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The Doctor has Spoken! NDA Lifted!

As part of today’s Friday Update for Star Wars: The Old Republic Dr. Zeschuk announced that BioWare has lifted the Non-Disclosure Agreement.

Folks,

As of now, the non disclosure portion of our Game Testing Agreement is officially lifted. While all players must still accept the Game Testing Agreement, from this point on testers may now freely talk about their experiences this past weekend in the game, as well as post screenshots and gameplay videos of their testing experiences. We encourage you to come join us on the official Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Forums to share your experiences!

The Star Wars: The Old Republic community site will have a copy of this message on the forums and it will also appear in the Patcher. Players may not talk about nor reprint posts from our testing forums as they are still fully covered by the confidentiality portions of our Game Testing Agreement. And all players who want to participate in the upcoming Beta Test Weekends still have to accept all terms of the Game Testing Agreement. So, other than that, free feel to talk about and share your experiences in Star Wars: The Old Republic.

My thanks go out to everyone who has beta tested and continues to beta test the game. It has been with your help and feedback that Star Wars: The Old Republic is where it is today. We really appreciate your efforts.

May the Force be with you!

Greg Zeschuk
VP, Electronic Arts, BioWare Austin, General Manager

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27 Bottles of Beer on the wall….

Put on your tin foil hat folks – you’re in for a looooong ride!

<Begins to sing slurring>

27 bottles of beer on the wall.. 27 bottles of beer.. Take one down, pass it around.. 26 bottles of beer on the wall!

<Ends singing>

We are just over halfway through 2011 and we officially have 27 Friday’s left in the year for BioWare to release information on Star Wars: The Old Republic.  This is my “speculation” into what we may see in some of these Friday Updates and I don’t believe we will be using all 27…

Update 07/01/11: After reviewing all of the past trailers we are actually missing quite a few “Armor” Progression Trailers and of course the Jedi Consular class trailer.  I have updated my list below to compensate for these missing trailers.

July 1 - Jedi Consular Class Update (Actual: Bounty Hunter Character (Armor) Progression)
July 8 –  Developers Blog (A Path to Success: Maps, and their Making) ✔
July 15 – Fan Friday | Studio Insider (w/ Audio Q/A) ✔
July 22 – San Diego Comic Con Reveals (Reveals: Jedi Consular Class Update/Trailer, (Remaining) Crew Skills, War Zone – VoidStar, (Low) Pre-Order, Box & Collector’s Edition details)
July 29 – San Diego Comic Con Recap & Jedi Consular Armor Progression
August 5 – Developers Blog
August 12 – Fan Friday | Studio Insider
August 19 – GamesCon Reveals (Reveals: “Train Horn” AKA Countdown to release date announcement for PAX, Last HoloNet Tab Revealed (speculated Legacy system) & Guild HQ Phase 2)
August 26 – PAX Reveals (Major Reveals: Release Date, Sith Inquisitor Armor Progression)
September 2 – GamesCon & PAX Recap | Expanded Game Testing Details Revealed via Pre-Orders
September 9 - Developers Blog (Character Creation) | Removal of the Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) for Game Testers
September 16 - Fan Friday | Studio Insider (Guild HQ Phase 3*)
September 23 – EUROGAMER EXPO Reveals (Reveals: Imperial Agent Armor Progression, Smuggler Armor Progression, Head Start Details**, Server Lists & Website Update: Advanced Class Skill Tree “Calculators”)
Tuesday, September 27 – Star Wars: The Old Republic is Released!

*Guild Phase 3 could likely happen the Wednesday (September 21) before the EUROGAMER EXPO.
**Depending on the number of days they will be offering a Head Start the details could come earlier in the week

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Penny Arcade Beta Impressions

Gabe at Penny Arcade has been a part of the Star Wars: The Old Republic Game Testing for about a month now and was given permission by BioWare to breech the NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) to share his impressions on the highly anticipated game.

So I was actually able to get into the current friends and family beta for Star Wars: The Old Republic. It wasn’t too hard since technically I do have a friend over there. The tricky part is that Bioware, like a lot of places thinks of PA as “media” and they don’t want media playing it yet. I explained that we aren’t media, we prefer to think of ourselves as “enthusiasts”. They let me in but I had to pinkie swear that I wouldn’t talk about the game here on the site, or anywhere else for that matter. I’ve been playing it for a little over a month now and last week I asked if I could share some of my impressions with you all. It took some begging but finally they agreed and to their credit they didn’t ask to see what I was going to write first. Honestly they had no idea what I was going to say which must have been a little scary considering this is PA, but lucky for them I actually really like their game. So this isn’t a review or anything even close. What I’m playing is the beta and honestly changing all the time. I just wanted to share some of my impressions.

 

First of all, a lot has been made about the new “fourth pillar” of story telling. Is it really all they are making it out to be? In my personal opinion, yes, it really is a big deal and let me tell you why. In the short time I’ve been playing SW:TOR I have already given more thought to my character than I ever did in all the years I played WOW. I’ve had to make hard choices with my Bounty Hunter that have made me honestly think about who he is and what he’s like. At first I intended to play him as a real asshole but some of the moral quagmires these quests put you in just aren’t that black and white. Do I do what gets me the most credits? Do I stay loyal to the person who gave me the job even it means hurting Innocent people? As a result of all this I have a character that is a hard ass bounty hunter who has a soft spot for people in trouble and children. The only thing I could tell you about my WOW character Dudefella is that he was a mage and a hell of a good dancer.

To read the full impression head over to the Penny-Arcade website.

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Friday Update: Advanced Classes Update

This week’s Star Wars: The Old Republic Friday Update is the Advanced Classes Update Developer Blog by Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller. The update includes a deep dive from Georg Zoeller on the Advanced Classes in general, talent trees, abilities, and a few interesting metrics gathered from the testing program.