Alarm bells ringing

The "New Year's PvP Update" post on SWTOR.com mentions the following:

 Ilum will also become a major source of Valor. Valor buffs will increase and decrease based on the objectives your faction owns. These buffs increase the amount of Valor you receive per player kill. However they do not give anything in and of themselves, so players will still need to defeat other players for significant Valor rewards. Additionally, daily and weekly missions will require player kills to complete. Player kills for quests and Valor credit will have diminishing returns per player killed. So, the more players that are fighting other players, the better it is for everyone.

Am I the only one that reads that and wants to /facepalm at the inanity of the design here?  Most servers are imbalanced in population, so one side will typically have an advantage over another in open world PvP.  The way they're planning to do Ilum, the side with the advantage will capture all the objectives and then farm the other side for Valor points.  The more objectives captured by one side, the more players from that side will flock to the area to get easy Valor points, and the more miserable the experience will be for the underpopulated side.  Players will end up learning that if all (or most) of the objectives are held by one side, the best thing they can do is get off Ilum and do something else, and world PvP will die on any servers that don't have a reasonably equal distribution of active players on each side.

They've got the team behind Dark Age of Camelot working for them and this is what they come up with?  In some ways it's similar to DAoC Relics, but without the built in safeguards.  Relics provided a PvE bonus, not PvP, so once a side had a majority of the relics they'd run off to PvE, giving the other side a chance to retake them.  DAoC was also a three faction game, so population balance could be combated by teaming up, except in extreme cases.

Now, what should they do instead?  I'm not sure (I never said it was an easy problem).  The objectives have to provide something to make taking them worth it, need to be designed in such a way that flipping objectives back and forth provides no benefit (no reward "on cap"), also need to be nearly impossible to keep permanently, AND allow an underdog side a chance to participate in a meaningful way.

Obviously they could go the DAoC route and make the objectives provide a global PvE benefit, but that doesn't feel right, and I'm not convinced players would feel motivated to PvP for PvE benefits in SWTOR.  PvE in DAoC was pretty hard and leveling was slow, so PvE bonuses were a big deal.  Plus, of course, Darkness Falls.  In SWTOR though, a game where you could solo to the level cap?  I think people PvPing would want a benefit for themselves, right there and then.

One possibility would be to leave the bonuses for capturing the objectives the same, but provide some sort of counter benefit to the losing side to prevent it from becoming a Valor point farm fest.  One possibility that occurs to me is that when one side starts losing, Force using NPCs spawn in the losing side's base areas and provide a persistent buff to the losing players.  The more objectives the enemy controls the bigger this buff gets, giving the losing side a significant combat advantage.  If the enemy controls all or most of the objectives the buff should be significant enough to let a numerically inferior group of players have a chance against larger numbers of unbuffed players, possibly leading to them recapturing objectives and pushing the enemy back.  At the very least it should allow the losing side to kill off some enemy players before they go down, allowing them to progress and participate despite the unbalanced situation.

Of course, this has flaws too, namely that it encourages the winning team to NOT capture all the objectives, and as the losing side retakes objectives they become weaker, leading to an eventual stalemate.  It gets even worse when sides are evenly matched, as it could quickly become impossible for either side to make much progress without making their opponents too difficult to defeat.  That still might be preferable to what Bioware has planned though, I don't know.

I'm sure there are plenty of people out there with good ideas on how to make open world PvP work, but it doesn't seem to me that Bioware is listening to them right now.  PvP Designers need to scrutinize how players will behave in a PvP environment, and take into consideration all the possible factors (such as population imbalance) that could upset their design.  Sadly they need to do this pro-actively and aggressively, as testing players will not display the sorts of behaviors that will break their design.  Warhammer Online should have taught this lesson -- RvR (PvP) was great during beta, and completely fell apart when the game went live and players all sought out the path of least resistance.

SWTOR's PvE Challenge

If you can never lose, you can never win.

This thought occurred to me as I was killing some time with Bejeweled 2 on my phone a few days ago.  I decided to try "Endless" mode, not really sure what it was.  I certainly didn't expect it to be a mode so easy you can never lose, such that you can endlessly play the game with no risk of having to stop.  After a few levels I began to wonder what the point was, and why on earth it bothered to keep score.  The score no longer represented skill, it represented time invested, and with no risk of losing it was a fairly meaningless indicator of "winning".

It didn't take long to see the parallels with MMORPGs.  A MMORPG is a game you cannot (with a few exceptions) ever "lose".  There's no game over, no "oh crap, that's too hard, I died and have to start over."  I'm not saying that's good or bad, it's just the way it is.  I know some people long for "hardcore" servers (or games) where character death is, in fact, game over.  I'm not one of them.

It does leave MMORPGs clearly in the land of games you can never lose, and as has been noted many times in the past there's no "game over, you've won!" screen in MMO land either.  However, it's necessary for a game to provide the feeling that you can win or lose, whether or not that's really true in the larger sense, or you end up with a pointless treadmill like Bejeweled 2's Endless mode.  MMORPGs do this by breaking content up in to smaller chunks, and giving you the potential to fail at completing that chunk.  You can't lose the game, but you can lose an encounter.  This gives the illusion of winning by creating an illusion of loss. A quest is an example, as is a dungeon, a raid, or a PvP battleground.  These are all discrete items of content that can be failed within the context of the game without providing a "game over" scenario, yet generate the sense of accomplishment players need to keep playing.

The chance of a player failing at any given task can be considered the challenge of that task.  Quests are almost always a sure bet, unless it's coded in such a way that the player can fail the quest and never get it again.  Group content such as dungeons or raids tend to be harder, and PvP in a way is the most challenging of all, as in any fair encounter you are unlikely to win more than 50% of the time (pre-made groups vs. randoms, twinks vs. normals, notwithstanding).

Tuning the challenge of content, then, is a key part of making an MMO work, not just because players will quit if the game is too hard, but because there will be no sense of winning if the content is too easy.  Quest based games such as World of Warcraft tend to have the lowest point of entry for new players, because quest content tends to be easy, and so players can get into the game and get used to things before trying harder content.  Unfortunately, the trend seems to be for quest content to stay easy, and in some cases (again, WoW is a good example) quests tend to get even easier as your character levels up and you get better at the game, eventually becoming completely trivial content that most players could complete with their eyes closed.  We've just entered Endless mode for MMOs.  Mash the buttons and "win".

One of the reasons I think WoW has suffered in recent times is that the entire leveling experience is "no loss, no win" endless content, and then things get switched up at the endgame such that you can lose, quite brutally, and take your whole group down with you when you try to do the heroic dungeons.  Blizzard's response to the outcry against this was to make the heroics easier, but what they really needed to do was make the quest content harder.  Making the endgame content easier just results in lowering the sense of accomplishment players have by completing it, thus more rapidly leading players to reach "endless mode" and quit at the pointlessness of it all.  The big jump in difficulty between the two modes of play was a serious issue, and while the fix they made was probably the only reasonable one (re-tuning an entire games worth of leveling content vs. endgame dungeons?) it's not going to help the game in the long run.

This all comes back to my recent experiences in Star Wars: The Old Republic, where it feels like quests are actually getting harder as I level rather than easier.  This is good.  As my character builds his strength and I improve my skill at playing the game I should be able to handle more difficult tasks, and I have some hope that SWTOR is going to do this, at least some of the time.  As an example, last week my Jedi Guardian had a class quest that pitted him against a boss level mob.  He had 4 times the hit points I did, and both my character and his companion were defeated 3 times before I found a tactic that worked.  It was a challenging battle, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to do it at all (lose), yet in the end I managed to do it (win), creating a great sense of satisfaction with the results.  Of course, the potential of losing was an illusion, as I could have simply leveled up some more or found some friends and tried again, so I was never in any danger of NEVER completing the quest, but the illusion of losing was still there.

I had a similar experience last night where a friend and I attempted a Heroic 4 quest (a quest tuned for 4 players) with just the two of us and our two companions.  We almost did it, with careful planning and coordination we got most of the way through it, before hitting a wall at the end in the form of a boss with 26,000 hit points.  We couldn't beat him, so we "lost", but we'll be back with reinforcements, and I know beating that boss will feel good.

So far, in my view, SWTOR has "challenge" down better than WoW, though whether that stays true in the long run is yet to be seen, and whether that is actually a winning formula is also unknown.  WoW has millions of subscribers, and while there's evidence those subscribers are finally starting to burn out, they've maintained those levels for years and made more money than any other MMORPG in history.  It's hard to argue against success, so I'll be curious to see how things sit a few years from now for SWTOR and WoW, and what tack Blizzard takes with their new game, Titan.

In a nutshell

I think the easiest way to sum up Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) is like so:

Take Knights of the Old Republic, increase the amount of content by an order of magnitude, add repeatable dungeons, PvP, and the ability to play with your friends, and the result is SWTOR.

This is not a bad thing.  If the comparison is meaningless because you've never played Knights of the Old Republic (KotOR), you should.  It's getting a little creaky, but it's still a very fun RPG that drips with the essence of Star Wars.  A lot of the stories and characters in SWTOR will make more sense if you've played KotOR.

I think SWTOR is possibly the best game Bioware has ever made, and I've played every RPG they've made.  I've seen plenty of blog posts and reviews out there saying the game sucks, though most of the complaints boil down to "this is not the game for me" rather than "there is something fundamentally wrong with this game".

If you like Bioware RPGs and you liked WoW, SWTOR has a lot to offer you.  If you can't stand the style and gameplay methods used by either of those, then the latest Star Wars game simply isn't going to be for you.

Pondering quests and SWTOR's future

This will be a bit of a rambling post.  Shocking, I know, but bear with me here.

One of the things I'm really enjoying about Star Wars: The Old Republic is the ability to make choices within a quest.  Typically in an MMO you get one choice - to take or decline the quest.  Once you've accepted the quest, you have no choice in the way it plays out, you either achieve the required goals or you fail.  For example, in WoW I remember this quest on the Horde side where you were tasked with feeding a human prisoner some food infected with the undead plague for the purpose of turning him into a ghoul.  It was a fundamentally evil act, and while you could choose not to take the quest, if you took the quest your only option was to kill the poor prisoner, or fail.  I hated that quest.  The Horde weren't supposed to be evil, yet that quest required I perform an evil act or abandon the quest.  Additionally, in the days I took that quest (early in the Vanilla years) I'm not sure it was even possible to abandon a quest.

In SWTOR, many quests give you a choice further down the line, typically regarding how you complete the quest.  To use the WoW example above, SWTOR's version would prompt you with a choice when you got to the prisoner -- feed the prisoner the food, dump it out and say it didn't work, or help the prisoner escape. Whatever you chose, you'd still get some sort of quest completion, and you'd get to do it the way you wanted.  Things like that occur a lot in SWTOR, my Bounty Hunter switched sides during several quests and took a reward from his original target.  He's also tricked his quest givers a couple of times, pretending to give them what they asked for while actually doing something else.  For example, he was tasked with killing a native warrior who had killed a Hutt and bringing back his head.  When confronting the warrior my character was given the option to take the head of another warrior that had already been killed and spare the Huttsbane who was, after all, just fighting for the freedom of his people.  I accepted, and gave the slimy Hutt a head, but not the one he requested.  Quest complete.

This is the story aspect that is going to make SWTOR stand out from the crowd.  It's not that there's voiced dialog for all the quests (although that helps too), but rather than players have choices in many of their quests, choices that change how the quests play out.  That also helps replayability, since it means you can take the same quest with a different character, make different choices, and get a different outcome.  Is it a huge difference?  No, but it provides a solid illusion of player impact, something most MMORPGs sorely lack.

In other news, Massively.com posted an interview with one of the SWTOR developers today and he had this to say:

In other MMOs, the team moves on to other games or gets downsized. We've actually kept our team, and we're not working on anything else. It's a little bit different for me. Basically, when I finished with Baldur's Gate, I went on to Baldur's Gate 2, then I immediately went to Neverwinter Nights, then I immediately went to Knights of the Old Republic. But here I'm finished with SWTOR, and it's just more SWTOR. The whole team is that way. We don't have a secret project. It's nothing but new content for The Old Republic. We have teams working on new flashpoints; we have teams working on new operations; we have teams working on new game systems and on new space missions.

If that's true, if the entire SWTOR development team is continuing to work on SWTOR the game should get a lot of content updates over the next year.  If they can do that and stay profitable, it could make SWTOR one of the most frequently updated MMORPGs in ages and give it another edge over WoW.  Rift updates fairly often, but as many people have noted the nature of the content in those updates is somewhat predictable -- new elemental force trying to invade, special drops from rifts, new daily quests, special loot from a token vendor.

If Bioware can deliver solid content updates to the game every few months . . . then wow.  This game will have serious long term potential:  eight classes with unique storylines, choices with permanent impacts on characters, unique companions for each class, PvP, group instances, raids, and substantial ongoing content updates?  The first and last items on that list will feed into each other too - you reach the level cap, run out of things to do, so make an alt, and by the time they reach the level cap there are new things for your old character to do, and once you're done with that there are new things for new characters to do, prompting you to create another alt, that hits the level cap in time for new things for your old character to do.

Pure speculation of course, but the potential is there.  Here's hoping.

SWTOR: Seven levels of bounty hunting

Holy cow, there's a new Star Wars MMO?!

Unless you've been living under a rock you probably know the release of Star Wars: The Old Republic is imminent - just next week in fact.  Early access for pre-orders has started, and along with piles of other people I got into it yesterday.  Due to an unfortunate cancellation of our Tuesday Night Gaming Group I ended up having time to play, so created my Bounty Hunter, joined my guild, and started adventuring.

I didn't touch any Empire characters during my brief beta stint, and so right away I was struck by just how different the starting experience for a Bounty Hunter is from the Jedi Consular.  The entire feel and tone of the setting is different, and appropriately so, although my Bounty Hunter seemed to have to do a lot more talking before getting to the shooting than my Consular did.  New Bounty Hunter's arrive on Hutta to try and earn a place in the Great Hunt.  If you played the Knights of the Old Republic games you've probably heard of the great hunt - it's a bounty hunting competition the winner of which walks away with fame and fortune.  The Mandalorians are pretty into it.

You arrive on Hutta and make your way to a building where a team of bounty hunters are waiting -- your team.  They go on about what a bad ass you are, and indeed, all the conversation options and NPC reactions reflect your status as a bad ass.  You are a level 1 bad ass, but it doesn't matter, it works.  The fact that I'm playing a hulking Chiss with glowing red eyes doesn't hurt either.  Eventually you go out and start collecting bounties.  Yes, you're not killing random mobs (not at first anyway), you're killing criminals with bounties on their heads, or their minions.  In the first two hours of the game I've taken out several named bounty targets, double crossed several quest givers, crashed the financial accounts of a rival Hutt, and even freed some slaves.  What the heck, right? I'm a bad ass.  You slaves can go, I don't care.

So the Bounty Hunter story seems good so far, but how does the class play?

The Bounty Hunter is the master of combat options, and I'd say the combat style is one of damage and disruption.  I was bothered by the fact that Bounty Hunters/Troopers don't seem to pay any heed to blaster fire -  Jedi and Sith try to deflect it with lightsabers, and Smugglers/Agents take cover, but Bounty Hunters just stand there and take it.  Turns out they don't.  A Bounty Hunter's defense is a disruptive offense -- enemies who are on fire, trying to get explosives off them, or getting knocked down by rockets aren't shooting at you, and within your first couple of levels you can do all of those things.  Attacking groups of enemies became a thing of beauty as I'd open with an Explosive Dart which would stick to a target and distract them for 3 seconds as they frantically tried to claw it off.  The dart would then explode dealing a large amount of damage and knocking all nearby enemies down.  All the while I'm taking shots with my blaster, follow with a rocket when they get back up (which knocks them all down again), and finally use Unload on any survivors that have a lot of health.  Most of the time I could take out the whole group without them getting more than a couple of shots off.

I'll admit that even with that I still tend to try and stand behind cover.  It doesn't actually do anything of course, but it makes me feel better and lets me believe the combat is making sense.  I'll also tend to charge forward, which isn't as insane as it sounds, as the Bounty Hunter has a powerful rocket-assisted punch for melee so opening up with everything you've got and then charging to melee is a good way to deal with powerful targets.  Plus, in the real world it's harder to hit a moving target so running also makes me feel like the combat isn't just "stand there and shoot each other in the face with blasters".  The fact that so far all non-channeled abilities I have can be used while on the move is a big plus in my book.

My Bounty Hunter is level 7 and sitting in a Hutt's cantina earning some rest experience.  I don't have a companion yet, but have several Heroic 2+ (group areas) to explore, so I'm looking forward to tackling both of those things tonight.  So far SWTOR has been the most enjoyable MMORPG experience I've had in years.  Time will tell if it's my favorite MMORPG ever, or if the shine wears off as I play more, but either way I'm looking forward to a good ride.

Moddable Gear

Before going any further, you need to go to the SWTOR site and read this.  It's a post by a SWTOR developer detailing the item modification system that exists in Star Wars: The Old Republic.  For those not in the know (which included me, btw) some pieces of equipment in the game are moddable, they have empty slots into which an item modification can be placed to give it stats.  It's sort of like sockets in other games, but far more central to the functioning of the item.  Sockets in other games were more of a bonus than anything, the mod slots in SWTOR gear are vital to them being useful.

Previously there were two types of moddable gear - gear that had nothing but mod slots, and gear that had some set stats and one mod slot.  The most recent patch has apparently removed most of the latter and created more of the former with the intent of making using mods more focused.  Since everyone gets some items that are fully custom through class quests we'll all be engaging in the system at least a little bit.  As a force user, your first lightsaber is a fully moddable piece of gear.

I think the system is interesting, and as long as mods aren't too difficult to obtain I think it will offer a viable and fun alternative to the typical gear progression system.  The fact that mods can be safely removed from gear is key, as it means really good mods can be saved and used on items you like the look of better, or saved for other items when you find an upgrade that would be better in it's current slot.  With similar systems in other games I have frequently agonized over using a really good gem/enchant/whatever for fear of getting an item it would be better on shortly thereafter with no way to undo my choice.  A fear that is usually born out too (as was the case with the +40 fire damage gem I slotted on my War in the North character's weapon, argh!).

The fully customizable items I've seen so far had quite a few slots, 3-4 if I recall.  Getting to build your own item with that many choices sounds like fun, and I'm sure it's a system I'll use as much as I can.  The fact that crafters can now create armor/weapons that are fully moddable will help.  One thing that isn't clear to me though is that it's been stated you could use a fully moddable item from level 1 to the level cap if you wanted simply by updating the mods slotted in it.  I'm assuming then there must be a mod that increases the dps of a weapon or the defense on armor?  Otherwise I don't see low level custom gear being very useful no matter how good the stat mods on it are.  I don't care that the lightsaber I started with has huge bonuses to stats if its base damage is still that of a level 9 item . . .

Mods can be obtained as loot, as quest rewards, from breaking down equipment, or through crafting.  It sounds like a lot of possibilities, and hopefully it will be enough.  I suspect the crafting skill that creates mods will be a profitable one overall, as it doesn't sound as useful as crafting your own armor or weapons, but in the end absolutely everyone is going to be using mods at some point.

I also really liked that if you see an armor drop that looks cool, someone somewhere has the recipe to craft that armor in a fully moddable version.  If the system works well enough it will reduce the need for an appearance tab as you can track down the look you want and make the stats work by using mods.  I hate looking like a frankenstein's fashion monster in these games, but not so much that I won't wear that piece of ugly armor with awesome stats.  Being able to have the best of both worlds is something to look forward to, I just hope the execution is as good as the idea.

SWTOR: A few pet peeves

I think my ramblings about SWTOR have overall been quite positive, but I do have a few issues with some of the design decisions they made in the game.  They're not really serious issues, so I'd have to classify them as little more than pet peeves.

The first regards the monsters/npcs out in the world.  They just stand there doing nothing.  All the time.  They don't wander, they don't drift, they have idle animations and that's about it.  I thought we were past the age of obvious xp buckets sitting around waiting for someone to tip them over.  The humanoids aren't that bad, as their idle animations often involve them doing something, but the animals are terrible.  They just stand around and sometimes shuffle their feet, or snort.  They don't eat, they don't move, and even the completely passive "critter" variety don't run away when you approach.  The game is otherwise quite immersive and technically impressive, so I find it quite jarring to see all these listless animals standing about waiting to starve to death.  It's 2011, is that really the best we can do?

I mentioned it in another post, but the heat seeking blaster bolts really annoy me.  It's especially bad since most guns shoot a stream of shots rather than singles (like they mostly did in the movie) so you get this clearly defined arc that bends and twists as the target moves.  The flood of shots itself is fairly jarring.  How about reducing the number of bolts fired at once and making them travel faster?  That would reduce the lunacy significantly.  "But then the screen won't be saturated with blaster shots and shiny special effects all the time!" That's kind of the point.  If it was good enough for the movies and KotoR, it should be ok here too.  Blaster fire should look like blaster fire, this is Star Wars not Ghostbusters.

I understand they have to make sacrifices in the name of gameplay, but the appearing/disappearing vehicles really bug me.  It's one thing in a game like World of Warcraft where you can handwave it away as magic, but there's no magic at play here, and the technology of Star Wars does not include teleportation, solid holograms, or matter replication.  Why does that speeder appear out of nowhere, and disappear in a shimmer like a deconstructing hologram?  Couldn't they have designed the taxi pads with a hangar that your character goes into then flies out on a vehicles, then flies into another hangar on the other end.  The effect would be the same, but the visuals would be more immersive.  Or heck, do something that WoW has already done, and have the vehicles sitting out on a landing pad and when you click one you jump in and fly away (leaving another one behind, but it's still an improvement).  For personal "mounts" I'd like to see characters activate some sort of comm device and then have the vehicle of choice swoop in from offscreen, then fly off again when done.  Darth Maul did it, dammit.

 Why do some classes (Jedi Knight) get to turn in class quests via a communications device, while other classes (Jedi Consular) have to trudge back to base on foot and talk face-to-face?  On the one hand I actually liked the interaction the Jedi Consular had with their NPC, it made the story feel more engaging.  On the other hand, it took forever to get through the starting area due to all the trudging compared to the Jedi Knight.  How about a special "return to NPC" button that will automatically take your character to the appropriate story instance when you're ready to complete it.  It can go away when you're higher level and have more transportation options.  It's not teleportation, it's . . . I forget the cinematic term for it, but a scene switch in a movie.  You're assumed to have made the trudge back on foot, you just don't have to experience it.

So, anyone else have some pet peeves?  I think I've gone on about it long enough myself.

SWTOR: The WoW Killer?

Many people are positing that Star Wars: The Old Republic will kill World of Warcraft, that EA-Bioware expects it to kill WoW, and that it will be a complete failure if it doesn't kill WoW.  Then there are people arguing the flip side, that SWTOR can't compete with WoW, that WoW will kill SWTOR, and that nothing will ever dethrone WoW.

To put it simply, I disagree with all of those positions.

The Old Republic isn't going to kill World of Warcraft, no single game ever will.  World of Warcraft is too big, and too many of it's players aren't MMORPG gamers, or even gamers, but rather WoW gamers.  They don't play anything other than WoW now, didn't play anything before WoW, and quite possibly won't play anything after WoW.  Blizzard's behemoth is going to die though, but it will be the slow death of a thousand cuts as people leave for a multitude of reasons and recruiting replacements gets harder and harder in the face of all the other options out there.  SWTOR won't kill WoW, but it will take some of the game's subscribers, and provide viable competition for future recruitment of new subscribers.  Kill WoW?  No.  Wound it?  Sure.

I don't think Bioware expects to dethrone WoW either.  After all, they seem to be hoping for a million or so subscribers, which while hefty by most standards is still only a fraction of WoW's subscriber base.  Anyone officially with Bioware or EA trying to claim SWTOR will kill WoW is just trying to drum up publicity.  Games that seriously claim to be WoW-killers suffer some serious negative publicity when they fail.  Yeah, I'm looking at you Warhammer Online.  Bears bears bears.  Bastards.

I think the argument that SWTOR can't exist alongside WoW is equally erroneous.  If a game like WoW had existed ten years ago, then maybe I'd agree that both games couldn't survive due to WoW's enormous market share.  The MMORPG gaming audience has grown dramatically in the last ten years, thanks in large part to the runaway success of WoW, and we know that the number of people currently subscribed to WoW is far far lower than the total number that have ever been subscribed to WoW.  This is a huge potential market for the game (past subscribers of WoW) as SWTOR will be immediately familiar and comfortable to older WoW players, while bringing the power of the Star Wars IP to the table.  It's not at all hard to imagine SWTOR bringing in a couple of million subscribers without affecting WoW's current subscriber base AT ALL.  I think it will take some subscriptions away, I'm just saying it doesn't have to.

One other thing that I think many people aren't considering when it comes to SWTOR and WoW co-existing is that there's no rule that says people can only subscribe to a single game at a time.  This isn't a binary situation, it's not IF SWTOR = TRUE, THEN WOW = FALSE (and vice versa).  Consider that the average age of MMORPG gamers has been gradually increasing over the years.  The last statistic I recall seeing placed the average age in the 30s, maybe even the 40s.  You know what else increases as age increases?  Income.  Ten years ago most people playing MMORPGs were college students with time but no money, and maintaining a single subscription at a time was probably all most people could do.  As the average age of MMORPG gamers increases, the average income of MMORPG gamers can also be expected to increase, and thus the potential to subscribe to two games at a time also increases.

The downside, of course, is that free time tends to decrease, which would be an argument against multiple subscriptions, except that games like WoW aren't exactly chock full of new content on a weekly basis.  Why continue to sub to WoW for six more months until the next content patch when you could switch to SWTOR, then switch back. Not a constant multiple subscription, but over the course of a year it would amount to much the same thing. I can also easily imagine a growing number of gamers with steady incomes electing to play both games in order to maximize their gaming time.  Most people I talk to who still play WoW only seriously play it a couple of days a week, and spend the rest of their gaming sessions mucking about killing time.  They could very easily be playing SWTOR on those days instead.

Only time will tell, but I think the market is ripe for another big, successful MMORPG, and SWTOR isn't releasing against a whole lot of competition here.  When was the last AAA MMORPG release?  When is the next one?  They've got a wide open window of opportunity here.  I think the market is ready, it's up to Bioware to not drop the ball.

That other SWTOR post . . .

Isn't happening.  I spent several days scouring my hard drive for all the beta screenshots I took and couldn't find them.  Like many others, the screenshot functionality apparently didn't work for me.  Since the screenshots were integral to the whole post, the post sort of evaporated with the screenshots.

I'm not ready (yet) to jump on the conspiracy bandwagon that the virtual item in the CE of the game is required to enable taking screenshots.  Rather I suspect the holocam (or whatever it's called) will let you take virtual screenshots that are stored and viewable in-game.  I can't believe any non-idiotic developer would completely disable the ability to take screenshots of their game without a virtual item purchased with real money.  They'd lose massive amounts of free word-of-mouth advertising if people can't show screenshots to their friends or post them on blogs, facebook, etc.

Star Wars: The Old Republic - Classes

As I've been trying to convince my friends they really do want to play Star Wars: The Old Republic with me I've been describing certain game systems, features, etc. for them. As long as I'm going to the trouble to spell it out once, I might as well put it here in case anyone else is interested. First up, SWTOR classes.

There are four base classes on each side (Republic vs. Empire, though we're talking old Republic and Sith Empire, several thousand years before the movies). Each base class has two possible advanced classes that you choose from at level 10. All the classes on each side are rough mirrors of each other, but differ in style and some abilities. For example, the Sith Inquisitor (primary force user) shoots lightning, while the Jedi Consular (Republic equivalent) hurls objects with telekinesis. Same outcome (ranged dps), different method.

Each advanced class has 3 talent trees, 2 unique to the class and one shared between both advanced classes. Each unique tree focuses on a role, while the shared tree offers general improvements to the class independent of role. The Jedi Sage (advanced class option for Jedi Consular), for example, has a dps tree, a healing tree, and a "balance" tree. The Jedi Shadow (the other option) has a dps tree, a tank tree, and the same "balance" tree. You can respec your talent trees, but as far as I know you cannot respec your advanced class choice.

Every class has some sort of group buff as a baseline ability, so having at least one of each base class in a group is going to be helpful. The group size is apparently 4, so having one of each base class is going to be ideal. If you have two of one class you won't be able to get all the buffs.

First a disclaimer -- the information that follows is based on my quick impressions over the beta weekend. It's not datamined information and some facts could be wrong, but it should be close enough for the most part.

Class breakdown:

Jedi Knight:
Your basic lightsaber swinging Jedi. They specialize in melee attacks instead of force abilities, and are the clear "warrior" style archetype. The class mechanic is Focus. Some abilities generate focus, others use it. Starts with 0 focus and focus decays outside of combat. Early abilities include a couple of lightsaber strikes, a "leap into combat" ability, and a pbaoe.

• Jedi Guardian - The tank specialty. Fights with a single lightsaber, gets the ability to wear heavy armor, taunts, and a few iconic force powers like Force Push. Luke was probably a Jedi Guardian. Gets a tank tree and melee dps tree.
• Jedi Sentinel - The melee dps specialty. Fights with dual lightsabers, can wear medium armor, has a new mechanic in addition to focus called "concentration" that allows the use of special buffs. Gets a solo dps tree (survival + dps), or a group dps tree (pure dps). Or something like that. The Sentinel's role seems to be pure dps.

Trooper:
Precursor to the clone trooper and stormtrooper. Heavy ranged weapon class with the ability to wear heavy armor and use shield generators. The class mechanic is "energy cells". Abilities use a certain number of energy cells which recharge over time. There are some abilities to instantly recharge cells.

• Commando - The ranged dps specialty. Focuses on heavy weapon usage such as rocket launchers and massive blasters. Gets a dps tree and a healing tree.
• Vanguard - The ranged tank specialty. Focuses on shield generator usage and blaster rifles. Gets a ranged dps and a tank tree.

Jedi Consular:
Heavy force using Jedi. Still gets a few lightsaber attacks, but they're pretty basic (still pretty effective though, at least at low level). Can only wear light armor. Mechanic is Force points (mana) but there's only 100 points, so it's more like an energy bar. Early abilities include a pbaoe + knockback and the ability to rip chunks of rock out of the ground and toss it at your target.

• Jedi Sage - Ranged force user. Focuses on force powers from range. Gets upgraded range on all the basic force powers (from 10m to 30m), an increase in Force points from 100 to 500, and learns advanced ranged force abilities. Gets a dps tree and a healing tree.
• Jedi Shadow - Melee force user. Focuses on force powers and stealth. Gets a stealth ability (affects your companion too!), a backstab, and a variety of force powers intended for use at short range. Gets a dps tree and a tank tree.

Smuggler:
Han Solo. Well, it is. Mechanic is energy (like a rogue) with a secondary mechanic of "Cover". The Smuggler (and Imperial Agent) are the only classes smart enough to take cover when blaster bolts start flying. It's quite well done, your character literally crouches down behind appropriate world objects, and ranged attacks will hit the cover instead of your character. Enemies can flank you, or melee you to negate the cover bonus. Certain abilities can only be used from cover, and your character will pop out from cover to attack and then duck back down again. At higher levels the Smuggler can use a force field generator to create cover where none is otherwise available.

• Gunslinger - Range damage specialist. Can dual wield blaster pistols and focuses on damage. Gets a range dps/debuff tree, and an aoe/dot dps tree.
• Scoundrel - Support/close range specialist. Focuses on fighting from cover or supporting groups. Gets a short range/melee dps tree and a heal tree.

The Imperial classes are rough mirrors of the Republic ones, so I won't go into much detail, just list them. You'll have the basic idea based on the Republic equivalent.

Sith Warrior:
Empire equivalent to the Jedi Knight. They fight with red lightsabers to let you know how different they are from those pansy Jedi.

• Sith Juggernaut - Tank specialty. Darth Vader was probably a Juggernaut. Gets a tank tree and a dps tree.
• Sith Marauder - DPS specialty, equivalent to the Sentinel.

Bounty Hunter:
Empire equivalent to the Trooper, but with more attitude. They also have a reverse mechanic to the Trooper. Where the Trooper starts with a full bar of energy cells, the BH uses "heat" which starts at 0. The Trooper depletes energy cells, and when he runs out can't use abilities. The BH generates heat, and when the bar fills up he can't use abilities. Same idea, but they work in opposite directions.

• Mercenary - Dual wield specialist, fights with dual blaster pistols. Has a dps tree and a healing tree.
• Powertech - Gadget specialist, has a dps tree and a tank tree. Think Boba Fett.

Sith Inquisitor:
Empire equivalent of the Consular, they also believe in diplomacy first. Force Lightning is typically their start to negotiations.

• Sith Sorceror - The heavy force user, gets a dps tree and a healing tree.
• Sith Assassin - Stealth melee force user, gets a dps tree and a tanking tree.

Imperial Agent:
Empire equivalent to the Smuggler, but quite a bit more martial in nature. Uses the same energy and cover mechanics.

• Sniper - Ranged dps specialty.
• Operative - Support specialist, gets a dps tree and a healing tree.

If you're counting, you'll note that each side has 3 classes that can heal, 3 classes that can tank, and everyone can dps, depending on how you spec. The most versatile base classes are the Trooper, Consular, Bounty Hunter, and Inquisitor, each of which have the ability to tank, heal, or dps (not in the same advanced class though). The Knights and Warriors can only tank or dps, and Smugglers and Agents can only heal or dps.

I think groups are going to be hard to form until they add in a dual spec ability, though even that might not change much. Companions mean you can solo with whatever build you like and it won't get much harder, you just use a different companion. It won't change the fact that many people don't want the responsibility of being a tank or healer -- it's stressful. I'm perfectly happy to tank or heal for a group of friends, but I despise doing it in pugs. I don't suck THAT bad, I just don't care for the pressure. Having just 2 slots for dps characters means they'll have even more trouble than usual finding groups. Hopefully low level content will be forgiving enough that a Jedi Guardian can tank even if he's specced for DPS, but we'll see.

SWTOR: Quick Impressions

Like practically every other MMO gamer out there I played in the Star Wars: The Old Republic beta this weekend.  I'll have a bigger post up later this week, but here is some of what I took away from the beta:

Positive:

• The classes tend to be more fun than they sound "on paper".  I had no interest in the Smuggler or Jedi Consular until I tried them, and now I have no idea what I'll play at release!
• The companions are game-changing as far as the solo experience goes.  They aren't your usual pets that either can take hits but do no damage or deal damage but die in seconds.  My Jedi Consular's starting companion hit like a mack truck and had more hit points than I did.  Suddenly content that was impossible became doable.
• The voice dialog is well done, and I don't care what the naysayers say, having a character that not only speaks with a voice but says what I choose for him is a huge immersion bonus.  Interactive audio quest info is far more engaging than ye olde wall o' text.  And no, EQ2 did not already do this.  This is exponentially more voice dialog than EQ2 ever had.
• Combat is a lot faster than I expected.
• The class quests are pretty cool, and the special story instances work.  There's no load time to enter them, sometimes a slight stutter, often completely seamless.
• The zones are huge and feel pretty epic.  Standing on Coruscant with speeder traffic zipping all around is pretty amazing.
• The game is immersive.  Despite being a themepark it has a "world-y" feel to it, the game doesn't go out of its way to intrude beyond floating icons over some NPCs, and even those are pretty muted compared to some games.
• The cover mechanic used by Smugglers and Agents is something I'd like to see more of.  I wish all the characters could do it!
• Multiple bind points -- you can quick travel (hearth) to ANY location on the planet you've previously bound to, not just the most recent like in most games.  That's a huge plus to moving around.  Sadly you can't quick travel to other planets (or if you can, I don't know how).
• Fighting 1 - 3 mobs at a time is cool, and SWTOR does it way better than City of Heroes.  Combat is just fun, and I didn't mind diverging from my path to take out packs of enemies while on my way somewhere else.  In fact, I often had to make myself STOP diverging, or I'd never get to where I was going.
• Exploring can pay off, I found a security chest with a nice green item in it off the beaten path.
• Sound and graphics -- it's Star Wars, you're not going to mistake it for anything else.

Negative:

• With release looming fast it still has some bugs and quirks, some of which I'm not sure if they're bugs or just really weird design decisions.  Case in point, my first companion had a massive Aim stat (used for ranged weapons) but was unable to equip a ranged weapon -- he could only use melee weapons, but had really low strength.
• Blaster bolts will follow the target if it moves after you fire.  It looks really terrible.  I don't mind that happening for magic in other games, or Force powers in this game, or missiles, but blaster bolts aren't guided projectiles.  I know they can't "miss" or this would become a twitch game, but I'd rather they graphically miss and statistically hit, then bend around corners and follow fleeing targets.  It's easier to suspend my disbelief.
• I hope you like running, because this game is going to make you do a LOT of it.  Not courier quests (thank god!) just a lot of exploring and running to quest givers and traveling to new areas.  Some classes have it worse than others - my Jedi Consular, for instance, had to run back to the Jedi Temple to report in person every time he completed a class quest.  Other classes (such as the Trooper and Jedi Knight) get to use a communicator instead.
• Global chat needs to be turned off the moment you log in.  It's like Barrens chat but without all the class.
• I would like to be able to rearrange the UI components (especially the companion window) but couldn't figure out how.  I could move the chat box and that was it.
• There's not enough quest content at any given level range.  You really want to be level 10 by the time you leave the starter planet, but getting there seems to require doing every single quest AND killing as many mobs along the way as you can.  That doesn't bode well for the higher levels.
• I won't get to play again until it releases, and that sucks.

I am still looking forward to the game, and it's meeting my pretty reasonable expectations.  For the most part I'd say it's exceeded my expectations, so that's a nice change.  I'd recommend SWTOR to anyone who likes quest oriented, class based, level grinding PvE games -- SWTOR will likely be one of the best games in this genre.  I would not recommend SWTOR to anyone who is hates WoW and all games like it -- if this is you, SWTOR is not your game.

All aboard the hype express!

I’ve been trying very hard to avoid the hype behind the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic.  My efforts are faltering.  I re-signed up with my old Warhammer Online guild to play in SWTOR, and on their forums was a link to the “class progression” videos.  I shouldn’t have clicked on them.  No really, I shouldn’t.  But I did.  It wasn’t an “OMG that’s amazing!” sort of thing, but it was a “huh, that’s pretty cool.”  Then I looked at another one, and it was pretty cool too.  So was the one after that.  And the next one.  Within a few moments I’d watched all six class progression videos.

What’s that you say?  Aren’t there eight classes?  Yes, there are eight classes but only six have progression videos so far.  No class progression for the Jedi Consular or Sith Inquisitor.  Even though I have no real interest in playing either of those classes, I’d really really like to see the class progression videos for them.  Crap, I just bought into the hype train!

It’s the sort of thing I wish more games did, to give you a better idea of what your character would be capable of (and look like) as you progress through the game.  The videos highlight a newbie member of the class, a mid-level version of each specialization, and an endgame version of each specialization.  I didn’t think it would be possible to have an armor progression in Star Wars that wouldn’t look ridiculous at end game and break with the spirit of the game, but Bioware has done an admirable job of melding ostentation, practicality, and (for lack of a better word) Star Wars-iness.  The end game armor suits are a little over the top for Star Wars . . . but only a little.  They’re not World of Warcraft over the top.  Nobody has Death Stars mounted on their shoulders with miniature TIE fighters orbiting in circles shooting down flies.

The other thing the videos did was make me more interested in classes I’d previously had no interest in.  I didn’t want to play a Trooper . . . but now I want to see if they’re fun.  Sith Warrior?  Blah, not for me!  Except . . . that looked kind of cool . . . in the video . . . that might be fun, maybe I should try it.

I still don’t think SWTOR is going to be all that and a bag of chips.  It’s not going to be the second (or third?) coming of MMORPG nirvana.  I do think it’s going to be pretty cool.  I don’t care if it has hotbar combat.  I’ll put on my suspension-of-disbelief blinders when confronted with people standing a few feet apart shooting each other in the face.   If the game can deliver on the ambience, environment, and spirit of Star Wars while providing an acceptably fun RPG experience (where acceptable equals WoW quality questing) I’ll be quite happy with the game.  If it can finally wash away my disappointment with Star Wars Galaxies it will have achieved something nearly miraculous.

So now the wait has begun, and I’m getting antsy.  I’m essentially done with my current crop of MMOs.  I’m ready for something new.  I’m especially ready for something new and science fiction-ish.  I hate being antsy for games, because it makes it hard for me to enjoy the games I have NOW, in favor of games that for all intents and purposes, don’t exist yet.  It’s only a month away, so I’ll just have to do my best to distract myself.  Some Diablo 3 would do it.  Ah crap.  Well, the Starcraft 2 xpac would be enough . . oh right.  Torchlight 2 . . . dammit.  Skyrim?  Not really interested, but maybe I should.

Languishing at 50

One thing I definitely have to admit about Star Wars: The Old Republic – their release date is going to be well timed for me.  In both of the games I’m currently playing (Rift and City of Heroes) I have max level characters, and in both games they’re sort of running out of things to do.  Or to be more accurate, they’re running out of things I’m interested in doing.

My City of Heroes tanker is sitting happy at level 50 with all five of the current incarnate slots unlocked, with a power slotted in each that’s been upgraded to at least tier 2 or 3 (of 4).  I have a little bit more I’d like to do with him, but otherwise he’s good until they release more endgame content, and that doesn’t seem to be coming any time soon.  I have some alts that I like, but one of the odd downsides of the Incarnate system is that my level 50 has become very fun to play, so much so that when playing low level characters I find myself wishing I was playing my 50.  But my 50 doesn’t really have much to do, so my interest in playing City of Heroes any further is rapidly waning.

To be fair, it’s not really Paragon Studios’ fault, exactly.  I’m in the, perhaps unusual, demographic of people who want to see the endgame content and make some progress, but not repeat it endlessly to get all the best stuff.  So I’m a bit more invested than a true casual, but not as invested as a hardcore player.  There’s a literal crap-ton of stuff for level 50 Incarnates to unlock in CoH as each slot has multiple powers that can be earned (anywhere from 4 to 20ish) plus multiple levels of each power.  A completionist truly has their work cut out for them, but I’m not a completionist.  I have exactly one power unlocked for each Incarnate slot, and that’s good enough for me.

Rift is facing a similar problem, in that I have my level 50 rogue, and he’s seen all the dungeons, earned a few epic items, maxed out a crafting skill, done a crafting rift, done some daily raid rifts, etc.  Rift has more diversity of endgame content than WoW does, but I’m not interested in grinding content for shiny purple pixels.  I played it, it was fun, now what?  I still haven’t gotten to do the Chronicles instances as I haven’t been able to find a partner to do them with me, and I lack the skill/gear/uber build to do the 2-man instances solo with my rogue.

My primary alt is a level 28 cleric, and while I enjoy playing him, I don’t feel much incentive to keep playing.  My rogue already did the same content, and while the cleric plays very differently from a rogue, that alone isn’t enough to keep me going.  SWTOR claims to have a unique questline for every class from the start to the level cap.  If true, that’ll be a big deal for me, as new content will keep me coming back for more with alts.

The end result is that my time in CoH and Rift is winding down just in time for SWTOR to release next month.  I wouldn’t ask for anything different – that timing works great for me.

A little over a month to go

With just a little over one month to go until the head start begins for Star Wars: The Old Republic, I find myself getting a little excited for the game.  It’s not that I think the game is going to be the greatest thing since the last greatest thing, but rather that I haven’t really gotten to experience that “new game smell” in quite some time.  I was excited for Rift, but that was nearly a year ago.  I also knew exactly what I was getting into, having been in the beta for a while, and had quite reasonable expectations for the game on release.  I’d call my overall experience with Rift “pleasantly satisfied”.  I did end up playing World of Tanks, but there was no excitement, no build up there.  The game wasn’t even on my radar until I downloaded it and tried it out.  There haven’t really been any other big games for me in 2011 so far, MMO or otherwise, most of the games I’m looking forward to won’t be out until 2012 (at the earliest).

WoW . . in . . spaaaaace!

So SWTOR is the first game in a while to get me feeling excited for its release--pent up energy that builds in the belly and radiates out, causing feet to tap and fingers to type.  Release already!  Despite that, my expectations for SWTOR are really quite low.  I’ve read the preview reports, I’ve watched the videos, I know there’s nothing game changing here.  I pretty much expect WoW in space with Voiceovers and Companions.  You know what though?  That’s ok.  Rift has proven to me that tried and true mechanics with some new additions, different content, and tweaks here and there can still make for an enjoyable game.  I’m not quite so jaded that an MMO with hotbars and classes and quest based adventuring is a turn off for me.  In fact, I’m getting old and fossilized enough now that those familiar things are comforting.  What I am jaded with though, are fantasy MMOs.  Sick. To. Death.  EVE and Star Trek Online are the only things out there that come close to scratching my Sci-fi itch, and they just don’t quite do it.  EVE in many ways is awesome, and I love to look at the game, but in the end it’s not really that much fun to play.  STO has some nice features too, but the game is just too flawed to play for long.  I notice it’s going free-to-play a couple of weeks after SWTOR releases, perhaps to conveniently snap up disgruntled SWTOR players (and there will be disgruntled SWTOR players, lots and lots of them).

One of the things I’m enjoying about SWTOR’s impending release is that I actually know very little about the game.  Sure, I know the basic features (companions, etc.), I know the setting from the KOTOR games, and I know the names and general purpose of each class . . . but that’s about it.  I’m not in the beta, so the first time I start up the game during the head start will be the first time I ever see it.  That has an appeal to it of its own, and I’m actually grateful I didn’t get into the beta.  If I got an invite to one of the remaining weekend events I doubt I’d have the willpower to refrain from playing, but I’d seriously consider trying to abstain.  The internet makes it hard enough to approach a game fresh as it is, betas completely ruin the “first day experience”.  It’s funny; I still remember my first day in Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, and the City of Heroes beta (but not the first day of release) as a time of excitement and exploration.  I can barely remember WAR (which I followed religiously before release) or many details from my years in WoW (which I referenced the internet for constantly).  Going in with a clean slate will be nice.  You don’t form detailed memories when your brain is already convinced it knows what to expect.

I’m excited for SWTOR because it’s got lasers and spaceships and jetpacks and multiple planets just as much for the fact that it’s Star Wars, one of the beloved IPs of my childhood (and today).  I’m trying not to focus on the Star Wars aspect too much, as the last time I let my love of an IP cloud my judgment I bought the collector’s edition of Warhammer Online.  Ouch.  No collector’s edition this time, but I did sign up for a pre-order.  I fully intend to bully my friends into trying it too, if they won’t do so willingly.  You’ve been warned guys.  Just pre-order now, save yourself the trouble.  Star Wars may be fantasy in space, but dammit, it’s got robots, and shiny high tech gadgets, and space travel.  It’ll do.

Star Wars: The Old Repbulic - Companions

Today I want to talk about the companions in SWTOR.  I’m a bit late to the party (what else is new) as the blogosphere went on about this for a couple of days a few weeks ago and then went silent.  Still, it’s my turn now, and I’m hoping to go into a little more depth.  I’d also love some commentary, as my information is pieced together and quite possibly not accurate, as I can never remember to check official sites when I’m at home and can’t access them when I’m at work.

Hi!  Will you be my friend?

Bioware recently revealed that companions will be unique to each class, and that each class will earn five companions (plus a ship droid) over the course of their adventures.  Only having five companions to choose from for your character sounds pretty anemic, but you have to consider there are eight classes, so Bioware is creating (and voicing) 40 companion characters.  That’s a massive investment of time and far outstrips the effort they’ve put into companions for any game they’ve made to date assuming, of course, that each companion is at least as fleshed out as the ones in Mass Effect or Dragon Age.

You meet your companions over the course of your class quests, so finding them shouldn’t be hard, but you don’t get them all at once.  While there is a good variety in the roles your companions play, I hope the order in which you get them is sensible for each class.  As in, I hope the Jedi Consular doesn’t have to wait until level 40 to get a tank companion, or the Sith Warrior has to wait until level 35 to get a healer.  I’m not sure if there’s been any information about that yet, but I sincerely hope companions are awarded in the most complimentary order.

Unlike DA and ME, you can only have one companion with you at a time.  That makes a certain amount of sense, I suppose, since the setting is Star Wars, and if you think about the movies many of the “player” characters had a partner of some sort, but not a gaggle of flunkies following them everywhere they went.  While companions can be brought with you for group content, it sounds like they take up a player slot (much like Guild Wars), so if you have enough player characters to fill a group you won’t have any companions.

From what I’ve read, it sounds like you do not get the level of control over your companions’ skill development that you do in Dragon Age or Mass Effect, but you can control the type of skills they have “equipped” through the use of kits.  The kit you equip on your companion will determine which subset of skills they use.  How much variety exists isn’t terribly clear, but it does suggest that you can have two players of the same class in a group use the same companion but get different results.  I’d rather have full customization like in other Bioware games, but something is better than nothing.  I’ll take it.

I wish I was green

Visual customization of companions will be possible, both from the basic skin/hair/etc. side and clothing equipment.  Thank God for that.  Anything less would be a disaster, with seventeen clones of the same character standing around while their owners go shopping.  The Clone Wars haven’t happened yet!  Guild Wars can get away with it because you hardly ever see someone else’s heroes (companions), but in a persistent world like SWTOR it would be pretty miserable.  I hope the customizations are significant.  If all you can do is change hair color or skin pigmentation it’s not going to make much difference.

Companions will not be controllable directly.  At all.  They will be entirely dependent on their AI, though players can set tactics for them much like in Dragon Age.  Still, I can’t even count the number of times I’ve had to switch to direct control of a companion in DA/ME to stop them from doing something stupid, so I hope the AI is very, very robust.  Presumably we’ll be able to unsummon companions if they get stuck (something you can’t do in DA/ME) which will help a little.

Companions level up, but are always one level behind the player.  I’m assuming it will work much like the other Bioware games, where all companions earn XP whether they’re in the active party or not, so we won’t run into instances of players grinding out xp to level their tank companion because they were using their dps companion for 40 levels (been there, done that, thanks WoW!).

You know you want to date me.  I've got head . . . things.

Romance – yes there are romances possible your companions.  Of the five companions available to each class, there is at least one male and one female capable of being romanced.  Strangely, not all classes are created equal in this regard.  Most classes have two options (1 male, 1 female), a couple have three, but the Sith Warrior can romance all but one of his/her companions (4 options).  Who says using the dark side of the force leads to hate?  Become a Sith Warrior and wow the ladies with your giant . . . saber.  Or, you know, mind control.  Whatever.

That’s pretty much an overview of what companions are, but what do they do?  Apparently they do a lot of things.  They tag along on your adventures and will heal, tank, dps, or die for you.  They lurk in your personal space ship and craft for you.  They run your errands (do your laundry, mend your clothes, make you dinner) and they just generally assist you.  Perhaps most importantly, they interact with you. They’ll comment on your decisions, participate in cutscenes, give you quests, comment on places you visit, both act as a moral compass and be swayed by your own morality choices.  They won’t just be pets, and that’s kind of the point. 

I was originally pretty grey on the idea of companions, but if Bioware can deliver on all their promises I think they’ll be a nice addition to the game.  As someone who tends to play late at night when sane people have gone to bed I’ll appreciate getting a little more interactivity out of the game.  At the same time, only being able to use one companion at a time means I won’t be soloing any flashpoints and will still have reason to find groups and play with real friends.  Hopefully the fact that everyone has a “pet” available at all times means content can be a little harder and more diverse.  All quests can be group quests.

Here’s hoping.

Old Republic Release Date

So the official release date for Star Wars: The Old Republic has been posted here.

Gosh, that date seems awfully familiar, where have I heard that before?

I'm now making predictions, $5 a pop.  Ask away!

SWTOR: The death of KotOR?

The other day, a friend of mine (hi, there!) mentioned her sadness that Star Wars: The Old Republic pretty much ensured there would never be another Knights of the Old Republic.  I'm not entirely sure I agree with that, because in almost every way that matters, SW: The Old Republic IS Knights of the Old Republic 3.  If you think about the features and gameplay offered by the KotOR games and compare them to what SWTOR offers, it seems like we're getting KotOR 3 plus online gaming, rather than something like World of Warcraft derailing the Warcraft RTS franchise.

Some of the features to think about:

• Companions - check
• Romance - check
• Epic storyline - check
• Crafting - check
• Dark/light side choices - check
• Multiple classes for multiple playthroughs - check
• Gear upgrades, etc. - check
• Class specific quests - check
• Star Wars setting - check
• Interactive dialogue - check
• And so on.

Additionally, SWTOR will add things to the KotOR formula, such as the ability to play in groups, instanced dungeons, PvP, and ongoing content updates that will keep the game going for years.  The flipside of all that though, is that it will be an MMORPG, almost certainly require a monthly subscription, and there will be no clear cut "the end".

Still, from what I've heard it should be possible to play the game almost exactly like KotOR and just ignore all the multiplayer aspects if that's what you want.  Sure it won't be as pretty as a KotOR 3 probably would have been, but in many ways I think it will offer the core of what KotOR 3 would have been.

What do you think?  Will SWTOR be similar enough to KotOR to scratch that same itch, or is it just going to feel like WoW in space and be a big let down to fans of the single player franchise?

SWTOR: Feeling a little hopeful

Most of the blogger responses to Star Wars: The Old Republic's presence at last week's SDCC seems to be positive, and a lot of the things mentioned are making me more hopeful that the game will be good.  I still don't think it's going to be a great MMO, and it's still not the sci-fi game I'm hoping someone, somewhere, will make, but I'm more comfortable in my belief that it will be a solid single-player RPG that also has the ability to group up for harder content.

Some of the recent items that sound interesting to me:

• Every class gets unique quests from level 1 to max, there are no quests shared between classes.  While this clearly makes doing quests in groups rather stupid, it does make for fantastic replayability.  I wish their single player games had this too.
• There will be an entire planet dedicated to solo endgame activities.  Again, not a group friendly feature, but one I'm glad to hear about.  It's going to largely be a solo game while leveling, so a switcheroo to group only endgame would be painful (I'm looking at you every MMO currently on the market).  I think I'd just replay that game rather than grind out some endgame, but it's nice to know the option is there.
• More vehicles (mounts) than just the repulsor segway.  This was sort of a given, but it's still good to see it's been done.
• The combat is looking a little better -- it still has some rough edges, but it's looking less like "I stand here and shoot you in the face, you stand there and shoot me in the face, repeat until one of us is dead". Granted, this is a promotional video, so some liberties may have been taken.

• Advanced classes at level 10.  I seem to recall they were originally slated for level 20, though that might have been my imagination.  Level 10 is better.  Personally I think they'd be best off just having 8 classes per side at character creation and be done with it.  EQ2 tried something similar at release, and ended up just making them all classes selectable at level 1 in the end.
• Customizable companions.  While you still can't change the name, gender, or race of your companions, you can change their hair and skin color and control what equipment they're wearing.  Even though you might be in a group with people using the same companion, chances are they won't look the same.
• Adjustable companion AI.  They are rumored to be working on customizable AI like that used in Dragon Age.  If they pull it off, companions would instantly become the best MMO pets ever.
• Branching quests in Flashpoints (dungeons).  Instanced dungeons are great things.   Running them with a group of friends is one of the high points of MMOs.  Running them over and over, doing exactly the same thing every time is one of the low points.  Bioware is supposedly implementing branching quests in their dungeons, such that decisions you make change your objectives and opponents throughout the flashpoint.  If this works as advertised, it will be a very good thing.  Yes, your average PUG is likely to insist on whatever choices yield the fastest and/or easiest run, but when running with a coordinated guild or group of friends this expands the options of what you're doing.

Those are the things I can think of off the top of my head.  I'm still not bouncing up and down in gleeful anticipation like I have for some games in the past, but I feel confident SWTOR will be a game worth playing, and that's a pretty big step up.

SWTOR: The pre-order "shortage"

For those who may not know, Star Wars: The Old Republic became available for pre-order last week.  One of the pre-order options is for a digital copy through EA's Origin digital distribution platform.  Supplies of the digital version are, apparently, limited.  Yes indeed, the might run out of digital copies, better get yours fast!

The official explanation is that this isn't being done to artificially inflate demand (no no, of course not!) but rather to make sure the "head start" that comes with the pre-order is playable rather than having thousands of angry customers in choked login queues and overcrowded starter zones.  That's . . . plausible.  Maybe.  At least a little.

I have a solution for EA though.  Rather than limit their pre-orders (and risk not getting those 1 million subscribers they need to avoid failure) they should just offer a head start to the head start.  They can start selling pre-pre-orders that give customers a head-head-start.  Heck, they can even link it to the version of the game purchased too.  Collector's edition buyers get a 2 week head start.  Digital CE buyers get a 1 week head start.  Plebians buying the regular edition get a 3 day head start.  Then stick a pre-pre-order on top of that for an extra $5, for people who want to get in even further ahead.  Then they won't need to limit pre-orders in order to protect the people pre-ordering from having an unsatisfying head start.

EA, you can mail me a check, thanks.

(P.S.  This post is not serious)

SWG shuts down just in time for SWTOR launch?

The news dropped today that Star Wars Galaxies will be shutting down on December 15th due to the loss of the right to use the Star Wars intellectual property  It shouldn't come as a great surprise that Star Wars Galaxies and Star Wars: The Old Republic won't be coexisting.  I always thought it odd that Lucasarts sanctioned a second Star Wars MMO when they already had one running.

I'd like to say I'm sad to see the game go, but that would be a bit of an overstatement.  I played the game at release and enjoyed the ways in which they innovated and expanded the MMO genre.  However, there really wasn't much content for an adventurer/combat gamer like myself, and I grew bored after a few months and quit.  I didn't go back until after the Everquestification of the game (NGE) which I absolutely despised (hey, let's take all the things about this game that are interesting and different and good and get rid of them!  Brilliant!) and I quickly canceled my account and never went back.

However, I am sorry that all the people who have worked so hard on the game over the years will presumably be losing their jobs.  One would hope SOE would find work for them elsewhere, but with how shaky SOE itself seems these days there's really no telling.

Now then, type to start a rumor.  If SWG closes on December 15th, and SWTOR has been promised for 2011 (multiple times), can we expect SWTOR to launch December 20th, 2011?  Just in time for Christmas, and the only Star Wars MMO in town.

Update:  Well, per the article at Massively nobody from the SWG team will be losing their jobs over this, so I guess I have nothing to feel bad about at all.