SWTOR Release Date and Beta

[Tbone]

Well, that got your attention. There's an interview with the CFO of EA at DarthHater that talks about the release date window and ongoing Beta. Check it out here.

Basically, SWTOR isn't coming in Q1, so the earliest the game will ship is July 1st. It will be sometime between then at December 31, 2011.

Beta is still in a "Friends and Family" stage (I'm assuming that they see Beta as different than the "game testing"), but that it will begin to roll into a semi-closed and then open beta, though no time frame was given on that.

So we said it's going to launch sometime in calendar, but not within Fiscal 11. So that basically pens down between you know, April 1st and December 31st of this calendar year. It's also reasonable to infer that it's not in our Q1 guidance. We gave Q1 Fiscal 11, Fiscal 12 non gap revenue guidance, minus 39 minus 44 cents and I think it's not unreasonable to infer that it's not included in that 90 day period. So we've narrowed the window, provided a window for the first time provided on the progress we've made closed beta testing

The next phase will be to expand the beta testing. Up until now it's been kind of the EA friends and family kind of testing program. We need to expand the testing universe to make it more open scalability, back-end systems, etc. Figure out concurrency etc. Where there are choke points on different maps etc., tune it accordingly. We will be increasing the beta. We haven't given specifics as to milestones, but we will move from closed, to semi-closed, to open in preparation for launch. We'll talk more about Star Wars at the coming E3 event.

There also stuff about the subscription model. The whole thing is worth reading.

[Adad]

Don't get my hopes up like that...

[Tbone]

Doing what I can to spread the anxiety!

[Manic Velocity]

If they're still only talking about TOR by the time E3 rolls around, then it definitely won't release until Q4.

[Adad]

agreed

[Saint]

Not nice to play with my blood pressure like that.

so it looks like an open beta this summer and probably october release date Im guessing, since nothing is going to happen until after e3

[Anamodiel]

Open beta this summer? We've been in a Friends and Family Beta since God knows when. We'll be lucky if there's an open beta by the end of October with a November release.

[Ragnarok]

Isn't this all info we got from the investors conference? I feel like this is old info for some reason.

[Tbone]

Isn't this all info we got from the investors conference? I feel like this is old info for some reason.

No. This information rules out April, May, and June as possible release months. Considering how most people were holding on to hope for a release around May, this is big news.

[Deathsythe]

I still say December 2011

[Keeloth]

Given the way the updates have been...lacking, shall we say, in recent days I think this sort of reveal was a long time coming.  Still sucks, but whatever it takes to make sure the game is done to a high standard.  And if it's because they had to re balance all the multiplayer content around the new lack of companions, well, I can get behind that.  

On an unrelated note, did MxO have auto-face?

[Ash]

It did for a long time but they got rid of it because too many people complained that they couldn't run away from us.  (True Story)

[Manic Velocity]

It did for a long time but they got rid of it because too many people complained that they couldn't run away from us.  (True Story)

God what a community cluster-fuck that discussion was.  Sneaker's nose was never browner with the devs.

They didn't remove it entirely, since there were strong arguments on both sides from those who liked it and those who hated it.  The compromise was shortening its max range.  You used to be able to auto-face people from several kilometers away.  After the nerf I think the max range was 1km before it broke off.

It made it a little harder to track people, but it made it a lot easier to avoid PvP.  Even before the nerf, it was easy to evade auto-face if you knew what you were doing.  After the nerf it practically turned hyperjump into an invincibility button.

[Tbone]

Yeah, I remember macroing /point to face people after they HJed away and people tried to say that was an exploit.

[Keeloth]

Ok.  I ask because the auto-face discussion is raging on the TOR forums, and I was wondering what the official guild stance was on it.

Myself, I started PvPing in WoW, which had no autoface (back when I played before any expansions, at least).  When I switched to WAR, that DID have autoface.  I found myself liking the change, since breaking LOS meant clever use of terrain instead of hopping around your opponent hoping your ping was better than his.  Currently, TOR has auto-face in, so be sure to show your support on that, it's a pretty hotly contended issue on the forums.