From an interview of actor Paul Darrow (of Blake's 7 fame):

What was it like to take on Grand Moff Tarkin for the Lucas Games Star Wars franchise?

Actually I've just done another one for Lucas, about a month ago. Now what are they calling it...?

[Seems to be Star Wars: The Old Republic, with Darrow's the first NPC SW voice heard in the new MMORPG]

Anyway, I'm a Sith, and they told me it's coming out at Christmas. I was just doing some tops and tails, because I had recorded it about a year ago. I'm your guide - a Sith warrior.

They wanted as many people as they could from the original cast on Empire At War, but alas Peter [Cushing] had died. A lovely man - they said 'We don't want you to do an impression of him, but you could get close to it..?'.

http://www.shadowlocked.com/20110705...-republic.html

Not really anything spectacularly new. Its really vague, and really says TOR will be out sometime before xmas, which we have already been told ad nauseum.

An xmas release is risky. That guarantees a ton of copies sold, which gurantees crashing servers, inadequate customer support, lag. This along with the fact that I believe this may be some peoples first mmo ( remember just because someone watched the star wars movies does not = mmo gamer) will amount to a shitstorm of bad press like "ToR ruins Christmas".

Originally posted by Rzep

An xmas release is risky. That guarantees a ton of copies sold, which gurantees crashing servers, inadequate customer support, lag. This along with the fact that I believe this may be some peoples first mmo ( remember just because someone watched the star wars movies does not = mmo gamer) will amount to a shitstorm of bad press like "ToR ruins Christmas".

Nah, they are going to have a huge amount of people buying the game "christmas or no christmas".

They will either be able to accomodate people or not.

You'll shoot your eye out kid.

anyone else having trouble believing this guy knows when its coming out when he doesn't even know the name of the game? or is it just me? lol XD

SWG is closing the 15th of December which means that SWTOR wil be launched soon after (20th December)

3 years ago I said that SWTOR will launch when SWG would shut down, because you can't have the same IP used by 2 different developers at the same time

And that's exactly what is going to happen

Originally posted by gaou

anyone else having trouble believing this guy knows when its coming out when he doesn't even know the name of the game? or is it just me? lol XD

He did know his character was a Sith Warrior.

If they launch Christmas week, it will the be 2nd biggest mistake next to EQ2 launching at the same time as WoW in 2004.   You don't launch a game the week the entire staff is going to want to be off for the holidays.

I think the second week of September is the most likely candidate for a release date, if not I'd not expect it till mid November. Definately not in December, that seems foolish.

Originally posted by omome

Originally posted by gaou

anyone else having trouble believing this guy knows when its coming out when he doesn't even know the name of the game? or is it just me? lol XD

He did know his character was a Sith Warrior.

 He read from a script into a mic and got paid. Actually, I wish I had a job like that.

Saying something is coming out for Xmas doesn't equate to it coming out in Dec., They'll want to advertise and be in stores by Thanksgiving at least (I think that is when most xmas presents are purchased)  that would be considered 'In stores for the holidays'

I'm still with the time period myself of when the DVDs come out.  That just seems too Lucas to pass up, release the movies then place a game from a well known studio right beside it.  Wouldn't put it past them to make it a group package. Buy all 6 DVDs and get ToR half off with 2 months free for only $100  or some weird combo like that.

 Besides you don't release games right at Xmas you release them a month or so before christmas so people have time to buy it and wrap it and put it under the tree or whatever they do for their holidays, black friday would also be ideal to, pick sign out front, The old republic now on sale,then when you get into the store theres a place where you can pick up the game, be gone in practically minutes if they did that.  Especially if they hyped it up properly.

Anyway as i stated i still stand by that those movies being rereleased is about the time the game will come out.  Still if it's xmas then it is.  I know at least one game i'm getting for Xmas then if thats true.  Plus if it is true we finally have a release date and a segmented amount of time to wait. Better then just twiddling fingers until they decide to say when.

still wait and see, theres a lot of speculation about dates, hopefuly BW gives us something soonish on this front.

Originally posted by Tardcore

You'll shoot your eye out kid.

In any case, I agree with Omome, if the game is to come out it will come out in time to advertise for christmas sales. It's the perfect time to capitalize on our capital system.

Originally posted by Rzep

An xmas release is risky. That guarantees a ton of copies sold, which gurantees crashing servers, inadequate customer support, lag. This along with the fact that I believe this may be some peoples first mmo ( remember just because someone watched the star wars movies does not = mmo gamer) will amount to a shitstorm of bad press like "ToR ruins Christmas".

The Investors do not care about crashing servers, inadequate customer support, or lag. Those are things that Players and Devs care about. If the problems get too bad the Investors will just start pink slippin' and hiring and blame the Devs for not doing their job (when in fact the Investors probably won't have enough servers ready because they cost too much.).

But in the big scheme of things Players and Devs don't matter. Only Investors and their cronies matter. This is MMO Gaming in 2011.

i would not be surprised by a Christmas Release... in fact I am betting on it.

Investors and Shareholders just LOVE merchandise to be released for sale at Christmas time. It gives them warm fuzzies as they count their profits.

Ohh and one more thing.... after seeing how SW:TOR is being designed, it's artwork, etc,* I am fairly certain MMO Gamers are NOT the target audience of customers for SW:TOR.*

early next year. no christmas release.

Originally posted by Gardavsshade

Ohh and one more thing.... after seeing how SW:TOR is being designed, it's artwork, etc,* I am fairly certain MMO Gamers are NOT the target audience of customers for SW:TOR.*

Who's the target Audience?

Originally posted by rygard49

Originally posted by Gardavsshade

Ohh and one more thing.... after seeing how SW:TOR is being designed, it's artwork, etc,* I am fairly certain MMO Gamers are NOT the target audience of customers for SW:TOR.*

 

Who's the target Audience?

Clone wars fans?

I think they want to try and recreate what WoW did, and bring in a whole new set of gamers to MMOs, that would be the only real way to gain tremendous success.

You know how everyone loves their first MMO, and trying to please an audience that is so jaded anyway doesn't make sense.

GW2 is trying to appeal to the jaded, it should do fairly well in that, at least in box sales, and thats all they are really after.

Originally posted by rygard49

Originally posted by Gardavsshade

Ohh and one more thing.... after seeing how SW:TOR is being designed, it's artwork, etc,* I am fairly certain MMO Gamers are NOT the target audience of customers for SW:TOR.*

 

Who's the target Audience?

I would imagine the target audience works like this

from the order of who they are targeting more to less

Kotor fans

then

Bioware fans

Then

star wars fans

Then

MMo fans

So while MMO fans are the least likely target they are still a target, if they weren't, it wouldn't look like an MMO.

But first and foremost it's directed to kotor fans as it takes a lot of features and storyline from that game. Then you have the story telling feature Bioware fans tend to like. Follow by it's star wars so they are a targeted audience and lastly MMo fans, which are probably the hardest of the bunch to please.

Originally posted by rygard49

Originally posted by Gardavsshade

Ohh and one more thing.... after seeing how SW:TOR is being designed, it's artwork, etc,* I am fairly certain MMO Gamers are NOT the target audience of customers for SW:TOR.*

 

Who's the target Audience?

** What whilan stated above is a very good list.**

I would also add this...

Casual gamers from everything from semi-serious MMO gamers to Farmville fans and everything in between. Star Wars fans that never played any Star Wars game. Hard core MMO gamers I believe will find SW:TOR less than acceptable ( I already find it unacceptable and I am less than hardcore).

This of course also ensures the largest group of potential customers. More customers equals more profit. This should not be a surprise.... the whole genre is going this way. (Hardcore MMO Gamers are not a very big consumer group now are they?)