Star Wars: The Old Republic Beta Sign-ups Begin

Star Wars: The Old Republic (a massively multiplayer online game [MMO] in development by Bioware) has just announced today that they are beginning the process of taking beta testing applications. The site crashed around one hour after the twitter was sent out due to the sheer amount of internet traffic in response to the announcement. At the time of writing this article, the entire website is un-navigateable, with a message reading: "Thank you for visiting www.StarWarsTheOldRepublic.com. We are making adjustments to the site due to the overwhelming response to the testing announcement. Please be patient and check back later. We estimate that the site will be back up in the next few hours."

The announcement comes as a surprise for most who have followed the game. Speculation has ranged on the official Bioware SW:ToR forums as to when beta sign-ups would begin, from last year to two years from now. Yesterday (28th) a slip up on behalf of the Bioware web team revealed for an extremely limited time a link to the news announcement today; though it was speculated as to if the reporters that had seen the link (and posted screenshots) were real or hoaxed. This has obviously been put to rest.

Beta-testing is the first phase of public trials for the game. Testers will be selected in groups (or "waves") during the initial part of this testing, known as "Closed Beta" (there has been no information released as to how testers will be chosen). Every development company is different, but on average there are waves added incrementally before reaching the second part of this testing phase known as "Open Beta". When Open Beta begins generally anyone that signs-up will be granted access to the game during the testing period. Open Beta's are often strong signals that the game is approaching an official release.

During Closed Beta, testers should be aware that the game is still in a middle-development stage and things are subject to change. Testers during beta phase of testing will be required to acknowledge and accept a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) that will forbid them to talk about the game to others throughout the duration of testing; this being a legal document, most companies require all participants to be eighteen years or older. The game may have many "bugs" that require the tester to write up a report detailing the bug, and there are normally several points throughout this testing period which will require a deletion of users' characters they have been playing (known as "character wipes").

Sign-ups are being taken at the Bioware SW:ToR official website: http://www.swtor.com/tester