Star Wars: The Old Republic (Final Thoughts)

Star Wars: The Old Republic was the game I knew for a while was going to be the game I quit World of Warcraft over. Several of my WOW friends were invested in the game, and so burned out on WOW that there was no way they were going to stick around after TOR came out. Even I quit WOW before The Old Republic shipped—there was no point in playing any more when everyone I knew was pretty much gone and raiding in Cataclysm had become too much of a social drain.

I had high hopes for the Old Republic, and at first the game made a very good first impression. The idea of a story based MMO was very cool to me, and the presentation of the game was worlds above that of any other MMO I’d played. I had various fantasies about my days with FFXI, which had some very interesting stories wrapped around a completely unforgiving social system that left people spending more of their time waiting to get into a party than actually in a party. And I had a core group of friends that I had to experience the whole game with.

And now, some 6 months later, I see SW:TOR as something of a failed experiment for Bioware and EA. Yet, I also think the game shows a blue-print for how other companies might very well be able to succeed moving forward.

Yet I did call TOR a failed experiment. And I truly believe that. The problem is that TOR tried to take a traditional single-player WOW experience and wrap its quests around a central narrative. This, I think is actually a very good idea as it turns what is in every other MMO the least interesting part of the game into its central feature. But, in reality Bioware completely failed in the execution of this concept.

TOR may have had 8 separate storylines, and two completely different experiences, but simply put it ALL sucked. In fact it sucked hard. At first I really tried to get into it—but very quickly the reality of it set in and it was apparent that TOR’s storylines were bland, disinteresting, and in many ways completely infuriating. It took something that should have been truly grand and epic, and made it very much like watching C-SPAN.

TOR’s story presentation was about as bland as you can get. Almost every cut-scene was simply about people talking. Actual action was rare, and poorly presented. I mean when the War starts—the one hinted at for 40 levels, you don’t even get to see a newscast or a single ship. Instead someone just says, ‘The War Started. We’re already almost defeated and about to lose the war. Here have a quest that has nothing to do with that.’

It doesn’t help that the Republic storylines were horrible. And as a Republic player who hit 50 with 2 characters I can say with certainty that the Republic should fall. And just about every senator and military official should be shot as a traitor, or shot for complete incompetence. J

To put it in better terms, a Star Wars story should be epic. It should be epic-feeling. It should have serious consequences. It should be about the battle between good and evil, and the shades of grey in between. Yet, SWTOR’s story never at any point showed any evidence of being epic. Mostly the storyline was presented in the most boring and generic manner possible. You go up to a quest giver, you watch him spout off whatever BS he has to say, spout a few agreements/insults in return…knowing that none of it had any real consequence at all. Because consequences would screw up the quest line for the zone you were in, and the game couldn’t compensate for that.

Just how many times can you directly disobey General Garza, only for her to bitch you out one second, only to give you praise and a new mission in the same conversation before you realize that none of it matters? How many sith agents can you uncover before you realize that if the Republic was that heavily infiltrated that you might as well hand them the keys to the Kingdom (and of course, in some cases, like on Corellia, that’s exactly what happens).

Let’s face it. TOR’s leveling game was short—yet STILL extremely boring and unfulfilling.

There are other areas where the game failed. Its combat system wasn’t tight enough, for example, especially in instances or PVP where it really mattered. The game engine just couldn’t handle it without lag. Its end game (at least non-raiding end game) was a snooze-fest of dialing and instance grinding that got old fast. Its PVP was at best annoying (and I’m beginning to realize that faction-based PVP, especially 2 faction based PVP is a very bad thing), and each class just had too many abilities to feel comfortable at high levels.

It wasn’t all bad. The companion system was cool (and really helped keep solo combat interesting). Its legacy system was good. Its starter 2-man dungeons were kinda nice—and I would have liked to see a lot more of that honestly. And the gearing/mod system is something that is actually pretty cool. I won’t comment on TOR’s raiding game, because I’ve never experienced it. It could be awesome, I don’t know. I do know that there are several very active and successful raiding guilds on my server, so it’s certainly not horrible.

Despite its troubles, TOR remains one of the better MMOs out there. And while it’s not even a year old and already in decline, that I think is more of a general MMO trend, and one inevitable with TOR’s more story-based design. There is still a lot of promise in the game, and if Bioware can pull off regular story-based expansions that actually feel more like a epic single-player experience with an MMO attached to it, I think they can keep this game going for quite some time. (In some ways I think TOR would benefit from the Guild Wars model…no monthly description, but you buy regular expansions).  

But, for me, my time with the game is quickly coming to an end. I’ll be quitting soon, and really I’ve only been logging in for ‘game night’ for over 2 months now anyway. I’ll probably come back to check out its next major expansion (just like I plan to come back to WOW for Mists of Pandaria, even if it’s just to level to 90). But TOR wasn’t able to hold my interest in the long term. And I probably wouldn’t have stayed as long as I had if not for the group I was with taking so long to get to 50 in the first place.

Still, those first two months were the game were a blast, and that while the polish certainly wore off, I’ll probably still look back with my experiences with the game with fondness years from now.  I just wish the developer's had not stuck so close to the WOW formula, and really worked towards making a completely different story-focused experience. The concept feels right to me, and who knows, maybe there's still time for an expansion to fulfill that goal. Or for some other company to take the core concepts in TOR and execute them well.

My Life as a Retired Raider

(but not a retired MMO player)

It’s been over a year since I quit World of Warcraft, and quit raiding. The reality of it was that my personal life, despite not being married, is just no longer compatible with the raiding life-style, and hasn’t been for quite some time. I seriously stressed over it for a long time in WOW before I gave up, and I would have probably stuck with it even longer if my friends had remained playing. But, people moved on, and the reasons I had to stay evaporated just as my patience with trying to revolve my life around a 3 or 4 night a week raiding schedule ran out.

But even though I’ve quit raiding, I’ve not stopped playing MMOs. After WOW, a group of my RL friends began with The Old Republic, which we started when it came out. After the initial rush, we settled  into a 2-night a week schedule, where we leveled as a group and did instances. It took us a long time, four months, to hit level 50 (in a game where even semi-core people were hitting 50 in 2-3 weeks). And in that time I played several different characters, getting 3 others into the level 35 range, and another to level 50.

The SWTOR end game is very much like WOW. It revolves around raiding, and hard mode instances for gear in PVP; and badly unbalanced PVP grinding for PVP. Raiding is pretty much a no-go for me. Even if I was interested in it, none of my friends are, and those that do are in the same boat as I am. Raiding is fun, but it’s not worth the time commitment anymore.  

This has completely changed the end-game for me, for obvious reasons. It means that as a level-capped character, I am pretty much limited to daily grinding for tokens for better gear…and I’ll pretty much never be able to keep up even if I wanted to. And daily-instance grinding just isn’t that fun by itself.

Playing with a group of RL friends really helps with an MMO, but the specific way we went about playing the game also hurt us. For one thing, we formed our own guild. It was only the 4 (and later 6 of us), it was just a group for us to have a shared channel, etc, and in that regard it was perfect. But it also meant that when we were together, we never really made contacts with anyone else. The entire experience of the game became very sheltered—I’ve yet to do any instance with anyone outside of my friends (even though I’m a Sage healer, and shouldn’t have too much trouble getting a group).

And since I played SWTOR much more casually, I never even now understand all of the mechanics of the game. MMO mechanics—changes to game systems, item lists, crafting, new vendors, etc, are usually pretty cryptic. The developers pretty much expect you to look this stuff up yourself. And even now I find myself out of the loop. SWTOR is a game that needed a lot of polish and changes, and I’ve not really tried to keep up with them.

Of course part of the problem is that as a group, I’ve pretty much just played with my friends and have no outside contacts in the game. And as a non-raider, there is something of a glass ceiling—already I’m slowly reaching the point where better gear becomes a near impossibility without taking the next step. I’ve hit level 50. I’m in the instance-grind. But when I’m done, then what?

This is a core issue with most MMO’s I’ve played, but one that’s never been a real issue because I’ve always been on the other side of the ceiling. Most of the raiding guilds I ever played in were always in the top 5 of the server I was in—capable of doing the most intense raids, but not as quickly on the uptake as the best.  And most PVE end games cater to the raiding crowd, at least in the games I’ve played. And that leaves the rest to always sit in second place, at best.

I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon. But it also means that my commitment to any one game isn’t as great, unlike it was in WOW. My time with SWTOR is almost done. I’m ending my subscription in 2 months, when Guild Wars 2 comes out. My friends and I are pretty much committed to making that switch. And in a lot of ways the game sounds like it will fit my new play style very well.

In the meantime, I’ve tried Tera, which I’ve also had a lot of fun with even with the short amount of time I’ve spent with it. It shows me that even now, I like the MMO style. Tera may have an interesting combat mechanic, but in every other respect it’s a traditional Everquest/WOW like MMO. Yet, I’ve enjoyed the questing, even if it’s as generic as it gets. Everything is fun, and new, and interesting. And I’ll probably stick with it for the next 2 months, or until I hit 60 (which is the level cap in that game right now). I may even do some PVP and other activities. And then I’ll move on to Guild Wars 2 and start the cycle all over again. And then maybe I’ll try the Secret World, or another MMO that has already come out, but I never checked out the first time through.

This is my life now as an ex-raider. I’m still playing, still having fun, but as my commitment towards a specific game is much lower so is my loyalty to it. It’s not that I’m burned out. But, as the best rewards require more commitment than I’m willing to make—or more specifically the methods of obtaining them are simply not fun enough to go far—in most cases I’m not even bothering to try. I’m much more willing at that  point to switch to something new and different than stick with the grind. This is a perspective that I know most hard-core people strongly abject to, but the reality is that the non-raiding game just isn’t as interesting because of the lack of social context. And because of that I have no incentive to continue, and little loyalty to any one game.

TV Series Renews

Yes, I haven't blogged here for quite some time. Been busy. :)

But, in the spirit of the TV season...I'm very very happy that my two most favorite shows have been picked up for another season! Fringe is getting a season 4 (though this has been known for a while), and now Chuck is getting a series-ending Season 5...awesome.

I'm not going to go into details here, but it's no secret at this point that Fringe's 3rd Season started with a bang, but ended with a whimper. The fact of the matter is that sometime about episode 16 the writers clearly started running out of ideas and the show consistantly returned to annoying concepts. The Soul Magnets / Bell return was cringe-inducing, and the final three episodes regarding the end of the Universe were surprisingly filler-filled and had what I could call a very unsatisfying conclusion. Still everything else about the show this season was top-solid...so I'm quite psyched that we're going to see a season 4 (even if the prospects of a s5 are low).

Now Chuck has consistantly had more problems this year. Most episodes haven't been bad, but they haven't been good either. And while there have been a few standout episodes, there haven't been as many. Chuck is now certainly a show in decline...but despite that it's great to see that it's going to get a series-ending 5th season to (hopefully) go out with a bang.

Chuck's problems are much deeper than Fringe's though. While Fringe suffered from too much padding near the end (and cringe-worthy plots), Chuck's problem is the change in dynamics. And this goes right back to Season 3 and Chuck becoming a 'Real Spy', which was made even worse when Morgan also became a spy.

Chuck was always cool because he wasn't a spy, but when it was necessary he proved that he could consistantly pull through when it was needed. Sure he was unorthodox, and goofy, but his heart was in the right place. But now, as a real spy, his goofiness no longer seems funny--it makes him seem stupid and out of place. And throwing Morgan, who is ten times worse, robs most of the menance from the show as the situations often get too unrealistic and goofy to take very seriously. The bonding of the team has improved, and that's a plus side, but the dynamics don't fit right anymore and the writers have never really adjusted to that. There have been some obvious course-correction attemps (Chuck is no longer quite so super-powered...he now can loose fights even when flashing, for example), but really none of those have helped.

Still, Chuck vs. the Push Mix was one of the best episodes of the show and that alone makes S4 worth it.

Filler

This is filler.

Fun with Books!

I haven't posted here in a bit...many reasons (many still apply). But, as an aspiring writer (admittedly with little ambition at the moment) I've always enjoyed reading. Except in recent years, I've barely done any reading at all. And while this isn't a new years resolution, it's something I've consciously tried to change. In the spirit of that, I've purchased quite a few books last month (mostly cheap) and I've started going through them slowly but surely.

At this point, I've read:

Flood, by Stephen Baxter
Hull Zero Three, by Greg Bear
and Consider Phelbas, by Iain M. Banks.

I might go into a little bit more about this a little later, but man all three of these books (each Sci-Fi, but each quite different from the other) are depressing as hell.

Of the three Consider Phelbas is by far the best, and perhaps the best well known (it's the first Culture novel). It's also the most action-packed of the bunch, telling the story of a single mission by a determined and drive main character in the midst of a galaxy-spanning war. Interestingly, considering this is the first Culture novel, the main character (whom I'd say is an anti-hero) is an enemy of the Culture itself and as such much of the setting is told through his view of things. Very good book, with some admittedly stupid sections, and a devistating dark ending where it becomes clear just how hopeless the main character's mission was all along, considering just how many people he killed in the process of completing it.

Hull Zero Three is a dark sci-fi book set on a mysterious generation-ship gone wrong. It reminded me very much of the movie Pandorum in places; but this is still more of a sci-fi story with some horror elements. The story itself gets dark and twisted, as the main character, Teacher, begins to understand (but never fully) who, and what, he is and what the implications of that are. Another book with a very dark ending, one that I didn't really like honestly.

Flood is a more technical oriented sci-fi book about the end of the Earth, after cracks in the Earth's crust cause a massive subcontinental ocean to spill to the surface in an event which will eventually raise the ocean levels by kilometers--effectively plunging the entire world into the water. It is a rather cold, clinical effort, where the characters are more witnesses to the horrific events as civilization collapses over a period of 50 years, leaving very little hope for humanity's by the end of the book. The book reminds me too much of 2012...without the nice glimmer of hope at the end.

Next up for me, is Ark, the sequel to Flood, which jumps back in the story a bit to tell about a different group of 'survivors' trying to survive the flood (by a effort to colonize another planet). After Flood, I'm not entirely sure how much I want to read it...but we'll see.

Oh, and I forgot about another book, David Weber's Out of the Dark. This one is a war story told about the invasion of Earth by an alien species bent on conquering the planet as part of various manipulations of a larger alien hegemony of worlds that believe humans are too dangerous to survive. The book is very much in the style of John Ringo, telling various tales of human inguinity as they try to fight off their attackers, who just can't understand human psychology and therefore cannot predict their actions. It's actually a very good book, until the end when Dracula and his vampires show up to save humanity in the last 20 pages of the book. Dracula. Vampires. Yeah, I couldn't believe it and it's so out of tone for the rest of the book that it completely ruined the otherwise good story for me.