SW:TOR Hit With Code Errors, Long Server Queues
As expected, BioWare's MMOG Star Wars: The Old Republic has launched with a few annoying problems to iron out.
Launching a MMOG is undoubtedly a huge undertaking, from developing a stable platform that will run on most PC configurations to handling the initial load of subscribers on opening day. That said, it's not unheard of to hear reports of instability and other minor problems. But it becomes downright unfortunate when loyal patrons -- those who shelled out money for the software and the first month's subscription fee -- can't even participate.
Star Wars: The Old Republic had problems even before it officially opened its doors for business on Tuesday. Both the developer and publisher EA purposely staggered the game's introduction to beta participants to keep server overload down to a minimum. But the program was littered with reports of wait times of more than two hours anyway. Many servers are currently reaching maximum capacity now that the game has officially gone live, forcing BioWare to plead with gamers and convince them to log onto the lower population servers.
"As many of you know, we're experiencing high load and corresponding queues on some servers," reports senior online community manager Stephen Reid. "This is to be expected during launch, as a high number of people want to play the game, and for long stretches at a time. We're monitoring all of our servers around the clock, and we're raising server population caps where required. However, to ensure our long-term goals of server stability and healthy populations, we do not want to raise population caps too rapidly."
But long server queues isn't the only problem SW:TOR is currently facing. Many customers are having problems getting into the game thanks to a glitch with the registration codes. According to Destructoid, physical copies shipped without codes included, and digital versions aren't working, spitting out error messages instead of granting access to the virtual Star Wars universe.
EA's digital distribution platform Origin is also having issues. Customers who pre-ordered the PC game either haven't received their code, been told that their code is already active, or there's no record that the game was even purchased in their Origin billing info. BioWare has reportedly been silent on the situation which is causing a growing level of frustration for affected consumers.
"Some people are getting canned responses that blame the end user for trying to input their pre-order key instead of their product registration key, despite the fact that it's not the problem," Destructoid reports. "Others are confused as to whether this is an issue with SW:TOR itself, or with Origin, as nobody official will explain what's going on."
As of this writing, EA and BioWare have not commented on the registration code issue, so stay tuned.
Thank you for that. I haven't laughed that hard in a long while.
Then it takes forever to do anything as you spend countless minutes just walking back and forth. The ripped straight from Mass Effect in game cut scene bad/good quest elements are fun at first, but after the first 10 or so levels I stop caring about it, because I realize I'm listening to 3min of dialog to just go kill 10x or loot 5y from mob Z. The cool story parts make up like an hour of the 12-14 hours I put in on both of those characters.
Then you have the idiotic things the game won't let you do like disable the Auto Camera rotate. Because god forbid when you are on auto-run for 10 min in a straight line you want to be able to look around you without holding down the right mouse button. Or turn on Anti Aliasing; the graphics look rather poor without being able to turn AA on, might as well be an Xbox game. Or have an effective UI that shows your health and your opponents health, and the nameplates that pop up when you get near an opponent, not just when you attack them, and so on and so forth.
I wish I could get a refund.
I'm sure the Bioware will do the most they can to take care of their customers....
fixed* because in my experience EA doesn't care about you after they have your money
With that being said there are very few problems with this game. Compare it to any other MMOG release.
Swtor has fewer bugs (35 hours and I haven't found one) and is more stable than WoW in its 6th year (performance is rock solid, no hang-ups or lag at all)
As a side note, Swtor does not require Origin to either install or run. Bioware/Swtor.com provide the install files so the only connection it actually has to Origin is that you can buy it from the Origin store and if you choose to (dont know why anyone would) you can access it via the Origin launcher.
I can clearly tell you don't know what you are talking about, and never opened 'Preferences' to customize nameplates, or learned how to auto-run and control the camera with the left mouse button. You played to 14...rofl... You really didn't do anything then.
Compared to what? It's a lot of fun.
As far as server ques, I dont know why the derps all try to load up on a few servers. There's a ton of them with light loads when others have 2 hr ques. It makes no sense. If people are waiting to get in, its definitely their choice to wait.
All the major issues, like the Taris issue have already been patched. It's Bioware's baby and there's no way they wont tend to matters very quickly.
Thank you for that. I haven't laughed that hard in a long while.
I have not crashed to desktop once, there is no lag in pvp, instances or space combar scenarios that i have seen, and as of yesterday the longest i have had to wait is 20 minutes to get on, so game wise a very good launch.
However the reported issues with account codes not being accepted or incorrectly reporting code already has been used needs to be sorted out quickly, since this has affected several people in our guild.
mmo is one of the few things that cant be launched normally.
As for those griping regarding visuals, this game was never intended to be, nor promoted to be a graphically superior game in any way. Its focus is on a player driven storyline, which Bioware has done excellently in my opinion. I even like the warzones, which is something I found tedious in WoW.
Bioware takes tremendous amount of pride and puts forth a lot of effort in their work, so expect a fix relatively soon. Also, EA is probably smart enough to realize the earning potential of an MMO. Paying $60 for a game is great, but it's even better when the players are continuously paying $15 a month AND buying expansions AND buying paraphernalia. EA is not going to let this cash cow die before it even has time to mature.
For those of you crying about wanting a refund, you should have dropped five dollars to pre-order the game so you could test it during beta weekend. That's when I ultimately made my decision on whether or not to keep my order.
Why? It is rumored that they spent something like $135 MILLION to make this game. Do you think any of the F2P games out there have anywhere near this type of investment? I've played some of the F2P games that have come out, and most are a joke compared to this. I'm not talking about the subscription games that became F2P later on (though SWTOR puts those to shame too); I'm talking about the games that were created and went straight to F2P. Many are little better than Facebook games. And what would you expect? A micro-transaction model might be a solid performer, but you can't expect to see something truly epic built on that paradigm. Much the way that you won't see a Star Wars or Lord of the Rings caliber film ever released at Sundance or Cannes.
actually, most of the mods are unpaid volunteers, who just like the feeling of power they get playing god on a forum
Almost no one has to wait more than 15 minutes, tons of people don't have to wait at all and only the population of 3 servers - which is what 10,000 players maybe 15,000 if you want to be generous - out of the 1,500,000 who reportedly bought the game doesn't sound so bad to me.
As you may know, 1% is not even considered mathematically significant. Yet Tom makes it sound like everyone playing SWTOR suffers terrible queues. Gee.