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.
Bioware announced a long time ago that early access to The Old Republic would be staggered, your place in line would be determined by the date in which you ordered the game. So I decided to do a little test: About two minutes ago, I preordered The Old Republic on Origin. For those of you reading this on a different day, that is 1:10pm eastern on December 15th, 2011, or two days after the head start began.
The point of this experiment is to see how long it takes Bioware to catch up to the people like myself who for some reason held off of ordering the game, and how many days of early access we are granted. So I will update this article as soon as I am let in.
UPDATE: As of 2:21pm EST on December 16th, I am in. So two days missed out of the original “up to 5 days.” Not bad for the most preordered MMO of all time.
Today’s week in review is a bit more interesting than previous works, if I do say so myself as an unbiased outside source. As far as MMOs go, I’ve been spending a lot of time in Lord of the Rings Online with my pitiful leveling speed in an already slow to level game. Currently I am either level 27 or 28, somewhere in the Lonelands working on book 2 of volume 1. To give a better idea of my placement in the storyline, consider the length of a football field, and my position is the Thursday before the game even begins.
I normally prefer games that don’t rush you to end-game, but with Lord of the Rings I think I’d prefer a system that simply doesn’t see three or four level differences in between chapters. Completing a single level 25 quest only to see the following be level 29 is like getting a glimpse of sunlight only to be dragged fifty feet underground and start the process of digging up to the surface all over again.
1. Banned In One Game, Banned In All: EA Origin
Consider this the controversy of the week. Players are understandably angry over comments made by EA Games today regarding the recent Battlefield 3 beta launch. On the beta forums, a DICE employee Bazajaytee posted a warning to players that playing on modified servers could result in your account being compromised, stats to be altered, or even banned from EA Origins.
To complicate matters further, Bazajaytee posted further along in the thread that “if your account gets banned, it does mean that any EA game you have on your account would also be unavailable.” This is concerning, considering my time in the Battlefield 3 beta I could see modded servers directly in the server browser. Will EA be actively removing the modded servers from the browser? Is it possible to join a modded server through the quick join button, and if so does my entering a random server and capturing a point to see +20,000,000 experience put me at risk of being banned and losing access to my other games?
I hate to use the L word, but this sounds legally questionable.
2. The Feeling Of Playing Torchlight, But In An MMO
I love Torchlight. Granted, I bought it way back when it was released and never got around to playing it up until a few weeks ago, but nonetheless I consider myself a big fan of the game. Shortly through my playthrough, I started to understand the positions of people I’d seen posting on the MMORPG forums, about how Torchlight is the game MMOs should aspire to be more like.
So I started taking a list of things I enjoyed about Torchlight that I hated with an MMO. Loot became a thing of the past, because all I had to do was send my wolf off to town to sell my things. Gone were the days of trudging back to town with my pockets full every fifteen to twenty minutes, or doing side by side comparisons of what to keep and what to destroy based on its worth. All I had to do was move the items to my pet’s inventory and click a simple button, and two minutes later my trash became cash. As for my cash, I think I’ve spent most of it on reviving myself over buying anything. The enemies I’ve fought drop so many health and mana potions, not to mention I picked up a heal self spell, that I’m never in need of resupplying.
My favorite part, without a doubt, is upgrading my gear. My weapon cycles maybe once every ten levels, but the feel of finally getting my hands on a more powerful weapon is exhilarating. At one point, I came across a ram head-shaped one-handed mace that carried almost double the attack strength of my sword. So, ditching my sword and equipping the mace, I threw myself into the nearest crowd of mobs and bathed in their blood and crushed bodies. The weapons feel powerful, as though my mace is actually busting some skulls.
That being said, Torchlight also shares my frustrations with MMOs, specifically in the sense that bosses are just bigger versions of existing mobs but with more health, higher defense, and more powerful attacks. Unfortunately with the game’s hack and slash nature, I probably haven’t noticed if any bosses had the capacity for more intelligent tactics than chase player -> attack player, because I’m too busy breaking kneecaps and setting my pointer finger up for early onset arthritis.
3. I Can’t See Why An MMO Lottery Wouldn’t Work
I see this a lot on various game forums, the question generally comes up of “why can’t we have a lottery where players buy tickets and then at the end of the month a winner is decided for the jackpot.” The discussion then rises and buckles under the complaint that players would be rich through sheer luck and with no time invested. Now that is half of a lie.
The real issue that players oppose is the time invested aspect over luck. It has nothing to do with luck, luck is an inherent system in MMOs. After all, it is luck that I managed to kill thousands upon thousands of dragons and never obtained their rarest drop over the course of a few months and a hundred hours of grinding, while the other guy managed to saunter in and grab two of them in a good long five hour play session. If people didn’t like the idea of getting rich in MMOs based on luck, we wouldn’t have any of the systems that we do, and most of your items would be completely useless thanks to high drop rates.
So forgetting luck and throwing off time invested, why not have a system where players can buy lottery tickets and have the chance at winning the pot? It’d be a great idea for a money sink, all the rich players who would gamble away their riches in a lottery and never win anything, with a percentage of the total amount invested going to the actual payout.
4. The Fact That TOR Is Still Buyable Concerns Me
Ever since Bioware announced that The Old Republic preorders would be throttled to allow for a smooth launch, the chatter has not died down at all. Now, we know from an EA financial release that The Old Republic has already become the best preorder title in EA’s history, but the fact that the game is still for sale with release just months away raises a few questions.
The optimist in me is saying that this is a result of Bioware upgrading their server structuring as the preorders continue to roll in, upgrading stability and adding more servers where needed. The pessimist in me says that players are going to be greeted by the exact same closed door server queue that the throttling was designed to prevent, or just temporarily barring accounts on launch day under the name of “first come, first serve.”
As much as I try to ignore the pessimist in me, he is loud, obnoxious, and unfortunately has his moments of insight. The Old Republic’s launch in December is going to come under heavy scrutiny if Bioware doesn’t ensure smooth sailing from the get-go, which as previous titles have shown is akin to the Wright brothers attempting to invent an airplane that not only flies but performs so well that no future model could improve upon it.
5. You Know What? I Don’t Want Those Games Back.
I talk about nostalgia a lot here, but push coming to shove I don’t think I’d want a lot of those old, missed MMOs back in action. I recently got my hands on Freedom Fighters on the PC, and with all that I remembered about it I stopped playing the game about a quarter of the way through the story mode because I just couldn’t stand it anymore. The game was not as I remembered playing it back in 2003, just because I’ve become so accustomed to things changing and, for the most part, getting better.
I didn’t remember the game handling so clunky, or the areas that would instantly kill you if you didn’t perform an action somewhere else, or how your weapons had near zero accuracy. As a result, Freedom Fighters just doesn’t have the same place in my heart that it did before I installed it. So in that sense, I’d like Tabula Rasa, Chronicles of Spellborn, Shadowbane, and the other games to stay where they are: Dead. Otherwise you’d be killing my youth.
I told you I’d eventually hit the Sunday deadline for Week in Review. I’ve found through MMO Fallout the deadlines I set for myself often conflict with what I’ve heard referred to as a “lack of respect for authority and tendency toward inappropriate analogies.” Personally I equate the situation more to the first few seasons of House, where the producers made numerous attempts, and failed, to provide a running antagonist for the show. The issue at hand was that the viewer knew House would never be fired, taken to jail, die, or otherwise be removed from the show. After all, the show is named House.
For a while I considered handing the reigns to MMO Fallout to another person, as a clerical manner first and foremost with no real notable effect on the website itself (aside from increased productivity). You can hopefully understand my reasoning for not doing so. So instead, I’ve dedicated more time to working and producing articles and pieces, again working on video features at some point.
1. Jagex Rebuilding Trust In The Community
Originally I wanted this spot to talk about Jagex’s upcoming convention show: Runefest 2011. In Jagex’s advertising for the event, they mention a chat about bot busting, including offering a platform for people to inject their ideas for fighting gold farmers and cheaters, as well as laying out some of their plans for the future of the game. What really caught my eye was a tweet from Gregg Baker, which I retweeted today.
Lots of strategy meetings this morning. Today is the first day we rebuild trust in the community!
I am personally interested in seeing where this goes, as Jagex’s relationship with their community has always been up and down. With issues from rampant cheating and goldfarming, to Jagex’s apparent lack of enthusiasm for Stellar Dawn and corruption and incompetence in the player moderator group. No one hopes more than me that this isn’t just another PR move with no motion behind it, as Jagex has been known to pull in the past.
2. Why Were People Unsure About The Old Republic’s Subscription Fee?
Now that Bioware has officially confirmed the price of The Old Republic’s subscription, the threads have died out. That being said, did anyone honestly believe that Bioware would charge anything other than the traditional cost ($15 USD) depending on your region? I can’t even begin to count how many threads I encountered on various boards proclaiming “I won’t buy this game until Bioware confirms a monthly cost.”
For EA to charge more than $15 would be suicide for the MMO. For them to charge less than $15 would be a delightful change from the norm. Given the enormous nature (and cost of development) for The Old Republic, it was safe to assume from the start that the game would carry a traditional monthly fee.
3. Hellgate Meets Tokyo
And now my promotions for Hellgate Global are out of date. T3fun has released the Tokyo expansion for Hellgate Global, so you can no longer play the entire game with a simple five dollars. The entire announcement can be found here, along with the reveal of the base defense mode, cow room, new events, and more.
The Tokyo ticket costs 2,000 tcoins, or $2 USD, but you’ll still have to add a minimum of $5 to your account, or $10 if you want to buy the Act 3 ticket and Tokyo ticket together. If you buy both, you will have four thousand tcoins remaining, which if you aren’t a fan of the cash shop items can be held until a following expansion is released.
Otherwise, you should be able to buy the Tokyo ticket in the cash shop. It is currently selling between 360,000 and 1 million palladium. I was able to secure mine for approximately 375,000.
4. Healers Healing Healers, My Only Weakness!
As a solo player, my worst fears come true whenever I see my arch-enemy: The double healer mob group. Continuing talks on Hellgate Global, I came across a moderately sized group of Riders, centaur-like creatures that have strong melee, strong defense, and strong ranged attacks. The group of five or six were accompanied by two Dragoons, the mob that heal other Riders. As I would attack one dragoon, the other would heal it. If I attacked the Riders, the dragoons would heal it.
This can be chalked up to bad balancing on T3fun’s part. The fight would have been over much sooner if it weren’t for the fact that there was no cooldown on the Dragoon’s heal ability. As long as I was shooting, the Dragoon was able to endlessly heal the damage I dished out at a faster speed than I could dish it. I did eventually kill the one Dragoon making the rest of the fight much easier, but only because it bugged out and stopped moving completely.
5. John Smedley: “We Always Wanted To Make DC Universe Free.”
I’m going to do what few have done before and say that John Smedley is a good businessman. He may not be friends to hardcore gamers, but he is a good businessman. He has a good eye where the market is trending and has done a great job with DC Universe and the other recent Sony MMOs. I’ll even go further and say that the cancellation of The Agency might have been a good thing, as I’ve said before Sony never appeared too enthused about the project to begin with.
But moving forward, I wanted to take a look at Smedley’s comment about free to play being their original vision for DC Universe, and it makes me wonder if DC Comics had something to do with the game being subscription at the start. To me, he is conveying that Sony wanted to make DC Universe a free to play title from the start, but some outside force stepped in and said “no, you must have a box price and subscription.”
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.
MMO Fallout wouldn’t be what it is today (and that isn’t say much as it is) without the inspiration I receive from reading forum posts, so this week’s Week In Review is dedicated to all of the completely non-biased people out there who registered at MMORPG.com to explain to me why x-company is a scam outfit and why x-MMO will probably stab me and steal my kidney…but you don’t have an agenda. I read these threads, too. Not to gain any insightful information, but purely for the entertainment. From an aesthetic point of view, it’s like seeing a homeless guy in a dirty, patched up trench coat in New York City holding a sign that says “the end is near” screaming as loud as he can for someone to listen to him. So you do, and you even throw five bucks in his hat to contribute to his meth habit device to stop the apocalypse.
I spot the good threads immediately on the thread ticker, because they always sound the same: “Unbiased preview of Star Wars: The Old Republic” devolves into why the game will flop and Bioware will go bankrupt. “Honest thoughts on ____ from a fanboy” is one that gets me. I don’t think anyone is questioning your genuine nature, perhaps the reason your thread is being trashed is because your thoughts, although honest, were neither educated nor enlightened.
So instead of going over some news, I’ll use the top 5 list to talk about some topics of interest.
1. DUST 514 and Final Fantasy XI: Could Signal Playstation Vita Dominance
I love and hate the idea of MMOs on the Playstation Vita, but all signs point toward the system being able to support true MMOs. Square Enix has already signed on to port Final Fantasy XI over, and CCP wants to put DUST 514 on the console, hopefully with more titles in the future. Should the Vita (with its 3G internet) prove capable of bringing the genre to a portable mode, I think we’ll see more companies jumping on. Then we might see a World of Warcraft port to Playstation Vita, and all productivity would be gone.
But in all serious discussion, having MMOs on the Vita would certainly drive the system up. Pulled away from the computer during a raid in World of Warcraft to go to the store? Sign off on the PC, and sign back in on the Vita, and you won’t have to worry about your random dungeon group putting you on ignore or calling you names or something.
Addiction? Thy name is Vita.
2. Now We Play The Waiting Game, Faxion Online
At this point, Faxion Online is in about the same position Chronicles of Spellborn was two years ago, minus the commitment from Acclaim to keep the title going. The game is online, but apparently has no one working on it. The servers are online, but the game has no support. The question that remains is how many people are still investing money into a game that may shut down as soon as later on today, or as long as a year from now, with no measured response from UTV? A look at the forums would tell you nobody, but the big spenders are also generally relatively quiet about their spending.
Otherwise how would Alganon still be running?
3. How Many Last Times Do You Need?
Ubisoft released a game. Normally I need not say more, what with many of your thoughts immediately turning to the topics of shoddy PC ports, brainless DRM, and bugs. The release of From Dust brought with it controversy, not just because the game is being hailed as a buggy port of a console game, but because players feel lied to over the inclusion of Ubisoft’s famed always-on DRM, requiring the user to be connected every time they start up the game, rather than the “one time activation” Ubisoft previous promised.
But Ubisoft doesn’t work MMOs, and From Dust isn’t an MMO, so why the notch here? If I had a nickel for every time I saw the same person posting “I will never buy from ____ again,” I would put those nickels in a sock and beat them with it. The repeat offenders, moreso, because they are often the worst. Here is a thought: When a company is known for lying about its products, perhaps the best idea is not to pre-order them.
For example, I didn’t pre-order Gods & Heroes from Heatwave Interactive because I know fully well how indie developers fare with MMOs. Oh I’ll buy it, but not until the price comes down on the boxed copy.
4. No, You Won’t Get Banned For Your Language Of Choice
Hellgate Global is one of a few games I play that carries international servers, yet officially expects players to speak English. Barring the obvious “not everyone speaks English” bit, I’ve found that none of the GM’s in-game were actually willing to ban a player for breaking this rule. In the closed beta, they popped in every now and then to say “please speak English only,” but that was the extent of the enforcement.
As long as you aren’t spamming, you should be fine. To the players who fill the chat box by whining about the players not speaking English, there is an ignore function and I suggest you use it: I certainly have to block your posts.
5. What Happens If The Old Republic’s Servers Buckle?
I think I’ve brought this up before, but it warrants repeating. Bioware has confirmed that they are artificially limiting the amount of copies of The Old Republic being sold before launch, and at launch, in order to ensure that players are not stuck behind queues, servers crashing, intense lag, and other rounds of downtime that affect virtually every MMO upon release. After launch, Bioware will increase the amount of copies available as they see fit, and as their server structure is capable of supporting those players.
So I don’t think it needs to be said that some of TOR’s success at launch will be directly tied to Bioware being able to keep their servers steady. After all, nothing says alienating potential players by first telling them that they can’t buy the game, but then turning around and having those safety measures be for nothing. On Rift’s side, Trion has avoided adding servers by continually increasing server capacity.
MMO Fallout 