Star Wars: The Old Republic senior community manager Stephen Reid said via Twitter that the game's Beta Test Weekend will begin on Friday, November 25 and conclude on Monday, November 28. Gamers who have already signed up for testing the upcoming MMOG prior to November 11 will receive an invitation next week.
Last weekend BioWare said that this would be its largest Beta Test Weekend to date, and will be specifically designed to help the team stress test the game's servers in preparation for the launch. Fans who have yet to sign up for the limited demo can still score a spot by heading to one of the partner sites listed here. In North America these include IGN, Massively, MMORPG, Ten Ton Hammer, ZAM and our sister site Curse.com.
"Keep your eyes on these sites for your chance to get a Beta Test Weekend Code, as well as how to redeem the code and get into the Beta Test Weekend," BioWare said.
One unnamed source currently within the beta reports that the game is extremely polished for a beta, but the client-side software still needs some optimization, as it launches rather slow. "I don't know if they aren't using the release version of the graphics engine, or I simply didn’t have the graphics turned up on my end, but the visuals look cartoonish," the source said in an email.
The gameplay was also described as a "multiplayer Knights of the Old Republic. "My prediction is, the game will launch big, but steadily taper off and become an average helping in a sea of average MMOGs," the unnamed source states.
Guess we'll find out soon if the Force is really strong with this one... especially with World of Warcraft and Rift peering down like hungry Sith lords ready for blood.