not all that interested in Sci Fi or indeed Star Wars, who in there right mind can resist a Lightsaber?!
If I am really honest, the main reason I won't bother with Star Wars is becaue the wife is not interested, were as she loves Rift as much as I do. SO, the choice of getting to play Rift as much as I want due to the wife playing too, or tying to steal an hour here and there on Star Wars, it's a no brainer.

 

Fair enough.

If anyone doesn't manage to get a key and wants to be in it then hit me up and you can have mine, I doubt very much I'll be giving this a go. Has to be registered by Midnight this coming Friday I believe.

 

If you didn't receive the email, then by all means keep it.

You should have already received one if you were automatically included.

Like i said, maybe it's just me and having an already negative outlook on the game due to the gloomy-ness.

But you also hit upon my next thing, i personally like to Tank in MMOs as well, and constantly looking at the hotbar meant i'd be missing the overall picture in game. Obviously i never got that far into the game to start tanking for groups.

Just so people know, the download is absolutely massive at around 27-30GB of content.

But, if you have the bandwidth to spare i have to say, why not? Introduce the wife as well , maybe she'll love the fact she has an actual story to go through and companion characters to interact with... (wait... that might back fire ).

 

Ah well, if you don't like the look of a game it can easily put you off - one of the reasons WoW and I did not get on. But certainly it doen't take long to get used to the set up and not be staring at the hotbar - which is just as well as during raids there are a number of mechanics you need to be paying attention to!

The wife just is even less a Sci Fi person than I am, as for story, well she is easily pleased with any quest so is perfectly happy with Rift and typical MMO quest lines. Maybe in the future when we are bored of Rift and hve no MMO to play I may consider it. Will be a while though, I have patch 1.6 this week and very much looking forward to it

 

The upcoming beta weekend open to all, that has been mentioned will likely be November 25-28th. That is what Bioware is aiming for at least.

And yes the download is mahoosive, but they will send out emails prior to the weekend to give people a chance to download it. IF all goes well with the stress test and nothing needs changing, then we may be able to keep that build for early access (by build I mean the downloaded game NOT any characters you create in the beta, those will be wiped for early access and the subsequent launch). This is no certainty, however.

Looking forward to it, and maybe I will see some of you there!

 

Well, apparently NDA has been partially lifted from last Weekend's Testing.

So feel free to ask questions!

Although there are apparently some limitations (for some reason):

- I can't talk about stuff going on in the Tester Forums (as if you'd ask that).

- Since it's supposedly only for last weekend's testing, general questions are probably the best.

And to whoever asked about Chat Options absolutely ages ago...

They *are* there and you can limit channels, create your own tabs etc. I think it could be better (like more Channel Options), but the core functionality is there and it works.

 

No story spoilers! Ta for the offer though. I already know enough, and I don't want to spoil it. Bit concerned about the upcoming test though, as my swtor account won't let me log in since they upgraded the website. I've contacted customer support, but they seem slow to respond.