Color me intrigued. There’s a bit of a hubbub going on around The Old Republic over an issue I can’t quite wrap my head around. If you haven’t been following the blogosphere, a few players pointed out to the press that they were temporarily banned from The Old Republic for looting chests on high level planets with a low level character. Patiently, I opted to wait for more information to come out before writing a story. For starters, the emails were shady looking, there was no true confirmation to their authenticity, and even then there was likely more to the story than we had been told.
There is, but not in the manner you would have assumed (glitches). Stephen Reid (of the Bioware Reids) went on the forums to discuss the bans:
To be completely clear, while players may choose to travel to Ilum earlier than the recommended level (40+) and may loot containers if they can get to them, in the cases of those customers that were warned or temporarily suspended, they were systematically and repeatedly looting containers in very high numbers resulting in the game economy becoming unbalanced.
From extensively reading Reddit and the thread linked above, I’ve sussed out that two categories of accounts were targeted: Gold farmers and exploiters. The former, permanently banned, were using throwaway characters to exploit the somewhat sparse grounds of Ilum and gather vast quantities of credits (and crafting materials?) to sell. The latter, who had received temporary bans, were “systematically and repeatedly” looting containers.
The issue here is that there is no mention by Stephen Reid of an existing bug, but the offenders are described as exploiting the system, and this is what is confusing people because it paints the picture as Bioware banning players for spending too much time camping, and in Reid’s case, being rude by taking all the loot for themselves. The discussion by Reid goes on to reference this as outside what Bioware considers “normal gameplay,” and is thus punishable.
The actions taken by these accounts – and again, this is a relatively low number – were not ‘normal gameplay’. Everything you have listed above is what we’d consider ‘normal gameplay’.
After twenty four odd pages on the linked thread above, someone finally pointed out the exact nature of the exploit: In Ilum, when control moves from Republic to Empire and vice versa, the loot boxes respawn immediately. Seeing the potential for profit, players have set up a system on servers where they simply trade control back and forth with guild members out on the field to collect the boxes. This is what Bioware is referring to by banning players for exploiting the treasure chests, and in that case I would support the temporary suspensions as long as Bioware is warning the players beforehand, which they appear to be doing, or if the activity is truly as impossible for a legitimate player to stumble upon as is being claimed.
The issue here isn’t that Bioware is slapping offenders on the wrist, but that their explanation for the offense itself is painting an inaccurate picture in player’s minds, one that is not endearing to Bioware’s case. In any case, this exploit needs to be patched out.
Too many colons in the title! During the time Bioware wasn’t busy absorbing every sub-developer of Electronic Arts, the company was busy working away at their first and arguably one of the most risky entrances into the MMO genre. The Old Republic is the labor of love of a company that has never put out an MMO, let alone having not developed a multi-player game since 2002. But with the announcement of The Old Republic, at least we knew that Bioware would be consistent, and that we could expect heavy voice acting, a whole load of plot and subplots, and an incredible soundtrack.
I’ve found that The Old Republic is best played as Bioware once referred to it: Knights of the Old Republic 3, but online in a persistent world. The Old Republic is heavily instanced, and while that is for good reasoning, it’s a bit obnoxious when you walk into each city and see a number of buildings that cannot be entered because they are locked by class or by level. However, as it stands, all personal story-related buildings are instanced to ensure that the player is able to immerse themselves, and that means no entry if you have no business there. Still, the game does its best to present a compelling and immersive world, with your companion making comments in various areas of the map.
The first thing you’ll notice is the game’s voice acting, more so its very impressive quantity. Everyone has voice acting, and every quest you take, big or small, has a full dialog tree to accompany it. As with the KOTOR series, you are given the choice from time to time to go down the light or darkside path, which can mean continuing diplomacy or simply halting the conversation and murdering some NPCs. Where Bioware continues their trend of deep plot twists is in the sense that while your choices are split between dark and light side, your goals often are not. For example, the light side path may tell you to report your quest giver to the Republic for smuggling goods, but that means having a good friend arrested. On the Imperial side, while your Sith Trooper may want to just kill everyone in his path, often times the Empire would rather you left a few alive to bring back for interrogation. The points go into your light side/dark side pool, and unlock equipment as you gain ranks.
As far as game play goes, expect nothing particularly groundbreaking. Your story carries you through clearly defined hubs, from planet to planet as you level up. If you’ve played an MMO before, you know the procedure of entering a new hub, gathering all of the quests that send you conveniently in the same general areas, and turn them in until there are no more quests and your main story arc leads you somewhere else. The pain of this grind is lessened a lot by the inclusion of a story that will actually interest you. No more reading a long piece of text (and by that I of course mean slamming the “accept” button), and if you really don’t care about the story, the cutscenes can be sped through by holding down the spacebar.
In combat, The Old Republic follows the prime directive of hotkeys, with the notable exception of no auto-attack function, and this is where The Old Republic is falling short. While combat is functional and hardly a deal breaker, it is sluggish and slow to react. Again, not to a game breaking extent and one that Bioware should be able to patch, but enough that it is easily noticed and in high-intensity situations where you are attacking groups of five, six, or seven mobs, can be quite aggravating. Couple the inherent system and throw in if you are experiencing latency problems, and you have a recipe for button mashing. The fact that you always have a companion available allows for every class to be competent without issue. For instance, my smuggler is a damage dealer and healer while my companion is a tank. While he takes the punishment, I deal out damage and occasionally heal him.
Crafting is a hands-off component of the game, which some will enjoy and others will not. Players will wind up with three skills from an enormous list from three categories: Crafting, Mission, and Gathering. Gathering skills are what you find in other MMOs, nodes in the world that offer raw materials. Crafting is self-explanatory. Mission skills are where you send your companions on mini-quests to find resources. Each skill has respective suggested skills in other categories, so it’s best to choose three skills that fit together. All of the skills however, are leveled on a set it and forget it system, where you set up your crafting queue and then go about your business as your companion on board does his work. You can issue commands from anywhere, and the items are delivered directly into your inventory. Talk about convenient! In my case, the crafting is so hands off that I often find myself forgetting that it exists until the area I’ve entered has resource nodes that have outleveled my skill.
Why You Aren’t Playing Star Wars: The Old Republic
1.) Origin: You don’t need it, even if you order through Origin.com. As some of you know from my head start experiment, I ordered off of Origin.com, even with my intense loathing of EA’s Origin service. I never had to touch Origin once, as when I purchased the digital edition it sent me a link to download the client. Not once during the beta, head start, or live game did I ever have to touch Origin, and I placed this first on the list because I know how people feel about that platform.
2.) Space, where no one can hear you complain about how boring space is. I didn’t expect much out of The Old Republic’s starfighting for the same reason I never expected much out of Bioware’s previous game’s starfighting. Fighting in space is on rails, and was special for me for the first or second time I played through a mission. Sure, it looks pretty, but at the end of the day it’s just a mini-game. A fun mini-game for some, and even if you have absolutely no interest in space combat, you can easily pass these missions up.
3.) Again, Star Wars: The Old Republic breaks ground in storytelling, not combat. For players seeking a sandbox title, this is not the game you are looking for. If you don’t mind the traditional MMO approach of quest hubs, social areas, occasionally grouping up for heroic missions, flashpoints, and an endgame that revolves around player vs player combat and grinding for gear, you will find a lot to enjoy in The Old Republic. Even if you don’t enjoy the endgame grind, you can always start a new character and go through their individual story, skipping the repeated side-missions.
Bioware handled the launch of The Old Republic stunningly, between the staggered head start invitations and the servers specifically capped to even out the populations. There are some crippling bugs still in the game, including a few planets having problems with memory leaks. I can say for what it is worth that Bioware has been taking a very aggressive stance with releasing patches, at a rate of once every other day or so with varying degrees of extensive work, and regular maintenance on the servers themselves. There have been instances of one or two servers coming down for unscheduled maintenance, but these are usually fixed within an hour or two.
I know I say in every Why Aren’t You Playing that the title is worth looking into, but this is one of the few times I will extend that to paying the full $60 box price and a subscription. Take it from someone as cheap as I am, this is worth the cost. If you don’t like MMOs, do as I said earlier: Play it as if it is Knights of the Old Republic 3, ignore the social functions and heroic/flashpoint quests, and play for the story arcs. If Bioware plays their cards right, future expansions of The Old Republic could fulfill their desire of TOR being KOTOR 3,4,5,6,7, and beyond.
At the time of this writing, it is 4:00pm on Sunday, January 1st 2011. Of the servers online, there are 37 North American and 27 European servers listed as full, 31 NA and 23 EU servers listed as very heavy, 13 NA and 15 EU servers listed as heavy, 30 NA and 26 EU servers listed as Standard, and 13 NA servers listed as light.
Too many colons in the title! During the time Bioware wasn’t busy absorbing every sub-developer of Electronic Arts, the company was busy working away at their first and arguably one of the most risky entrances into the MMO genre. The Old Republic is the labor of love of a company that has never put out an MMO, let alone having not developed a multi-player game since 2002. But with the announcement of The Old Republic, at least we knew that Bioware would be consistent, and that we could expect heavy voice acting, a whole load of plot and subplots, and an incredible soundtrack.
I’ve found that The Old Republic is best played as Bioware once referred to it: Knights of the Old Republic 3, but online in a persistent world. The Old Republic is heavily instanced, and while that is for good reasoning, it’s a bit obnoxious when you walk into each city and see a number of buildings that cannot be entered because they are locked by class or by level. However, as it stands, all personal story-related buildings are instanced to ensure that the player is able to immerse themselves, and that means no entry if you have no business there. Still, the game does its best to present a compelling and immersive world, with your companion making comments in various areas of the map.
The first thing you’ll notice is the game’s voice acting, more so its very impressive quantity. Everyone has voice acting, and every quest you take, big or small, has a full dialog tree to accompany it. As with the KOTOR series, you are given the choice from time to time to go down the light or darkside path, which can mean continuing diplomacy or simply halting the conversation and murdering some NPCs. Where Bioware continues their trend of deep plot twists is in the sense that while your choices are split between dark and light side, your goals often are not. For example, the light side path may tell you to report your quest giver to the Republic for smuggling goods, but that means having a good friend arrested. On the Imperial side, while your Sith Trooper may want to just kill everyone in his path, often times the Empire would rather you left a few alive to bring back for interrogation. The points go into your light side/dark side pool, and unlock equipment as you gain ranks.
As far as game play goes, expect nothing particularly groundbreaking. Your story carries you through clearly defined hubs, from planet to planet as you level up. If you’ve played an MMO before, you know the procedure of entering a new hub, gathering all of the quests that send you conveniently in the same general areas, and turn them in until there are no more quests and your main story arc leads you somewhere else. The pain of this grind is lessened a lot by the inclusion of a story that will actually interest you. No more reading a long piece of text (and by that I of course mean slamming the “accept” button), and if you really don’t care about the story, the cutscenes can be sped through by holding down the spacebar.
In combat, The Old Republic follows the prime directive of hotkeys, with the notable exception of no auto-attack function, and this is where The Old Republic is falling short. While combat is functional and hardly a deal breaker, it is sluggish and slow to react. Again, not to a game breaking extent and one that Bioware should be able to patch, but enough that it is easily noticed and in high-intensity situations where you are attacking groups of five, six, or seven mobs, can be quite aggravating. Couple the inherent system and throw in if you are experiencing latency problems, and you have a recipe for button mashing. The fact that you always have a companion available allows for every class to be competent without issue. For instance, my smuggler is a damage dealer and healer while my companion is a tank. While he takes the punishment, I deal out damage and occasionally heal him.
Crafting is a hands-off component of the game, which some will enjoy and others will not. Players will wind up with three skills from an enormous list from three categories: Crafting, Mission, and Gathering. Gathering skills are what you find in other MMOs, nodes in the world that offer raw materials. Crafting is self-explanatory. Mission skills are where you send your companions on mini-quests to find resources. Each skill has respective suggested skills in other categories, so it’s best to choose three skills that fit together. All of the skills however, are leveled on a set it and forget it system, where you set up your crafting queue and then go about your business as your companion on board does his work. You can issue commands from anywhere, and the items are delivered directly into your inventory. Talk about convenient! In my case, the crafting is so hands off that I often find myself forgetting that it exists until the area I’ve entered has resource nodes that have outleveled my skill.
Why You Aren’t Playing Star Wars: The Old Republic
1.) Origin: You don’t need it, even if you order through Origin.com. As some of you know from my head start experiment, I ordered off of Origin.com, even with my intense loathing of EA’s Origin service. I never had to touch Origin once, as when I purchased the digital edition it sent me a link to download the client. Not once during the beta, head start, or live game did I ever have to touch Origin, and I placed this first on the list because I know how people feel about that platform.
2.) Space, where no one can hear you complain about how boring space is. I didn’t expect much out of The Old Republic’s starfighting for the same reason I never expected much out of Bioware’s previous game’s starfighting. Fighting in space is on rails, and was special for me for the first or second time I played through a mission. Sure, it looks pretty, but at the end of the day it’s just a mini-game. A fun mini-game for some, and even if you have absolutely no interest in space combat, you can easily pass these missions up.
3.) Again, Star Wars: The Old Republic breaks ground in storytelling, not combat. For players seeking a sandbox title, this is not the game you are looking for. If you don’t mind the traditional MMO approach of quest hubs, social areas, occasionally grouping up for heroic missions, flashpoints, and an endgame that revolves around player vs player combat and grinding for gear, you will find a lot to enjoy in The Old Republic. Even if you don’t enjoy the endgame grind, you can always start a new character and go through their individual story, skipping the repeated side-missions.
Bioware handled the launch of The Old Republic stunningly, between the staggered head start invitations and the servers specifically capped to even out the populations. There are some crippling bugs still in the game, including a few planets having problems with memory leaks. I can say for what it is worth that Bioware has been taking a very aggressive stance with releasing patches, at a rate of once every other day or so with varying degrees of extensive work, and regular maintenance on the servers themselves. There have been instances of one or two servers coming down for unscheduled maintenance, but these are usually fixed within an hour or two.
I know I say in every Why Aren’t You Playing that the title is worth looking into, but this is one of the few times I will extend that to paying the full $60 box price and a subscription. Take it from someone as cheap as I am, this is worth the cost. If you don’t like MMOs, do as I said earlier: Play it as if it is Knights of the Old Republic 3, ignore the social functions and heroic/flashpoint quests, and play for the story arcs. If Bioware plays their cards right, future expansions of The Old Republic could fulfill their desire of TOR being KOTOR 3,4,5,6,7, and beyond.
At the time of this writing, it is 4:00pm on Sunday, January 1st 2011. Of the servers online, there are 37 North American and 27 European servers listed as full, 31 NA and 23 EU servers listed as very heavy, 13 NA and 15 EU servers listed as heavy, 30 NA and 26 EU servers listed as Standard, and 13 NA servers listed as light.
It’s been a while since anything was said about The Old Republic’s launch in Australia and New Zealand, or for that matter the lack of a launch in either territory. Luckily, Senior Lead Community Manager Stephen Reid announced on the official forums today that Bioware is aiming for a Spring 2012 launch, around March 1st. Granted, a great deal of players have likely already purchased the game and are currently playing on North American servers, but no doubt this announcement will please those who would rather wait.
We can confirm that Star Wars: The Old Republic will be launching in Australia and New Zealand in the spring of 2012.
Right now we are targeting March 1st, but that could change as our number one priority is making sure that customers have a great service to play on.
For those of you who may have already imported the game, we will be investigating solutions to allow you to continue to play on a local server once they come online in March.
I hate to use the term “caved,” because it implies that Bioware is conceding to a less than favorable position. MMO launches are great in that when you preorder the game itself, you generally receive a preorder key which allows you access to the head start, and occasionally the beta. This key also tells the developer that you intend, or have, already purchased the game. The problem with ordering your boxed copy online, as people do, is that you can’t always be ensured that your copy will arrive in time for the game’s release. In response, many developers offer grace periods after the head start where players are able to play without requiring their final registration key.
Up until now, the official word from Electronic Arts has been no grace period, at all. Thanks in part to a very fanatical outcry from fans, Bioware announced on the forums that they have reversed their decision and will be allowing a two day grace period for players to enter their details.
While we’ve worked closely with our retailers in the launch territories to ensure copies of Star Wars: The Old Republic are available from our launch date of December 20th, we understand that for those of you who’ve pre-ordered, there may be a concern about getting your copy on time. We’ve heard you want a ‘grace period’ where you can continue to play without having to enter a final product registration code (AKA ‘game code’).
Your 30 days are not affected by this grace period, so technically you could submit your code at the last possible minute and enjoy 32 days instead of the prescribed 30. Now everyone say grace…period.
You can cancel your preorder cancellations, as despite EA’s previous claims that The Old Republic could slip into early 2012, the publisher announced today that budding smugglers (and the other less important classes) will be able to log in before Christmas. North American players will gain access on December 20th, while European players will get their keys on December 22nd.
“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.”
You can head to the above link to see the price structure for multiple month subscriptions. For people in regions where The Old Republic isn’t being sold, you will still be able to buy the game and play on either the NA or EU servers, Bioware has already confirmed that there will not be any IP blocking. You’ll still have to pay the high shipping fees for a boxed copy, or have someone you trust in the appropriate region buy it for you.
Cross-faction chat is a rather controversial topic. On one hand, the supporters prefer it as it allows for smack-talk, for role playing purposes, and general immersion and social interaction. On the other hand, the opposition believes that removing cross-faction chat keeps the less mature crowd from having a larger audience to talk to, with hypothetical situations such as “it’s bad enough that a group of players will stand around ganking the same guy, now he has to read their racist, homophobic slurs.”
In World of Warcraft, Blizzard has always justified this by racial-barriers. Looking at it from a lore point of view, it doesn’t make sense that the Orc and Human factions could communicate without translators, as why would the Orc teach their children to speak Common, or vice versa? (Don’t mention the Forsaken suddenly forgetting Common and being fluent in Gutterspeak. It’s magic) Bioware talked to TenTonHammer that the plans have changed and cross-faction chat is gone from The Old Republic. Why? Because when Darth Vader announced that he was Luke’s father, the emotional scarring was far worse than having his hand cut off.
We had the big argument that this isn’t like Horde and Alliance, we all speak Galactic Standard so we should just allow it. So we actually did allow it for a little while. The argument against it was that, what happens is people start saying inappropriate things to the other side. That’s just the way it is when you’re on a different side and you gank each other, people tend to say inappropriate things.
I agree. While we’re at it, let’s cut in-faction chat for that same reason. When I was playing The Old Republic, the other players on the test server were unapologetically racist, homophobic, and vulgar. So are some of the people in trade chat in World of Warcraft, and in chat in general on Runescape. In fact, block cross-faction chat won’t stop my random LFG group from telling me I’m a shitty hunter, and that I should hang myself in my living room because I can’t build a proper DPS outfit.
Essentially, if you’re going to block chat: Come up with a real reason. There is a purpose for the ignore function, and that is removing unwanted players from your chat window. Your customer service team should also be inviting active reports for offensive language, and banning offenders. I hate to play the slippery slope card, but what else is Bioware going to remove because a few immature players might utilize it to say bad words?
Mythic Entertainment today announced Warhammer: Wrath of Heroes, a lobby-based arena PvP game. As part of the Electronic Arts Play4Free program (you may recognize this from Battlefield Play4Free), Wrath of Heroes will be free to play with a notable cash shop. Judging by the trailer, the game appears to control similar to Warhammer Online, with the exception of trading in a persistent character for an array of heroes. The game will run on 6v6v6 (that’s right, three faction matches) battles centered around destruction and territory control.
Warhammer Online fans may be a little miffed at this announcement, and Mythic rather quickly dropped a new Herald letter on the main website today to calm fears. Kai Schober wants you to know that this is not a death strike for Warhammer, but rather a positive notch. In addition to new armors, Schober also talks the return of fortresses and perks for Warhammer Online subscribers that will cross over to Wrath of Heroes.
We brought in people to develop the new title and actually increased our pool of resources. This means that we can leverage things done for one game into the other. A small example is that the new Mourkain Temple layout was a result of some work done for Wrath of Heroes. There are others and a few we want to share with you as soon as possible. New looks perchance?
It will be interesting to see if these two brothers can coexist, or if Wrath of Heroes being free to play will have any detriment on Warhammer Online’s population.
Cowen and Company may sound familiar, and that is because they’ve been featured here on MMO Fallout once before. Back in June, the analyst group got a look at The Old Republic, and they weren’t impressed, quoted as saying:
“Despite promises from EA/Bioware that the title represents a major step forward in MMO design, what we saw was essentially a World of Warcraft clone with Star Wars character skins and the Bioware RPG nice/nasty dialogue tree mechanism bolted on for non-player character conversations.”
Well it appears Cowen and the rest of the company have had a change in heart, as the analyst group has recently upgraded its prediction to 3 million sales in the first year, with two million of those players staying on to continue subscribing. This comes on the heels of the announcement that The Old Republic has become EA’s fastest selling pre-order.
Read the whole article here, without falling too deep into the “Bioware is bribing Cowen” conspiracy crowd.
Thanks to World of Warcraft’s seven day welcome back week, I have something to hold my attention for seven days, at least until the little girl from The Ring comes through my television set to murder me (the joke’s on her, I’ll be playing The Room on a second television. Try and brave that to kill me). Other than the thought of impending death, I’m having a lot more fun on my recreated toon than I expected. I started a new undead hunter to test out the phasing and new quests. There are a lot of major changes to the game, like the removal of weapon levels and ammunition. I’m taking notes, and I’ll be doing a “Why Aren’t You Playing” on World of Warcraft at some point.
1. Earth Eternal Is Officially Back
At least to the point where you can play it. If you head over to the Earth Eternal website, you can log in with Facebook and install the client. You will need to make sure that the previous Sparkplay version has been uninstalled before you do, as conflicting installations can cause problems. There may be an issue with the requirement to sign in via Facebook, and you may have to wait a little while before the website recognizes that you have the game installed (this happened to me), but otherwise you can jump right in.
Earth Eternal is just as adorable as it was when we left it, and the game has undergone quite a substantial upgrade in the graphics department. Find me in-game, my username is Omali.
2. Bioware Hates The Heterosexuals
This falls into the category of “I wish this wasn’t true.” Over on the Old Republic boards, a poll popped up asking players what type of relationship they will pursue with their companion characters, choosing from same sex, opposite sex, all relationships, or none. Of course, this sparked a bit of a fizzle (not an explosion) on the blogosphere from the lunatic fringe, claiming Bioware was “discriminating against heterosexuals” presumably by not allowing them to spew homophobic drivel on the Old Republic forums.
What this ultimately ends up as is a matter of civil discussion, and people who don’t understand what that means. The subject of homosexuality is a touchy one, but in the context of the thread, Bioware was simply asking about your choice of partner, not your opinion on who will burn in eternal hellflame.
3. I Buy My Gold Straight From Kim Jong Il
This is an odd story, yet not all surprising. According to the New York Times, North Korea is employing hackers to break into South Korean MMOs in order to write bots for them to farm gold to sell for the government (and of course so his son can get his epic mount in World of Warcraft). The outfit that operates the bots reportedly brings in some hard cash, $6 million over two years, and is the same office that operates drug trafficking, counterfeiting, and other illegal practices for the glorious leader.
So the next time you see a gold farmer in-game, ask if you can have Kim Jong Il’s autograph. They like that. Also consider this another reason to gank bots in your favorite MMO. That gold you just looted could keep North Korea from achieving nuclear technology.
4. Firefall is Releasing Similar To Google Mail
In an announcement on the Firefall website, CEO Mark Kern has expressed his interest in launching the free to play MMO as close to the Gmail method as possible. The project is currently in friends and family beta, where it will slowly expand to allow more people. Oddly enough, Kern considers the game already “launched,” and believes that the expanded base is not bringing in new beta testers, but rather simply expanding a low-key launch to a wider audience via invitation.
First person to send me an invitation gets a free…something, I’ll figure it out.
5. Then Again, Darkfall Could See More Success
I admit, I’ve been hard on Darkfall for the past few weeks, given Aventurine’s refusal to acknowledge a wipe. I’ve hinted in the past that the wipe may have to do with the removal of certain skills, and revamping of others, explaining why Aventurine won’t call it a “wipe in the traditional sense,” or why the company feels that the issue won’t be as hot topic as players are turning it into.
What I have seen over the past few weeks is an outbreak of support for a wipe, even going as far as a full wipe. Some see it as a necessity to level the playing field, while others see it as a way to rid the game of ill-gotten gains through bugs, dupes, macroing, and exploits. Overall there appears to be equal pull in both directions on the forums, for and against a wipe of any sort.
My stance throughout all of this has not been predictive. Rather than trying to read the community and predict death or success, I’ve kept to stating the possibilities (on both sides) and citing past examples of wipes and their resulting success, or lack thereof. I’ve leaned a little more toward the death side of the fork in the road, so consider this a balancing “I still have faith this can work out” piece.
MMO Fallout 