Beta testers logged over 1 million hours in SWTOR last weekend
BioWare has said beta testers logged over 1 million hours in Star Wars: The Old Republic last weekend, with tens of thousands participating.
Speaking with Eurogamer, studio founders Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka said that, at present, the game is "largely where we want it to be," but the mood around the Austin studio is still "very measured" as launch day looms near.
"It's not panicky. I just came from Austin," said Zeschuk. "It's very measured. It is coming soon. The game is largely where we want to be. It's not like we're trying to jam anything in in the last minute. We're trying to finish everything off to the level we're satisfied with.
"What's really important is it's stable and reliable and doesn't crash all of the time. If you put a whole bunch of stuff in right at the end it makes it less stable, so we're controlling the end. This is how we finish most games. What we do is, early on in development the pipe is really big. Anyone can put stuff into the game and then we narrow it and narrow it and narrow it. Now we're in this narrow pipe phase where stuff is still going in, but it's being carefully measured.
"Against that we're testing. This weekend we had a big test - tens upon tens of thousands. One crazy number is we had over 1 million hours of testing over the weekend. It was a huge test, and there are even bigger ones coming. The key thing is for us to take those learnings, apply them and make the service really stable. We're happy with the game."
The main goal for BioWare is to ensure a smooth launch for the MMO, and with more testing planned via an open beta on a weekend yet to be determined by the developer, the company is staying "cautiously optimistic" regarding both server and game stability.
"We want to serve our players really well," said Muzyka. "We want to serve them with a great, stable, secure, high quality experience. That's our goal. We're doing everything we can.
"This is a massive undertaking to make sure we figure out everything that could possibly go wrong and trying our best. The team is working their asses off. They're passionate about serving our fans and making this great for them. They're working long hours and through the weekends to make sure they get every minute of testing they possibly can and fix every issue they find. They're doing well. I'm proud of them. They're working hard and they're doing a great job."
As previously stated by both BioWare and EA, the availability of the game will be limited, and not sold "beyond a certain point" in order to ensure stability. More copies of the games will be sold based on general reliability, but that dial will be turned "carefully," added Muzyka.
SWTOR is slated for a December 20 release.