Star

Players Have Already Put 60 Million Game Hours Into Star Wars: The Old Republic

by Salat on December 30, 2011 · 0 comments

For all the complaining I’ve been seeing and reading about bugs in Star Wars: The Old Republic, you’d think no one was playing it. Surprise, however — they are. Electronic Arts has kicked out a press release breaking down a bunch of goofy numbers about the game, and as one might expect, they’re all pretty impressively huge.

For starters:

As of Dec. 26, players have already logged 60 million hours in the game in total.
850,000 Sith Warriors have been created; 810,000 Jedi Knights have been created.
Players have completed more than 260 million quests.
Players have fought more than 44 million PvP battles.
More than 9 million space combat missions have been completed.

And back on Dec. 23, EA sent out another numbers release that said more than 3.8 million characters had been created, including 510,000 Jedi Knights and 550,000 Sith Warriors. One guesses that since, three days later, those numbers had jumped up drastically, the number of characters in the game has probably gone up considerably too.

I can’t wait to find out how many subscriptions the game holds down in a month or two. Personally, I’m having a blast.

Source: Gaming Today

{ 0 comments }

Still Mourning? Get The Star Wars: Galaxies Memory Book

by Salat on December 24, 2011 · 0 comments

Gone but not forgotten, Star Wars: Galaxies will long live in our hearts and minds. If, that is, you played it. 8 years is a long time for an MMO, particularly one that often struggled, and though the word is that The Old Republic is awesome, it’s bittersweet for fans of the game TOR killed. Which is why Sony Online Entertainment have created a massive, 253 page book chronicling the game’s long run with screenshots, comprehensive lore and even a timeline. They book closes with a tribute to the community that says it better than we can:

The explosions marking the Empire’s end could be seen across the galaxy in the skies above the planets, and the celebrations that followed were unmatched. Peace reigned as Star Destroyers and dark lords became memories of another era, of a time long past, of galaxies long gone.

Gone, but not forgotten.

Indeed. You can view the whole thing or download the Pdf directly from SOE.

You can also cope with Galaxies withdrawal with our handy beginner’s guide to The Old Republic.

Via Massively

Source: Gaming Today

{ 0 comments }

Star Wars: The Old Republic Goes Down Ahead of Midnight EST Launch

by Salat on December 20, 2011 · 0 comments

Like those of us over here at Game Front, you’ve probably been enjoying your early access to Star Wars: The Old Republic. And you may have noticed that at about 7 p.m. Eastern Standard time, SWTOR went down. That’s okay — it’s supposed to do that.

Electronic Arts has taken the game down ahead of its midnight launch tonight in order to put up more servers and generally get prepared for the crush of new players that’s about to join the game. If you thought waiting in queues for servers during the pre-order period was bad, well…prime your “Noooooo” button.

Things will be back up and running at 12:01 a.m. tonight — that’s 9 p.m. for us West Coasters — when the game officially launches. EA says you might want to consider rolling your brand-new bounty hunter with a secret heart of gold but a penchant for murder or your merciless Sith warrior who really values justice (get off, that one’s mine!) on a different server in order to avoid line-ups. Just a heads-up.

Let us know how your first night in SWTOR goes in the comments.

Via Joystiq.

Source: Gaming Today

{ 0 comments }

Star Wars: The Old Republic Launch Bugs – Black Screen, Error Codes and FPS Drops

by Salat on December 20, 2011 · 0 comments

For the most part, it seems like users jumping into Star Wars: The Old Republic are joining BioWare’s brand-new MMO without too much difficulty. But a few players are seeing some troubles as they load up the game for the first time. There aren’t too many solutions just yet, but BioWare is keeping track of problems on its forums so they can be dealt with.

Black Screen of Death

Some users are complaining of an issue in which they’re stuck with a blank black screen while playing. It doesn’t seem to be a driver issue, either — some players say they have two copies in their households on two systems with the same specs, and one system will suffer from the issue while the other one skirts it. Updating drivers doesn’t seem to help the issue for the ones dealing with the black screen issue.

There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of help from BioWare on the issue just yet, but users are piling their complaints in this forum post.

FPS Drops

Here’s another one that is getting a lot of reports but hasn’t been picked up by BioWare or Electronic Arts just yet. Users are saying that they’re loading up the game and seeing some massive frame-rate slowdown on the game, especially compared to other games like World of Warcraft or The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. There also doesn’t seem to be much in the way of a common thread for users, either — some people are just having some FPS problems with the game. This isn’t a problem for everybody, though, but a lot of people are having trouble with the issue.

Again, BioWare hasn’t jumped on board of this one, but if you want to report the issue, a lot of people are doing so on this thread.

Error 9000

Sounds like Error 9000, a connection problem that finds players unable to connect or kicked out of SWTOR mid-session. The forum thread in which people are throwing down this trouble makes it sound like it could be a router or firewall issue. There are some possible fixes listed on the forum thread, and we’re including a few steps that might help below:

1. running the launcher in compatibility mode for Windows XP Service Pack 3 / Vista service pack 2 as an administrator.
2. Reset your router to fabric settings. / set your firewall settings to low.
3. Open your Ports router/ firewall. The port numbers that are required are 8995, 12000-12999 and 20000-30000 (TCP).

If that doesn’t help, hit this forum thread and try some of the other solutions, or leave your own troubles and wait for a response from BioWare.

Error 7

It seems Error Code 7 is an issue with DirectX, from BioWare’s response to the issue. BioWare says that if you’re having this trouble with the game, you should post your DXDiag file in this forum thread. First off, BioWare says you should follow these steps to make sure you’re up to date:

You should make sure that you have the latest version of DirectX installed on your system. For further details please check here.
Check that your Graphics card and Sound card have the most recent drivers installed. For instructions on how to update your Graphics card please see here, for Sound cards please see here.
You should check that you have the latest Service Pack and Windows Updates installed for your operating system, including optional updates such as .NET Framework and Visual C++ features.
Check the minimum specifications of the game, to determine whether your computer may experience difficulties running the game.

After that, hit the forum and follow the steps listed to gather your DXDiag file, then post it on the forum thread.

If you’ve got other issues — or better yet, if you find some solutions to these ones — share them in the comments so other players can benefit from your wisdom.

Source: Gaming Today

{ 0 comments }

The Star Wars Gaming Universe – In Context (GRAPHIC)

by Salat on December 18, 2011 · 0 comments

Click image to view full-size version.

To celebrate the upcoming full release of The Old Repbulic — and the partial pre-order access — we put together this graphic showing the four major eras of the Star Wars universe and where the franchise’s games fall into place.

The timeline isn’t to scale — view the lightsaber sidebar to understand why — but the relative positioning of sequential titles and events are accurately depicted. To keep this graphic a reasonable size, we had to cut roughly half of the Star Wars games from our list — mostly expansion packs, handheld-exclusives, educational titles, or games excessively geared toward children.

Source: Gaming Today

{ 0 comments }

Star Wars: The Old Republic Beginner’s Guide

by Salat on December 18, 2011 · 0 comments

The Sith Empire has returned to Republic space in Star Wars: The Old Republic, EA’s powerhouse MMORPG. In what might be the most expensive game ever produced, Bioware joins the Star Wars franchise to tackle that timeline a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. Before Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, before the Empire, there was the Old Republic, where Jedi and Sith (Evil Jedi) fight for supremacy of the civilized galaxy. The war is about to heat up, and for every player wanting to get in on the lightsaber swinging action, you’ll want to know all about where to start in this massive game.

Here you’ll find all the information you need to get started. Learn more about the early missions and classes available to you, that way you can jump in and start playing the way you want to. For extra content related to The Old Republic, check out our cheats page.

Check back soon for new updates.

Table of Contents

Choosing Your Class

Knowing the Basics

Video Walkthrough

Source: Gaming Today

{ 0 comments }

Star War Galaxies Is Dead

by Salat on December 16, 2011 · 0 comments

Well we knew it had to happen someday, that day being sometime before The Old Republic launches. And its finally arrived. Star Wars Galaxies, the venerable MMO from SOE that launched in 2003 and struggled ever since, has finally sliced off its last hand. Its shouted its last big NOOOOO. It’s blown up its last death star. What I’m trying to say is that it has been taken offline. In memoriam, Sony posted the following statement to the official site:

Looking back on Star Wars Galaxies and all these years I am so thankful for being able to be a part of the Star Wars Galaxies community both as the Producer and as a fan. It would not have been the incredible experience that it was without you, the players and fans, the dedicated team of people who worked on it over the years and the fantastic Star Wars® galaxy itself, which offered us a very unique and compelling place to explore, fight, play, make friends, and build our homes.

This is a book of memories, so let me start with a few of my own.

When I was a little boy, my father brought me to the movies to see a new science fiction film that he heard was pretty good. What I remembered most was the feeling of awe I had back then, and still feel to this day. Once I had experienced Star Wars, my life would never be the same again. In May of 2004, I walked into the office at Sony Online Entertainment to start a new job working on a game based on the very same story that had amazed me in my youth. Cool! I was very excited. All I wanted to do then was learn how this thing worked, and I spent the next seven years doing just that. I can say that not a day passed in the development of Star Wars Galaxies where I didn’t learn something new. Each day presented different challenges and solving them was always a rewarding accomplishment. It is everyone’s hope to find a job that you look forward to each and every day. Being a developer on Star Wars Galaxies was just that kind of job for me.

Star Wars means something different to each of us. That’s why we played Star Wars Galaxies. On June 26th, 2003, SOE and LucasArts released Star Wars Galaxies and, for the first time, you could play online with your friends in the Star Wars universe. I was amazed at how much there was to do in the game – player housing, crafting, entertaining, combat, and more. One of the most exciting times for all of us on the team was the launch of the Jump to Lightspeed expansion, which let players fly and battle it out in space in a true 3D simulation. Now we could all truly live out our Star Wars fantasies. It was like being a kid again.

Giving players a chance to live out that Star Wars fantasy has been the best part of the job. Some of my favorite memories include fighting Imperial forces on Hoth in the Battle of Echo Base, seeing those first player-created quests in the Chronicle Master System, fighting the undead in the Death Troopers update and, probably best of all, taking part in invasions and actually getting to make a difference for my faction in the Galactic Civil War.

From my first day to the last, Star Wars Galaxies was, and will always be, a meaningful and memorable part of my life, an experience I’ll treasure and share with anyone who wants to hear a good story. It has been an honor to take this journey with you, the community and all of the team members who have made Star Wars Galaxies such an awesome game.

On behalf of the Star Wars Galaxies team, thank you. We have truly enjoyed getting to know you – our dedicated players – over the years. From in-game events to Fan Faires, we appreciate your continued loyalty and support. It would not have been possible without you.

May the Force be with you. Always.

- Tony “Teesquared” Tyson

And also with you.

Via Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

Source: Gaming Today

{ 0 comments }

Amazon Says It’ll Ship Star Wars: The Old Republic One Day Earlier

by Salat on December 15, 2011 · 0 comments

The official release date for Star Wars: The Old Republic is Dec. 20. But because they’re such nice guys (and for reasons that aren’t really clear), Amazon says it’s going to start shipping the game one day earlier to customers who have already ordered it, so it’ll land on Dec. 19 if you get the right shipping options.

Amazon detailed the new shipping scheme in an official release. “Because beta access ends at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on December 19, 2011, we’ve decided to ship the game early to customers starting December 15, 2011,” the release says. So the new shipping schedule for pre-order customers is as follows:

Release Date Delivery – on or before 12/19/2011

One-Day Delivery – on or before 12/19/2011

Two-Day Delivery – on or before 12/19/2011

Standard Shipping – on or before 12/24/2011

Super Saver Shipping – on or before 12/24/2011

Orders shipping to Alaska, Hawaii, and international addresses will also ship earlier than originally planned.

Of course, if you’d opted for a digital pre-order, you might be playing right now. Like I am.

Mwahahahaha.