Star Wars: The Old Republic 11th Anniversary

I can still see the Amazon parcel at my doorstep when I got home from work on December 20, 2011. I excitedly grabbed the parcel, raced inside and ripped it open to start installing and patching the newest MMORPG, Star Wars: The Old Republic. Back then I was still on ADSL internet, and the connection quality in my area has never been good. I mean the internet used to drop when a good winter storm would wash through the area. The game came shipped on three DVDs, that’s how big it was, and it saved hours, if not days of downloading. Though, like all online games, there is always more to download.

Fast forward 11 years and there have been eight expansions to the game, the latest being Legacy of the Sith that launched earlier this year, and this is a game in my MMORPG that I play ad hoc every year. Star Wars: The Old Republic is not a perfect MMORPG, but it’s one of my favourite themepark MMOs. At times it can be too easy, while at others it’s the perfect escape into the Star Wars world that Johnny and I love playing each year. We play MMORPGs in bursts, as we usually get so sucked into them that we burn out, or at least I do. Johnny loves spending so much time (and money) making his characters look badass, and with regular updates to the game, it’s one we love coming back to together.

Most recently we saw the launch of game update 7.2, Showdown on Ruhnuk, where we get to explore a new planet, the new Mandalorian storyline and daily area, as well as much welcomed UI updates and quality of life changes that were included in this update. In addition, Bioware have been working hard over the year behind the scenes to bring some vast improvements to the game in future updates. SWTOR game director Keith Kanneg provided a peak behind the curtain as we celebrate the game’s 11th anniversary, which makes me very excited for its future.

“On top of creating content, we made huge strides from a technical standpoint. We’ve been talking about modernization efforts for some time, and now players are able to see some of this on the front end. We’ve updated our forums and game launcher with new tech, are in the midst of bringing the game to 64-bit, and have been successful in testing content on servers hosted in the cloud. This was an initiative that we’ve been working towards for the better part of the year, and we are now in a position to talk about it. The last few rounds of testing on the Public Test Server have been done on AWS! Current testing is proving to be successful, and we look forward to next steps. Moving servers entirely to the cloud in the near future will enable us to improve the game experience for our players and create opportunities to increase the player base over time. All of these initiatives are to lay the groundwork for even more to come.

A bit of a sneak peek into the future. Eric and the design leads have been working together to build upon and in some areas rebuild internal processes and plans that impact the cadence of content. Take it from me that game development is more than putting pieces of code together and then pushing it live. Building, testing, and polishing take time, and the plans this team is putting together are coming to fruition, beginning with 7.2. We will have more to share and what all of this looks like early next year.”

Here are some anniversary specials that players can enjoy:

• Double XP Event begins today and will run until December 27, 2022
• 50% off Pets and Companions from now until December 27th, 2022
• 50% off Toys and Flair in the Cartel Market from December 28th until January 4, 2023
• 50% off all Collections from now until January 1, 2023

And a reminder for the following:

• Character Transfer Sale is currently active and will run through January 9, 2023
• Life Day is running until January 10, 2023
• The Coruscant and Kaas City Strongholds are discounted to 11 credits (down from 5000) until the next game update.

The Public Test Server is now open for players to experience Star Wars: The Old Republic in 64-bit! A 64-bit client and potential for APAC server locations through AWS? These changes alone make me very excited for the game’s future, and I can’t wait to see what gets announced next year. May the force be with you. For more information about Star Wars: The Old Republic, head over to the game’s official website.

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