I hope my wife and I get the earliest access possible, ordered and registered our CE around 5:30 AM MTN
I'm sure it will work out to be a good deal. I'm not that familiar with Bioware's history of making sure customers are happy, but overall it is pretty good right? And certainly there's some evidence the SW:TOR is paying close attention to the fans, as witnessed with their changes to the speeders. I'm hopeful you'll be taken care of anyway.
I just need some items I can bust out in 2014 that say "yep, I'm a bad ass motherfucker... who payed 3 times the actual cost of a game that didn't even have a release date."
"Mouse droid? Was totally worth 6 months of subscription fees."
SiliconStew on
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
Ugh, I can't decide CE vs. Regular. I have no use for most of the physical goodies (statue, etc.) but maybe someone on eBay might. Haha. This would be an easier decision if we were 100% sure on the headstart days.
0
AriviaI Like A ChallengeEarth-1Registered Userregular
I just need some items I can bust out in 2014 that say "yep, I'm a bad ass motherfucker... who payed 3 times the actual cost of a game that didn't even have a release date."
You're a bad-ass motherfucker for many other reasons.
Bear in mind that the game will probably be released shortly after the delayed rapture hits, so time is gonna be pretty limited before the global information networks come crashing down in fire.
I mean once the angels escape the grasp of the Dark Things beyond the moon we're gonna be in pretty deep shit unless we can convince Alanis Morissette to get on the airwaves and we already know she's a Martian spy.
Hm, according to SR's twitter, people who preordered the collector's edition do NOT get more days of early access compared to those who ordered the standard edition. Also, the final number of days is not set in stone yet.
So are they just going back on what they already kind of promised? If they dropped an extra 90 dollars on the game, giving them 4 more days before everybody else seemed like a solid addition. Backtracking seems kind of dick.
I don't think they ever said that. the web site just said you could play before launch. it was the unofficial "leaks" that showed 6 days for CE, 3 for SE.
Ugh, I can't decide CE vs. Regular. I have no use for most of the physical goodies (statue, etc.) but maybe someone on eBay might. Haha. This would be an easier decision if we were 100% sure on the headstart days.
It was easy for me! 6 months of play time > 4 days of play time.
/facepalm
Non-Force Miralukan classes for example..kinda hard to aim that blaster when you're blind.
I can see it now. Darth Comis Ignis (My latin may be a bit off. But really, given how SW fans are, I bet someone will use one of those words eventually, so .).
While ostensibly claiming to be a Miralukan Smuggler working for Republic interests. The Dark Lord Ignis accounted for more Republic casualties then any combatant in the Great Sith-Republic war. Like all Miralukans, Ignis was blind, yet force sensitive.
While originally considered to be only a mere smuggler, Darth Malgus bestowed upon Ignis the honorary title of "Dark Lord", after his many infiltrations, and subsequent executions of his comrades, during critical battles.
I just need some items I can bust out in 2014 that say "yep, I'm a bad ass motherfucker... who payed 3 times the actual cost of a game that didn't even have a release date."
you kid, but the exclusive mouse droid will be the TOR equivalent of the panda from WoW. and anytime i saw one of those recently I was impressed.
Bear in mind that the game will probably be released shortly after the delayed rapture hits, so time is gonna be pretty limited before the global information networks come crashing down in fire.
I mean once the angels escape the grasp of the Dark Things beyond the moon we're gonna be in pretty deep shit unless we can convince Alanis Morissette to get on the airwaves and we already know she's a Martian spy.
this of course also means all the carebear republic types will be whisked off to heaven, leaving severe sith overpopulation. at least until Skynet starts multi-boxing hundreds of thousands of characters.
Empire - Veela Server
0
ArchonexNo hard feelings, right?Registered Userregular
edited July 2011
Also, hot shit. Gamestop Online apparently still has CE editions. Just pre-ordered mine.
Now, if they just casually forgot to mention that they were sold out, and kept their pre-order page up. I may need to bust out my shotgun.
Edit: The CE is worth it for several reasons.
The statue is already going for $75 originally made. You could probably ebay that sucker off right after release, and make the extra money back, if you were lucky.
It comes with a security key. And odds are this game will have issues with the usual WoW style hackings if it gets popular enough. And really, it will. It's frigging Star Wars, is produced by Bioware, and is a sequel to one of the most successful Star Wars series in recent years. Which is also a story based RPG. Unless the vengeful astral projection of Smedley rises up from SOE's headquarters to assault the game with shitty updates, it's going to be a major success.
The in-game store is sort of confirmed to have items in it that have unique appearances, and have equivalent stats to in-game armors. Depending on the scale of the armor, you could remove some tedious aspects of the game entirely.
The soundtrack for this is going to be epic. And will probably be worth a pretty penny all by itself. Just listen to some of the music they've included so far, in the game.
Hm, according to SR's twitter, people who preordered the collector's edition do NOT get more days of early access compared to those who ordered the standard edition. Also, the final number of days is not set in stone yet.
So are they just going back on what they already kind of promised? If they dropped an extra 90 dollars on the game, giving them 4 more days before everybody else seemed like a solid addition. Backtracking seems kind of dick.
They never promised anything. To me, at least, it was apparent from the get go that the order in which you were allowed into the early access was based on the order in which you registered your pre-order code. Which is what SR has said.
Noth that I care extensively, but I do hope there's at least a week of head time startage.
I mean, Sure there will be thousands of people in the head start, but it's still got to be better than playing on "opening" day.
7 days tops I think, with less days depending on when you pre-ordered.
I think between that, partially instanced servers at launch and instanced quest areas, the overcrowding you usually see at MMO launches probably won't be so bad here.
Well now we also know that you can change their skin color and other facial features.
Yup, you can modify their appearance and you can even adjust their AI a little. I mentioned this as one of my favorite tidbits from yesterday in an earlier post. For RP purposes this is just excellent news.
All who redeem a #SWTORPreOrder code will get Early Game Access. This is why pre-order supplies are limited.
A company actually limiting preorders? That's pretty crazy.
I don't really think they are. Saying that stuff is only available in limited quantities is a good way to get back lots of people to buy said stuff very quickly.
All who redeem a #SWTORPreOrder code will get Early Game Access. This is why pre-order supplies are limited.
A company actually limiting preorders? That's pretty crazy.
I don't really think they are. Saying that stuff is only available in limited quantities is a good way to get back lots of people to buy said stuff very quickly.
Its also a good way to limit the strain on the servers initially to ensure that you get good word of mouth out on the game fast for being "Easy to get in and start playing."
PSN|AspectVoid
0
ArchonexNo hard feelings, right?Registered Userregular
edited July 2011
Query: Does anyone know what's up with Gamestop Online preorders?
Received a receipt confirming I purchased the game. But no CE/headstart code.
Already starting to worry that i'm going to get that Gamestop Experience™ .
Well now we also know that you can change their skin color and other facial features.
Yup, you can modify their appearance and you can even adjust their AI a little. I mentioned this as one of my favorite tidbits from yesterday in an earlier post. For RP purposes this is just excellent news.
Setting them to aggressive, neutral, etc has been known for a while.
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
Setting them to aggressive, neutral, etc has been known for a while.
Customizing their appearance was news, at least it was to me. You can modify the UI as you can in Dragon Age, so that's pretty Bioware boiler-plate, still it helps with RP and I was glad to see someone else on the board call these features out. If you could only rename them!
I am thinking about it. One the one hand more play time. On the other hand just a few more days play time and I can proceed to play it at release date and ask you guys the important questions. Like "How do I not fuck this quest up" or "which companion should I take" or "how do I land this darkside npc in bed with my lightside Jedi?"
They are mostly just selling you anticipation. Unless a Sith Barbie doll is really your thing.
The security fob is something you can likely get yourself when the game launches, the soundtrack will be downloadable in a million places for free, the map is, well a map. The exclusive vendor and "lounge", is a place you can buy light buffs and things, but it won't be spectacular otherwise players whine (see discussion on this very thread about being able to buy statistical advantage). The "early access" which is the real selling point is vague, with no details or specifics.
What you really get is a sense you are already connected to the game, that you are already committed to it. It helps assuage your anticipation, while also locking you in to some kind of commitment to the game. It's a gimmick. A fun one. You just have to decide whether you have the clams to participate in the gimmick.
I most certainly do not. So I am stuck just envying those who do. But let's face it, these things aren't really a decent value, they exploit our desire for immediacy and they little gimmicky things to satiate that for a price.
0
ArchonexNo hard feelings, right?Registered Userregular
They are mostly just selling you anticipation. Unless a Sith Barbie doll is really your thing.
The security fob is something you can likely get yourself when the game launches, the soundtrack will be downloadable in a million places for free, the map is, well a map. The exclusive vendor and "lounge", is a place you can buy light buffs and things, but it won't be spectacular otherwise players whine (see discussion on this very thread about being able to buy statistical advantage). The "early access" which is the real selling point is vague, with no details or specifics.
What you really get is a sense you are already connected to the game, that you are already committed to it. It helps assuage your anticipation, while also locking you in to some kind of commitment to the game. It's a gimmick. A fun one. You just have to decide whether you have the clams to participate in the gimmick.
I most certainly do not. So I am stuck just envying those who do. But let's face it, these things aren't really a decent value, they exploit our desire for immediacy and they little gimmicky things to satiate that for a price.
The soundtrack will be downloadable for free, but not legally. Also, having a hard copy of it means that you can easily mod the game out/alter the sound-tracks so you hear the music you want to hear. After a month of hearing the same music in the same areas, i'll probably really want to switch things up a bit.
The security fob is probably not going to be in the standard editions. WoW taught the market that you can bleed your customers just a little more by selling security authentication tools separately.
The statue is already going for 50/75 dollars if it's made right now. Odds are you can Ebay them off if yours comes in good condition.
The lounge will probably be deserted a few months after release. However, it's been confirmed that there's unique outfits for sale. And semi-confirmed that some of it at least, is equivalent to gear you can earn while leveling up. Meaning that if your server is on it's last legs, or you otherwise can't spend the time to do instances, you can spend in-game money for gear.
The soundtrack, if the developers are to be believed, is going to be big too. The actual amount of recorded music in-game was listed as something absurd, like about a month worth of listening. Since they're taking music from other games, the movies, and designing their own, I can believe that at the very least, it'll be larger then what we normally get in soundtracks (IE: The horrifically bland WoW CE soundtracks.).
The in-game items are going to be nice. The flare gun may end up being another "Toy Train" set from WoW from what little has been mentioned of it. Which justifies the purchase right there. The only thing worse then that was the screaming robot they sold to blow up the train sets, which could be heard half a mile away.
If anything, this hasn't "assuaged my anticipation". Knowing I have a ton of cool shit waiting for me in-game (If Gamestop doesn't screw me. And to be honest, that's like a 50/50 chance, given their track record with me so far.) is only making me want the game more, now.
Also, yes. I want to dress my character up like a Barbie. If possible, i'm going to slap a slave leia costume onto a faithful recreation of this character:
And prance around in the nearest cantina. I will be the belle of the ball.
And you know what? That body type is possible, too.
Looking around at the other items that company makes, it seems like they tend to charge $200+ for a lot of their stuff. $150 for it with a game may turn out to be a pretty nice deal depending on the quality.
Personally I can be a sucker for that kind of thing, but mostly there's just nothing else I plan on buying right at launch over the holiday season.
Personally I can be a sucker for that kind of thing, but mostly there's just nothing else I plan on buying right at launch over the holiday season.
Yeah, right on. It's great fans out there are happy with their purchase. I applaud this, who wouldn't? There's a big market for dolls...err...excuse me "action figures statues". I am certainly no standard for good taste either. I have a massive, framed KISS poster in my office. I have season tickets to a SOCCER team...one that just lost to a real team 7-0. So don't let my disinterest in the preorder offerings fool you, the value of things are subjective. And I certainly have made purchases in my time that make others take a double-take.
If you (and the others) are delighted with your purchase, I am happy for you. It's a good thing. I just still think that the chief thing they are really selling here is anticipation. That what makes this deal work, is a sense you are already half-way to enjoying a really great Star Wars game. I wager a form of the Collector's Edition without the "early access" arrives shortly after launch for a significantly reduced price. But those editions, won't come with the satisfaction that you got yours first.
You already see people talking about how the panda was cool, because it signified you were first. People like that stuff and I think that's a large part of what is being sold here.
Do we really need to keep going back and forth in this thread about who paid for the CE and who didn't?
For some people, $80 extra (or whatever it comes out to) is not a lot of money, and definitely worth it to have something that could become near "one-of-a-kind" for what could be the "game of the century". If all goes according to plan, I'm hoping to sink hundreds and hundreds of dollars into ToR, so the extra bit to get every piece possible isn't that much.
Other people are happy with, "Meh, I just want the game". Which is totally cool, too.
But please spare the rest of us with your randoms rationalization as to why you should/shouldn't have bought whatever edition you did.
Hell, if there was one thing WHO did right, it was that they stress tested all through their development.
They entirely over-estimated demand though and they thought solid PvP would make up for a lot of other deficiency. Let us pray SW:TOR has a better launch than WHO. WHO had the worst player abandonment I've ever seen. It went from 700K (at peak) to less than half of that within 45 days. It then went to 100K (or so). It bled players like a stomach wound.
I think the better model is Rift. Rift had a superb launch overall I thought. I also though their transition from closed beta to open beta was clever.
I see SW:TOR following a similar pattern.
It's hard to test a game at full throttle, because there's a significant investment to do so. To get all that infrastructure online and serviceable is a significant investment and requires a lot of planning. You don't just throw a switch and say "okay let another 200K in". It costs big money and time, its a necessary thing to do, but I totally understand why they plan these things carefully and leave them to the last part of the development.
In my tiny dev-world we'd build staging environments. This would be different than testing environments, because they wouldn't just replicate the code and platform, they'd also replicate the network conditions, the deployment process and we'd stress the hell out of the staging environment. I see the transition from closed-beta to open-beta as a similar kind of thing. That's a simplification of course, but I'm trying to illustrate why these things are throttled carefully.
ChaosRed on
0
HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
about to pre-order on origin, man oh man i'm pretty set on the normal 60 dollar version but some of the bonuses in the 80 dollar version sound neato. doens't really seem worth 20 bucks though.
also doesn't anybody else find it weird pre-orders are happening now before there is even a release date?
Its a bit strange, but I'd rather they try and gauge the initial player base and do some stress testing before setting a solid date. If something goes wrong they need to fix it before launch.
Posts
I'm sure it will work out to be a good deal. I'm not that familiar with Bioware's history of making sure customers are happy, but overall it is pretty good right? And certainly there's some evidence the SW:TOR is paying close attention to the fans, as witnessed with their changes to the speeders. I'm hopeful you'll be taken care of anyway.
"Mouse droid? Was totally worth 6 months of subscription fees."
You'll just be walking around your ship and you'll see little piles of credits on the floor in the corners and under the bed and all over the pantry.
You're a bad-ass motherfucker for many other reasons.
I mean once the angels escape the grasp of the Dark Things beyond the moon we're gonna be in pretty deep shit unless we can convince Alanis Morissette to get on the airwaves and we already know she's a Martian spy.
I don't think they ever said that. the web site just said you could play before launch. it was the unofficial "leaks" that showed 6 days for CE, 3 for SE.
Empire - Veela Server
It was easy for me! 6 months of play time > 4 days of play time.
3DS FC: 5086-1134-6451
Shiny Code: 3837
I can see it now. Darth Comis Ignis (My latin may be a bit off. But really, given how SW fans are, I bet someone will use one of those words eventually, so
The hardcore Star Wars fans would self destruct.
you kid, but the exclusive mouse droid will be the TOR equivalent of the panda from WoW. and anytime i saw one of those recently I was impressed.
Empire - Veela Server
this of course also means all the carebear republic types will be whisked off to heaven, leaving severe sith overpopulation. at least until Skynet starts multi-boxing hundreds of thousands of characters.
Empire - Veela Server
Now, if they just casually forgot to mention that they were sold out, and kept their pre-order page up. I may need to bust out my shotgun.
Edit: The CE is worth it for several reasons.
The statue is already going for $75 originally made. You could probably ebay that sucker off right after release, and make the extra money back, if you were lucky.
It comes with a security key. And odds are this game will have issues with the usual WoW style hackings if it gets popular enough. And really, it will. It's frigging Star Wars, is produced by Bioware, and is a sequel to one of the most successful Star Wars series in recent years. Which is also a story based RPG. Unless the vengeful astral projection of Smedley rises up from SOE's headquarters to assault the game with shitty updates, it's going to be a major success.
The in-game store is sort of confirmed to have items in it that have unique appearances, and have equivalent stats to in-game armors. Depending on the scale of the armor, you could remove some tedious aspects of the game entirely.
The soundtrack for this is going to be epic. And will probably be worth a pretty penny all by itself. Just listen to some of the music they've included so far, in the game.
That companions have their own gear and outfits has been known for a long time, yes.
Well know we also know that you can change their skin color and other facial features.
I mean, Sure there will be thousands of people in the head start, but it's still got to be better than playing on "opening" day.
A company actually limiting preorders? That's pretty crazy.
SteamID: devCharles
twitter: https://twitter.com/charlesewise
They never promised anything. To me, at least, it was apparent from the get go that the order in which you were allowed into the early access was based on the order in which you registered your pre-order code. Which is what SR has said.
7 days tops I think, with less days depending on when you pre-ordered.
I think between that, partially instanced servers at launch and instanced quest areas, the overcrowding you usually see at MMO launches probably won't be so bad here.
Yup, you can modify their appearance and you can even adjust their AI a little. I mentioned this as one of my favorite tidbits from yesterday in an earlier post. For RP purposes this is just excellent news.
I don't really think they are. Saying that stuff is only available in limited quantities is a good way to get back lots of people to buy said stuff very quickly.
Its also a good way to limit the strain on the servers initially to ensure that you get good word of mouth out on the game fast for being "Easy to get in and start playing."
Received a receipt confirming I purchased the game. But no CE/headstart code.
Already starting to worry that i'm going to get that Gamestop Experience™ .
Setting them to aggressive, neutral, etc has been known for a while.
Customizing their appearance was news, at least it was to me. You can modify the UI as you can in Dragon Age, so that's pretty Bioware boiler-plate, still it helps with RP and I was glad to see someone else on the board call these features out. If you could only rename them!
<Aybara's Companion>
I am thinking about it. One the one hand more play time. On the other hand just a few more days play time and I can proceed to play it at release date and ask you guys the important questions. Like "How do I not fuck this quest up" or "which companion should I take" or "how do I land this darkside npc in bed with my lightside Jedi?"
I preordered mine from GameStop yesterday morning and didn't get my code until this morning.
The security fob is something you can likely get yourself when the game launches, the soundtrack will be downloadable in a million places for free, the map is, well a map. The exclusive vendor and "lounge", is a place you can buy light buffs and things, but it won't be spectacular otherwise players whine (see discussion on this very thread about being able to buy statistical advantage). The "early access" which is the real selling point is vague, with no details or specifics.
What you really get is a sense you are already connected to the game, that you are already committed to it. It helps assuage your anticipation, while also locking you in to some kind of commitment to the game. It's a gimmick. A fun one. You just have to decide whether you have the clams to participate in the gimmick.
I most certainly do not. So I am stuck just envying those who do. But let's face it, these things aren't really a decent value, they exploit our desire for immediacy and they little gimmicky things to satiate that for a price.
The security fob is probably not going to be in the standard editions. WoW taught the market that you can bleed your customers just a little more by selling security authentication tools separately.
The statue is already going for 50/75 dollars if it's made right now. Odds are you can Ebay them off if yours comes in good condition.
The lounge will probably be deserted a few months after release. However, it's been confirmed that there's unique outfits for sale. And semi-confirmed that some of it at least, is equivalent to gear you can earn while leveling up. Meaning that if your server is on it's last legs, or you otherwise can't spend the time to do instances, you can spend in-game money for gear.
The soundtrack, if the developers are to be believed, is going to be big too. The actual amount of recorded music in-game was listed as something absurd, like about a month worth of listening. Since they're taking music from other games, the movies, and designing their own, I can believe that at the very least, it'll be larger then what we normally get in soundtracks (IE: The horrifically bland WoW CE soundtracks.).
The in-game items are going to be nice. The flare gun may end up being another "Toy Train" set from WoW from what little has been mentioned of it. Which justifies the purchase right there. The only thing worse then that was the screaming robot they sold to blow up the train sets, which could be heard half a mile away.
If anything, this hasn't "assuaged my anticipation". Knowing I have a ton of cool shit waiting for me in-game (If Gamestop doesn't screw me. And to be honest, that's like a 50/50 chance, given their track record with me so far.) is only making me want the game more, now.
Also, yes. I want to dress my character up like a Barbie. If possible, i'm going to slap a slave leia costume onto a faithful recreation of this character:
And you know what? That body type is possible, too.
Looking around at the other items that company makes, it seems like they tend to charge $200+ for a lot of their stuff. $150 for it with a game may turn out to be a pretty nice deal depending on the quality.
Personally I can be a sucker for that kind of thing, but mostly there's just nothing else I plan on buying right at launch over the holiday season.
Steam - Wildschwein | The Backlog
Grappling Hook Showdown - Tumblr
they said they did this because of the early start and not wanting the servers to be too overloaded - which makes sense.
Empire - Veela Server
In that case they aught to limit pre-order bonus codes, not actual pre-orders.
Steam - Wildschwein | The Backlog
Grappling Hook Showdown - Tumblr
Yeah, right on. It's great fans out there are happy with their purchase. I applaud this, who wouldn't? There's a big market for dolls...err...excuse me "action figures statues". I am certainly no standard for good taste either. I have a massive, framed KISS poster in my office. I have season tickets to a SOCCER team...one that just lost to a real team 7-0. So don't let my disinterest in the preorder offerings fool you, the value of things are subjective. And I certainly have made purchases in my time that make others take a double-take.
If you (and the others) are delighted with your purchase, I am happy for you. It's a good thing. I just still think that the chief thing they are really selling here is anticipation. That what makes this deal work, is a sense you are already half-way to enjoying a really great Star Wars game. I wager a form of the Collector's Edition without the "early access" arrives shortly after launch for a significantly reduced price. But those editions, won't come with the satisfaction that you got yours first.
You already see people talking about how the panda was cool, because it signified you were first. People like that stuff and I think that's a large part of what is being sold here.
Limiting preorder codes makes a bit apprehensive about their stress testing.
SteamID: devCharles
twitter: https://twitter.com/charlesewise
They've been deliberately avoiding any sort of stress testing so far. I have a feeling launch is going to be a mess, because of that.
Hell, if there was one thing WHO did right, it was that they stress tested all through their development.
For some people, $80 extra (or whatever it comes out to) is not a lot of money, and definitely worth it to have something that could become near "one-of-a-kind" for what could be the "game of the century". If all goes according to plan, I'm hoping to sink hundreds and hundreds of dollars into ToR, so the extra bit to get every piece possible isn't that much.
Other people are happy with, "Meh, I just want the game". Which is totally cool, too.
But please spare the rest of us with your randoms rationalization as to why you should/shouldn't have bought whatever edition you did.
They entirely over-estimated demand though and they thought solid PvP would make up for a lot of other deficiency. Let us pray SW:TOR has a better launch than WHO. WHO had the worst player abandonment I've ever seen. It went from 700K (at peak) to less than half of that within 45 days. It then went to 100K (or so). It bled players like a stomach wound.
I think the better model is Rift. Rift had a superb launch overall I thought. I also though their transition from closed beta to open beta was clever.
I see SW:TOR following a similar pattern.
It's hard to test a game at full throttle, because there's a significant investment to do so. To get all that infrastructure online and serviceable is a significant investment and requires a lot of planning. You don't just throw a switch and say "okay let another 200K in". It costs big money and time, its a necessary thing to do, but I totally understand why they plan these things carefully and leave them to the last part of the development.
In my tiny dev-world we'd build staging environments. This would be different than testing environments, because they wouldn't just replicate the code and platform, they'd also replicate the network conditions, the deployment process and we'd stress the hell out of the staging environment. I see the transition from closed-beta to open-beta as a similar kind of thing. That's a simplification of course, but I'm trying to illustrate why these things are throttled carefully.
also doesn't anybody else find it weird pre-orders are happening now before there is even a release date?
Steam - Wildschwein | The Backlog
Grappling Hook Showdown - Tumblr