Hengist

So this has been a pretty dry week, actually it’s the second straight fairly dry week with updates from our friends at Bioware about The Old Republic. I’d sat down early this week to churn out a hard hitting, and yet humorous piece about companions and the role they play in The Old Republic. (Any Star Wars piece I can work in an Elvis reference to Lonesome Tonight is by definition humorous.) At the last minute I put the brakes on and decided to go in a different direction. After all, the roles of companions aren’t finalized, and I wanted a more free form piece to talk about a few random elements that have been on my mind regarding the game. This is my blog, so time for me to either pontificate or to rant. Deal with it for a week.


Revan

If you haven’t played Knights of the Old Republic this may be something you know nothing about, and let me say “shame on you” for not having played thru the game, this is a true RPG classic. Anyhow, one of the biggest characters of this era of Star Wars has been Revan, the hero of the Jedi Order who fell to the darkside only to be redeemed. (That is the canon version at least.) Fans of Knights of the Old Republic and of this era in the Star Wars timeline have generally gone crazy with any mention of his name. Relax, no spoiler, but I will link the timeline video that talks about what happened to Revan. There is at least one video that gives a hint to his fate from the Sith storyline, and then there is now new speculation on his final fate from the Republic story. (Watch the early dialog.)

So what does any of this matter? Simple, the Friday Update for today was news that Drew Karpyshyn, who wrote the story for Knights of Old Republic, and the Darth Bane trilogy is working on a book titled “Revan”. For better or worse, and I’m not sure which it is because I love the existing mystery, we are going to read all about the final fate of Revan. Of course there is no date for the release of the book, in fact, the interview says “This book is months away”, but it also concludes by saying “Revan will go on sale worldwide later this year.” Anyone want to suggest it wont release within weeks of TOR hitting the shelves? Check out the interview!

Knights of the Old Republic is the third best entry into the Star Wars universe behind A New Hope, and Empire Strikes Back. Being totally honest, Revan has been one of my favorite characters in the Star Wars universe, and while I’m not a collector or hobbyist I did actually buy the Darth Revan bust. See how much I like this charcter? My only concern now is that finding out what happened to him robs some of his mystery. All I can say is: “Drew, you’d better not screw this up buddy!”

Revan will be the third book of The Old Republic, following Fatal Alliance by Sean Williams, and Deceived by Paul S. Kemp. The first two books (totally separate stories) are never going to be mistaken for Shakespeare, Hemmingway, or any of the greats, but if you happen to be a fan of The Old Republic, fairly entertaining reads.


The Bad

I think it is time to rant for a little bit. A few weeks ago Bioware started inviting some journalists in to show them the game. They also put on an event in the UK, and are having several prominent fan sites in next week as well. Journalists got to play for two days, level as far as they could, followed by a playable demo of the Alderaan Warzone. This is just a little background for where I am going.

Somehow, PC Gamer (UK version) did not have a competent or intelligent writer on staff that had an ounce of familiarity with the MMO genre as a whole. Instead, what they did have was an absolute hack. I don’t like to give too much attention to folks like this, but as someone who was a journalism student years ago while in college I was actually offended to read his article. I could point to the condescending tone, or the fact that he obviously did not have the most basic grasp on MMO mechanics, but what really got to me, was that throughout the article he did little more than find things to complain about and in the last paragraph he suggests that Bioware has made the right choices. Huh? Talk about a complete 180 away from what you spent your entire article saying. Now I was taught that before I wrote a piece, my job was to research it, to know something about it, and be able to put it in the right perspective. I was taught that your impressions should support your conclusion. The issue here is that our resident hack did not have the cojones to stick to his guns, and say that he did not like it. An alternate idea is that he did come to like it, but he was incapable of writing a coherent or balanced article that expressed both the good and the bad. The final possibility is that he did not like it, but was afraid to essentially “tell off” Bioware, as magazines like PC Gamer depend on ad revenue, and Electronic Arts does carry a big stick. That leaves me with a pretty simple conclusion, either he lacks integrity to stand by his beliefs or he is a horribly incompetent writer who should consider himself lucky to get paid because he lacks skill.

Gamebreaker TV did an episode analyzing the article this week, with Larry Everett from Massively as a guest, and it truly was amusing to watch Larry try to find tactful ways to talk about what was said. He showed some restraint and was a class act.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a fan of TOR, but I don’t pretend that someone can’t have legitimate reasons to dislike TOR, because everyone has a different taste in a games. It’s okay to dislike something, but either stick to your guns, or learn how to write a balanced and fair article, especially when you are paid for your job. It’s integrity, and he lacks it. Here is one difference, this is my blog and I'm sharing an opinion, I'm not trying to pretend that it is anything other than my opinion. When I've brought facts into a piece I take the time to cite, or hyperlink them, so folks can read for themselves. I'm not trying to be objective, and when I am trying to be objective I'd like to think it is evident to anyone who is reading. What PC Gamer published, and what our resident hack wrote is simply a steaming pile of excrement. Nothing more, nothing less. Would you like one other difference? You could say I write a weekly pile of the same, the difference is that I'm not charging for it, and calling it quality.


Rant over, I feel better. You?

The Good

The press event in the UK was under embargo, but some other articles are starting to pop-up, and the information is pretty great. In fact Buffed (German) turned out a great piece about the game. If you happen to read it, and compare it to the previously mentioned article, I think you’ll see the difference when you have a journalist who has a clue about their topic. I’ll leave a link here with the english translation, but be aware there are a ton of spoilers for the Bounty Hunter class.

PC Gamer (US) also arrived in mailboxes this week with some very positive information for fans. Once again, I’ll leave a link for people who are interested in more of the highlights. I think my favorite comment though was “…the game’s PvP system feels like an upgraded version of Warhammer Online.” One of the few things Mythic got right in Warhammer was PvP, and it is nice to see their influence on TOR. Little things like tanks being able to “guard” allies is something I welcome again. In fact the article suggests that the pace of combat is manageable, with no one shot kills. Good stuff, right? Bioware has really focused on story, so now it is great to get a glimpse of PvP.

Roundup

Thanks for taking the time to read, and next week I’ll get back on track. I would expect that next Friday should be a pretty juicy news day as we’ll start to see the fan sites report on what they saw, along with more and more info from the press events. Hopefully we can broach some topic’s soon like ranged tanking, companions, PvP and social rewards among others. If you are interested in the game, I'd highly suggest you take the time to read those two articles!

Video of the Week:

From 2011 Pax East: Fate of the Galaxy


Have you signed up to beta test The Old Republic yet?