Star Wars: The Old Republic – The Wait Is Over…In 2011
So the wait for SWTOR is almost over right? Wrong. It was widely rumored from EA chief John Rittecelo’s recent statement during an EA earnings meeting that SWTOR’s target launch date would be in the spring of 2011. I didn’t know how to feel about that statement as SWTOR wasn’t specifically named in his statement, but it was obvious that he was talking about that game. EA doesn’t have any other MMO with an equal or higher production value to potentially impact EA’s earnings the way SWTOR can, so that had to be it.
Today, BioWare confirmed that target date. Upon reading this I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced:
While we have not announced a specific date, we can confirm that we are targeting a spring 2011 release for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. We’ve got a lot of exciting updates and reveals planned throughout 2010, including the first-ever hands-on testing for the game. It’s not too late to sign up to be a game tester, so go to www.swtor.com/tester and sign up today. We can’t wait to share more about the game with you as we progress through the year, so make sure you stay tuned to the official website for details.
This one caught me off guard. I was fully convinced that BioWare had made more progress than they were leading on. They had announced beta sign ups a few months ago, released information on all the classes and most of the planets. I was sure beta would start in Q1 2010 and the game would launch mid to late 2010. To hear that their target date isn’t this year, confirms what many have predicted. SWTOR won’t launch till 2011, and possibly late in 2011 if typical MMO developers have shown us anything. Don’t be surprised to see that target date slip, EA has too much riding on SWTOR for it to be anything less than stellar so I’m sure BioWare has all the time they need to get it right.
Looks like 2010 is Blizzard’s year, again.
~br3ntbr0
That timing could actually be two-fold. First is knowing that so much is riding on SWTOR’s success, Bioware could be taking a page from Blizzard’s book AND learning from their recently amalgamated Mythic Entertainment’s mistakes and not releasing the game until it’s been polished and refined to the utmost level.
I’m in agreement with many that WAR was released before it was ready and ultimately it hurt it in so many ways. Bioware could have learned from that and are making sure everything is in top notch shape.
The second reason I think is pure business sense. Blizzard will undoubtably release Cataclysm in the fall of 2010. Going by their previous record, it typically happens not long after Blizzcon. By the following Spring, most WoW players will have rushed through the content and their low attention spans will be Jonesing for something new and exciting.
The one adjunct to this is SWTOR’s release date could in fact affect when we’ll see Cataclysm. I wouldn’t put it past Blizzard in delaying the expansion release to conflict in direct competition to SWTOR. They’re making aircraft carriers full of money already, what’s a few months longer to ensure their control over the MMO market?
I don’t want to say I told you so… but I told you so
I had absolutely no doubt SW:TOR would be 2011. Personally I think it’s a good thing. Shows that they are taking their time with development. Plus we have Cataclysm for this year so that’s good enough for me.
Gordon you were the one I had in mind when I wrote that this “confirms what many have predicted” ;p
Looks like I have a year to get any desire to play other MMO’s out of my system, cause it will be all TOR all the time in 2011!
[...] timing couldn’t be better for Cryptic as well. Now that we’ve been told not to expect Star Wars: The Old Republic until 2011, Cryptic has a huge window of opportunity to gain some subscribers over this lull in the MMO [...]