Beta Weekends October 7 to 11th

An article has gone up on SWTOR.com saying that there will be a Beta Weekend on October 7th to 11th, the dates I speculated on in my last post in fact:

Beta Testing Weekends for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ began earlier this month and during our first weekend, we invited more players into testing than we’ve ever invited before in a single weekend! Now we’re getting ready for another Beta Testing Weekend, starting on October 7th and finishing on October 11th. With increased invite numbers from the first weekend, even more of you will get to play The Old Republic.

As if this wasn't exciting enough, they will be sending out invites this week!

Invites to the Beta Testing Weekend are being sent this week. If you are selected, an email invite will be sent to the email address associated with your Star Wars: The Old Republic account.

In fact today:

Invitations to Beta Testing Weekend #2 are going out over the rest of today, October 4th. The original post in this thread has been updated.

So where are these invites being sent?

Please note: Invites for the Beta Testing Weekend are being sent over the course of today, October 4th.

    * Who was invited: Testers from the USA, Canada and all European launch countries (see list here)
    * Please note - We will be re-inviting all testers from Beta Testing Weekend #1 (AKA 'Squadron 1020') as promised.
    * What was sent: Beta Testing Weekend #2 invites (October 7th to 11th)
    * Server locations: East Coast USA (all testers)

source.

So oddly they are inviting European testers, but not using the European servers. Maybe that Ireland internet pipe is still in need of fattening.

But when can I stop refreshing my inbox?

Guys and gals. Seriously. Invites going out THROUGHOUT THE DAY. ;) I'll let you know when we've stopped sending invites.

Aha ok.

Now for everyone to monitor their inboxes, until midnight today! PST!

Ned from TGN.TV talks about Sith Warrior, Imperial Agent Starter Experiences

Ned from TGN.TV has posted a Eurogamer round up, where he talks about doing some PvP, the Sith Warrior (11:21) and Imperial Agent (14:25) starter zones.




Ned promises an interview with Stephen Reid by the weekend, so subscribe to his tgnSWTOR channel if you're interested.

More EU Invites Go Out

Stephen Reid posted a new thread which will be updated when more invites are sent out. Happily it said that more EU invites were sent out this week. However, the content of this thread was not without controversy.

With that out of the way, here's the current status as of today, October 3rd:

Invites sent last week (ending September 30th)

    * Who was invited: Testers from the USA, Canada and select European countries
    * What was sent: General Game Testing invites
    * Server location: East Coast USA

Invites sent this week (ending October 7th)

    * Who was invited: Testers from the USA, Canada, France and Germany
    * What was sent: General Game Testing invites
    * Server locations: East Coast USA (North America testers); EU servers (France/Germany testers)

More to come.

What was odd about this update at first read is that this week the EU servers were open for Game Testing, but only testers from France and Germany were invited. Predictably there were complaints about this. Actually there were also complains that the USA East Coast servers were chosen, but that turns out to mean everyone in North American can be invited.

No the real thing here for the EU is that Bioware only invited, this week, testers from France and Germany and not randomly across the whole EU green zone.

Now remember that new client with French and German voice overs? That they wanted to test? Yep, that's why. They of course want to use their Game Testing program to test the game, and particularly want to test the new features they put in.

Now didn't they say they wanted to get this new client a bit of testing before Beta Weekends start, and this looks like testing to me. Unfortunately it is now Tuesday so I am not sure enough testing will happen for this coming weekend, but it depends if they wanted internal or external testing before proving the client. Inviting external testers means they have probably proven the client internally.

Anyway, here is me on beta weekend speculation again. I also hope they might want some English speakers to come.

Another potential issue is that of British English versus American English. Now in the UK we are used to getting American English products which are "good enough" for us, but there are distinct differences in spelling and terminology between British and American English. A search on google shows most of Europe seem to be taught British English.

So will the EU client be British or American English? Testers could have a load of fun submitting bugs saying the spelling is incorrect for "color" or "summarize", and annoying the hell out of Bioware who might think that British and American English is the same.

I am pretty sure the client will be American English, and so they won't really need that many more English speakers to do ongoing Game Testing. It would be good if it were British English, then they'd need a lot more European English-speakers to test it out. Not to mention those characters with an English accent, who surely need to be verified that they refer to Tea properly and use the correct Queen's English, right?

Daniel Erickson talks Huttball, Mature Content in SWTOR

While we wait for news of Beta Weekends and European betas, the French website [C]himera has posted a video from the recent community event held in France.

The video is in English with French subtitles. They ask a few questions and get some answers about companions (there are 5 roles but more than 5 companions for each class), some back story about Illum, plus more.

Email Gate: An Apology Is Sent

This morning I found another email from Bioware in my inbox. Was it a beta invite?! No, it was an apology for the previous two emails I'd received, and an assurance that no one had hacked their site.

Certainly it is nice they sent this, and I guess they want to make sure no one thinks those two previous emails were due to their site getting hacked.

Anyone who doesn't keep up to date on the forums and/or twitter may not have known why the previous 2 emails were sent, so this is a good communication.

Pity those of us who jump the gun might have seen the email and thought that they were getting a beta invite, eh? :)