SW:TOR: EA commits to 2011 launch

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 22 July, 2011

Beta test weekends start in September.

EA has promised that massively multiplayer online game Star Wars: The Old Republic will launch this year.

Additionally, EA announced beta test weekends begin this September. These weekend play sessions will be open to selected players worldwide.

Yesterday EA opened up pre-orders of the game, which comes in three flavours.

Reports indicate the £129.99 Collector's Edition is sold out across many retailers.

The £59.99 Digital Deluxe Edition, exclusive to EA's Steam rival Origin, is also under pressure.

Pre-ordering the game nets you a redemption code that will unlock early game access and an in-game colour stone to change your weapon effect.

"Pre-order quantities are limited and Early Game Access will only be available to those who pre-order the game and redeem their code before the game's official release," EA said.

BioWare boss Ray Muzyka explained that EA was deliberately limiting supply at launch "to ensure that players easily transition into the servers".

"So whether you're waiting to join the Empire or the Republic, pre-order now to ensure you can enter the galaxy at launch!"

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (21) Latest comment 7 months ago

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  • Ryboy #1 7 months ago

    Collectors Edition. DONE!

  • dagas #2 7 months ago

    This limited talk is BS. Of course they want to sell as many copies as possible. They just want you to pre-order as fast as possible. I'm just getting a regular edition at retail.

  • Maximinn #3 7 months ago

    "Specifically, the "second half of 2011"."

    It's already the end of July. No kidding its the second half.

  • Ryboy #4 7 months ago

    ^ Haha.

  • Seoh #5 7 months ago

    i Pre-ordered the standard edition but luckily can cancel if i don't like the look of one of the beta weekends.

    I predict that the servers will be woefully insignificant for the huge number of people wanting to play TOR, ideally i'd like a Riftesque smooth launch but i don't trust EA to invest the cash up front on server archetecture.

  • Zomeguy #6 7 months ago

    If the game is any good and the reviews confirm this,I will just walk into a random shop and buy the box for 30€ one month after release?

  • HL706 #7 7 months ago

    £130 for game you need to subscribe to? Err, no thanks. I'll just wait and see what player response is to the game.
    Edited by 1 at 22/07/11 @ 10:40

  • FortysixterUK #8 7 months ago

    All you nay sayers out there....I dunno....this is Star Wars.

    Buy the CE, I'm sure it won't be going for £14.99 at most retialers six months later because they can't sell them and I'm sure the servers won't be consolidated from double figues into single figures and i'm sure the population will stay massively high.

    And I'm sure I didn't go through all that with Warhammer online, DCU online ,Star Trek online and Age of Conan.

    Oh fuck , I hope this one works.

    So...anyway...lifetime subs offer? I reckon it will be £249.99 and only vailable for the first 30 days of the games launch.
    ( I guessed the retail price of the CE by the way , so you know I'm right ! )

  • Daeltaja #9 7 months ago

    This is launching not because it's ready, but because it has already gone way over-budget. Don't expect a smooth launch people. I might check it out a few months into launch, already way too many quality games coming out from September, how on earth would one fit in the time to play this? Also, the sheer lack of footage, even at this late stage, is really worrying. They're really holding their cards close to their chest.

    I think they'd benefit way more by holding onto it until January - more time to polish and far, far less competition. (So far)
    Edited by 1 at 22/07/11 @ 11:30

  • jimbomcbob #10 7 months ago

    @Daeltaja

    I for one will be making time for this one my fellow gamer. Also, no launch is smooth, even the famous WOW.

  • Apaar #11 7 months ago

    If this game bombs it will be the end of bioware. They've already been abandoned by a good chunk of their most loyal, long term hardcore fanbase after the utter failure that was DA2, their boneheaded attitude and their apparent lack of interest in keeping the traditions of the genre alive.

    Now ME3 coming out with turret sections, melee gore, and kinect stupidness hasn't alleviated people's concerns that bEAWare isn't the BioWare people used to know and love anymore. If the 300 million TOR crushes BioWare under its carcass, there's no way anyone's going to dig BW out of that. The loyal fans might have, but most of those have already found a new home at CD Project.

  • Xensor #12 7 months ago

    Pre-orders... yeah... i'll wait for the reveiws thanks. The vaccuum of information regarding actually playing the game for any length of time is worrying imho.

  • Jorendo #13 7 months ago

    I got faith in Bioware, yes they made a huge mistake by abbandoning the DA1 formula just to please the console gamers. But they made so many great games, you gonna burn them down for one mistake? And EA doesn't seem to want to make the same mistake as they did with warhammer. I think this will be EA's flagship for MMO's. EA wants to compete with activision, who owns Blizzard with WoW. A bigger competitor you can't have.

    Looking forward to SW ToR, bought the CE today cause yesterday you couldn't pre order it yet at the dutch stores. And for those who say there isn't much footage yet check youtube lots of footage.

  • Apaar #14 7 months ago

    @Jorendo

    Activision doesn't 'own' Blizzard, if anything it's the other way around. Vivendi (Blizzard's parent company) owns most of Activision Blizzard, and Blizzard Entertainment is a wholly autonomous part of the larger whole. This is, sadly, not the case with BioWare and EA.

  • Lemming81 #15 7 months ago

    Hey EG, real journalism alert!!

    Did you know that Amazon and Play are cancelling pre-orders for this game citing a 'cataloguing error' to get out of the price-promises?

    Might worth researching. No? Oh, ok then. Stick up another one about xbox vs ps3 then. ¬_¬

  • Flipper79 #16 7 months ago

    @Lemming81...+1. Hasn't effected me at all but I'm surprised no one seems to be willing to put this out there. Pretty disgraceful stuff and I certainly won't be pre-ordering through either of them again. I'm starting to build up quite a list of shops I won't preorder through.

  • AOFanboi #17 7 months ago

    <em>All you nay sayers out there....I dunno....this is Star Wars.</em>

    So was Galaxies.

  • Subdominator #18 7 months ago

    Just what I wanted to say to him. :D Star Wars Galaxies failed and it was even more ambitious in scale than TOR. I can't take any MMORPG serious that has a "beta test" just days before it's supposed to go gold. It's not a beta, it's more like an early demo, because they can't iron out the bugs they might find. And it's a closed beta as well, so they won't even be able to give their servers are real stress test before release. Given EAs history with MMOGs in the past (Ultima Online was the only successful one) I'd bet that TOR fails. The thing EA doesn't get is you can't get players to buy your game over the competition just by making a better game, the best way to do it is to make a better game and offer it cheaper. WoW can be as arrogant as it is and sell expansions for 40 pounds because it has the fanbase to do so. A new MMORPG at the prices they are asking has no chance of survival. It doesn't even make sense from a business side of things, cause they want to make money with monthly subscriptions. So it should be in their interest to get as many people to play the game as possible. Maybe they know that they don't have enough content in it to keep players around for more than two months and that is why they want to make money with game sales.

  • Ryboy #19 7 months ago

    Remember all, hate leads to dark side. Excellent.

  • Meto #20 7 months ago

    @Subdominator

    I expect it has been in development for too long, it has cost far too much, and it is not finished. So what they're doing now is using the SW logo to sell some super expensive (but really tacky and cheap) pre-order sets in order to make a dent in those costs. Then they're going to slap together what they have, rush the launch, and string people along with "updates" that do two things: 1) attempt to fix major problems (ie use launch as a beta) and 2) deliver what should have been launch content in subsequent paid-for expansions.

    Meanwhile the game itself will be pretty shallow. An RPG on an MMO server where Twi'leks talk with West Texas square dancing accents. Children will flock to it and dump it after 60 days. SW die-hards will sign up because they "have to", but will spend the next six months like a father trying to pretend that this horrible trip across the desert is the best family vacation ever. Eventually they stop the car. Everyone takes off their mask and realizes this isnt SW. It's just yet another massively expensive commercial fuck-up by someone trying to get rich off a story that was never their own.

    /swig

  • ircaddicts #21 7 months ago

    @ jimbomcbob Both Guild Wars and Lotro's launch where bascily flawless. swtors won't be and it will only go downhill for there.

    @Apaar Its not longer a question of IF the game bomns but WHEN why do think thier chargeing £130 for the collections ed. They KNOW its going to bomb so are trying to get as much money before they game launches as possable.

    No games site will give this a bad review as they can't afford to. I'm a HUGE star wars fan but will not going with 1000 light years of this as from everything I've seen its just wow with a star wars skin. I'd much rather play on one of the PRE CU SWG emulators if I want a star wars mmo.