May 20, 2012
Published on Thursday, 18 August 2011 20:53
I felt a great disturbance in the force, as if millions of preorders cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
EA announced at GamesCon that it will be artificially limiting both physical and electronic copies of Star Wars: The Old Republic in order to reduce loads on servers and presumably provide a smoother experience. While I applaud EA's (supposed) commitment to providing a smooth gaming experience, I can't help but wonder why a company so eager to force players into using its Origin online service doesn't have the resources to ensure that they have enough servers available to handle TOR's launch.
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I actually know some accepted to the beta test, and so far they have had to download over 20gb for the installl.
My thoughts on it are that, while I am not sure how limited this will be, this launch could rival the launch of any previous MMO. It has to go off well or they will be crucified by the media, fans and WoW loyalists. I am sure that there will be lots of "on the fence" gamers who will gingerly peek out from their WoW (or other MMO they have given years of their lives over to) lives and if they see it clogged and miserable, go running back to the safety of their old routine. I feel that this is going to be a great example of where first impressions will be a literal "game changer". If they do this well, if they prove that they are able to handle a release this big successfully, they could deal a serious blow to Blizzard. They have got to show that they can compete again the MMO giant. So being careful and throttling the influx of players, while not ideal, may be the best approach to take. I so want them to do well with this. I want to see SWTOR be a hit.
Category: Upcoming