Given the, er, quality of Shadow of Revan's early access and the rumor on certain sites that

, basically I would recommend everyone keep their expectations low as possible for the game working as intended during that time.

 

It's almost assured it will be the most broken week of KOTFE, with no fix midweek, only at "actual launch" a week later, so I wouldn't waste your breath complaining on forums like in SOR, because it's very unlikely to be fixed until later anyway.

 

At least Early Access week is also the easiest time to exploit the GTN and/"the new Rishi chests", but they may have learned their lesson about that one by removing all the credits in an earlier change.

 

 

 

Basically, try and have fun, but expect stuff to be broken and not fixed for a week.

Edited October 12, 2015 by Transairion

A couple of questions that may seem silly:

1) Can you opt to not partake in early access?

2) How are 3.0 tokens, token vendors, and comm vendors handled during this transition if you elect not to participate in early access? How are they handled if you are forced into early access?

Given the, er, quality of Shadow of Revan's early access and the rumor on certain sites that

only 50 people were invited to Closed PTS to test KOTFE

, basically I would recommend everyone keep their expectations low as possible for the game working as intended during that time.

 

It's almost assured it will be the most broken week of KOTFE, with no fix midweek, only at "actual launch" a week later, so I wouldn't waste your breath complaining on forums like in SOR, because it's very unlikely to be fixed until later anyway.

 

At least Early Access week is also the easiest time to exploit the GTN and/"the new Rishi chests", but they may have learned their lesson about that one by removing all the credits in an earlier change.

 

 

 

Basically, try and have fun, but expect stuff to be broken and not fixed for a week.

 

Fully agree with you Trans.

Yeah it is a worry. They should just rename Early Access to 'Paid Beta Testing'. SoR was a MASSIVE let down. So many game breaking bugs (final battle for example), the huge amount of lag, broken bolster in PvP, all of which too MONTHS to fix.

 

The way I see it is simple. Subs have bank rolled this expansion because the devs have released no new content in almost 10 months - yep TEN months and that was a tiny yawn fest dailies area. Rehashing Cartel crap packs, rare server maintenance down times (remember they used to be weekly?!) - the list goes on.

 

This time around Bioware have ZERO excuses to nail this expansion and actually OVER deliver for a change, instead of their traditional hype machine running out of puff when we dive in.

 

My main concern is PvP. I know full well that they haven't tested combat changes (same as 3.0) and PvP will be a nightmare with the additional leaps. The server desyncs will go to the next level, as will the rubber banding. Its a worry but Bioware would argue 'you don't need to balance combat for story' but I would counter that argument with 'See that £9 a month I pay? I'm paying for a SERVICE - so provide it.'

@OP good advice which I doubt will be taken.

 

I'm going to try to log into Early Access but I'm expecting Harbinger to have a queue. Good news is Sword Coast Legends should be out and I'm kind of grooving on the WildStar F2P at the moment so if SWTOR is too much of a bug fest (and it will be some kind of bug fest) then I can go wait it out elsewhere.

 

I'm already expecting some kind of rollback due to an economy exploit with all the changes they made. We'll see.

Place your bets here. I suppose it is fortunate that there are no new ops, because at least that means that there will not be any exploitative bugs regarding the acquiring of new gear. Although, with the new scaling of existing stuff, ya never know.

 

I'm thinking that there will be a few pvp bolster bugs - PVE hilts / barrels will be BiS for a while. Huttball is guaranteed to be a mess - so many new mobility abilities that there will be much rubber-banding and lagging. If that's true, and there were only 50 beta testers...I'm guessing that they tested exactly zero warzones. They probably did the story only. -_- This is 'gonna suck.

Edited October 12, 2015 by teclado

Given the, er, quality of Shadow of Revan's early access and the rumor on certain sites that

only 50 people were invited to Closed PTS to test KOTFE

, basically I would recommend everyone keep their expectations low as possible for the game working as intended during that time.

 

The thing is, QA probably do point out the bugs. It just gets signed off anyway, with or without fixes.

 

The one thing I wish BioWare would copy from Blizzard? Release it when it's ready, not by some arbitrary date.

I haven't decided yet if I even take the early access at all. I don't want to be their paying beta tester again. Maybe we are wrong, I sure hope so. But the past has proven that being cautious is the best we can be.

I'm going to spend the entire week crafting and GTN-ing. Maybe will try out one alt for the story.

The thing is, QA probably do point out the bugs. It just gets signed off anyway, with or without fixes.

 

The one thing I wish BioWare would copy from Blizzard? Release it when it's ready, not by some arbitrary date.

 

 

Did you really just say that... "The one thing I wish BioWare would copy from Blizzard? Release it when it's ready, not by some arbitrary date." Blizzard has released plenty of unfinished expansions, patches and what have you.

You obviously don't know how production works for an MMO, or any game if you keep saying "Release it when it's ready." Not everything is caught in alpha, beta, open-beta, etc etc.

I haven't decided yet if I even take the early access at all. I don't want to be their paying beta tester again. Maybe we are wrong, I sure hope so. But the past has proven that being cautious is the best we can be.

 

With that mentality NOTHING would be fixed.

 

Stuff like "I'll stay away from the game for a week till bugs are fixed." If everyone thought that way none of the bugs would be reported, or if you think "People have probably already reported this." Report it anyway, same concept IRL someone else can pick up that trash.

Don't let your hopes down. This time something is happening. New KoTFE is big secret. Mybe they will integrate much more things that we don't know. Nothing is clear. They will go to K.O. or miss and fail miserably. We will see.

 

Early acces is paid testing. Ofcourse it will have bugs, errors etc. Thats the reason of early access. Prevent those annoyance. If you expect full experience, wait a little more. You can't expect a perfect game expansion launch, specially in MMORPG.

 

I can't understand why players are so gloom and sarcastic. Everyone saying " It's fail! It's done! We are doomed! I'm unsubbing! SYNC is end of the game! " Like a bunch of toddlers... It's destroying the hype of other players too. I see similar peoples posting same thing over and over again. If you think you have the right of forcing them to do evrything you want because you are paying monthly, you have serious issues. You are paying, not doing charity work also game is not running with your subscription only.

 

I expect good thinks with KoTFE. Can't wait kneel before the new emperor!

A couple of questions that may seem silly:

1) Can you opt to not partake in early access?

2) How are 3.0 tokens, token vendors, and comm vendors handled during this transition if you elect not to participate in early access? How are they handled if you are forced into early access?

 

1) That's easy. Just don't start the new story arc. Early Access only applies to the new story. All the rest (crafting changes, level sync, companion changes, etc.) will apply to everyone, even non-subscribers. There is no way to opt out of that. It's basically the same as the transition from the former skill trees to the new system.

 

2) Does not apply, see 1). Vendors will be the same for everyone and (as far as I know) at this time there is no official information on what gear will be available for the new Data Crystals. But regardless of whether you start the new story or not, your comms will be converted/renamed to Data Crystals.

 

All in all, yes, bugs are to be expected. Level Sync may cause issues that were overlooked during design and implementation. Ops scales to 60 with new loot may cause issues. Unfortunately, I even expect a few new exploits.

 

Hope for the best, expect the worst.

Not to worry most of my toon's havn't finished Mekab or SOR story line's but I'll have plenty of time to try out the new companion changes during the release week ^^ Edited October 12, 2015 by jamiemcd

Yeah it is a worry. They should just rename Early Access to 'Paid Beta Testing'. SoR was a MASSIVE let down. So many game breaking bugs (final battle for example), the huge amount of lag, broken bolster in PvP, all of which too MONTHS to fix.

 

The way I see it is simple. Subs have bank rolled this expansion because the devs have released no new content in almost 10 months - yep TEN months and that was a tiny yawn fest dailies area. Rehashing Cartel crap packs, rare server maintenance down times (remember they used to be weekly?!) - the list goes on.

 

This time around Bioware have ZERO excuses to nail this expansion and actually OVER deliver for a change, instead of their traditional hype machine running out of puff when we dive in.

 

My main concern is PvP. I know full well that they haven't tested combat changes (same as 3.0) and PvP will be a nightmare with the additional leaps. The server desyncs will go to the next level, as will the rubber banding. Its a worry but Bioware would argue 'you don't need to balance combat for story' but I would counter that argument with 'See that £9 a month I pay? I'm paying for a SERVICE - so provide it.'

 

And then rebalance whole bunch of story / OPs unnecessary things so PvP crowd could be pleased.

 

I swear it, Bioware sometimes seems so random.

im chomping at the bit to get in on the 7 day early access! a few things need to go right this week for it work out correctly. if there are bugs or not, they will be reported on and solved quickly and mmos are always beta tests anyway, even in their "released" format. so in already knowing that, if there are issues it wont dampen my interest to find out what happens in 8 days from now.

When I saw that SOR was included in KOFTE i didnt bother to get the expac so i will be wading through a relatively desterted Rishi>Yavin>Ziost during this testing phase

I also expect lots of bugs,but since 4 and all its changes will hit on the same date as early access will, with only KOTFE story content being locked out from the oppressed masses, everyone will feel that bugged feeling.

Actually,KOTFE story probably will be the most bug-free element (relatively speaking) since they concentrated on it so much.

A couple of questions that may seem silly:

1) Can you opt to not partake in early access?

 

note:following is an opinion

 

I think the game changes will go live anyway, just the story is inaccessible for those not in early access. And since starting the story for a given character is optional via that console on your ship, story is always optional. I dont think this is what you wanted to hear though.

 

I haven't decided yet if I even take the early access at all. I don't want to be their paying beta tester again. Maybe we are wrong, I sure hope so. But the past has proven that being cautious is the best we can be.

 

This statement is funny

Edited October 12, 2015 by Karkais

Place your bets here. I suppose it is fortunate that there are no new ops, because at least that means that there will not be any exploitative bugs regarding the acquiring of new gear. Although, with the new scaling of existing stuff, ya never know.

 

I wouldn't hold to that as old ops are just as likely to be affected by game breaking/exploitative bugs.

 

Also with the 0.0001% of players and probably the most hardcore ones testing operation balancing I feel we might be in for another round of the story modes in particular getting poorly balanced for the general population and no thought to the likely lower levels or less experienced (think instant level 60's) running them via group finder.

A couple of questions that may seem silly:

1) Can you opt to not partake in early access?

2) How are 3.0 tokens, token vendors, and comm vendors handled during this transition if you elect not to participate in early access? How are they handled if you are forced into early access?

 

I think that when the early access launches everything will be patched, with the difference of early launch players that can start the expansion story. The Revan expansion worked like this so it will probably be the same now.

The thing is, QA probably do point out the bugs. It just gets signed off anyway, with or without fixes.

 

The one thing I wish BioWare would copy from Blizzard? Release it when it's ready, not by some arbitrary date.

 

Aparently you and I played 2 completely different world of warcrafs. WoD is the crown jewel of "get it done by this date, cut 90% of the features if you have to they won't mind." Bioware has actually been the most reliable mmo I've played when it comes to completed works being released. Even SoR could have been alot worse.

Don't let your hopes down. This time something is happening. New KoTFE is big secret. Mybe they will integrate much more things that we don't know. Nothing is clear. They will go to K.O. or miss and fail miserably. We will see.

 

Early acces is paid testing. Ofcourse it will have bugs, errors etc. Thats the reason of early access. Prevent those annoyance. If you expect full experience, wait a little more. You can't expect a perfect game expansion launch, specially in MMORPG.

 

I can't understand why players are so gloom and sarcastic. Everyone saying " It's fail! It's done! We are doomed! I'm unsubbing! SYNC is end of the game! " Like a bunch of toddlers... It's destroying the hype of other players too. I see similar peoples posting same thing over and over again. If you think you have the right of forcing them to do evrything you want because you are paying monthly, you have serious issues. You are paying, not doing charity work also game is not running with your subscription only.

 

I expect good thinks with KoTFE. Can't wait kneel before the new emperor!

 

Personally, I expect bad things, because of past experience, and because everything we've learned about KotFE/4.0 so far has been, for me, bad to terrible news.

With that mentality NOTHING would be fixed.

 

Stuff like "I'll stay away from the game for a week till bugs are fixed." If everyone thought that way none of the bugs would be reported, or if you think "People have probably already reported this." Report it anyway, same concept IRL someone else can pick up that trash.

 

You're right on target. The development team can run the game's systems hundreds of times, but it isn't until they have thousands of players all on at once, running all different PC makes and models, that the majority of bugs and glitches can be zeroed in on and squashed.

 

Given the, er, quality of Shadow of Revan's early access and the rumor on certain sites that

only 50 people were invited to Closed PTS to test KOTFE

, basically I would recommend everyone keep their expectations low as possible for the game working as intended during that time.

 

It's almost assured it will be the most broken week of KOTFE, with no fix midweek, only at "actual launch" a week later, so I wouldn't waste your breath complaining on forums like in SOR, because it's very unlikely to be fixed until later anyway.

 

At least Early Access week is also the easiest time to exploit the GTN and/"the new Rishi chests", but they may have learned their lesson about that one by removing all the credits in an earlier change.

 

 

 

Basically, try and have fun, but expect stuff to be broken and not fixed for a week.

 

It's not really relevant, but for me personally, I've only experienced one horrible launch of an MMO. Anarchy Online had me frozen in place for hours because the cities couldn't handle the number of players online. World of Warcraft, Star Wars Galaxies, Age of Conan, Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2 and The Old Republic all ran fine. There was one game breaking element in Age of Conan, but i just avoided that particular quest instance. The rest never gave me much grief except some minor visual glitches.

 

My point is, there may indeed be problems; even game breaking problems; but not necessarily on every system, so I for one am going in head first with fingers crossed.

I'd wager my HK-51 that BioWare learned from the last expansion about the game breaking bugs (Revan's fight) and won't repeat them. It's the smaller stuff that'll slip through the cracks.

 

I.E.

 

Big bug: Lana Beniko will be a headless pair of eyes.

Little bug: Lana Beniko uses two lightsabers but has the animations of one.

 

Know what I'm saying?