Knights of the Fallen Empire - An Introduction

So last week the early access for Star Wars - The Old Republic's new expansion - Knights of the Fallen Empire kicked off. And with this expansion Bioware has delivered not only an amazing new chapter (nine chapters, in truth) in their portion of the Star Wars universe, but a host of changes to the game's core mechanics as well. So I thought, beyond the story itself, I'd take some time to introduce returning players and new players to some of the interesting changes released in the expansion.

On Spoilers
While I've tried very hard to not reveal any specific characters or plot points from the story, some of the screenshots and discussion of the content after the story will be, by its nature, mildly spoilerish. If you're fanatical about having a completely pristine experience your first play through of the game, feel free to return to this post after you've finished the nine chapters of the story. If however you just want to know about the expansion and don't mind a screenshot or two that might reveal this or that character that you will encounter, please read on after the cut!

Unholy Alliance & Wookie Mistake Gaming Guilds are all in for Extra Life - Check it out!

One of the very cool grass roots movements that's  taken hold over the past few years, and really grown, is the Extra Life movement.  If you're a gamer at all,  you already know what Extra Life is, but in the odd case that you don't, essentially on a certain day gamers from around the globe promise to play games for 24 hours to raise money and awareness for children's hospitals. It's a fantastic effort that raises thousands of dollars for children's illness and hospitals.  If you'd like to learn more about Extra Life, and maybe participate yourself, please check out their website here.

Sadly, my schedule is such that I rarely can afford to spend an actual 24 hours myself participating, but I try to assist in some way by sponsoring and promoting those that do, however I can. And as you may or may not have noticed, while my blog doesn't get nearly the attention it should from me, I am pretty active on teh social medias - especially twitter.  As a result, I've had an opportunity to form friendships and relationships with incredibly cool folks and organizations that participate in a wide variety of gaming.  And especially of late, that has mostly been centered in and around Star Wars the Old Republic.  One of those folks I've had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with is Stardust Legacy, (follow her on twitter at @UnholyAlliances), and her SWTOR guild & gaming group Unholy Alliance.

And Unholy Alliance is going ALL IN for Extra Life Day. Multiple marathoners, tons of events, all in all it sounds like a heckuva great time, and of course, all for a great cause. So while I personally won't be able to participate in Extra Life day, I will definitely be watching (and sponsoring!) some of the fine folks over there, and I absolutely encourage you to do the same.   Here's the scoop!

You can check out the information directly at their website they've set up for the event here. Please give it a link, and come game with the fine folks at Unholy Alliance on Extra Life day this year!

The Girl with the Golden Gun

So I've been at 60 for a bit now, and wanted to change up the look of my smuggler Kaytte. I saw someone in Fleet the other day that had built an entire outfit with pink and white, and found a speeder that matched in color scheme, and it looked really sharp. Thought I might do something similar. So that sat me down the task of surfing Tor Fashion, and other SWTOR transmog sites, to see what was available and where I could get it.

Operation Overhaul!

See I did a little thing there in the title - did you see what I did? Oh nevermind. So this week the Bioware developers put out a blog talking about what they're doing with instanced content in the new expansion, and holy smokes it's a lot! They're essentially overhauling their entire system. And they also say that there will not be any new operations or flashpoints for said same expansion.  Ostensibly because they're, you know, overhauling their entire system.  So of course if you look at the discussion thread for that blog, you'll find what at current count is a 58 page thread, mostly filled with hate and discontent, regarding the fact that the there won't be a new instance. There's kind of two interesting discussion topics here, so I'm going to talk about them a little bit, separately.

Buyer's Remorse

I don't often fall prey to the whims of my crowd, but I'm beginning to suspect that's what's happened here. I've returned to FFXIV, and picked up the new expansion.  Everything is exciting and new, and I should be happy as a clam.  Except.. it isn't, and I'm not.  So.. what's going on here.

In a Galaxy Far Far Away.. you can earn 12x XP.

So right now, through some indefinite amount of time described only as "the fall" Bioware/EA is giving you 12x XP rewards for any story mission you complete. That's right - that's not a typo. TWELVE TIMES. It's pretty remarkable. It's turned on automatically for subscribers, (which I now am, for the time being), but you can buy an item to turn it off if you like.  The interesting thing is, I actually found myself at a conundrum as to whether or not I would leave it on or not. Here's why.

I've been back in Star Wars the Old Republic for just barely a few weeks. I've hit level 24, and am really enjoying playing. I've been doing the story mission and the side mission, feel like I'm levelling at a decent rate, and queuing for flashpoints when I am appropriate level. I even picked up a few heroic pugs here and there. (There's a visual if you take the sentence out of context!)

So in short - I'm having a pretty good time with the game just as it is. I certainly don't feel a rush to get to the end game. For me, for MMO's, the journey is always far more important to me than the destination, as once I reach it it almost certainly means I'll just be moving on to another MMO that I can level in again. So, I had just about convinced myself to turn it off and continue to play the game as it was originally intended.  Until.. last night.

I queued up for the Athiss flashpoint while I was playing. And up until now, for the flashpoints I've done, my average wait time has been around 25 to 35 minutes. Not great, but not undoable. At least you can plan around it. Last night, after sitting in the queue for an hour, I unqueued, as by then I had to go. That was early in the evening, so I tried again when I got on late. Again, an hour in the queue, and I unqueued. And it occurs to me.. no one's doing these low level story flashpoints. Why would they? Right now, it's far more efficient to level up doing story missions than flashpoints. I also noticed a sharp drop in heroic LFG call outs last night - though that may have just been happenstance.

But if there is one fundamental truth you can count on when it comes to MMO's, it is that the vast majority of your player population will follow the most efficient route they can to the end game - especially if that route is well publicized. Regardless of what you personally may desire, the truth is, what the player population is doing has an effect on your gameplay - whether you want it to or not.

So I decided to get on board. Though I enjoy doing flashpoints, I dropped my quests for all of them and my heroics last night, and found the next waypoint on my story mission and set out. I'll do the story missions, and the occasional side quest when it suits me, and level the way they've set out for me to level. When and if I get to the end game, I'll worry about gearing up and learning to play my character in instanced content then. Most of the guides only give rotations for end-game ability setups anyway, so there you go.

So here we go! Expect to be inundated with more screenshots as Kaytte, our tough as nails heart of gold smuggler traverses the galaxy in search of fortune and riches. And occasionally delivering the odd sandwich here or there to some person in need.

A Long Time Ago..

So this is going to be (for me) a pretty short piece.  To say that the announcement that Star Wars - The Old Republic is going to a free-to-play tiered pricing business model this fall has put the MMO blogosphere into overdrive would be, I think, an understatement.   I wasn't going to post anything at all on the matter - because everyone seems to pretty much already have their minds made up about the matter.  But after reading comment after comment and more than a few full blown blogs on the matter, I felt compelled to repeat a truth that often seems to be overlooked when it comes to MMO's.  A truth that has to repeated just about every time another large scale subscription based MMO goes free to play.  Here is that truth.

Pretty much every play mechanic in every MMO works better when there are more people.

That is the truth.  Groups form faster, Heroics can be completed, PvP scenarios pop faster, the economy works better, trades can complete, and a whole host of other systems all function better when there are more people playing the game.

So when people make statements like "well if the game wasn't fun for you then its just not going to be fun period regardless of whether or not it's free to play or not", well, by far and large, that just isn't true.  Because, as it turns out, most of the carefully crafted mechanics the designers have put in the game to make it fun, are quite likely not working as they were designed if there are not enough people to use them.  So it's actually quite possible - even probable, that the reason you weren't having any fun in the game is directly related to there not being enough people around playing the game.

Now, don't get me wrong, there may be certain  mechanics that have absolutely nothing to do with player population that you hate, and sure enough, adding all the people in the world isn't going to make that better. If you don't like the way boss fights work, well then you're just not going to like the way boss fights work.  But if, say for instance what you hated was you could never find enough people to get into the flashpoint to even fight the boss, or if say for instance you felt like you were flying around on a deserted planet, because you essentially were, then this game is only going to improve for you.

Reducing the entry barrier to a game to nothing brings people into a game.  Lots of people.  People that quite likely might not play otherwise.  And having more people in the game is going to be more fun for everyone.

This is what I know.  I know Star Wars - The Old Republic was losing subscribers at an astronomical rate. I know that for me personally, the reason I stopped playing was that I felt like I was driving around deserted zones.  I personally am thrilled that the people responsible for the game are taking steps that will hopefully revitalize the player population and bring new people to the game.

I don't know if this will return the game to profitability or not.  What I do know is that I'm looking forward to returning to the game and playing it the way that it was at launch - teeming with people.

SWTOR - Finally, a pause and a smile

** Spoiler Alert ** This post contains specific discussion of the Jedi class story quest in Star Wars - the Old Republic.  If you have not yet left Nar Shaddaa and you are playing either of the Jedi classes - and you wish to avoid spoilers in the class story line, please don't read beyond the break (or this paragraph).  If you're ambivalent, or are just interested in my own personal anecdote regarding the story, then please read on!

Star Wars - The Old Republic: A New Hope

By now, if you're reading this, it's quite likely that you've already played more of Star Wars - The Old Repubic, than I have.  But having played now for a few days, and having taken two characters to level 13, and a third to level 7, I've at least gathered up enough play time to have an impression.  And so I wanted to share some of my own impressions of the game thus far, while recognizing that the challenge here is to try to share something that hasn't already been said in far greater quantity and with far more eloquance in dozens of MMO blogs elsewhere.