Rokk Talk

Star Wars: The Old Republic finally has an official release date –

BioWare and LucasArts are pleased to announce that Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ will launch on December 20, 2011 in North America and on December 22, 2011 in the European Launch Territories! The announcement was first made by BioWare co-founders Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk during their keynote address at the 2011 Eurogamer Expo in London, England. Speaking to a packed room of press and fans alike, Dr. Muzyka acknowledged the weight of the moment and the patience of the fans.

“This is an incredible moment for everyone at BioWare and our partners at LucasArts who have dedicated their lives to build this extraordinary game. We appreciate the patience from the millions of fans who have been waiting for the game’s release.”

Each copy of Star Wars: The Old Republic will come with 30 days of subscription time, after which you have the option to continue playing with one of the following monthly subscription fees:

• 1 Month Subscription: $14.99 (£8.99/€12.99)
• 3 Month Subscription: $13.99 per month (one-time charge of $41.97/£25.17/€35.97)
• 6 Month Subscription: $12.99 per month (one-time charge of $77.94/£46.14/€65.94)

People who have pre-ordered and entered their code will have early access (no date on that yet), but this is good news for BioWare.  Just in time for Christmas!

Ever since Patch 4.0, people had assumed epic gems would be introduced at some point.  Many thought they’d be obtained through prospecting Pyrite Ore, and began stockpiling as patch after patch went by.  The next patch, they thought, would have the epic gems.

Well Lore over at Tankspot interviewed the Main Crab himself, Ghostcrawler, and GC tipped us off with a good news / bad news scenario regarding epic gems.

L: Will we be seeing epic gems in 4.3?

GS: Great question, and yes, you will! The way we’re hoping to set it up, and we kind of have this working but things could change before we go live, is when you kill a boss on normal or heroic mode, each player gets a geode, and when they open the geode there’s a chance they may find an epic gem inside. If not, it’ll have blue gems or something like that. We really want it to feel like an individual reward, and not something that the raid leader gets to have fun in deciding who gets the gems, or they all go to the guild bank or something. We really want it to feel like an individual reward.

They’ll be somewhat rare. It may take the entire content cycle before someone has replaced every red gem they have, but they won’t be so rare that you won’t see them.

L: How is that going to work with profession bonuses? Blacksmithing with its extra sockets, assuming that you could get ahold of a full set of epic gems, seems like it would all of a sudden become the best profession.

GS: I think the epic gems are like 10 stat points over the current ones, so it’s a nice boost, but hopefully it won’t push everyone towards Blacksmithing.

L: So you’d only end up with like 20 extra Strength as a Blacksmith.

GS: Yeah, something like that.

People who have been stockpiling Pyrite Ore won’t be too pleased to hear this.  Jewelcrafters might not be thrilled either if they’re not raiders, but some folks will need to get these gems cut.  If the epic gems are BOE, and there’s no reason to assume they won’t be, cut epics are going to be worth some nice gold on the AH right out of the gate.  The stats on them are only ten higher than the current highest level gem, but the min/maxers are going to want their purples!