The Old Republic Asia Pacific Launch

I'm back from dealing with a family matter. Next to the weekly maintenance and patch not a lot happened while I was gone, except that BioWare announced their Asia Pacific launch. Here's an excerpt:

BioWare and LucasArts are excited to announce that Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ will officially launch in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore on March 1st, 2012! Fans in these regions who purchase the game will be able to experience their very own Star Wars™ saga on regional servers. Players who have already begun their journey will also have a limited-time opportunity to migrate their characters from their current servers to Asia Pacific servers after the launch on March 1st, giving them the chance to take advantage of the decreased network latency by playing on a regional server. All players who qualify for a character transfer will be notified in early March with more details.

In the press release announcing the Asia Pacific launch date, General Manager of the BioWare Label’s MMO Business Unit and Co-Founder of BioWare Dr. Greg Zeschuk expressed appreciation for the patience of fans in the region:

Our biggest priority for The Old Republic has always been to deliver a high quality product and high quality service and we are pleased with our results in North America and Europe. We appreciate that our fans in these countries have been patient and we are excited to deliver this same great customer experience to players this March.

So that's March 1^st for those in Australia, New Zealand and parts of Asia. The news goes into more detail regarding prices, subscription fees (in US Dollars for some reason), and pre-orders (for those in Australia and New Zealand). And there's a full press release for the announcement as well.

Read on after the break for some more news from BioWare, including a bit about the Guild Summit, the Dev Tracker Summary and a reminder to become a Founder.

BioWare also had an update announcement for the upcoming Guild Summit:

Thank you to all of the guild leaders who submitted applications to attend the first Guild Summit in Austin. We are currently reviewing guild applications and will be responding back to everyone who applied in the next few days.

For those who are unable to attend the Guild Summit for one reason or another, we’re very happy to announce that we will be providing a livestream of select events during the Guild Summit, including developer presentations and feedback discussions. These livestreams will allow players from around the world to observe and participate in some of the event discussions as well. As a reminder, the Guild Summit will be conducted in English, but anyone can join in on the livestream regardless of their location. If you can’t watch the livestream during the Summit, we’ll also be publishing videos of the panels after the event has ended. As we get closer to the event, we’ll provide more details for how you can get involved. Stay tuned!

That's quite neat, that they're livestreaming select Guild Summit events. And better still that they're planning on posting videos of it afterwards as well (with the Guild Summit being held in the US I'm sure a fair bit of it will be broadcast while I'm sleeping). I'm looking forward to seeing how the Summit goes.

BioWare also promised a Dev Tracker Summary and they posted that the last few days as well. Of course I think I probably covered it all already in my own Developer Quotes, but in case I missed something you find interesting it might still be worth a look.

Finally, BioWare also reminded people of their Founder program. This makes sense, because you can only become a Founder if you're billed before March 19^th after your free month runs out. That would mean that if you haven't gotten the game yet then you'll have to do so pretty much now if you still want to be on time to become a Founder (if I'm counting correctly then tomorrow will be the last chance day). Here are the details again:

We would like to thank each and every one of you for helping to make Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ one of the most successful MMO launches of all time. To show our appreciation, from now through March 19th, 2012, 12:01AM EST, we are rewarding early members of The Old Republic community with a unique Founder’s medal* and title.

So how do you earn the “Founder” title? This reward is only available to players who have completed either one of the following transactions (by March 19th, 2012, 12:01AM EST; Pacific: March 18th, 9:01PM PST; European: 4:01AM GMT, 5:01AM CET):

• Billed at least once for an active Star Wars: The Old Republic subscription

OR

• Redeemed a Star Wars: The Old Republic Pre-Paid Game Time Code

Once you become eligible for the title and have surpassed your 30 days of game time included with your official Game Product Registration Code, you will be notified by email. The Founder’s medal will be delivered to all your characters through in-game mail. From the in-game mail, simply right-clicking on the medal to unlock the “Founder” title to your character. This title is permanently bound to your account and will carry over to any character you make in the future. (NOTE: It may take up to 7 days for you to receive the “Founder” medal).

Of course it's just an title, just a bit of text, and doesn't mean much of anything. But still, if you're keen on it then time is almost out.

And I think that's about it for now.