Well it looks like Early Game Access to SWTOR will be “up to five days“.  I call fail on this. In the past, Early Access was described as a way for Bioware to ease people into the game without overloading the servers. It was also described as “significantly more than just a weekend”.  Since the game launches on a Tuesday (Dec 20), five days would be the preceding Thursday (Dec 15). That looks an awful lot like just a weekend to me.

I don’t see how spreading pre-orders in over just 5 days is going to significantly improve server access. People won’t have enough time to really spread out much that everyone is still going to be crammed into the started planets. I once again predict server queues.

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I’ve expressed my interest in Occupy Wall Street before, but I’d like to add it to the list of things I am thankful for this year. It is nice to finally see a movement in this country that is raising awareness of income equality and undue corporate influence in government. The organic, leaderless, grassroots nature of it has reminded me that democracy is not yet dead in this country, and even if it were, it’s pretty easy to bring back from the dead; we all just need to stand up and exercise the power of the people. Corporations, elites, dictators, government, robot overlords all only have as much power as we give them.

I don’t know what the long term effects of the movement might be. But for a change, I am confident the country as a whole might finally start remembering to work together again. The central message of OWS is awareness and inclusion. That’s the story behind “We Are the 99%”. The vast majority have been affected by the consolidation of wealth and power in the hands of a few. We all need to work together to fix it, not turn on each other in defense of policies that only help the few.

You can call OWS “class warfare”, and maybe it is, but just ignoring income inequality and the deterioration of the middle class is also class warfare. It’s just a covert war. OWS has brought these details to the surface and changed the nature of the conversation.

It may be years before we see any positive changes. But I think this means the pendulum has at least begun it’s swing back towards progress for all and away from consolidation of power and influence at the top.

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Some new info coming out of Bioware about Guilds in SWTOR. The first bit is simple, in preparation for launch guilds are being marked as to whether or not they will qualify to be pre-created on a server. This is a minor thing, but a good sign that we are getting closer to launch. It’s unclear when the guild server creation will happen, but presumably it happen for Early Access and not just at Launch. Still no idea when Early Access will begin.

The next bit of news is details on the different server types.

PvE (Player vs Environment) – Players will have to manually flag themselves if they wish to engage in PvP outside of designated Warzones and Open World PvP areas.

PvP (Player vs Player) – Players are automatically flagged for PvP outside of the designated ‘safe’ areas (such as Origin Worlds, Capital Worlds, and the Republic/Imperial Fleets; see below for more info).

RP-PvE – Players are encouraged to roleplay and act ‘in-character’ while playing on an RP-PvE server. Players must manually flag themselves if they wish to engage in PvP outside of designated Warzones and Open World PvP areas.

RP-PvP – Players are encouraged to roleplay and act ‘in-character’ while playing on an RP-PvP server. Players are automatically flagged for PvP outside of the designated ‘safe’ areas (such as Origin Worlds, Capital Worlds, and the Republic/Imperial Fleets; see below for more info).

Currently, there are only 3 choices for server type on the Guild page:  PVE, PVP, and RP. It looks like RP will be put onto RP-PVE servers and if you want to create a RP-PVP guild, you need to do that manually after launch.

The PVP rule set seems simple enough. There are safezones, primarily starter planets and capitals, but most other places are “Red=Dead” friendly. This can be fun, but I have no interest in that for a main game play. Especially in a game like SWTOR. The purpose of the game is story, which is hard to follow if you have to worry about getting ganked. It’s nice having the option to flag yourself if you are in the mood for PVP>

The Republic Sentinels will be playing a good old fashioned PVE server. We like some RP and some PVP but as side things, not our main focus. I wouldn’t mind a RP-PVE, but it’s easier find some people interested in RP within a medium sized PVE guild, than it is to get a RP heavy group ready to tackle a raid.

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