Back in April the Star Wars: The Old Republic developers tested an Asia Pacific (APAC) server which I promptly wrote a blog article on my experience with this personally long awaited feature. Since then I haven't really played SWtor that much, but just the other day, Twitter mutual Kal (Today in TOR) posted a poll asking their followers a hypothetical question. If they could add one feature to the game what would it be? The poll had options such as a new combat style or class, custom ships and free flying, cross server queueing, and the coveted "other (comment!)" option. I, being the prophet I am, chose "other" and provided a comment saying I would love to see that APAC server come back! Little did I know, a prophecy was written... Just 10 hours later the official The Old Republic website posted an article announcing the official launch for the Shae Vizla Asia Pacific server! That's right, I am now a SWtor prophet! It may only be a short foresight but I just knew it was coming soon (I didn't), and that I was the one to herald in this announcement (It was a coincidence).
What to expect from the APAC Server?
For now, let's stop telling the future, and look back at the test server. As I said, I had written a blog article on the test server so my experience is well documented. Let's go through a checklist for those who haven't read it. The ping was beautiful. Gone were the days of leading AOEs and predicting enemy attacks while hoping you applied the right defensive ability beforehand. Somehow crashing my Galactic Starfighter ship into rocks was amazing because I actually bounced on collision instead of rubber banding for a split second. And I'd no longer be stuck in a limbo state of client to server catch up when I charged, leapt, or threw my weapon at an enemy player, not knowing where I or the enemy would stop, but only knowing it would be somewhere within a 3 metre radius of where they are when I triggered my ability.
Now let's look at what the developers have stated about the server. It is hosted in Sydney Australia! As was the test server. I didn't know this, but it explains my ping only being 50, instead of something lower. I wouldn't have expected it being hosted any closer to be honest, because Perth is such an out of the way site for a server. We cannot transfer characters from other servers to this new server, yet. This is a big thing for me because I want to move all my main (or main-esque) characters over ASAP. To the point where my legacy stronghold is pretty much completely empty and stored inside various character's cargo holds. But I do understand why they are doing this. Access to the server is even being rolled out to the public, with subscribers being let in on day one, whereas preferred and free to play players will get access on the day after. This is to slowly acclimate the server to proper use, and having everyone transfer their characters all at once would be a larger strain on the server than everyone making new characters all at once, at least that makes sense in my mind. I also saw discussion online about how the lack of transfers makes the new server experience unique as the insane amounts of credits and cartel market items aren't on the server yet, leaving the economy completely fresh.
The First Day
Rise and shine gamers! It's 3am and the new server just dropped! The first thing I experienced was not being able to get onto the server for a few minutes! It kept coming up with a box saying I was disconnected due to inactivity. This happened to a handful of people from what I saw, but was promptly dealt with by the developers and I got in easily after that. Then I did what most players were doing straight away, and that is reserving their character names by making a character with the name they'd like. Being a fresh server, just about every name possible was up for grabs, excluding anything against the rules like usual. All the names I reserved are all variations of my username.
As for my first class story on this server, I picked the Imperial Agent with the Vanguard combat style just to keep in line with my main. Muscle memory and all that, y'know? One issue I realised I'm going to encounter, at no fault to the devs, is my main helmet I use on my trooper wont be available on his Imperial counter part until I make it to Alderaan on a Republic character and buy it from one of the armour vendors. Now that I think about it, literally all of my usual outfit is legacy gear from the KotFE/KotET era of SWtor, so it's a long way away from me right now.
Oh I hit level 10! You know what that means. PvP! My first match, and possibly the first match of the server with how little people were actually queuing right away, was an Ancient Hypergate, where I scored a gentleman's 1.23mil damage. When I finished the standard PvP daily, I realised something... All of my Tech Fragments, Conquest Commendations, FP-1 Stabilizers, and WZ-1 Accelerants are on the Star Forge server. The fresh start nature of this server starts to lean towards a sense of dread. Until I realised i'm not going to need any of them for a long time anyway. But then I realised that they wont be coming with any character that eventually gets transferred also. What a rollercoaster.
The Second Day
It is yet to be the second day, but I'm looking forward to seeing all the free to play players joining the adventure!
If you are free to play, I highly suggest you check out the various streamers partnering with SWtor to give out codes. Streamer, and SWtor content creator, Xam Xam let me in on what kinds of codes are available. The list consists of Cartel Coins, Mandalorian jet packs, Opal Vulptilla mounts, Opal Vulptilla pets, 30 day subscriptions, and possibly a certain bundle.
A list of all the partnered streamers and their stream times was posted by Community Manager Jackie on the SWtor forums and can be found HERE for those who are interested.
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