Hengist

The Old Republic did not start dropping good info until the very end of the week, as an embargo dropped allowing Fan Sites and press to start talking about their recent experience at Immersion Days. That’s a big reason I’m five days late in getting my thoughts together, as once again I’ve got a couple of things that I think are worth bringing up.

-Dromund Kaas (Sith Captial)

Immersion Days

The press had some time in the UK, and at some EA studios while fan sites were invited down to Austin for a few days to get some serious hands on time with The Old Republic. We all saw my rather venomous diatribe last week at the PC Gamer (UK) article. This week it flared again for a bit over a nothing UK tech review site: Bit-Tech. While I’m going to guess that Bit-Tech got a record amount of hits this week and can call it mission accomplished, I am going to suggest that I approve of his negative preview simply because he stuck to his guns. He had his mind made up in advance and Bioware was unable to change it. If you have a chance go ahead and read it, and you can compare it to some of the professional pieces that appeared this week. The internet, what a powerful tool that allows any idiot with access to make his opinions known, even me!

On Day One the groups had their choice of Imperial Agent and Bounty Hunter and were told that they could go as far as they could get we got to see a ton of previews on both classes. On Day Two as I understand it, they had a little more time with those classes but then they hit a point where they got to PvP and play any class that they wanted. Unfortunately those experiences are still under embargo, so we are unable to discuss them right now.

I’m just going to pull a sample of quotes about the experiences. Forum member Dyves was kind enough to pull this list together, so drop by the thread and thank him for taking him time to do that!

-Dromund Kaas-

• After playing Taral V at PAX East, and now The Black Talon at the Fan Site Summit, I feel confident in saying that fans of this kind of group content have all the reasons in the world to believe that BioWare is going to deliver in this area (Lethality, Ask A Jedi)
  
• Out of all the ways Star Wars: The Old Republic is excelling, the one prevalent strength it has for me is how it has this pervasive momentum, the same kind that we see in BioWare's best works, where the more you play, the more you want to keep playing. Nem'ro's Palace alone has several conversational NPCs, many of whom will open up possibilities to new quests. There's compulsion to just wander the world, kill things, and just soak in the Star Wars universe, but I'm also conflicted in wanting to forward the plot, side missions or otherwise. It's a nice problem to have (G4TV)
  
• As an Imperial Agent. This is a Sith character, focusing on stealth, subterfuge and sabotage. And perhaps what most surprised me was that this isn’t just what defines my skill tree. It changed how I play the game (Rockpapershotgun)
  
• I think the crucial thing I took away from two days with the game was that I wanted to carry on. It frustrates me that I can’t keep playing, and I’m pretty certain that’s the key to both a good story-led RPG and monthly subbed MMO (Rockpapershotgun)
  
• I'm still not sure how I feel about the Imperial Agent's overall play style, but I really liked the story so far. Having a secret identity made me feel like a ******, and in classic Bioware fashion, there were tough decisions to be made (Dana, IGN)
  
• While we couldn't fully attach to our characters over the two days we were allotted with the game, we were given free reign to get as far as possible in the PvE campaign, talk to any NPCs, take on any quests, and run any flashpoints we could find. And the game is looking great—expansive, immersive, even a little moving in parts. [Bioware] has accomplished the meshing of online play and RPG better than any of their predecessors (Arstechnica)

Here is a list of those articles, some great info, and if you enjoy any of them, please make sure you take the time to let the writers know.

Those are just a handful of the comments people had in general about their time with The Old Republic. If you take the time to visit the thread, you’ll see what was said about combat, the UI, animations, and the environment.

This isn’t exactly a newsflash but by in large people are really enjoying their time with the game. I know that nobody is ready to call The Old Republic a “sure fire” winner of this round of MMO releases, but the signs are stronger and stronger that it will sell a massive amount of boxes, and should hold gamers interest for a significant period of time.

I’ll also have to make a pitch again this week for Gamebreaker.TV’s episode: The Republic Episode 38, Hand’s On. The more of these I watch the bigger fan I become of what they do. This week the special guest was MikeB (aka Fony) from zam.com. He was one of the journalists who got to play The Old Republic and he spent an hour sharing his experiences with the game. I wanted to note that MikeB has always been someone who seems to have enjoyed more action MMO’s and not someone who is into role-playing at all. If you listen to him talk, you realize (and he realizes as well) how wrapped up in the game he really became.

The Old Republic isn’t going to appeal to every gamer or every MMO player out there, but with everything that it is offering, and its introduction of real story to an MMO players should begin to take note, especially if you haven’t done more than give it a passing look.


Character and Community

I’m not going to look at Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies thru rose colored glasses and say how great they were. (ICQ anyone?) I recently was talking with some folks about what made characters memorable, and I found that some of the first characters I ever had in MMO’s are ones that I remember mostly strongly. For me, I felt that because of the community and the depth of my involvement, those characters took on a much stronger “personality”. The past six or seven years of MMO’s, I’ve spent time in many MMO’s, and some good times, but if you asked me what specific parts of my time in game, or my character stood out I would be hard pressed to name more than a couple. In fact, I found experiences blurring together, so that a character I played in Vanguard got confused with what I played in EQ2. Strange isn’t it, that I remember the long past better than the recent past?

I know that some of you reading this are going to say “Hengist, nothing compares to your first MMO’s, and that’s why you think those are better.” I’m not saying that they are better though, but that my experiences stuck with me that much more. Partly because of the community, and partly because of depth of character than only can be built by a community.

This wasn’t all just randomness, I do have a point. If you have spent even a couple of minutes looking at The Old Republic I’m sure you’ve seen or heard the focus on story. For the first time since those games I mentioned, I’m excited for my character. Instead of a random character that appears in the middle of a quest hub off to follow a path to level, now I have a reason for doing what I do. I cannot express how much that means to me as someone who values a character having personality. So what about community?

This is the double edged sword with The Old Republic. While I once again have a reason to care about my character, it is given to me thru the story and not thru my involvement with the community. I have no idea how robust a guild system we’ll see in TOR, but honestly games like Warcraft, Warhammer and Rift have guild leveling systems but they feel extremely hollow to me. What they offer is perks, not reasons to be a part of a group, there is subtle difference that somehow developers seem to not understand.

I’m not passing myself off as smarter than developers. They spend oodles of money on market research so they know what their demographic really wants. I’m speaking for myself. I’m hoping that over the next few months we can start some roundtable discussions about The Old Republic, and our place in that universe. I’d like to see if Aureus Knights cant build its strongest in-game community and presence in a game since our inception. We wont let strength be determined by numbers but by our commitment. Let’s set some goals in advance, see if we can plan ways to reach them. We’ve always been a guild that strives to have fun together, so lets make sure that our definition of fun means we get to achieve all that we want, and do it As One. (There we go, this weeks’ wonky music tie-in! A little Dropkick Murphy’s never hurt anyone! Besides bagpipe music is good for the soul.)

Aureus Empire is watching you!

Of note Wednesday May 4th is “International Star Wars Day”, and we’re also hoping to get some info on a potential release date thru the EA Investor call. Who knows?

Video of the week: Sith Armor Progression

May the Forth be with you!