Three months into the life of Star Wars: The Old Republic’s (SWTOR) Shae Vizla server, and my journey here has been nothing short of a rollercoaster. Despite not residing in the APAC region, I’ve thrown my lot in with this server, driven by a desire to see it flourish. My commitment has seen me reaching personal Conquest targets on all four of my characters weekly, a small but meaningful contribution to our guild’s growth and, by extension, the server’s vitality. The Current State: A Quiet Aftermath The end of the season brought with it a palpable dip in server activity, a trend not unique to Shae Vizla but one that feels particularly stark here. The bustling PvP queues of the season’s final week have given way to a silence, a stark reminder of the challenges new servers face in maintaining engagement. Yet, it’s not a ghost town. Guilds remain active,…
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Celebrating One Month of the Shae Vizla APAC Server in Star Wars: The Old Republic
A month has passed since the launch of the Shae Vizla server in “Star Wars: The Old Republic” (SWTOR), specifically catering to the Asia-Pacific (APAC) gaming community. This milestone marks an important step in SWTOR’s ongoing commitment to providing a tailored and responsive gaming experience for its diverse player base. The Significance of the Shae Vizla Server Named after the renowned Mandalorian bounty hunter from the Star Wars universe, the Shae Vizla server represents more than just a new server option. It’s a nod to the game’s dedicated APAC community, offering them lower latency and a more localized experience. This server addition is particularly significant considering the global reach of SWTOR and its diverse player demographic. Initial Reception and Community Response The launch of the Shae Vizla server was met with enthusiasm from players in the APAC region. The server has provided a much-needed platform for players in these time…
SWTOR’s New Horizon: Shae Vizla, the Asia-Pacific Server Beckons
Hey there, Star Wars™: The Old Republic (SWTOR) fans! Gather around, because we’ve got some stellar news that’ll knock your space boots off! Keith Kanneg, the bigwig behind SWTOR, has dropped a bombshell that’s set the galaxy abuzz. Ready to dive in? Let’s jump to lightspeed and check it out! Chapter 1: Shae Vizla – A New Frontier Awaits Remember back in April when SWTOR teased us with a new cloud server in the Asia–Pacific region named Shae Vizla? Well, guess what? The wait is over! This shiny new server is launching on November 16, 2023, for early access. It’s not just any old update – this is a game-changer, folks! SWTOR has been itching to set up shop in this neck of the woods, and thanks to some tech wizardry, it’s finally happening. We’re talking a total revamp – from a spiffy 64-bit game client to migrating all servers…
The Transition of SWTOR Servers to Amazon Web Services: An Analysis
In recent times, the gaming world has witnessed a significant shift in server management, with many developers transitioning from proprietary hardware to cloud-based services. One such notable transition was undertaken by the developers of Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR), who moved their servers to Amazon Web Services (AWS). This essay delves into the intricacies of this move, its implications, and the feedback from the gaming community. The Initial Steps The developers initiated this transition with the French server, The Leviathan, in August. The move was closely observed, as it was a precursor to the subsequent transfers. The success of this initial transition was evident, as there were no significant issues reported. This paved the way for the subsequent transfer of the Darth Malgus and the German server, Tulak Hord. Community Feedback and Personal Experience The gaming community’s response, especially in the initial stages, was relatively muted. A cursory glance…
Star Wars: The Old Republic Leaps into the Future with Amazon Web Services
Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) has been on a mission to upgrade and improve the game and its supporting platforms, as outlined in their 11-year anniversary blog. Among these improvements, SWTOR has hosted several iterations of their Public Test Server (PTS) on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Now, the team is excited to announce the next significant step in their tech upgrade initiative: the migration of live servers to AWS. AWS Test Server: Shae Vizla On April 3, 2023, SWTOR will launch a test server, Shae Vizla, hosted entirely on the cloud. Available to all players until April 18, 2023, this server will be located in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, allowing players to experience the benefits of cloud-based gaming first-hand. The Benefits of Migrating to AWS The migration to AWS will bring several advantages to SWTOR, including: Testing Period: A Different Approach The testing phase for Shae Vizla will differ…
SWTOR Server Transfer comes with game update 5.6
Eric Musco informed the community that server transfers will be available again with Patch 5.6 assuming everything goes to plan. Alright folks, here are the updates as I mentioned yesterday! Timing: We are in the final stages of testing and assuming that all goes well, we are going to bring transfers back online on Tuesday with Game Update 5.6. Pricing: By popular request, we are going to bring transfers back at the pre-United Forces pricing (90 // 150CC) for a limited time. After that time they will go up to their new standard pricing of 1,000CC. I will let you all know on Monday if we are still on track for transfers to go live again on Tuesday and the exact timing for the sale pricing. Thanks everyone. -eric
SWTOR: “The Hot Prospect” is no longer a Hot Prospect…
Due to an Outrage through the SWTOR community, BioWare is renaming “The Hot Prospect” server to “Satele Shan”. So I guess we can start calling her the “Hot Prospect” Hey folks, We have made the decision to rename The Hot Prospect server to Satele Shan. Since we announced the new server names, we have received some concerns from people regarding the name The Hot Prospect. Specifically, that phrase could be taken in slang terms to be derogatory towards certain individuals. We take this very seriously as we would never want to create a situation where someone is made uncomfortable by something such as a server name. We will be updating all of our communications (such as the FAQ and blog) to reflect the new name in the coming days. Thank you for your understanding. -eric
SWTOR United Forces Update and server merges coming this November
Players have asking for it for a while, and finaly it’s happening. A new round of server merges are comming to Star Wars: The old republic. Here is the story: Our primary focus this year for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ has been to build and release multiplayer gameplay experiences that you can play with your friends. We’ve seen thousands of players jump in to join these battles across the galaxy. Your overwhelming response to playing these new experiences has motivated us to continue to pursue more enhancements to making multiplayer the best it can be for you, our players. Today, we’re excited to announce the United Forces update coming November 8, 2017. This new update will add a lot of value to all the gameplay systems that contribute to great multiplayer experiences. The primary benefit of this update is that it will be easier for you to join or reconnect…
SWTOR: Complimentary Server Transfers
Due to testing by the SWTOR Devs, some players were able to do a free server transfer yesterday. Don’t grow to attached to it though, as it will properly never happen again: Today , 08:33 AM | #36 Hey folks, Just to clear up any confusion. Yes, server transfers did end up free for a period of a few hours last night. However, this isn’t a permanent change. There is also no need to panic as this isn’t a precursor to anything. We had received reports that players were experiencing problems over the past few days with Character Transfers. We were doing some testing with the Character Transfer service to resolve this issue and the price going to zero was a side effect of that testing. Some very observant players were able to benefit from that testing . Apologies for any confusion! -eric
SWTOR Performance Status Update
As promised last week, the SWTOR team is releasing more details on the ability delay and server lag, we all have been experiencing since game update 3.0 . Below wall of text is a good example of being transparent and informative without going overboard. Thank you Eric, now let’s keep it up all year. EricMusco Performance Status Update | 01.09.2015, 04:11 PM Hey folks, As I mentioned in my post last week, we have been working hard on assessing and figuring out how to address the “lag” issues which have been prominent since Game Update 3.0 went live. After speaking with our engineers, we thought the following would help explain what’s happening and what we are doing to address the issues: What The Problems Are Here are some of the issues that players have been experiencing since the launch of Game Update 3.0: Server performance: Ability delay, Latency issues Client performance:…
Server Lag Being Reduced with game update 3.0.1
Bioware is fixing the server lag issues that came with game update 3.0. hopefully they do not nerf instance sizes though, but it looks like it. Hey folks, First off, I apologize if you feel that we haven’t communicated around looking into the lag/delay issues which have been happening since 3.0 launched. When 3.0 / SoR early access started there were quite a few issues around things like ability delay. We worked very quickly to make some changes to our “instances” in order to help alleviate those problems. Since then we have been monitoring lag across the game and making adjustments as best we can to remove any issues that players are experiencing. Tomorrow we are adjusting things further in hopes that this will further improve performance or even completely remove those issues. That said, we are always going to be looking at performance and making improvements where possible. We…
SWToR server issues lead to Patch 2.9.0d
It’s no secret that since yesterday a number of SWToR servers have experienced a series of issues. Lag spikes, dropped connections and queues started with the Harbinger server, and then expanded to Begeren Colony and the Bastion. These issues forced Bioware to take these servers offline for maintenance today. According to an official post by Eric Musco at the SWToR community forums, players in the Harbinger server experienced some “rollback” after the server’s downtime. Musco was also quick to point out that no other servers were going to be affected by this issue. The situation eventually lead to the announcement of Patch 2.9.0d set to be deployed tomorrow.
Only a few days remaining to voluntarily transfer off the SWTOR APAC servers
Just a heads up that On Tuesday, August 13 the APAC servers will be demolished and all characters on them forcibly transferred to a new server. Eric Musco writes;; Hey folks, Just to clear up any confusion from the email yesterday, the consolidations are going to happen on August 13th as listed, which is quite a bit more than one week away. That actually gives you approximately three weeks before the consolidations happen. Just to reiterate, the consolidation will happen in approximately three weeks on August 13th. Sorry for the confusion, thanks everyone! -eric For those of you that will be affected by this consolidation, here the following servers tranfers: Dalborra -> The Harbinger Master Dar’Nala -> The Bastion Gav Daragon -> Bergeren Colony If you’d like to actually choose where your APAC character ends up (you can pick from any non-Asia-Pacific server), you need to follow these instructions: Go…
Patch 2.2.1 Slated for 6/25 (Expected Paid Transfers)
A few days ago we wrote about the price for paid server transfers. Most people hoped that this transfers would come with game update 2.2 but unfortunately it was removed in the last minute. Yesterday Eric Musco had some update about it as he shed some light on the targeted date for patch 2.2.1. There are no guarantees that server transfers will be live with the next game update, but the devs are working on it. Hey folks, I just posted here, the current target date for 2.2.1 is 6/25. One thing I wanted to stress is that it is not a guarantee that transfers will be in 2.2.1. It is our goal to get them to all of you as fast as we can as a part of 2.2.1, but we will not release it until it is working correctly. -eric
APAC/Oceanic Servers closing down
BioWare just sent a mail to all Asia Pacific players letting them know that servers will be closing down within the next few months. All players have been offered free server transfers, and remaining toons will be moved to west coast servers when the servers are taken offline. This doesn’t come as a shock to many people, but finally we got official confirmation about the shot down: IMPORTANT INFORMATION FROM STAR WARS™: THE OLD REPUBLIC™ Asia Pacific Server Consolidation / Free Character Transfer Greetings , We wanted to inform you that we are preparing to consolidate our Asia Pacific servers into our current West Coast North American servers. This will occur sometime in the next few months. Each of your characters on an Asia Pacific server is now allowed a free one-time transfer to any non-Asia Pacific server. Any characters remaining on an Asia Pacific server when the consolidation takes…
APAC transfers are live!
As we told you a few days ago, Server transfers for APAC players is upon us. Today is the day that players from that region of earth can transfer there characters to a US server for free. Bioware community manager Eric Musco dropped by the forums to give us all the particulars. Hey everyone, Just wanted to let you know that your free transfers are now open! In order to transfer your character, follow these steps: Go to your “My Account” page by clicking on your username in the top right corner of SWTOR.com On the left hand side, scroll down to Character Transfer Once there, select your current APAC server and then the character you wish to transfer Now select your destination server (where you want to move your character to) Press the transfer button One thing to keep in mind is that any characters which you do not transfer will be…
SWTOR free server transfers for APAC players begins June 4th
As we have talked about many times before, the APAC servers are more or less dead these days due to the various problems players have been experiencing such as lag. The solution to make sure APAC players are satisfied with the experience, BioWare is offering free server transfers from June 4th. According to Community Manager of BioWare Eric Musco, the free server transfers to all APAC players will begin in just a few days. Those who will take advantage of the server transfer can move to any servers they please in North America totally free. Still no word about paid server transfers, but with the free server transfers happening for APAC players, it should be next week as well, just in time for the big SWTOR Game Update 2.2. Check out Eric Musco’s forum post below: Hey everyone, I know you have been waiting a bit for an update and…
Patch 2.1.1 scheduled for tomorrow if no other issues
BioWare will be taking down the servers tomorrow to deploy patch 2.1.1. It’s not 100% sure yet though, as the devs are struggling with some issues. Eric Musco posted this on the official forums: I wanted to give an update so I wasn’t leaving you guys hanging! Right now we look entirely on track to publish Game Update 2.1.1 tomorrow morning with maintenance. Assuming no other speed bumps jump out, Amber will be posting maintenance messaging and patch notes later today. Thanks everyone! Should anything change I will let you know but otherwise we are good to go for tomorrow. -eric
Server Transfer News: Transfers available with patch 2.2 – hopefully
Eric Musco took on the forums today sharing some news on when players can expect to have character transfers go live. At the same time he also shed some light on when Players get the chance to leave the APAC servers. Game update 2.2 is expected release date is 6/11 so if you have any toons stuck on servers with no friends on, it’s time to moove them. No information on pricing or details on what will be transferred over yet though, but I expect it will be on-par with other games, so probably around $25 per character. They want it to be accessible enough that people who really want to can do it, but expensive enough that it doesn’t impact server populations. Hey everyone, I wanted to give an update on paid character transfers as I know it is something that everyone has been chomping at the bit for. The reason for our silence…
APAC/Oceanic Server Merges
Earlier today Community Manager Eric Musco made a forum update regarding the Oceanic issues, with low server population. After careful consideration, and reading though pages after pages of forum rage, BioWare will be merging the oceanic servers into the north American servers. This will off course give the APAC players alot more people to play with, but people are raising their concern about ping time. I personally have no problems as a European when I occasionally play on US servers, but what experience do you guys have? Hey everyone, I have an update for you on our long term plans for the APAC servers. Before I do that though I want to let you know up front that we still have quite a bit of work to do to make this happen so I cannot provide any timeframes for you today. We know that when we asked you, the community,…
News on the Oceanic Server Population Issues
It’s no secret that the Oceanic servers didn’t get a server merge. This means they are basically dead now. Most people on the servers have been asking for a merge or for free transfers, but with f2p coming out, Bioware have been hesitating giving players this option. This has off course been frustrating for players down under, but BioWare are now looking for a solution to the problem. Today Community Manager Joveth Gonzalez made a post on the official forums giving an update on the issue and starting to re-open the dialogue: Hi everyone, I know it’s been a while since we’ve updated this thread, and I wanted to let you know that we haven’t forgotten about our Oceanic players. Now that we’re at a more stable point in time (post Free-to-Play transition and post holidays), we wanted to re-examine this issue. We’re going to be completely honest with you: there…
Server merges happen today, plus allowed characters bumped to 12 for everyone
We have known for a couple months now that Mega servers were on the way. We have now reached the last part of the process as BioWare merging the last servers today. Earlier this summer we launched the Free Character Transfer Program which offered players the option to transfer their characters from specific origin servers to selected destination servers. Following the success of the Free Character Transfer Program, and after closely monitoring server populations, we have now taken the next step in our on-going server population balancing process. We have upgraded destination servers in order to support a significantly higher number of players. As of tomorrow, all characters on origin servers will be automatically moved onto the upgraded high population destination servers. By centralizing our player populations on these higher population destination servers, we feel that we can offer our players the best possible Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ experience. As a…
Scheduled Maintenance: July 24
As usual, BioWare will take down the servers for scheduled maintenance on this upcoming Tuesday July 24. The servers will be down from 2AM CDT to 6AM CDT, and when they come back up, players will have to download a patch. CourtneyWoodsHello everyone, we wanted to let you know that we will be performing scheduled maintenance for four hours on Tuesday, July 24th, 2012 from 2AM CDT (12AM PDT/3AM EDT/8AM BST/9AM CEST/5PM AEST) until 6AM CDT (4AM PDT/7AM EDT/12PM BST/1PM CEST/9PM AEST). All game servers and SWTOR.com will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than four hours, but could be extended. This weekly maintenance is done in order to make general improvements and to check performance of the game so that we can continue to provide a consistent, quality experience. Quite often (but not always) after a maintenance period there will be a patch to download….
SWTOR: True Server Merge Coming Later this Summer?
While they are still not saying “merge”, it seems a true merge is incoming later this summer. Many people are talking about a server merge on a greater scale and while BioWare is not actually using that terminology, it does seem like this might be what’s happening coming soon. And will it be such a bad thing? Seems like all the players I have talked to say if it makes the game better and gives them more people to play with, they’re ok with whatever BioWare needs to do. In a blog on the official servers, BioWare explains more about the Free Character Transfer Service, server populations and what that means to you and me: Hi everyone, We want to thank all players that have participated in our Free Character Transfer Service. With strong destination server populations, we hope that you’re enjoying the improved gameplay experience and are excited about…