Aureus Knights Community - Blogs

Introducing Our Slack Community

Okaria — Sat, 18 Apr 2015 00:17:58 GMT

Earlier this year, our community transitioned from using IRC and Google Hangouts to Slack for guild coordination and our everyday conversations. We really love the Slack experience, which has proven to be a vastly better user experience for our members. Aside from the web-based chat, Slack also offers an array of great desktop and mobile apps for all your devices.

Want to join the chat?
If you'd like to join our Slack community, you can request an invite at http://aks-slackin.herokuapp.com/. You'll get an email invite with a link you need to use to create your account. It'll only take a moment, and you'll be chatting in no time.

Already signed up?
You can sign in from one of the phone or desktop apps, or via the web using any modern web browser at https://aureusknights.slack.com/.

Holding Back Server Names Does More Harm Than Good

RJO — Sun, 25 May 2014 22:43:05 GMT

Carbine is using a tired and ineffective page from the MMO operations play book. In order to avoid mega servers, that is servers that are overflowing with a disproportionate % of the population trying to setup there, they are holding back the names of their servers.

On paper this sounds like a good plan, but the reality is holding back the names of servers removes the ability for large communities to effectively plan.

There was a time in FFXIV Aureus Knights was >~5% of Gilgamesh’s population during prime time and we are only the third largest guild on the server. For us planning the server we go on is one of the most important decisions we make.

We spend around 10+ hours over 3-5 days making our server decisions. There’s a long list of things we research: are there other guilds that occupy our niche? are there guilds we want to avoid? are there guilds we want to be close to? what type of tone do we think this server will have? will we be able to effectively participate in the type of content we want to participate in on this server?

There’s few decisions we take as seriously as server selection.

And when the companies who make these games hold back the server list to the last minute we end up in a situation where we work with highly imperfect information. The end result ALWAYS is that you end up with more imperfect clustering of people.

When we’ve faced time constraints before our goal instantly becomes to pick the second most populated server, it’s really the only decision we can make given the time and information we will have available while still setting us up to be on a server that won’t be dead in the future.

The exercise becomes something like this: Find the most packed server, avoid it. Find a server with a bunch of like minded guilds that’s not that first server, go there. The problem is that second server ends up becoming packed as well when the first server starts to queue up.

The truth is mega servers, or at least full servers with queues are a fact of life at launch. The best servers over the course of a game’s life are usually rather full at launch.

This happens because of a very important reality that no one seems willing to acknowledge. People (guilds/individuals/small groups of friends) don’t pick servers. Each of those entities are parts of a complex social network and those social networks end up on servers in clusters.

Most people don’t say “I want to be part of the XYZ server”. They say “I want to play with my friends, hopefully with my guild ABC and I don’t want to be on the Reddit server”. What you see on a given server is a complex meeting of thousands of people with criteria: A doesn’t want to be with B, B wants to be with C and D, and B and D don’t want to play with E. You repeat that criteria 1000s of times and you end up with a server. It’s a very complex weaving of social networks, individual desires and group think.

Holding back server names does nothing to change this dynamic. All it does is give imperfect information to the “key nodes” in that social network who drive the decisions of their social networks.

I really hope Carbine releases the server list sooner rather than later. I feel they are making a naive mistake.

The Next Gen Kinda Sucks (For Now)

RJO — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 00:14:32 GMT

The Next Gen Kinda Sucks (For Now)
I started this weekend with a bit of a mission - I was going to upgrade some aspect of my gaming life. I more or less thought this was going to mean getting a next gen console and I figured it’d mean getting a PS4.

Now as a proud member of the PC Gaming Master Race I started where I should, could I upgrade my computer in a way that made financial sense?

I recently grabbed a new video card so all I really needed to upgrade to get that new-PC-smell was a mobo/CPU. I figured surely my CPU from 2011 has fallen behind by now - but it turns out for $400-500 (or the price of a next gen console) I was looking at a 5-10% performance gain. So that was out.

With the PC fine I went on to my next assumption - a PS4. I think Sony is my horse in the 8th generation of the console wars (despite being a MS fan in the 7th generation) so I started looking in to it. The PS4 has everything you could want - great living room features (netflix, etc are all there), the highest performance of the generation on a specs basis and $100 cheaper than the Xbox One. Also from someone who loves to stream the included Twitch streaming integration is fantastic as well.

For fairness sake I explored a little bit of the Xbox One offerings and found it just fell more or less short. The only exclusive they have coming up that seems exciting (possibly - its low on my radar) is Titan Fall and it’s on PC, so that’s a meh for me.

I was ready to go, excited. Let’s. Get. A. PS4! But first let’s find a game to get with it! My default position was FIFA, my by far favourite console game (I clock around 250 hours of FIFA a year) but that seemed uninspired for a new console purchase. So I looked. And looked. And looked.

There was nothing. There are no games on either of the consoles right now that are must buy exclusives. Anything available to buy was on the PC or would play just as well on my PS3 or XBOX360.

Well that was depressing. I ended up grabbing a Wii U which despite the fact its way under powered for this generation it rocks a cheap price point and has quite a few Nintendo exclusives that you’d actually want to play.

It was a strange weekend in which I learned the 8th generation of the console wars is off to a slow start.

2012 Prediction Recap: I didn't do so hot edition PART 2

RJO — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 03:57:51 GMT

*** This is the second part of my predictions recap blog post for 2012 ***

Next up, EQ Next:

Everquest Next is announced. It is (at least on paper – all we’ll see this year) a theme park MMO with a fresh approach of mixing in strong sandbox/virtual world elements. EQ:N won’t release until 2013 or even beyond.

I'll take a half point here. EQ Next wasn't announced so much as it was temporarily unannounced. Where I will take the points however is I think I've clearly nailed what EQ Next is going to be based on Smed's comments at SOE Live. It is clear that Smed and Co want to take the game in a new direction. I plan on elaborating on all of this with my 2013 predictions.

PS2:

Planetside 2 ships. Underwhelms the mass market but is a money maker for SOE anyway. The biggest barrier to financial success for Planetside in my mind was the business model – the F2P/Sub hybrid that SOE is really iterating and nailing right now will be a perfect fit for Planetside Next and the game will carve out a solid niche.

I'll take full points here. I think PS2 has done really well and really has captured the attention of PC Gamers, but I don't think its appeal has spread beyond that base. It's a great game and everyone should be playing it.

GW2:

Guild Wars 2 does not ship in 2013.

I should probably get minus points for only dedicating this paltry amount of space to GW2. The game itself is lots of fun, although short on long term depth/appeal/replayability but what I really missed out on was the business model. I think when GW2 did well and made money it was the single moment in 2012 that will forever ring out through the industry. Because of GW2 I suspect 2012 is the year pay to play died. WoW and I'm sure some future AAA pretenders will try and go pay to play but i think free to play is the way forward. And for me, as an old school guy who loves paying subs (because I feel that's how I get the most value out of a game and a studio) I have to admit that's a huge shift in thinking. 2012 was the year free to play won the business model wars, and I didn't catch it. No points.

Firefall / other players:

Some interesting new players enter the scene. Firefall will be the biggest commercial success following a Riot Games/League of Legends rapid build to mainstream success.

This actually didn't happen at all. Firefall didn't release (and those who got their hands on beta have shared with why it hasn't released and there's good reasons). The success story throughout the year continued to be Riot, it continued to be Mojang and Minecraft. 2012 was more of a further entrenching year for the guys who started to make noise in 2011.

Ultima IP:

Electronic Arts does something with the Ultima IP, involves massively multiplayer. I don’t want to guess too much on this one. If I did have to guess I imagine Richard Garriott will NOT be involved at least not in the initial running. After the first announcement goes out EA will realize getting Richard involved in someway will help revitalize and bring attention to the new project. He might end up involved in some token manner (likely involving the Lord British character who he owns the rights to). There was an interview a few weeks ago saying Bioware will be turning their attention to a well loved IP, I believe this is Ultima and this is my predication for what that means.

No points. I really don't fucking want to talk about it.

LoTRO:

Lord of the Rings Online has a bad year. I have no idea how this plays out but I get the sense that the game has turned the corner and the benefit of the F2P switch is starting to run dry for the game. I don’t think the last expansion did overly well.

I think Turbine re-releasing Asheron's Call 2 gives me the points here. To me the AC2 rerelease felt like a bit of a desperate grab for revenue (don't get me wrong I'm very happy AC2 is back!) and I think LOTRO's prime as a beacon of F2P light are over and done with.

Dust:

CCP / DUST – I suspect DUST will not ship this year, particularly after early betas receive overly negative feedback. I have no basis for this, but call it a hunch.

Points plox. (Why the fuck is this game launching on PS3 again?)

Rift

Rift suffers the most from SWTOR. Many MMO vets who burned out on WoW after Cataclysm found a haven in Rift. Even those who have resisted SWTOR in the short term will find the sheer amount of their friends in TOR a strong enough pull to walk away from Rift. Trion needs to announce an expansion for Rift by June or the game’s long term outlook could be called in to question. Don’t rule out a business model change.

I was pretty right here, minus the fact that the real suffering came at the hands of GW2 and not so much SWTOR. They did announce an expansion in the summer. I'll take the points. The business model change might still come, despite the fact I think Trion knows its not very smart to change a game that was designed for P2P to F2P.

TOR as a proving ground for pay to play:

Speaking of business model changes – SWTOR becomes a proving ground for the AAA subscription approach. The problem is TOR has also raised the expectation for what a AAA subscription MMO is. Companies will be more tempted by the Sub model again (counter to the fleeing to F2P we’ve seen in 2011) but the up front cost is a more daunting barrier to entry than ever. Expect this to mean a slow 2012 for product reveals as publishers and the money men figure out what the fuck this all means.

TOR's failure + GW2's success as buy to play = the death of pay to play. And this prediction is why I really didn't get 2012 going in to it. The writing was on the wall (League of Legends, SOE's conversion to pay your way F2P, etc) and I just didn't pick up on it. I was wrong. And quite frankly I'll take a minus point for this one. I really screwed the pooch on predicting 2012 right here.

FFXIV:

Final Fantasy XIV this is a toughy. FFXIV 2.0 is set to release in the fall of 2012. I suspect this date might get missed completely and 2.0 might not happen until 2013. I suspect the decision to start charging for the game this week will kill the game outright in North America. The key question is whether enough JP players stick around to pay the upkeep while we wait for 2.0. If 2.0 does release I don’t expect it to win hearts and minds in North America. It’ll take the PS3 version, which won’t hit until early 2013, to give the game another shot in North America. This will be a dark year for S-E in the MMO market.

This is in a nutshell what happened. Well done Ryan (maybe if I put this success here people will ignore the whole missing free to play thing...). Full points. I have high hopes for FFXIV a realm reborn in 2013!

And my conclusion:

Overall 2012 will be a brighter year for MMOs as TOR brings some fresh air in to the room. There will be less closures, less F2P conversions and just less activity on the business end and a lot more gaming. SWTOR and WoW: MoP will exist together and the MMO sub business will be bigger than it has ever been.

It was a good year for MMOs I think overall. The reason however was because people found new ways to monetize that were up front a better experience for the consumer. And that I completely missed. I couldn't have been more wrong on why 2012 was a good year.

So there we go! What was my score?

Out of a total of 22 possible points I got:
10.5, 11.5 if I don't minus out my epic fail.

This is by far my weakest prediction performance ever. Let's hope I do better for 2013! That post will be coming Soon(TM)

2012 Prediction Recap: I didn't do so hot edition PART 1

RJO — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 03:57:21 GMT

*** This is a repost of a post that ran on my blog adventuresoftaas.com ***

Prediction season - oh how I love you. In most years its a time for me to show off just how insightful and connected I am to the games industry, this year however I suspect might be a different beast. I really didn't see the force F2P was going to be this year (I really did think it'd be Pay to Plays year to come back with a vengeance) amongst other things. So let's get right to it and look at my predictions from 2011 for 2012:

World of Warcraft has a disappointing year that sets the mark for the way forward, Blizzard doesn’t care when they redeem themselves in that fall by announcing Titan in the fall and making a boat load of cash off Diablo 3′s release. Mists of Pandaria will release late Spring/Early summer and it will be the first expansion to not break sales records (that’s not to say it won’t sell by a long shot, but the hype will be muted). The perception shift on WoW will be complete and for most people “the game they go back to” will no longer be a viable home. Subscriptions will continue a 1-2 million year over year decline in line with what was seen this past year.

So a few predictions here. 1) WoW has a disappointing year (I'll also tie in the 1-2 yoy decline prediction here) 2) Blizz announces Titan in the Fall 3) Blizz makes a boatload off D3 4) MoP releases in the spring/early summer 5) MoP does well but doesn't break records 6) WoW loses its status as the "go home to game" for many.

At first when I reread this a few days ago and started thinking about how I did I thought I was way off the mark but reading it over again I dont think I was far off at all. There was a lot of "WoW is dying" hype last Christmas as we were on the eve of TOR launching. I didn't really buy in to that hype (I use conservative language throughout the above prediction, hype will be muted, etc) but I did think WoW would have essentially its first bad trend setting year and you know I don't think I was wrong. So let's break it out:

1) Did WoW have a disappointing year? I think all and all it probably did to an extent. The subscription picture was a steady yoy decline (to the tune of 2 million+) until MOP released and even then the game did not make the subscription numbers back with the expansion. The blizzard layoffs mid year in the WoW customer service area point to the fact that Blizzard realizes that there is now no where to go but down. WoW isn't dying, it will not die, let's be clear. But its best days are finally behind it. I'll take the point.

2) Titan in the fall.

Nope.

3) Blizz makes a boatload off D3

6 million in a week. Yarp. Do I really deserve points for predicting the sky would be blue though?

4) MoP releases in the spring / early summer

Oh Blizzard. I really thought you'd be able to stick to a more aggressive expansion schedule. I guess not.

5) MoP Does well but doesn't break records.

Yep. For the first time a WoW expansion did not break retail records. Between declining sales and a move to digital I dont think you'll see retailers doing midnight openings for WoW any longer...

6) WoW loses its status as the "go home to game" for many

This is impossible to get a read on. But what I do know is that many long time WoW players did retire in the last year. Lots of blogs, big name mod authors, etc packed their bags and went to greener pastures. I won't take the point here, but I might come back in 2013 to collect these as a bonus point because I'm really convinced the "mental shift" away from WoW has occurred, despite reviews of MoP being the strongest WoW expansion in a long time.

Next up TOR:

Star Wars The Old Republic continues at a strong clip. Bioware will break the SOE mould and instead of a 4 patch / 1 expansion a year model will continually deliver high quality content for the price of the monthly fee. Despite this solid evidence/leaks/well sourced rumours of a 2013 expansion will close out 2012. People’s fears that content of Bioware quality will not keep coming will be put to bed when Bioware releases two solid / high content / high quality patches before the six month mark. This does end up masking the complications of delivering Bioware’s level of quality (because the truth is they already have those first two patches virtually in the can and in QA now) and towards the end of 2012 its possible content releases will slow paving the way for the above mentioned expansion in 2013.

Star Wars The Old Republic will face a crisis within 6 months due to their tight lipped community approach. I’m not sure how it will play out but there will be a big blow up caused by lack of communication. It likely will be something silly that just grows and grows within the community (see the handling of the early game access as a microcosm for what this will look like).

Hmm. Let's break this down as follows: 1) SWTOR will continue at a strong clip through 2012 2) SWTOR will break the 4 patch / 1 expansion model and deliver content on an aggressive schedule for the cost of the monthly fee alone 3) Fears of Bioware content quality will be for naught 4) Bioware will not be able to keep with content demands by the end of 2012, as their production cycle will be too slow 5) Community stuff.

1) TOR did not continue at a good clip. I have doubts if they've even made a profit yet despite huge box sales. No points

2) I'm going to give myself a half point here. At first Bioware tried really hard to push high quality content out the door but the result was an extremely slow release cycle that would have put them at the 4 patches a year mark HOWEVER Bioware did call this out as a problem and started to change their approach to patches by shipping content as it was ready instead of waiting for mega patches. So their plan on paper was more SOE, how they ended up executing was as I predicted out of necessity They just would have never shipped if they waited for normal MMO sized patches because of the slowness of their production cycle.

3) Hmm. So far content quality hasn't really been a concern, it's been more a lack of depth. So they are maintaining the quality standard but their production cycle proving to be an unwieldy beast. Do I suffer because of a lack of depth in the content here? Hmm. I'll take half a point.

4) Bioware was not able to keep up with content demands because of their production cycle. Full points thanks.

5) There was no real large scale community crisis however when the first large of community layoffs hit the community team was gutted out and I suspect management saw the same disturbing communication trends I did. I'll take full points here.

*this is part 1, please continue reading at part 2!*

Path of Diablo 2- err I mean Exile

Hugbees — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 14:59:00 GMT

Unlike the Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend, I don't have the urge to really log in and go play Path of Exile. The beta is still going on as of this post for another day, but I feel like I've seen everything the game has to offer already so I might as well detail my thoughts on it.

For those who haven't heard of this game, and I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't, here's a link to the Path of Exile website: http://www.pathofexile.com/ - I've only heard of this game through ForceSC2 on Youtube and if it wasn't for him I wouldn't have heard of it either.

So what is Path of Exile? It's an isometric hack and slash roleplaying game. Or you could just say it's Diablo 2. This game was pretty much made specifically for people who were fans of Diablo 2 who hated Diablo 3. (As evidenced by the world chat in the game, with a slew of people saying "This is what Diablo 3 should have been." or "I actually want to play this, and not Diablo 3!") I made a post about it in the Game News forum, how did that go again?

Path of Exile is a game very reminiscent of Diablo 2. It has dark and dull environments, skill point placements that require you to reroll if you mess up, and pretty much everything else that nostalgia goggle wearing fans liked about Diablo 2.

And this is exactly it. I'm not saying it's a bad game, but PoE really went out of its way to emulate Diablo 2 as much as they could, and I don't think it's really the best idea.

I for one, actually enjoy Diablo 3 more than 2. I loved 2 back in the day, but the game play changes made to Diablo 3, I feel, are better suited for how games are today. I like how colorful the art is, I like how flexible the characters are. I don't have to remake my character because their build is wrong, I can swap out skills whenever. I like how there isn't an infinite gear treadmill that keeps you playing after beating the last difficulty, and you can just be done when you beat the game. My only issue with Diablo 3 is how stats are handled on items, but other than that I like it a lot more than Diablo 2 and I couldn't even stand to play Diablo 2 (and I tried) after playing Diablo 3.

So I've done a lot of talking about nothing, so now I'll talk about what PoE does to copy D2.

-Dark environments. A common complaint about D3 is that it's not as dark and grim as D2. PoE fixes that with dark, gray, and washed out colors for their environment. Now it does fit with the overall story of the game that your characters have been exiled to this god forsaken place, but there's a fine line between an artistic choice to make something dark, and to make it dark because Diablo 2 did it.

-Skill builds. This game offers a passive skill tree. A giant tree with many branching paths that you can put about 100 skill points into and there's around 300 possible passive skills. The only problem is, how you refund your points is limited. I got 2 from a single quest, and I'm going to bet, aside from remaking your character, that buying refund points from the cash shop will be your only real way of fixing a faulty build. People have actually said that your build, if done wrong, will make it near impossible for you to survive in higher difficulties. Why people like that bullshit I'll never understand. It's one thing when a game makes you genuinely want to replay, but not when it's forced down your throat by not finding out your build sucks until it's too late.

-Inventory Tetris. Limited inventory space, got to rearrange everything to make room. It's only there because D2 did it.

-The Den of Evil. There is actually a quest to go into this one place, and kill every monster in it. Just like in Diablo 2. They seriously copy/pasted this quest in.

But... to the game's merit, there are a few things that I did like.

-Flask belt. In D2, you had to constantly find potions and put them in your belt slots. in PoE, you find flasks that recharge as you kill enemies. You start with small flasks, then find larger flasks that hold more charges, and even have different effects like "Instant Recovery" or "Breaks Stuns" or things like that. It's a new twist on old idea and I like that.

-Bartering. There's no gold in PoE. You trade certain items in the shop for gear. To NPCs, you don't trade gear for gear, but rather consumables like Identify/Portal Scrolls, Whetstones that increase a weapon's quality, items that generate new effects on a magic item, etc... Items that you might use for yourself become currency. It's awkward at first, but I actually like this idea.

-Skill gems. You don't learn active skills through a skill tree in this game, but instead you find gems that you socket (and easily unsocket) into your equipment to learn skills. You have a red gem that teaches "Ground Stomp" for example, put it into a red gem slot in any piece of gear, and you get a new skill that levels up as you kill things. It's so easy and fun to move around your skills because you can take them on and off at will.

-The passive skill tree. I like the idea of it, just not how you can screw yourself over with it.

All in all, I only have two real issues with the game.

-Poor quality graphics/animation. The characters all look like from a game from 10 years ago, and the animation quality definitely looks like they were from 10 years ago. The weapons swing like they have 0 weight to them, and enemies don't really show many signs of taking damage. When I first played, I didn't know if I was really doing damage or not because of how little feedback the game gives the player. When I played Guild Wars 2, I felt the power behind each attack, and the enemy's reaction made me feel like I actually did something. Even Diablo 2 had more visceral attacks than this.

-It really is so 10 years ago. When Diablo 2 first came out, it was new and exciting, but not anymore. PoE is stuck in the past, making a game for those stuck in that same past. Gaming has evolved, Blizzard realized it, and it's why Diablo 3 is Diablo 3 and not Diablo 2.5. PoE is like a game that you really loved playing as a kid, but you go back to it now and it just isn't as good.

With that being said, there's no reason not to play it if you're interested. It's going to be totally free to play so it's not like you're losing anything by checking it out. The only thing stopping you is it's going to be released around the same time as Guild Wars 2 (a bit before or after, around that ballpark I believe though) so really, there's no point at all.

"Guild Wars 2 is THE BEST GAME EVER!"

Hugbees — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 13:15:15 GMT

These are my thoughts after playing the Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event 3. While I don't feel this is a false statement to make, I won't just go throwing it around without backing it up. If you remember one of my previous blog posts:

http://www.aureusknights.com/entry.p...omotes-PLAYING

I made a lot of points about the game, that were my expectations based on what I've heard from ANet and other players. I'm going to give you the breakdown of these based on my experience.

"To begin, I love how there is no more holy trinity" - This held up for me. I didn't find myself having to heal people low with health or constantly having to revive them. (BUT I CHOSE TO! :D) I could dish out the damage as my Elementalist and then cast a healing spring. I could choose to go staff and throw out heals with my Guardian then go back with my Hammer and wreck face while still adding a supporting element with my attacks. I could sneak out of combat as my Thief to go revive someone who was down. I felt like I could play how I wanted during combat at any time, and it was awesome!

"It also helps that your level scales down to fit the area that you're in, and even a level 60 doing level 20 content can still benefit from gold and karma rewards." - This worked out too, though I do question how it will affect gear. In any case, I was a level 9 grouping with my level 4 friend in his starting area and the enemies were beating me up and giving me a challenge. It didn't feel like I was running him through the quests or that I was killing much faster than him at all. It pretty much boiled down to this other statement I said: "It's also great for both the down scaled player and the group because the group can do a challenging run of a dungeon without feeling like they getting run through while the down scaled player can revisit content or even explore lower level content for the first time and have it feel he's progressing and not just breezing through it all." I am a tad concerned for really high levels going into starter areas but I'm sure it works out just fine.

The fact that leveling up can be done anywhere with no penalty for leveling in lower level areas mean you can either visit all of the races starting areas, progress in only your own race's area, mix and match, or even pvp your way up to 80. The game allows you to not just complete all of the quests, but play the quests. - After making my Elementalist, I went on to play other characters. When my friend Socran logged in, he wanted to play with my Elementalist so without even doing the first quest I hopped on over to Divinity's Reach and did nothing but quest with him and got up to level 8 purely doing human quests. Now I couldn't do my own personal quests there, but I could help him do his if he wanted to do them.

All races can be all classes. - This was indeed the case, and I'm glad to see how many combinations I saw. They did a good job making each ace feel appropriate as every class.

With Guild Wars 2, enemy attacks are choreographed (and recently, they made them more so than ever to help out melee characters, because ANet listens.) - I do enjoy the red rings that appear around you for you to get out of, though it was hard to see certain attacks with particle effect after particle effect going off. By the third day of BWE3 though, I was getting better at seeing those things more so perhaps it was just my newbishness getting in the way.

One thing Metro pointed out in the comments, that I didn't mention before was "the game world is alive and dynamic." and it really is. I like how events will just happen as you walk by, NPCs will come to you and tell you about something going on and then you follow him (which bugged out quite often sadly, but beta is beta /Totalbiscuit) and it made everything feel more alive.

One thing I should have mentioned before was how easy it is to just go out and play. You can fight enemies without having to group up, so if someone is fighting you can jump in and help without taking their kill or loot. I didn't feel like I was going to be disrupting anyone else for attacking their targets or anything. It was great!

So all in all, this game met my expectations and even a bit more so than that. I discovered things I didn't even know were in the game and there are probably way more things to find at launch. There are about 30 some days until the headstart, and I'm confident that ANet will fix the bugs and further polish the game for launch!

If you hate Diablo 3, you probably hate Guild Wars 2*

Hugbees — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 18:22:13 GMT

*(Not necessarily, but just go with it)

I've seen a massive stream of hate on Diablo 3 in the past few weeks, and it only seems to get worse as time goes on. The main concern (and almost the only one since so many people go on about this) is the loot. I will agree with some of the complaints surrounding it, and for the most part the loot system does suck.

The main issue, at least for me, is that it doesn't encourage any real customization. The best attributes to look for on loot is +to your main stat and +vitality. This means that a weapon for a level 20 with +vit and +strength (Let's say you're a barbarian) is better than a level 35 weapon with +int and +dex (an overall sucky stat combination to begin with, as it has no vit).

But before I go off on an entirely different topic altogether, the other complaint that stems from the loot is that the lack of endgame. Because you can just buy all of your loot from the auction house anyhow, there's no real point to gear grinding to get past Inferno and no point to try to find better gear.

Now let's apply this to Guild Wars 2. Aren't they striving to remove gear treadmills? Aren't they striving to not fall into the MMO trap of releasing new content constantly just to keep players playing for the sake of paying? In my eyes, Diablo 3 is a game where you get to the end, and then you don't need to continue playing. You don't need to keep grinding for better gear just to have better gear. If we can apply what Guild Wars 2 is trying to teach us to Diablo 3, we can see that it's not trying to repeat what it did with Diablo 2 (for the better). I think that in itself is worth considering at the very least.

[Now there are a few things to keep in mind at the time of this blog post:

1. Diablo 3's pvp isn't out yet. That's the one edge Guild Wars 2 has right now when it comes to end game, and the constantly player vs player interaction adds a load of replay value for many people so I can only imagine it'd do the same with Diablo 3.

2. While I think Blizzard did a good job with the game as a whole, with them trying to fix the never ending grind issues of Diablo 2, I won't defend the loot system. I do feel it falls short in that department but not for all the same reasons others say it does.]

Guild Wars 2 - A game that promotes PLAYING

Hugbees — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 18:57:27 GMT

I haven't played Guild Wars 2 yet, but I really want to. I gotta say though, from what I've seen and heard from both the developers and other players the game seems very solid. Personally, nothing that I've seen so far I disliked and I didn't have too many concerns about how a certain game mechanic would work or anything, and any fears I had were quickly dismissed once I read how it would work. But I'm not going to talk about something I've never played, at least not in those aspects, I will talk about a few things that I've seen though, that I can safely say will be awesome just looking at it.

To begin, I love how there is no more "holy trinity". I miss it to an extent, but the way they're handling it will work so much better in the end. The fact that a group can consist of any class combination and do well means you spend less time looking for groups and more time going through dungeons.

It also helps that your level scales down to fit the area that you're in, and even a level 60 doing level 20 content can still benefit from gold and karma rewards. It's also great for both the down scaled player and the group because the group can do a challenging run of a dungeon without feeling like they getting run through while the down scaled player can revisit content or even explore lower level content for the first time and have it feel he's progressing and not just breezing through it all.

The fact that leveling up can be done anywhere with no penalty for leveling in lower level areas mean you can either visit all of the races starting areas, progress in only your own race's area, mix and match, or even pvp your way up to 80. The game allows you to not just complete all of the quests, but play the quests.

Though unrelated, this is still nice. All races can be all classes. I hate when MMOs don't allow for this because it may force me to play a race/class I otherwise wouldn't play to be a specific class/race I wanted to be. It helps you enjoy your experience that much more just because you can be what you want without being subject to needless limitations for one reason or another.

Now compare all of this to other MMOs, that require finding the right combination of classes, toiling away for the right gear, reading up on boss strategies, all things that slow you down or even take you outside of the game and onto google just to be able to run a dungeon. With Guild Wars 2, enemy attacks are choreographed (and recently, they made them more so than ever to help out melee characters, because ANet listens.) meaning you're more likely to learn by doing rather than learn by reading. In fact, the timing and animations for enemy attacks could be detailed enough that you might end up having watching a video on how to dodge it rather than just reading, and you might as well just watch it in game (and you know, dodge it yourself) since it's not any different!

So what we have, is a world where we can be what we want, play where we want, with who we want, when we want. This is not just a MMO, it's a sandbox MMO. A wonderful sandbox, with the sand castles all built for us allowing us more precious time to... say it with me, PLAY!

MOBAs suck.

Hugbees — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 14:19:21 GMT

WARNING: A large, opinionated rant coming through. Also, most of what I say applies to HoN and DoTA(2) more so than LoL.

I don't know what baffles me more, that DoTA, a piece of shit game became popular, or that every MOBA game that comes out follows the same terrible design principles without ever once questioning the formula (League of Legends tries, and while it's the best of the MOBAs in my opinion, it's not really saying much. That's like saying my poop today doesn't smell as bad as my poop from yesterday, in the end it's still shit).

So what makes MOBAs so bad? A lot. In essence, the objective of the game is solid, and the idea of these characters you level up sounds good, but it falls flat on it's face in oh so many ways.

The first thing is how long a single match takes to play. Matches in these games typically take between 30 minutes to an hour. That is way too long considering how brief moments of being AFK can screw you over, especially in DoTA 2 and HoN. So you need to A) Play a game for an hour and B) not go AFK during that time. It's clear the original designer of DoTA has no real life obligations to design a game around two obviously clashing principles like this. Imagine having to beat the entirety of Super Mario Bros without pausing, you had to do it all in one go. Yes the older games didn't let you save, but you could still pause. You can't pause in MOBAs. In MOBAs where there is a pause feature, no one will let you use it if you have to take the dog out or use the bathroom. They only do it when someone disconnects and are waiting for a reconnect, so pausing isn't viable in MOBAs.

Second is how many flaws get ported over to other mobas (I'm done with capitalizing moba, I don't respect the genre enough to care). Some of these include:

Last Hitting - This is something they decided to take all the way to the bank with, and it's stupid. The way it worked in Warcraft 3 is that the player who got the last hit on an enemy creep got the gold for it. It made very little difference in the actual game where the gold drops were minimal. I would say this is a flaw with the engine rather than the game, but they could have done shared income now that I think about it. They also didn't need to take it to the extreme and have you last hit everything possible. Creeps, heroes, buildings, you name it, you have to last hit it to get the most money out of it, but just you, not the rest of your team. I'll get into that later though.

It also doesn't help that last hitting just isn't fun to do. in league it's not so bad, but in dota and hon (fuck capitalization on these names) it's a tedious task that isn't fun to do at all. Nothing is fun about watching the monster's health bar until just the right moment, then right click on it to try to kill it. Repeat that 100 times and you have a one way ticket to the loony bin.

Denying - This just doesn't make sense at all no matter how you look at it. You can kill your own creeps to prevent the enemy from getting experience or gold from it. Imagine if I'm fighting in Iraq and the soldier next to me is about to get shot. Let me shoot him in the head and DENY the enemy the opportunity to kill him. See why this is stupid? This is the shit Dick Chaney got blasted for, so let's put it in our game! It is dota we're talking about after all, so why not make it complete shit, that was the aim here, right?

Losing gold on death - Rofl. All I have to say about this one. In a game where you can't surrender, quit without penalty (yeah you can get banned in these games if you leave matches. It makes sense but still a bit of a deterrent if you ask me), and it's easy enough to get behind on levels, let's make it so you also lose gold when you die. Nothing like punishing poor play with not being able to do anything until the match ends. When this happens, I want to leave, because I pretty much am wasting my time trying to compete with people with way better items than me because I died one too many times. Another hint that the creator of dota lives in his mother's basement, you have to spend your life playing the game to be able to avoid this from happening. You also risk getting flamed by your team, but I'll get to that later.

Hero Balance - None of these game creators know what balance is. You can't tell me Pudge is not overpowered. He has a grab that can go halfway across the map, and if you're grabbed you die. His Rot spell plus his ultimate will kill anyone, because hey, balance. Tiny is another. I can be at full health and get killed in 1 combo by him. Bullshit there's nothing I can do to avoid it. Even riot does it in league. Lee Sin is overpowered as fuck, and there are too many shitty heroes like Renekton who needs to be fed to stand a chance, or Eve who riot admitted was purposely made to be the weakest, probably to have a cover up for how incompetent they are. Of course, if you say that character is OP the person playing them will say "no he's not". I actually admit when characters are overpowered because I've done my fair share of things that I know are just so unfair. But I've never seen one other player admit it, but I'll get to that... right now actually.

Community - The worst thing about these games. Even if the game is perfect, the player base is enough to drive me away. In fact, it's why I'm completely done with mobas. I've uninstalled league, hon, and dota 2 and will not go back to them. I'm tired of doing poorly in a game and having some dumb fuck no lifer asshole yell at me for it. Fuck you buddy, that's when I either quit, rage back, or troll the game to ruin it for that asshole. The best thing to do in league when my team rages at me is to steal red/blue, go to an enemy and die and say in all chat "HEY! FREE RED/BLUE BUFF!" and watch my team's reaction. It's totally justified. If someone is going to tell me to uninstall and kill myself in real life, I have no issue trolling the fuck out the game. I don't believe in just ignoring them and moving on, the damage has been done and for me to just walk away silently is the same as letting them get away with it. It's for those reasons that I can't play these toxic ass games, and it's why I hope they friggin go extinct.

Want to play a good pvp game? Play Guild Wars 2. Battles don't take hours on end, you can't get screwed over by levels or gear because like smart people, ANet made the game based on pure skill and not how well you can last hit things.

The thing that bothers me about these games the most is how little the developers try to change the game. They don't try to fix flaws like long game times, last hitting, they just leave in all of the same Warcraft 3 engine limitations because they fail. dota2 does nothing different, it's the same exact game and that's sad. Hell, I've even heard discussions about not adding or changing certain things like aimplates for abilities because "Dota 1 didn't have it." DOTA 1 COULDN'T HAVE HAD IT! These are the same players that yell at new players for mistakes. They are the same idiots that are why shitty games like this are allowed to exist. dota was a fluke, something that should have never been and I wish wasn't.

I'm not that angry

Hugbees — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 04:50:44 GMT

I read over my previous few blog posts, jesus why am I such an angry bastard?

I'm not really that bad of a guy!

How does Riot even stay in business?

Hugbees — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 12:58:03 GMT

Seriously, the way they handle League of Legends is so piss poor that it's disgusting. Everything they do revolves around getting people to buy their new champions every week.

For starters, they've been pricing every new champion at 975 RP and 6300 IP. Clearly the millions of dollars they keep putting into MLG tournaments isn't enough for them so they just make every new champion cost as much as humanly possible.

Second, they overpower every new champion and then nerf it a week later. Every new champion gets a nerf the patch after it's released, I wonder why. I bought Draven with IP and I can tell you for sure he's getting nerfed. First game I ever played with him I carried so hard. I played about 6-7 more games with him after that and I either carried, or if I lost I still went positive.

Third, they purposely program bugs in their champions that make them OP just to get sales. Darius is a prime example. His ult sometimes would recharge on non killing blows, yet there is nothing in the description of the ability that says it should do this, and when the Draven patch video was released, they passed it off as "We're changing it so his ult only recharges on a killing blow." You mean, like it's only supposed to do? You didn't think we'd notice?

Lastly, runes. Runes are a required part of the game. They are highly stupid on their own, but they give players the incentive to purchase RP. Why? Because the cost of runes is so high that simply buying champions and runes with IP just takes so damn long.

So yeah, I don't know how scumbag riot stays in business, but with DoTA 2 giving you the game plus all heroes for free, I don't see how league will compete.

Oh PC Gaming, how I wiish you'd just go extinct

Hugbees — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 18:39:36 GMT

You have been warned, this is a long winded rant on why I think PC gaming just needs to disappear already. I'm not a computer expert by any means, and I'm only going by my own personal experience with most of this rant. If you can dispute something I say that would totally invalidate my point then by all means please do it, prove me wrong that computer gaming isn't the worst, most inefficient way to play games. With that being said, you have been warned.

PC gaming is something I've never really bothered much with. I would play games on my computer now and then but never really kept up with the latest system requirements. Most games I played were Blizzard games, which purposely kept their games very low range, making it easier for older computers. computers that I usually had, to run games pretty well. Never in a million years would I ever be faced with games that require way more than I owned to run it.

So is my entire argument really based on the fact that since my computer sucks, therefore computer gaming sucks? No, not really. It certainly doesn't make me any less angry about the situation though.

I'm just going to get to the point. Money is a huge problem when it comes to PC gaming. The hilarity of this is that people will talk about how building a computer for $500 is cheap. Why is that funny? Because (today) a Playstation 3 will cost $300. Right there I'm saving $200 on my chosen gaming platform of choice. We can go back to 2006 when the PS3 was first released when it was $600, and then you can point and laugh at me and say, "Look! It's more expensive than a PC!" but ignoring the fact that the PS3's launch price was beyond ridiculous no matter who you are, I'll just say that, yes, the PS3 does indeed cost $600 and that's how much was paid for it in the following example:

Person A buys a $500 gaming computer, while person B buys a $600 PS3. Clearly the computer was a better deal, but let's see how they're doing now in 2012.

6 years later, Person B is enjoying the newest games on his $600 PS3, some of which are available on the PC platform. Person A is enjoying those same games, and they probably look way better on his awesome PC that... wait, is that even the same PC? Maybe it is, maybe it's not, on the outside anyhow, but anyone who knows anything about computers will know that on the inside those parts are not the same. This is where my lack of PC knowledge will hurt my credibility I'm sure, but no one can say that to upgrade that computer to today's standards from 6 years ago had to have cost over $100, and this isn't even assuming that the hardware would be so outdated that an entirely new computer would have to be built. So if that's true then that's another $500 (or more) spent. So that $600 is looking pretty good right now.

I'll use a real life example of this right now. I'm currently upgrading a computer to be able to run Guild Wars 2 and Diablo 3. Relatively low end games, but what I have still needs upgrading. My situation is somewhat different though, because I'm not upgrading the same computer I've been using. To clarify, I've had an iMac since 2007. (I can hear the screaming now, but granted, I only really played Mac supported games and didn't try too much harder to use bootcamp after a certain point. I think the fact that I have an iMac should more or less let you know that I'm not a PC gamer) I've never once had a problem running any kind of game that was supported on it. With Starcraft 2 I need to totally bottom out the settings but unless it's a custom game with 100's of units running around, I rarely have issues. Now though, I can't even run Diablo 3 on this mac. So we'll say I got about 5 years of gaming power out of this thing. The PC I'm currently upgrading I got from a friend who has plenty of spares, and I'm very grateful for that. Right now I'm looking at about $150 in upgrades for this thing just to run these games. Keep in mind that it meets the recommended requirements in processor speed and ram and everything else to run Diablo 3, and the graphics card is the only thing keeping it back. So, an otherwise pretty good computer is being held back by a graphics card and the power supply I may need to go with it. (My current card in this thing is an integrated one that draws 1.4g of ram so it there's also that)

So from my example, I'll say that after 5 years of owning a computer, I'll have had to have put down about $150 to upgrade it to be able to run my games. So I can't imagine my other example being too far from the truth. $150 isn't so bad, you might say, but it's more than the $0 paid to keep my PS3 running the latest games.

I could probably go on all day, but I think I can pretty much end it off here. In my honest opinion, PCs were not designed for gaming, the proof is in the money. I won't buy into the "it's made for gaming, it's just expensive" argument either. Consoles prove that you don't need to spend a fortune on upgrades every few years. I am aware that consoles upgrade as well, as the Wii-U, and (probably) PS4 and what not are on the way, but the lifespan of a single console generation and the cost of buying a new console isn't so bad on it's own, but definitely a godsend compared to PC gaming prices. I think 6 years without having to keep upgrading your gaming platform, without worrying whether the next game your anticipating will run or not is a pretty sweet deal.

I'll end with this: PC gaming can put out way better graphics than console gaming. However, have you seen what the PS3 can put out? It's nothing to sneeze at. Anyone, anyone at all who is willing to tell me that consoles are holding back PC games from being the absolute best they can be... Well you can go suck my fucking cock, you self centered pricks, if you're going to sit there and tell me that consoles are being held back because they don't require spending double, or triple the cost of a high end PC then you obviously suffer from brain damage and need to get the fuck off your high horse and come back down to Earth.

Hey look a blog, also Guild Wars 2

Hugbees — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 03:18:54 GMT

I didn't know we had these little blog things. Very cool. I might as well use this thing to soapbox to the internet.

God, Guild Wars 2 looks amazing. It's the first MMO I've seen in ages that when the developers talk about how their game will be and what's going to be in it, I actually believe them. The press beta they had recently really helped with that. The game looked so polished, I would have believed anyone who showed me footage of the game and told me it was already out.

I like how content scales down to your level, so you can never be too strong for content. They say that being down scaled would make you stronger than someone who was of the same level naturally, but not so strong that the content is too easy, or that you could run someone through it.

Removing the holy trinity of MMOs is also quite genius. Gone are the days of looking for that healer that never seems to be on. You can just jump into a group, any group, and succeed.

Most importantly, this is the first game since Warhammer Online that I will actually be able to play with you guys!

I can go on and on but I just wanted to get that bit of enthusiasm out.

WoW Might be Slowing Down - But It's Still a Cash Cow

RJO — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 19:05:15 GMT

*** Cross Posted From My AdventuresOfTaas.com blog ***

Last night I waited in line with over 74,000 other people. *What was I waiting in line for? *Probably the coolest looking mount in World of Warcraft:

I was kicked out of the line twice at different points of the evening and judging by my line various line positions and how fast the line was moving at various stages you have to figure that Blizzard sold at least 250k of these things (and probably more). *Let me do the math for you. *That's SIX point TWO FIVE million dollars.

So while many including myself*are heralding the beginning of the end of WoW's era let's not get ahead of ourselves. WoW is still a game with 10.2 million people in some way paying and playing for the game. *WoW is still a game with a tremendous potential to make revenue for Blizzard Activision.

Blizard Activision held their quarterly earnings call this past week and revealed that on the quarter WoW had lost 100k subscribers. *This was after losing 1.8 million on the year. *So clearly the churn is starting to slow down, or maybe even heading to a bottom. *Let's keep in mind that the MOP expansion is likely coming out early summer and that will bring people back in droves. *So maybe the old giant is battered and bruised but ready to fight on at this level? *It's starting to look like it.

The lesson here for me: *It's fun to predict the doom of WoW, but with its economic power for its parent company it would take a lot to slay this beast.

You need to think of SWTOR as an investment...

RJO — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 18:52:28 GMT

*** Cross posted from my MMO blog AdventuresOfTaas ****

People, myself included, are starting to burn out on SWTOR (there’s the predictable ZOMG 3 MONTH TOURIST declaration over on Keen’s blog). I personally find myself playing a lot less and I know that overall my guild Aureus Knights has seen its activity level drop quite a bit (from ~30 active week day evenings to ~10-15). People are showing up for Raids no problem but other activities such as PvP, alt leveling and Flashpoints are starting to get stale for people.

There’s a lot of reasons for this: Linear leveling path making alts less appealing, no point to the space game once you’ve done leveling, Ilum being a bad joke for open world PVP, Battlemasters, PVP stats on gear and faction imbalance impacting other areas of PvP. There’s a lot of reasons to NOT log in.

There are those who are pointing to these factors and calling the game a failure. But I think what we have here is a solid platform for the future, not a failure.

MMO fans often get caught in the trap of viewing a game they get bored with as a failure. There’s a bigger fallacy that we allow ourselves to get caught up in and that’s expecting a game that is 2 months old to compete on content with games 5, 10 and 15 years older.

The truth is Star Wars The Old Republic has a lot going for it. The combat is fun, the PvP when not bogged down by gear differences is a lot of fun and when done right the raiding and dungeon experiences can be quite fun. This game is something Bioware can iterate on and expand the content offering for. SWTOR has a huge plus in that the leveling experience (initially) is engaging. Up front there is a lot of gameplay offered. Once they’ve been given time to expand the back end it will get exponentially better.

I think the best thing people can do is view this game as a long term investment and allow themselves to take a break. Come back in March when 1.2 has hit, come back a year from now when we are getting hyped over the first expansion.

There are games you play and think to yourself, “Man, this could really use another 12 months of getting the fundamentals right” or “level 30-40 (the mid game) is just unplayable because there’s no content and it’s all grind” and SWTOR is not one of those games. This is a game that over time you and your friends will return to and I suspect Bioware with the legacy system, whatever they have planned for space combat and other expanded content offerings will find ways to keep bringing us back for years to come.

Theorycrafting Lite - a look at SW:ToR tanking (Part 2)

Kiylie — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:29:45 GMT

What We Know About Threat
1) All damage has a threat rating of 1.
2) All healing has a threat rating of 0.5.
3) All abilities listed as "does additional threat" have a threat increase of 0.5.
4) Tank stances increase all threat ratings by 0.5.
5) In order for aggro to change targets from melee range, the aggressors threat pool has to be trumped by a rating of 1.1.
6) In order for aggro to change targets from range, the aggressors threat pool has to be trumped by a rating of 1.3.

What we don't know is how some of these factors work together.
- An example of this is the interaction between 3 and 4 and whether or not the modification is additive, multiplicative before stance modification or multiplicative after stance modification.
- Another thing to consider is the interaction between 5 and 6. According to Gankstah, these numbers result in a very realistic scenario where threat is harder to lose but also harder to reaqcuire. What does this mean for the dps/tank interaction? Tanks will have to work their ass off to reestablish lost aggro and a dps will have to completely dump their rotation for several cooldowns so that they won't threaten to pull aggro again.
- Another unknown is the way that healing threat is distributed and whether or not TOR follows other established MMOs in using a even distribution model. For example (as seen in WoW and Rift), if you healed for 2000 and have 5 targets then 1000 threat (remember healing threat is 50% of the value of the heal) would be split 5 ways among your targets for 200 threat per target.
- Finally, we have no idea if taunts actually have a threat component or not. My guess from experience is that they don't, and merely force your opponent to attack you for 6 seconds.

Baseline DR/Shield/Avoidance Calculations
WARNING: Heavy mathematical calculations ahead! These calculations are copied directly from Gankstah's primer where he mentions the following caveats:
1) Everything is listed for Imperial classes which are direct mirrors of their Republic counterparts - you will have to look up your own talent names to plug in if it really bothers you.
2) Everything here is always subject to change at Bioware's whim.
3) This information is for comparative purposes only as these calculations are only part of what corresponds to any given tanking class.
4) The provided calculations assume level 50 premium armor values. The BAV (base armor value) is representative of a full suit of each armor class.

Modified Armor Value (MAV)
- SI: (BAV Light 1909)*(Stance 2.5) or 1909*2.5 = 4772.5*(Eye of the Storm 20%) or 1.2*4772.5 = 5727
- SW: (BAV Heavy 3601)*(Stance 1.6) or 3601*1.6 = 5761.6
- BH: (BAV Heavy 3601)*(Stance 1.6) or 3601*1.6 = 5761.6*(Rebraced Armor +16%) or 5761.6*1.16 = 6683.5
Note: Armor bonuses are multiplicative exceptions to TOR's mountains of additive calcs. Now, we plug our MAV into our DR calculation (found in the Game Calculations section) to come up with our Base Armor DR (BADR):
Base Armor DR (BADR): SI = 34.65% | SW = 34.78% | BH = 38.22%

Modified Base Armor DR
TOR handles passive skill bonuses additively and NOT multiplicatively so let's plug in current DR passive skills:
- SI: (BADR 34.65%) + (Sith Defiance 2%) = 36.65%
- SW: (BADR 34.78%) + (Stance 6%) = 40.78%
- BH: (BADR 38.22%) + (Stance 5%) + (Ion Shield 2%) + (Power Armor 2%) = 47.22%

Resistance: Elemental/Internal DR
As mentioned earlier, Elemental/Internal DR does NOT factor in Armor. So after subtracting Armor and adding passive Elemental/Internal bonuses we get the following:
- SI: (Sith Defiance 2%) + (Charge Mastery 9%) = 11%
- SW: (Stance 6%) + (Dark Blood 4%) = 10%
- BH: (Stance 5%) + (Ion Shield 2%) + (Power Armor 2%) = 9%

Situational Modifiers
These are situational modifiers from abilities that directly affect DR. I mention these separately because the effects are longer than the CD so they can be applied constantly but are situational as not ALL targets on the board will be under their influence at ALL times.
- SI: (Wither 5%)
- SW: (Sonic Barrier Value Unknown)
- BH: (Combust 4%)

Shield Chance
For the purposes of simplicity we are going to assume a GlanceRating of 0.
- SI: (Shield Base 5%) + (Stance 15%) + (Dark Ward 15%) = 35%
- SW: (Shield Base 5%) + (Stance 15%) + (Shield Specialization 4%) = 24%
- BH: (Premium Shield Base 5%) + (Stance 15%) + (Shield Vents 2% + Empowered Tech 10%) = 32%

Shield Absorption
For purposes of simplicity we are going to assume a AbsorptionRating of 0.
- SI: (Premium Shield Base 20%) + (Hollow 4%) = 24%
- SW: (Premium Shield Base 20%) = 20%
- BH: (Premium Shield Base 20%) + (Ablative Upgrades 6%) = 26%

Avoidance: Ranged Deflection & Melee Parry
For purposes of simplicity we are going to assume a DFR of 0.
- SI: (Base 10%) + (Premonition 2%) + (Lightning Reflexes 4%) = 16% or 21% w/Discharge
- SW: (Base 5%) + (Guard Stance 6%) + (Blade Barricade 6%) = 17% or 22% w/Smash
- BH: (Base 5%) = 5%

Theorycrafting Lite - a look at SW:ToR tanking (Part 1)

Kiylie — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:02:18 GMT

I know I said this post would be up sooner than now, but the holidays and the push to 50 have gotten in my way. In no way will I take credit for the majority of the information contained within this post as I am no mathematician - most of this information was found over at www.sithwarrior.com. All of the information pertained herein came from a primer by Gankstah that I will attempt to put into "plain english", but some of it was copied directly to save time (why reword something that's already awesome). If you still have questions by the end of this blog post please comment and I will try to explain (or at the very least point you towards more information).

First, we will need to clear up a few terms and basic mathematical calculations (if you hate math like I do you can skip past that part and just assume that that's how it works):

Tanking Terms
DR = Damage Resistance: This is the % that incoming damage is reduced by. If your DR is 50% and you are hit by a 100 dmg blast you only suffer 50 points of dmg.
DFR = Defense Rating: This is a stat found on tanking armor and directly affects your Parry/Deflection on a 10:1 scale. That is to say, for every 10 points of DFR you gain 1% Parry/Deflection.
Avoidance: Avoidance is the negation of all damage from an individual attack via in game mechanics such as Parrying or Deflection.

Primary Stats
Primary stats are assigned by your core class. Str = SW/JK, Aim = BH/TR, Cunning = IA/SM and Will = SI/JC.
Crit% from Stats: 5+30*(1-(1-(0.01/0.3))^((Stat/Lvl)/2.5))
All Primary Stats yield +0.2 bonus damage per point

Secondary Stats (tanking)
Accuracy = improves your chance to hit your opponent, anything over 100% results in defense penetration
Absorption = increases the amount absorbed by your shield
Shield Chance = increases the chance you will proc a shield to absorb damage
Defense = increases your chance to avoid attacks (i.e. parry and deflect)

Damage Types
There are four damage types in TOR: Kinetic, Energy, Internal and Elemental. There are three important things to note about damage types:
Force powers and Tech powers, unless otherwise listed, are considered Kinetic damage.
Armor increases DR to Kinetic and Energy damage only.
Some skills and abilities increase specific types of damage (i.e. Dark Blood in the Immortal tree).
What does this mean? This means that certain trees will have a DPS advantage vs. tanks. Trees with a high yield of Elemental and Internal damage which bypasses our high armor rating. Examples would be Lethality for Agents (Elemental), Madness for SI's (Internal) and Advanced Prototypes for BH's (combination of both).

Basic Game Calculations
Armor Damage Reduction = AR/AR+(200*Level+800)
Deflection/Parry = (5% Base Chance) + 30*(1-(1-(0.01/0.3))^((DFR/Level)/0.55))
Shield Absorb = (GeneratorBonus) + 50*(1-(1-(0.01/0.5))^((AbsorbRating/Lvl)/0.18))
Shield Chance = (GeneratorBonus) + 50*(1-(1-(0.01/0.5))^((GlanceRating/Lvl)/0.32))
Accuracy = (90% Base Chance) + 30*(1-(1-(0.01/0.3))^((AccuracyRating/Lvl)/0.55))

To Hit
The first thing we need to discuss is the way that the game deals with "To Hit Rolls". TOR uses a 2 roll system to determine whether you are going to defend an attack or get hit/crit. The way this works is an initial roll is done to determine whether or not you defended the hit first based on your defense stat - hit or miss (a miss is parried or deflected). If the roll is positive for a hit, a second roll is done to determine whether or not the attack is a shielded hit, a normal hit or a critical hit. The results come out that shielded hits can never crit and vice versa. An important part of this concept to note is the following quote from Gankstah: "As your Shield Chance and the Crit Chance of the attacker rises the odds of a normal hit landing is reduced until it is pushed off of the table." What's that mean for a tank? It means that, at some point, all hits on us will either be shielded or crits for very high amounts of shield chance and opponent crit chance. At this point I don't know the crit chance of PvE bosses, but I can assume that this is incredibly important for PvP tanks.

The following is credited to Elobi.
Stat Weights:
Remember Endurance and your primary stat comes with all of your gear – so you don’t have to worry too much about those stats in terms of stat weighing.
Generally defense gear/mods have more endurance than dps.

Primary stats:
Endurance > [insert your primary stat here]

Defensive stats:
Shield Rating / Defense Rating > Shield Absorption
- Generally you have a large amount of defense on your gear, don't necessarily stack defense, but don't forget it either!
- Shield Rating doesn't occur as much, meaning you will have to modify your way to the top.
- Shield Rating and Shield Absorption go hand in hand – > stacking Shield Rating like a champ but not having any absorption rating would negate the effectiveness drastically. The same goes the other way around.
- As a rule of thumb go 2 Shield Rating for every 1 Absorption Rating
- Shield Rating is a cheaper stat than defense rating, and defense hits diminishing returns faster. So augmenting/modfying defense and shield stats on a 1:2 basis will decrease the likelyhood of you recieving a full hit, without inflating your stats.

2012 Predictions...

RJO — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 07:12:30 GMT

*** Cross posted from my adventuresoftaas.com blog

My favourite post of the year. The Christmas/Holiday season crazies (and a lot of SWTOR playing) have delayed this post a bit – so let’s get right to it, what I think we’ll see in 2012:

World of Warcraft has a disappointing year that sets the mark for the way forward, Blizzard doesn’t care when they redeem themselves in that fall by announcing Titan in the fall and making a boat load of cash off Diablo 3′s release. Mists of Pandaria will release late Spring/Early summer and it will be the first expansion to not break sales records (that’s not to say it won’t sell by a long shot, but the hype will be muted). The perception shift on WoW will be complete and for most people “the game they go back to” will no longer be a viable home. Subscriptions will continue a 1-2 million year over year decline in line with what was seen this past year.

Star Wars The Old Republic continues at a strong clip. Bioware will break the SOE mould and instead of a4 patch / 1 expansion a year model will continually deliver high quality content for the price of the monthly fee. Despite this solid evidence/leaks/well sourced rumours of a 2013 expansion will close out 2012. People’s fears that content of Bioware quality will not keep coming will be put to bed when Bioware releases two solid / high content / high quality patches before the six month mark. This does end up masking the complications of delivering Bioware’s level of quality (because the truth is they already have those first two patches virtually in the can and in QA now) and towards the end of 2012 its possible content releases will slow paving the way for the above mentioned expansion in 2013.

Star Wars The Old Republic will face a crisis within 6 months due to their tight lipped community approach. I’m not sure how it will play out but there will be a big blow up caused by lack of communication. It likely will be something silly that just grows and grows within the community (see the handling of the early game access as a microcosm for what this will look like).

Everquest Next is announced. It is (at least on paper – all we’ll see this year) a theme park MMO with a fresh approach of mixing in strong sandbox/virtual world elements. EQ:N won’t release until 2013 or even beyond.

Planetside 2 ships. Underwhelms the mass market but is a money maker for SOE anyway. The biggest barrier to financial success for Planetside in my mind was the business model – the F2P/Sub hybrid that SOE is really iterating and nailing right now will be a perfect fit for Planetside Next and the game will carve out a solid niche.

Guild Wars 2 does not ship in 2013.

Some interesting new players enter the scene. Firefall will be the biggest commercial success following a Riot Games/League of Legends rapid build to mainstream success.

Electronic Arts does something with the Ultima IP, involves massively multiplayer. I don’t want to guess too much on this one. If I did have to guess I imagine Richard Garriott will NOT be involved at least not in the initial running. After the first announcement goes out EA will realize getting Richard involved in someway will help revitalize and bring attention to the new project. He might end up involved in some token manner (likely involving the Lord British character who he owns the rights to). There was an interview a few weeks ago saying Bioware will be turning their attention to a well loved IP, I believe this is Ultima and this is my predication for what that means.

Lord of the Rings Online has a bad year. I have no idea how this plays out but I get the sense that the game has turned the corner and the benefit of the F2P switch is starting to run dry for the game. I don’t think the last expansion did overly well.

CCP / DUST – I suspect DUST will not ship this year, particularly after early betas receive overly negative feedback. I have no basis for this, but call it a hunch.

Rift suffers the most from SWTOR. Many MMO vets who burned out on WoW after Cataclysm found a haven in Rift. Even those who have resisted SWTOR in the short term will find the sheer amount of their friends in TOR a strong enough pull to walk away from Rift. Trion needs to announce an expansion for Rift by June or the game’s long term outlook could be called in to question. Don’t rule out a business model change.

Speaking of business model changes – SWTOR becomes a proving ground for the AAA subscription approach. The problem is TOR has also raised the expectation for what a AAA subscription MMO is. Companies will be more tempted by the Sub model again (counter to the fleeing to F2P we’ve seen in 2011) but the up front cost is a more daunting barrier to entry than ever. Expect this to mean a slow 2012 for product reveals as publishers and the money men figure out what the fuck this all means.

Final Fantasy XIV this is a toughy. FFXIV 2.0 is set to release in the fall of 2012. I suspect this date might get missed completely and 2.0 might not happen until 2013. I suspect the decision to start charging for the game this week will kill the game outright in North America. The key question is whether enough JP players stick around to pay the upkeep while we wait for 2.0. If 2.0 does release I don’t expect it to win hearts and minds in North America. It’ll take the PS3 version, which won’t hit until early 2013, to give the game another shot in North America. This will be a dark year for S-E in the MMO market.

Overall 2012 will be a brighter year for MMOs as TOR brings some fresh air in to the room. There will be less closures, less F2P conversions and just less activity on the business end and a lot more gaming. SWTOR and WoW: MoP will exist together and the MMO sub business will be bigger than it has ever been.

We’ll see next December how I did…

Two Lightsabers are better than one - Jedi Sentinel Basics

ehrie — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 18:40:24 GMT

I am by no means an expert on those that saw an extra lightsaber lying around, saw their free hand, and thought to themselves, "Why not?" This is the first post that will contain what I've discovered in dabbling up to level 35 in Sentinel. Do not take this guide as an informed opinion. I have not gotten there yet. It's just my experiences and thought patterns on my build so far. I'm doing this now because I was asked and I like the sound of my own voice, er words. Whatever.

Anyways, the Jedfi Sentinel is a single target semi glass cannon. Embrace this. You have little AOE and what AOE you have stinks. You have two reliable defensive abilities that are both on long cooldowns and one requires you to be constantly hit to stay up more than a few seconds which also should not be happening. You have almost no CC, so some abliities that look good on the surface(read: Master Strike) are actually rather bad because they root you in place and require your opponent to stand in them.

Unlike most other clases all three talent trees are different flavors of the same dps lollipop. What I mean by different flavors is that they emphasize a different way of wrecking shit all over the galaxy. Briefly here is what I think each tree's focus(no pun intended) is:

Watchman: The all around tree and in my opinion the best. This tree has the hardest skill combo and is the least forgiving, but the longer a fight goes on this is the tree that will allow you do the most raw damage. Overload Saber is just an amazing ability and Juyo Form is crazy good for damage.

Combat: The "defensive" tree. I say that with italics because we shouldn't be getting hit, but if you are just soloing your way through the PvE game this is the tree for you. Between bonus focus talents for getting hit,a RNG stance that generates more burst and a talent at the top of the tree that can root people in place for Master Strike, this tree has potential. There's just a lot of RNG in this tree.

Focus: The utility/PvP tree. Once dual spec comes out this will be my PvP tree. There's a lot of utility that is useful in PvP in this tree like a second Force Leap, Force Exaustion, a 10% self heal that can be used in a pinch, bonuses to Force Stasis(the only CC we get) and other talents that make your AOEs hit harder.

I started up the Combat tree at first because I liked the bonus offhand lightsaber damage and the chance to burst. I changed to Watchman for two reasons. Sadly the 2nd lightsaber is little more than bonus stats. It does next to no damge no matter how good it is. Sadtimes. Test it for yourself by unequiping it. You'll notice your ability damage doesn't go down by much. The 2nd reason is the RNG on Ataru form procs is really really random. It can make you feel more powerful at times and like a whimp others.

Watchman's damage is much more even and the combo for it is amazing in both PvP and PvE. What is that combo? Simple.

In PvE as long as you are not against an opponent that has a pushback(a lot do the higher you get) lead out with Force Leap. Hit Overload Saber while you are in the air. For the three Proc effts of Overload Saber use them on Zealous Strike, Cauterize and Slash. Once high enough Slash will get replaced in this combo with Merciless Slash. After that it's just a matter of keeping your Focus up with Slash and Zealous Strike and using Cauterize and Overload Saber on cooldown. PvP is much the same combo except never use Force Leap until the enemy has burned their CC on you. After that Force Leap, use your slows and carve em up.

I'll update this some more once I get to 50.

SWTOR is not a linear game...

RJO — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 10:20:52 GMT

There is a popular notion (even from those who play the game) that Star Wars The Old Republic is a linear game. As I've gotten more and more in to the game I've realized that this might be one of the least linear leveling MMOs I've seen in quite some time. Don't get me wrong: this is a theme park experience that is very well guided and on first blush feels extremely linear. But its the modes of play that Bioware gives you really give it a non-linear feel.

My wife and I are both playing the game. As of this writing she's 27 and I am 31. She is actually FURTHER AHEAD of the story than I am. How is that possible? A wide variety of ways to progress in the game. The viable major modes of play are:

Story / PVE quest leveling
Heroic Quests
Flashpoints
Warzones
Space combat

I and I imagine most people spend most time in the Story / PVE quest leveling game but there is a lot of playability and progression to be found in the other modes as well.

Flashpoints and Warzones are staples in most MMOs these days. Flashpoints are your usual dungeons and Warzones are your instanced PVP battlegrounds. Bioware has however managed to add spice to both of these game play modes. In Flashpoints every 10 levels you encounter a major story driven dungeon. You really can't call these dungeons in the traditional sense because it would be selling the Flashpoint concept short. There is some great and engaging story content built in to these dungeons and it is a lot of fun to play with people to see how they respond to conversation options and how dynamically the Flashpoint story comes together. Don't get me wrong. This is only every 10 levels (on the Republic side it is the Esseles and Taval V I've encountered so far that are this more dynamic and story driven format), the rest of the dungeons very much play like your usual MMO setup, I find it enjoyable but I know some people will point and decry "das clone", but whatever.

The Warzones are interesting as well. Alderaan, which honestly is probably the most fun Warzone in my mind is pretty standard MMO fare. Capture and hold 3 points. Hold the most the longest and you win. But the other Warzones are bit different and engaging. Voidstar is an attack and defend Warzone while Huttball is... well ... Huttball. It is really an eSport that plays a little like football, although instead of tackling you murder the opposition with Lightsabers and Blasters. It is a lot of fun and is certainly different.

So these two modes of play certainly take a lot of inspiration from the MMO standard set by WoW in these modern times but Bioware has managed to find a way to evolve them and make them engaging. Getting back to the topic at hand they are also great for leveling. Early going you can get around 10k XP and a decent chunk of change for doing a warzone and that's without the daily quests that can easily double that. Flashpoints will give you at least half a level as well as provide top end gear. Some of them can be run very quickly.

Next we have Heroic Quests. These are not anything new to the genre BUT I would argue that SWTOR is one of the first games in the post-WoW era to really bring them back. One of the fun things about Everquest 2 when it launched was that there were places in zones you just couldn't go as a solo player. There were very intentionally areas packed with mobs that were tuned for higher levels. It was one of the real strengths of the game, giving groups things to do. SWTOR has blissfully returned to that. And there is quite a bit of it as well. I would say each planet has at least 4 and most of them aren't just out in the world quests either, many of them end up in mini dungeons after completing over world objectives. Again a really solid iterative move forward for the genre done with a Bioware twist. Too often these days MMOs are solo fests and thankfully Bioware has really put an effort in to building content for groups. Heroic Quests are also very rewarding both in XP and loot.

Last is Space Combat. Richard Garriot once laid out his dream MMO. It would be a central hub game where you'd take an avatar in to all kinds of different worlds and games. Space combat in TOR certainly feels like a stab at this. You are playing a completely unique game experience where your character isn't really involved. Your ship has gear, you do missions to get better gear and completing those missions also progresses your central avtar by way of XP and credits. Garriot was on to something I think and I hope Bioware figures out how to implement different modes of play above and beyond these.

So that's how my wife and I can be so far apart in levels, even though she is "farther in the game". I find myself sitting down for a session saying "ok, today I'm going to do story" or "tonight we are doing Warzones". Being able to sit down and play several different modes of the game is very refreshing. All with a story line underpinning and Bioware feel. It is very cool.

So the next time someone tells you SWTOR is a linear WoW clone, tell them they are full of it.

2011 Predictions Follow Up

RJO — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 19:55:02 GMT

*** Originally posted on my gaming blog: Adventures of Taas

It’s that time of year again – time to recap my 2011 predictions!

World of Warcraft: A mind shift that the game’s best days are behind it.

I imagine my man Evan would disagree with me but I feel this has happened. There are a few reasons:

First is SWTOR. It’s hard to judge this factor because SWTOR is so fresh and shiny at the moment and we’ve seen countless games come out swinging and then fall off but I think the IP and staggering initial sales will push SWTOR to terrirtory uncharted by the Rifts and Aions of the world. We all know that every time a new MMO comes out the cries of WoW’s death get kicked in to high gear and I think most people would agree that SWTOR is the biggest threat WoW has faced. One of the things I did in the build up to SWTOR was keep an eye on the MMO-Champion forums every day as the various public betas progressed. I was curious how a fairly WoW centric community would react to the release of a challenger like SWTOR and it was fascinating. Slowly but surely as people got to try the game the sentiment towards SWTOR picked up incredible steam a community that started out as heavily “I doubt I’ll play SWTOR, too much going on WoW” shifted to “I’ll juggle both” to “I’m going to leave WoW for SWTOR”. SWTOR’s voice acting and production values are going to raise the bar in the AAA space and the fact is WoW will for the first time feel a generation behind. Where WoW was an evolution on EQ I think ten years from now we’ll be able to identify SWTOR as the next evolutionary step after WoW. Time will tell, but I think SWTOR is a real threat to WoW.

There are other signs that WoW is past its peak: The response to Cataclysm has been mixed. Some feel that game has lost its nostalgia factor in a changed world, the lore nerds feel that with Arthas down they’ll never quite feel the same about raiding never mind how some of them disagree with the directions Warcraft lore has been taken. Other people just aren’t excited about Mists of Pandaria. Some people hate the idea of Pandas (some love it), I personally worry about what the Monk class is going to do to balance (a hybrid class that sounds amazingly unbalanced from a design perspective – auto healing? really?), while others can’t get excited about an expansion without a central boss to go after. Mists is going to be different, but I’m not sure how the fan base is going to react.

Another thing with Mists is the removal of talents. The talent redesign in Mists is essentially a concession by Blizzard that the talent system as it was designed in vanilla doesn’t work (in their opinion). You basically will not be able to customized your character any longer, the new talent system is the most stripped down iteration you could dream of. I wonder if this is where WoW jumps the shark and goes beyond the common denominator. Will Mists be the expansion where WoW gets too easy? Not just easy, but too simple. What does this new talent and class system offer the min/maxer?

So. For the WoW prediction I will give myself the full point.

Bllizard MMO 2.0: Leaks through 2011 and is announced late 2011.

I was wrong. No points. From what I’m hearing we won’t see a launch of Titan in 2012, but maybe we’ll see an announcement? Is the project even on course after the recent team departures? Has the game taken a Warcraft Adventures -> World of Warcraft type of course correction? We’ll see. But I won’t be predicting much for Titan in 2012.

Blizzard MMO 2.0: Is an MMOFPS

While I still think I’m right (duh), we know nothing on Titan.

Planetside Next is announced. Launch will be delayed to 2012.

Swish! Nailed this one. Game was announced and expected to launch in 2011. Was eventually delayed to 2012.

EQ Next: Slow build up to an announcement. Will be a WoW clone

So. There’s been the slow build up, but no announcement. And the early EARLY indications I’m getting from SOE is they expect to bring in sandbox elements and it might actually be a refreshing departure from WoW Diku. One can hope. But I don’t get the points here.

SOE and F2P. Blunders abound, EQ2′s best years in the rear view mirror

I’ll take full marks here. They didn’t exactly commit out and out blunders but it wasn’t a pretty year for SOE. DCUO going immediately to F2P, partial F2P conversion of EQ2 followed by a late year conversion to full F2P and the release of a different type of EQ2 expansion that the community doesn’t quite know how to take yet. F2P might reenergize EQ2 (I really hope it does, I think it is a brilliant title) but we will have to see. SWTOR’s production values and the issues it causes WoW likely impact EQ2 the same or even more.

SWTOR: Huge commercial success at launch. Game will be found extremely linear with limited replay value. Players will find end game the same old same old. However new players and vets looking for a fresh coat of paint will bring a strong sub base.

I’ll take a half point on this for the commercial success of launch. We’ll see numbers in a week or two and they are going to be unheard of, likely including WoW’s launch. The only hard data I have to take this half point is the preorders and the retail tracking services peg TOR’s North American sales at just south of a million. That’s before Digital Downloads and usually Amazon does not report in to these services. So. 2.5 million sales anyone? Another million out of Europe. Asian plans to likely be announced within 3 months. Oh yeah. Go buy yourself some ERTS quick.

The other aspect we’ll see. I still think replay will SOMEWHAT be limited but now that I’ve actually played the game I think it won’t be as bad as I originally thought. I have a blog post coming up that will explore replayability and pacing in SWTOR soon.

Closures. Vanguard dead, WAR 0 dev resources, lots of closures all around.

I’ll take half point here. It was a year of closures for sure. SWG (close to home, I’ll miss it), Lego, Global Agenda, The Agency cancelled. Lot’s of bad news and lost jobs in the industry. A sad year for the genre.

Rift. A success with MMO vets, game will end the year with around 500k subs. Will be viewed as a WoW clone but will carve a niche.

Full points. I think I nailed this one right down to the final subscription numbers. Rift sold well (~1-1.5M range) and I think Trion will be happy with their investment. I think Rift hit just when WoW sentiment was starting to shift with some vets and they flocked to Rift looking for a slightly more old school Diku-MMO vibe. Sadly patch 1.2 (lowered the difficulty of some content) drove a few of those folks away, but despite that there’s still plenty of pie left for Rift.

They need to announce an expansion very soon to compete in the post SWTOR space I think. 2012 will make or break Rift.

The Design Gods currently wasting their talents on Facebook will wake up and begin work on a AAA product. I’m looking at you Mr Koster, Mr Garriot et all. This one might be more of a “I wish it would come true” but I’m sticking by it

One day… one day. In all honesty it sounds like Richard Garriot might be starting to get the itch. We can only hope.
_

So out of 10 points I landed 5. Not bad, this guessing business isn’t easy.

What makes a good tank?

Kiylie — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 15:46:50 GMT

I've encountered this question a lot, and what seems like an easy answer is actually a complicated series of concepts. I will list everything, in no particular order, that I believe makes a good tank. To some this may be common knowledge, but to an aspiring first-time tank it might be enlightening.

1. Gear - a good tank always needs to stay on top of their gear. Unlike dps (or to a lesser extent healers), a tank can't just slide by with mediocre gear. Our entire usefulness is defined by our ability to mitigate damage, and if you are hanging onto outdated items chances are the stats are far below what you should have. This only hurts your ability to tank and makes you take more damage than you might have with better gear.

2. Abilities - always read and understand what all of your abilities do. Don't gloss over something just because the first part of the description didn't seem to relate to tanking. I've noticed a lot of abilities that have secondary benefits such as short-term buffs or debuffs. This is particularly true when it comes to talents. The MOST important thing from this section, though, is to know what cooldowns you possess and when you should use them. This will be a learning process for sure and don't be afraid to experiment.

3. Talents - obviously as a tank you will want to primarily spec within your class's tank tree, but if you haven't noticed yet they tend to litter the tree with secondary dps- or pvp-related talents that may or may not prove useful. Knowing and understanding how these talents effect your abilities is extremely important. Some talents may seem like a "big deal" until you put them into context. A good example of this are the following: 3% increased endurance and 2% decreased damage taken. I call these icing talents. After the bulk of your points are invested into the important talents you will want to take these to give you that slight boost - the icing on the cake so to speak. Always skip the dps-related talents until you've gotten everything tank-related.

4. Situational Awareness - as a tank it's your job to control the fight and to keep your groupmates safe. You need to be able to keep one eye on the mobs and one eye on your party at all times. An easy way to help this is to set your zoom level to a much farther distance - being able to see more of the playing field never hurt anyone. Also always assume your dps will do something stupid like attack the wrong enemy and be prepared. Catching an enemy on its way to your healer before it smashes him in the face is probably a good idea. If your healer is running or concerned for their life, chances are his heals are going to himself and not you. Also realizing when more enemies spawn or when a cc'ed one breaks is incredibly important. Also along this vein is the age old question of: are you standing in the fire? Sure a tank has a ton of hp and can withstand a beating but that doesn't mean you should stress your healer by taking unneeded damage.

5. Preparedness - this encompasses a lot of things that are important such as consumables, strategies and group composition. If possible always try to find out about a fight ahead of time to know what you will be getting into. There are sites scattered across the net that are specifically geared towards boss strategies and tactics. Knowing these ahead of time will allow you to determine if you have what it takes to defeat the encounter.

6. Leadership Qualities - are you a leader type? Most groups tend to look to the tank to run the group. It's our job to set the pace and to control the flow of the fights. You should be comfortable with marking targets (knowing the fight helps here) for kill order and crowd control.

Now, what sets apart the truly amazing tanks from the good tanks is all of the above plus a supreme knowledge of the game and their class. These are the people that you will consider class experts and theorycrafters. They will be the ones that are constantly reading up on any changes to their class or evaluating additions like new armor drops, mods, buffs, etc. Even if you aren't one of the math-heads out there, being able to understand the how and why of something goes a long way. I will go over a good portion of the mechanics of the game in my next post titled 'Theorycraft Lite - a look at SW:ToR tanking'.

The Definitive Star Wars: The Old Republic Beta Review Classes (Part 5)

Hengist — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 00:47:38 GMT

Sith Inquisitor:

My personal experience is that the Sith Inquisitor offered a fairly enjoyable story in Act One. However feedback on the forums indicates that the highlights of the story are all in Act One, as Acts Two and Three fall short. As the Inquisitor was a class on my agenda to play, I cut it semi-short, and this is a class that I will play (play twice actually) no matter the story.

As one of the more diverse classes, the Inquisitor offers plenty of options. The ranged side of the Inquisitor has been one of the most overpowered classes for the past five months. The force regeneration mechanic is very easy to get used to, the class puts out elite damage in both burst and sustained mode with the ability to heal. In fact, I know a few people with DPS builds who have main healed flashpoints all the way to 50. Things have toned down a little bit, but this class, with a ranged configuration is going to be a force at launch.

The Sith Assassin, was my preferred melee class in the game. There are plenty of skills that would remind someone of a World of Warcraft rogue. One of the things that still needs tweaking however, is the ability to re-enter stealth while engaged in PvP. As a tank, the Assassin is a very capable class, and has the best threat generation of any tank class. However, because it shares a tree with a DPS Advanced Class, it also gets skills that aren’t near as much use. I think opinion is fairly split (which is a good thing) on who is the best, or preferred tank with votes for Bounty Hunter, Sith Warrior, and Assassin, and people prefer them for different reasons.

I’m a big fan of the Inquisitor, and I will be rolling both an Assassin as DPS to restore some old rogue glory days, and a healing Sorcerer. The speed with which he can cast will likely make him the most dominant healing class in PvP. You can see that I anticipate using both classes for PvP reasons, but the PvE versatility will be an enormous consideration for people.

Republic Mirror:

The Jedi Consular was a yawn fest story wise for me. I could have watched paint dry for more entertainment. Truth is, there was never one hook that really drew me into the class. Being honest, I felt the Smuggler was “Sith worthy” story, and the Knight’s last act was among the best in the game, there just isn’t anything there for me with this one.

Bounty Hunter

I am an intergalactic rock star, so you know we are about to walk onto hallowed ground. I am the toughest, most independent and likeable guy around, and I take crap from nobody, so is it a surprise that I like the Bounty Hunter story? There are a ton of places you can say “I saw that coming” but despite that, there is definitely something that draws you into this class.

Combat is an interesting mix, you’ve got potent AoE attacks early in the game and it makes you feel like nothing is ever going to stand in your way. As you level you’ll feel that you do outstanding sustained DPS (as long as you learn to manage heat, and I think it is perhaps the toughest mechanic to adapt to) and you lose some burst. Heavy armor, good heals, and sustained DPS combined with this story figure to make the Bounty Hunter a fairly popular class.

Healing with the Bounty Hunter is more of a rotational based system that the Inquisitor since heat is more of a challenge to manage than “force”. The Bounty Hunter has a nice little AoE heal, and despite having slower heals has some big heals. If I was drawing a comparison to other MMO’s, there is some validity to the WotLK version of a Paladin.

I never got deep into a tank spec Bounty Hunter, but feedback grew more positive the longer I participated. Get used to grapple and jet charge as favorite skills, and honestly the Powertech is perhaps the most enjoyable tank to play in PvP.

Do I even need to say that this will be the first class that I roll? While I will be going Mercenary I could very easily re-consider the healing Inquisitor and roll a second Bounty Hunter with an eye towards the Powertech.

Republic Mirror:

One of the early negatives for the Trooper is that I did not care for the first companion, things started to roll when I got to the second companion, and that the early story failed to draw me in. I never cared for my squad mates on the starter world, and therefore never cared when subsequent events occurred. Down the road I felt my presence was more about past exploits of the Squadron than anything I had accomplished. That being said, hands down, the play style appeals to me, and is incredibly fun in any role.

So that’s about it, that’s a semi-brief look at how I saw and felt about classes during The Old Republic beta. Mileage will vary, and just because some stories did not appeal to me doesn’t mean they are bad, they might appeal to others for various reasons. Being honest about it, the inclusion of the stories, even the ones I dislike, really add something immeasurably good to the game. The story wasn’t just about being good or evil, but about a reason to behind it, for me at least.

All of this is of course subject to change. My impressions are based on the last four months that I’ve had to play, and there have been significant changes between builds, and I have not always gone back to play classes after changes have been made.

It has been a long time since Bioware announced that The Old Republic was in production, and release is finally just around the corner. I was interested from the first, but it was Deceived that set the hook and has never let up. Has any trailer done more to erase bad feeling from a franchise that went from Darth Vader to Jar Jar Binks?

We have arrived!

The Definitive Star Wars: The Old Republic Beta Review of Classes (Part 4)

Hengist — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 00:38:19 GMT

Ever hear Lemmy croon “I Aint No Nice Guy”? Well, for a little bit I thought I wasn’t a very nice guy withholding the last part of my promised Beta Review for The Old Republic but then I realized that nobody was actually reading these, and I stopped feeling bad, and just got it done. Hope you enjoy the final fruits of my Old Republic pre-launch blogs.

I know we have more misguided (read: not quite bright) people who are interested in playing as Republic around Aureus Knights, (Actually that’s just more people for me to kill in-game, so I’m not complaining) but I have a much better feel for Empire classes, and since most classes are mirrors you can feel free to apply to the other faction.

Imperial Agent:

Any conversation about the Imperial Agent has to begin with the statement that this is the single best story in the game. Hands down, without question it hits its mark, and if you really want to know the truth about what is happing in the Sith Empire, this is where you are going to find truth. If you’ve ever had a James Bond fantasy, this just might be the class and the experience you are looking for. I came to believe what Daniel Erickson told me in April, that this is some of the best writing they have in the game.

Combat is a mixed bag. Snipers deliver a huge punch and some of the best burst, and longest range of any DPS class in the game. Their reliance on cover however is a mixed bag, and took me a long, long time to warm up to. Their burst is also incredibly slow, with long “wind-up’s” for big damage skills. In both PvE and PvP they have their uses, but their effectiveness is going to depend on the skill of the person playing them, along with a little bit of luck.

Operatives, in my mind are probably the 3rd best healers (of the 3 healing classes) but they aren’t far off from Bounty Hunters, and what hurts them the most is a the lack of effective AoE heals. They are a very unique stealth based, mostly melee damage class with quite a bit of utility including a group stealth.

While the story of the Agent is first class, I had the hardest time getting a feel for this class, and never found my sweet spot with it, while I will play it at some time, even if just for story alone, it will not be one of my first alts.

Republic Mirror:

To me, I thought the Smuggler has the best storyline on the Republic faction, as you are always neck deep in trouble, and things are always on the edge of spiraling out of control. Being honest about it, the Smuggler story really delivered enjoyment for me. I also found the smuggler to have some interesting companions, ones who gave me a more Star Warsy feel that those of the Agent. When I get around to rolling a Republic toon, without question, this will be the class that I try. (Hey, who doesn’t love a Wookie?)

Sith Warrior:

Act One of the Sith Warrior story is semi-bland, as you are in essence the enforcer for a Sith Lord. That being said, it was an entertaining run, but of all the stories on the Sith side, this one engaged me the least during Act One. I understand the story picks up in the last two acts, but I did not have first hand experience with it.

Being honest, I have felt for the last two builds that the most enjoyable melee DPS build was found in the Sith Inquisitor Assassin class, and that there were serious issues with the Sith Marauder. The fundamental issue that I have had is the lack of burst DPS compared to several of the ranged classes, and serious lack of utility skills that would make this class desirable to play. I’ve played both a Sith Warrior and a Jedi Knight into the low 30’s, and I really enjoyed the gameplay, but each time I left to play a ranged class, and marveled and how much faster and easier I killed mobs.

I played briefly with a higher level (43) Jedi Knight, and found that many of my earlier issues were far less, but they were still there. In talking to other people, I now tend to believe that there is a gap in high level play, but the gap closes appreciably as you level. Based on that, I’d have to say it’s an enjoyable class, that is likely more enjoyable as you level, and you might be faced with some early frustrations.

The tank, because of high armor, is still going to be the preference for many people in terms of end game tanking on single boss fights. The Inquisitor has better threat generation abilities, and will be preferred on other fights. The class as it stands needs more polish, but is still a fun ride. It’s down 3rd on my list, but I will play a Sith Warrior.

Republic Mirror:

Jedi Knight was a typically hokey story early on, befitting people who think Jar Jar Binks should have won an Academy Award. (Yes, I have to get a few digs in at the Republic folks, but since they won’t ever read this, it’ll go relatively unnoticed.) However when you get into Act Two, and Act Three it becomes one of the better stories available, even if it is fairly simple and you’ll see where it is going from a long way off. If you want a hint, go read Revan, and take a look at who your eventual companions are!

Make sure that you JOIN THE FIGHT !

The Definitive Star Wars: The Old Republic Beta Review (Part 3)

Hengist — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 20:40:28 GMT

UI and Miscellaneous:

The User Interface has to be one of the most important functions for a MMO, simply because it is your gateway to the entire game, and if it doesn’t work for you, the MMO can’t deliver. In a lot of ways I think Bioware has missed the mark with its UI. It is functional, simple and clean, but what kills it for so many people is the inability to do much to customize it.

We are in a day and age where addons and mod’s are a staple of many other MMO’s, and people appreciate the ability to find a UI that is made to their taste. No longer is it an option, but it becomes a benchmark. Eventually we’ll see Bioware allow addons, but until we do, I expect to see loud howling about the current interface. While I don’t mind it, and think it is “okay”, I think the outcry is entirely justified over the UI.

One of the other aspects I’d like to see more depth, is the Guild System. It is barebones, and functional, but little more than that. When I get down to it though, it’s just about what I’d expect from any other MMO, and what most other MMO’s offer, with the exception of not having a guild bank.

The Galactic Trade Network is another item that needs more polish in my mind. We’ve gone on and off with being able to sort for something by name, but the search function of the trade network is about as bare bones and confusing as things can get.

I also look forward to seeing space ship interior customization possible. We’ve finally got a chair we can sit in, but I’d like to hang trophies, add seats, or change rooms around in my ship to get just the look that I’d like.

Character creation could also use some more options. Personally I am able to create characters I like and find appealing, but I also think many, if not most current generation MMO's offer far more customization during this process allowing people to create something unique.

I also have some concerns about the long term health of faction balance. Most poll's show that PvE servers are populated by Republic players who are utterly afraid to delve into PvP, while PvP servers are heavily favored by Sith players. Even during beta, Huttball pops more often (since it is not faction specific) for me than other Warzones demonstrating yet again that most Republic players arent here for the PvP. Other games have had this issue as well, but it is a solid argument for the current "bracketless" Warzone system so people get to play other Warzones than just Huttball.

Conclusions, opinions, and impressions:

The Old Republic is a pretty damn good themepark experience. I’ve been lucky enough to play the past few weekends with people who have been burnt out on the genre, and hearing them interested and excited made me feel that my impressions were actually fairly common. I’ve heard good and bad, but it has been overwhelmingly in favor of the good, and of The Old Republic being a fairly big hit.

2011 is far different than 2004, and the market is jaded, experienced and more burnt out, but it is a much bigger marketplace than WoW released in, so perhaps that is to be expected. People have more choices today than ever before, so people feel that they have to compromise less. I realize that TOR wont appeal to everyone, I think people who prefer sandbox style games will find it lacking, as will die hard role-players who don’t have enough ability to interact or socialize within the game. (Yes, social hubs need more reason for people to visit them; I think space stations will ultimately kill the potential of Capital cities to become social hubs.)

I think The Old Republic is a linear (and linear isn’t a bad word) directed experience within a complete MMO experience, which is a somewhat new experience, and I think some people are unable to draw the distinction. Then again, some people are idiots too, if you take my meaning.

I think The Old Republic is on its way to being a critical and commercial success, even if it never rises to the heights of World of Warcraft. Gordon Walton, former Co-Studio Director of Bioware Austin once famously said “let ‘em quit” when talking about building an MMO in a post World of Warcraft environment. His point was that some games feel friendly to leave and come back, and I hope that The Old Republic hits that mark. If people drop in and out (and that implies they come back and have reason to come back) we’re in for something special. To me, The Old Republic feels like the ne plus ultra of the current generation of MMO’s, taking the absolute best of previous games and making it distinctly their own.

When I look back at everything that I've written, I feel like I've had to nitpick to find things I did not like or needed to improve. Sure, I'm a fan of the game, but I'm not foolish enough to suggest that any game out there is perfect. The experience that I'm getting from the game is actually more than I could have hoped for, simply because so many friends are returning to the genre and have been impressed enough to jump in for launch. The experience is incredibly polished at lower levels, and as a whole is extremely enjoyable. My priorities in a game might be different than most of the rest of MMO gamers out there, but I'm simply looking to have some fun.

Other than the PvP aspects I mentioned, all the other imperfections are things I can tolerate, or dont even notice unless I stop to think. They arent items that take away enough from my immersion to matter. Maybe that isnt the case for other people, and maybe not having a day/night cycle really does make a game unplayable to 'em. Me? I'd much rather accept it for what it is, and realize that Bioware is offering up an awful lot that can appeal to people, but probably isnt everything for everyone. I'm pretty darn happy with we've got!

Apologies for running into character issues and extending this short section. Part 4 will involve classes.

The Definitive Star Wars: The Old Republic Beta Review (Part 2)

Hengist — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 20:37:18 GMT

Gameplay:

Combat:

We don’t see some radical design changes that involve active blocking or dodging, what we see is a very familiar mechanic that has been around since nearly the dawn of MMO’s. While Bioware chooses to not push the envelope in this area, I think they are banking on people feeling comfortable with what they offer, and feeling comfortable very quickly.

Animations are smooth and fluid, and each class looks distinct, even if the factions have mirror abilities, they still look unique. One of the best aspects, from the point of view of a lightsaber wielder, is that you actually see your lightsaber move to block incoming blaster bolts. This may not sound like a lot, but to sync the attack animation with the block is something that is very noticeable and appreciated.

Yes, the game is based on the Tank/DPS/Healer trinity, but because of the limited (4 person) group size it works much better than doubters would suspect. Very simply if you have a skill on your hotbar, odds are that you are going to be using it. From my first experience at Pax East this year, until this weekend I’ve come to believe that hybrid’s actually work to an extent. A tank may be a tank, but a healer isn’t a healbot, he’s adding DPS, doing CC and using skills other than his heals for most fights. Boss fights he may find himself in a standard role, but as a whole, this is definitely something that I like. Most flashpoints encourage or are easier if you have classes who can off heal or be a secondary tank. That isn’t to say they are impossible otherwise, they aren’t, but for a standard combat system to allow players to really use all their skills make the game seem a lot more enjoyable.

If you are looking for a breakthrough combat system then you are barking up the wrong tree. I know revisionists praise Age of Conan for trying to break new ground with their combat system, what they tend to conveniently forget is that the vast majority of players did not care for it, and felt that ranged classes had significant advantage over melee classes. It is one thing when that is class balance, but when it is a fundamental result of the combat system as a whole, it’s a different story.

I feel that Bioware has hit a reasonable sweet spot, and made the absolute best out of a system most MMO players are familiar with. By allowing people to use all their skills they have maximized combat as a whole, without making wholesale changes to a system.

Space:

I’m giving more space (sic) and time to this topic than it deserves, because frankly it is simply a mini-game. People have wanted a successor to SWG:A Jump to Lightspeed for years, because it was an open ended, fun to play addition to Galaxies. What people forget is that Galaxies launched without that space component and JTL was a fully fledged expansion. I’m sorry if you were looking for more, but Bioware has been upfront since day one that this was not going to happen.

I’m happy to admit that I felt JTL was perhaps the best addition to Galaxies, and one of my favorite parts of the game, and I would like nothing more than to see it again, but that isn’t in the cards for release.

I wont get into the debate about “should it have happened”, but the truth is many of the arguments I’ve seen on the official forums are simply re-hashes of things that were said during the beta of Galaxies. “How on earth could Galaxies release without a space component” was a familiar cry. In a pretty simple manner The Old Republic has one upped ‘em, because like it or not, it has a space component.

So taking it for what it is, I enjoy it. It’s a time waster, it is something to do for experience here and there, and I know that I’m never going to sink endless hours into. I’m actually okay with that. In fact I probably spent more time this beta weekend playing around in space than I had the past couple of months combined. I enjoyed the simple missions, I enjoyed upgrading my ship, and it is what it is. It’s not the full-fledged game many people wanted, and if you don’t like it, don’t play with it.

This is one I wish people would take it for what it is, opposed to people being upset it isn’t exactly what they wanted, and with the selective memory thinking that Galaxies had it, so any “brand name” successor should have it as well.

Flashpoints:

These “dungeons” are probably the signature aspect of the game. Having spent time in beta I think the newness wore off a bit on me, and over the past few beta weekends, I have really enjoyed playing with friends who were seeing these for the very first time. As a group, they were blown away with what was offered, and felt like the scripted environment, and atmosphere far exceeded any MMO experience they had ever had.

It wasn’t a matter of running it once, it was that they wanted to do it again, so they could take a different path. Sure, you may end up in the same place when it is all said and done, but the fact that the journey would change (at least one part) gave the game a serious level of replay ability for them. I know people have argued that there is limited replay ability because you get to the same place, but to me that’s missing a big part of the game, as it isn’t just about destination. It wasn’t always that way, fact is The Old Republic is breaking that mold and making it that way.

I don’t want to give any spoilers away, but there are some big moments via flashpoint where big figures in the Old Republic (Revan, and Darth Malgus) among others are dealt with. In some cases they almost should have been bigger moments, but Bioware definitely has woven key characters into the game, and made it enjoyable for players to find out what happens to them. This probably is more for fans of Knights of the Old Republic, but in a few cases, I had people asking what the history of Revan was, as this was their first exposure, and seen them get drawn in. To me, that’s the mark of a good story, if it sucks you in, even if you aren’t interested, and in the end you want to know even more.

Since I have started with beta, a couple of non-factional Flashpoints have been added, and its good to see that Bioware is interested in expanding on this element of the game.

Companions:

I’ve never been sure how I felt about companions ever since Bioware announced them. Having played plenty of Bioware games in the past it was something that I was familiar with, but I wasn’t sure how it would translate into an MMO. Over the months I’ve seen all kinds of evolution, and adding customization was something that was needed. Instead of seeing thousands of “Mako’s” now I see 3 or 4 variations of her, and that helps.

From not talking enough, to talking way too much, I think I said there have been tweaks, no? I’ve had issues with companions getting in the way of my looting, not going down elevators, or going thru certain doorways. I feel pretty happy to say that most of those issues appear to be gone now, because they definitely had me concerned.

Despite my being apprehensive I’ve actually come to like companions. I’ve tested them in lieu of other players in certain Flashpoints, and while not being a replacement for a person, found them to be passable in many circumstances, usually slightly over-leveled, but still viable. They will never replace a real player, but the AI is decent enough that if you are missing “just one” person, or if you want to tackle a Flashpoint that is a few levels lower than you, odds are you can go and get it done.

Their impact in crafting is invaluable, and appreciated, but that’s the next topic.

Crafting:

Despite having automated (companions) help to gather and craft much like SWG (harvesters and factories) the comparison between the two systems pretty much ends there. Being honest, a couple of builds ago I had exceptional high hopes for the crafting system. Just about all items had multiple modification slots, and it really felt like you could keep a piece of equipment infinitely as long as you upgraded as you went. This appealed to me since I could keep a “look” and feel unique.

Bioware threw a change-up, and gave lower level gear less modification slots as a whole, which meant that keeping a unique and cool look was far less likely. The better the gear, the higher the level the closer to the max modification slots were available. What they have done is simplified things, but it definitely took something away from the whole. Some professions seem more useful than others, but I have to admit that I love that they have removed much of the tedium, and just let me make choices.

In Vanguard I was a shipwright, and including time gathering materials, finishing materials, and assembling, I was putting in close to 8 hours to make a single ship. That is a lot of tedium, and is a massive time sink. Nothing wrong with that, but The Old Republic has taken a lot of the time sink out, and made me feel that I was choosing what to make, what to reverse engineer (for a better recipe) and so on. In short it makes me feel like my time is better spent here.

(ran into a character issue here, so extended to 4 parts)

Part 3 is UI and other items along with conclusions and Part 4 is classes.

The Definitive Star Wars: The Old Republic Beta Review (Part 1)

Hengist — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 20:33:08 GMT

I’ve really been on hiatus for too long with this blog, but in my defense not too long after the last edition, I received an e-mail from Bioware with an invitation of the sort where you were allowed to say “there is a beta, and I am participating in the beta” and not much more. With that in mind, I felt putting my blog on hiatus was a good thing, because I did not want to spill anything that I knew as a result of beta and that was not public knowledge. So here we are, just a few short weeks until early access begins and with the last big beta weekend nearly complete and it’s finally time to share my own impressions, and I’m going to do it in a fairly blunt manner, so brace yourself.

Overall MMO Design:

I’ve seen idiots suggest that Bioware was really making a single-player or co-op RPG with TOR, and really there is nothing farther from the truth. The most amusing thing, this close to release is that these same single digit IQ folks are trying to justify their point of view thru some pretty ridiculous arguments. The truth of the matter though is pretty different. What Bioware did was simply add a deep storyline to the genre, and while it is scripted it is something that the genre really hasn’t seen, and is fairly welcome. If you are looking for typical MMO conventions they are all there. This is as much an MMO as any post 2004 title has been, without exception.

World Design:

From jungle to ice world, from desert to city, Bioware gives players a diverse group of worlds to adventure on. I use the word adventure because unfortunately I think exploration is one aspect of the The Old Republic that comes up a little bit short. Themepark style MMO’s tend to herd players from quest hub to quest hub, and that’s exactly what The Old Republic does as well. Should you choose to do all the quests available on given planets you will invariably explore 99% of that planet in your normal travels. People who want to see what is over the next hill just for the sake of seeing and knowing might feel a little disappointed. Datacrons are a nice way to inject a little bit of the explorer bug for people, but it really isn’t enough, although solving the puzzle of getting to them is something, it isn’t enough.

I never really considered the concept of how to build a huge city planet before, and have it be satisfying for everyone. How would you build a planet with buildings that are hundreds of stories high, with doors you could enter and explore and make it still feel populated? The path here on Coruscant and Nar Shadda is to make it a “taxi world.” Where certain districts are accessed by taxi, and it feels like the world is split up into smaller playfields instead of one large world. In some ways the illusion works and you feel like you are part of a larger world and in some ways you don’t. My biggest objection on the Republic side is simply that Coruscant and Nar Shadda come too close together so the world feels much slower to open up for a Republic player than it does for a Sith player.

One of the bigger objections I’ve seen about the game is the lack of a day/night cycle. While I’ve appreciated it in other games, I honestly did not notice or miss it in The Old Republic. I understand that Bioware feels setting is essential to telling a story, and while I’d love to see Korriban or Coruscant at night, I never felt like I was missing anything. This is an element of immersion that clearly passed me by. For the vocal crew who seems to feel it is essential, I’d suggest an appointment with a doctor and some medication. I know it is different strokes for different folks, but this objection really strikes me as not being able to see the forest thru a few branches. This game does a great job telling a story, yes your story is the one Bioware wrote not the one you imagined, but take a step back and appreciate it, and I think you’ll find its worth it.

One of the other objections I’ve seen is lack of swimming. In my 4 plus months of adventuring I never found a body of water I said “I need to swim across that.” This is just another item that I never missed, nor did I feel was essential to spending time and enjoying a game.

The final objection I commonly see is that with phasing/instancing it just isn’t a real world, and it’s a co-op world. During this large scale beta weekend, I’ve seen multiple instances of certain planets, but in almost all cases I had 200-300 people in the instance that I was in. To me, that feels like a fully populated place where I can still quest and enjoy the game. Bioware has made it pretty clear that their intention is to use this technology mostly at release in order to make the game more playable. Honestly that sounds like a sharp thing to do, and makes a lot of sense. If it is still being used six months after release then I think we’ve got something to talk about, but I have yet to see any indication that is the case.

Finally, the use of story telling instances is genius. We’ve seen it in other games, usually with a loading screen, but the way Bioware has done it really sets The Old Republic apart. It is smooth, it is seamless and your experience is great. This doesn’t take a bit away from the MMO feeling, to me it adds something, the ability to have my own events without outside interference. It isn’t all the time, and that’s the key.

Art Direction/Graphics:

If you look at the art that was released in 2008 compared to what you see today, there is no comparison. Even in the four months I’ve been participating I’ve seen a dramatic improvement. I’ve seen more detail, more sharpness added, and there are times I’m blown away by it. We obviously aren’t talking photo realistic, but we are seeing the fruits of a direction that wants a good looking game that is accessible by as many people as possible. Sure, Bioware could have went the same direction Funcom did with Age of Conan and tried for the best looking graphics possible, but a limited audience is probably not what they wanted to see.

It can be hotly debated if you like the art style or not, and that’s a valid point of view. For me, I think they work, they don’t make me feel that I’m in a cartoon, and I get incredible FPS and that makes it all the better.

Aside from the obvious taste discussion, the only other objection I see is from people who claim to have the most cutting edge system possible, they run Battlefield 3 at 105 FPS but they can only get 22 FPS on TOR. I handle that objection with a laugh and the knowledge that in general they are completely full of Bantha poodoo. That isn’t to say that some video card drivers degraded performance during beta, because there were a few occasions that they did, rather that I think we should all be smart enough to realize these folks are really stretching for something to dislike. In most cases, it’s something with their internet connection or with their system.

PvE (Player versus Environment)

Did you really think that you were going to escape the “Kill 10 xyz animals and come back” types of quests? If you did, you’d be mistaken. Bioware has tried to couch those quests with voice over, but calling a spade for what it is, it’s what we’ve seen and done before. If someone skips past the voice over, which gives context to the quest, it’s exactly what other MMO’s have done before it. What Bioware really focused on with the voice over, was giving context to just about everything that you are doing in the game. I know that I appreciated this during my first play thru, but I admit the longer I’ve been in beta the less apt I am to sit and listen to parts of the story I already know. This is a huge reason why I cut myself off with certain characters, simply because I did not want to know more.

From a class quest line to flashpoints, to operations, there is an abundance of PvE elements to enjoy. Over the course of beta Bioware has definitely had to tweak experience so players would be at appropriate levels when leaving certain worlds. My short piece of advice to anyone here is simply to do every quest available on a planet and don’t just skip items that don’t apply to your class quest. I’m always amused when I see a level 6 character wondering why he/she can’t kill the level 9 elite mobs they need for a particular quest.

PvP (Player versus Player)

My lasting enjoyment of any game is usually found thru PvP, and that’s the eye thru which I look at The Old Republic. I’ll start by saying that if it reminds me of any other game, it is definitely Warhammer Online, so the EA partnership with Mythic certainly is evident. PvP is paced much slower than a game like World of Warcraft, where I could stun-lock someone with my rogue and kill them without them being able to do a thing. I think that PvP in The Old Republic is more new player friendly, and allows for a greater depth because of that design. New players can “make mistakes” in PvP and still recover, it gives them a greater opportunity to have fun. Veteran players on the other hand work towards playing mistake free.

The addition of PvP lakes with control points and larger scale PvP are great. That being said they have been added relatively late in the process and I haven’t spent near enough time with them to understand them, or to enjoy them completely. This is something that I’m pretty confident that I will enjoy, but just don’t have enough time with to say with passion.

My biggest issues with PvP involve class survivability, which I will get into later, and an overabundance of crowd control abilities. These two items though are fairly large issues that need to be addressed, especially for the PvP viability of several classes. For me, at this point that means there are several classes that I wont consider playing because of those reasons alone, no matter how much I want to experience that story.

Part 2-Gameplay
Part 3- UI and Misc
Part 4- Classes

The Old Republic: A Blog Rebooted

Hengist — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 01:21:17 GMT

The Old Republic: Rebooted Blog

Real life always seems to find a way to suck more time than you expect it to, but despite the hiatus, I figured it was time to get busy again with the blog as it is becoming more and more evident that The Old Republic is nearing release. A suggestion was made that instead of talking about features or videos, the best thing to do is talk about what really interests me with The Old Republic, and that maybe it would give someone who has had little more than a passing interest in the game to pay attention.

First of all, lets just say that I fully admit that The Old Republic isn’t going to be a game for everyone, but it is a game for me for a few big reasons, let me share ‘em, and see if/where those are reasons you might share.

Background:

It all starts with Star Wars for me. I’m not going to get deeply into it, but I’ll just say that it was one of the first movies I ever saw in a theater, and it has had a lasting impact in my life. While I was always a sports oriented kid, and my heroes were athletes, I got lost in the Star Wars universe and understood sacrifice, heroism, and evil as concepts that George Lucas put on a big screen. Probably not the best examples, but I would have put Luke Skywalker and Han Solo in my pantheon of heroes along with Walter Payton and Joe Montana. As I grew older I found heroes to admire outside the realms of sports or stories, but qualities that I admired kept some heroes far longer than one would expect.

I’ve never been a tabletop gamer, although I did have a few of the books, and I did give Shadowrun a spin once upon a time. (Don’t start me, but there is a game that really needs to be an MMO.) My entry into multiplayer RPG’s was really Ultima Online, a game that is still in a class of its own in my mind to this day. If I look back at it, and the reasons that I enjoyed it, I’m pretty sure that if I picked it up today, I would not care for the game. Back then my life was different, I was able to sit and play for long stretches, and if I got PK’d, and lost my gear, I shrugged it off and started again. Could I really stand to play that today? I think not.

Thru the years I tried other games, and have found that at heart, I love PvP, and no games have done it better than Dark Age of Camelot and to a lesser degree Warhammer. You see, I found that I loved the RvR style of PvP far more than what I experienced in UO, or even than what I experienced in World of Warcraft. I did the whole 40 man progression raiding, and did it as a guild leader of one of the better raiding guilds on my server during vanilla WoW. Want to know something? While I loved working with 39 other people to see cool content that not everyone got to see, I utterly hated the job of being a guild leader and having to deal with all the different personalities. Where I had my most fun, was with some friends, gathered in Ventrilo either talking or listening to streaming music, and queuing up for PvP. There were instances of us not losing a match for a couple of weeks at a time, and we’d do that two, three, four hours a day.

Like I said though, life sometimes takes more time than you think, and as a husband I’m lucky my wife will play so we can share some time together, but still a real job, a house, a daughter, and suddenly my time isn’t what it used to be, and that’s one of the drivers for what I enjoy. I can’t afford the time to get lost in a sandbox world, or a place where I can lose all my items in a matter of seconds and then build up again. I need something that I can bite off it bits and pieces, and fit it around my life. So to begin with, I guess I’ve finally embraced (I played, just never embraced) the idea that I’m a theme park gamer today. From that point of view, The Old Republic promises to be the ultimate theme park for me. It is an IP that I know and love, and the game is definitely a theme park a la WoW. I can have my game in chunks, as much as I can afford to invest.

Story

What I loved about seeing Star Wars in the theater when I was a kid, is the epic story that was told. I’m a sucker for a good story, and I always have been. I can get sucked in to a story and lose myself for hours. My imagination then takes me to some great places. When it comes to games, I enjoy single player RPG’s that tell a story, or make me the central part in a story.

When it comes to MMO’s, I’ve generally found story to be lacking. Reading a quest text just doesn’t do much to immerse me into a game world. Put it this way, in EQ2, I was the guy who wondered who had lived in Stormhold, (teen level Antonican dungeon) what its significance was, and what happened to turn it into a ruin. In a single player RPG, you’d find quests, clues, and you get that tie to the game world.

This has been a huge focus for Bioware, and I generally love the way they tell a story. Within a real MMO world, a large world just like any other MMO world, I’ve got an actual story. They offer a class arc, and maybe I’m going to share it with everyone else who plays “X-Class”, but having it fully voiced with NPC companions, yeah, it works for me. In a world of many, there is a part that is “special” for me, developing my character within a larger world. That’s just not something I’ve ever had in an MMO, short of imagining it. What is more interesting, is that it appears this decision isn’t unique to Bioware, and teams like Funcom are moving in this direction as well.

PvP

To me world PvP died back in Ultima Online because after that, I found reasons to PvP, it did not just have to be random. RvR introduced me to taking and defending territory, and that gave life to PvP for me. While we don’t know how it will exist in TOR, we do know that they have talked about RvR lakes, and a good part of the Mythic team that brought us Warhammer PvP is working on PvP for The Old Republic. Scenario PvP is just a fact of life in MMO’s these days, and the couple of bits they have shown us do look intriguing.

Group Size

I loved (notice the past tense) doing things with 39 other people, but I cant do it anymore. I love that this games dungeons are currently balanced around a 4 man group. In my time playing a healer at Pax East, I never felt like a healbot, if there was a skill on my hotbar, I was using it, and to me the smaller size allows people to use more skills instead of just a few, and that is fun.

The other benefit, to me, is companions, so if I have less than 4 and at least 1 other person with me, I can give an instance a try. It may not be optimal, but I can at least try. Raids appear to be between 8 (info given) and at around 20 (just a guess based on watching a raid video). Much more suited to small groups.

Star Wars

Geoge Lucas invented a unique universe, and ever since I saw a Star Destroyer chasing a Corellian Corvette towards a dusty planet, it has been a world I wanted to inhabit. Other games have let me see a portion, and SWG gave me a home for a time, but for the first time, it appears I’ve got a universe to explore, and be able to do it on my terms, in my own time.

So I’ve given just a few reasons why I’m interested, and why I like what I see. Where did you come from? Have you found an interest changing based on where you are today? What’s the draw to a game for you? What aspect is going to give you the most enjoyment from an MMORPG?

Video of the Week: Choose

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RJO — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 05:56:04 GMT

* My apologies for this post being a little behind. The SWG closure announcement happened while I was on my way up north (literally sitting in my car opening a package of Crazy Bread when the news broke embargo) for a quick out of town vacation and I haven't had a chance to put my thoughts to keyboard until now.

In my last blog post here on AoT (the one about the SOE lay offs) I expressed I had a pretty bad feeling about what laying off half of the Austin studio would mean for SWG. Sadly that bad feeling has now become a reality and I feel the genre will be the one that suffers.

The reason it will suffer is because some people will take the meaning of today wrong and see SWG as a failure. A AAA MMO being canned after only 8 years meets a simple criteria for failure but it doesn't tell the whole story. The reason we are here today is not because of the NGE or the CU or the CU2 or the delay of JTL or any number of things. Those were all barriers to SWG reaching its full potential perhaps but that is not why the servers will go dark on December 15th. This has everything to do with SW:TOR coming out in the next few months and nothing to do with SWG's success or lack of success (note it was SOE's 2nd or 3rd most profitable game depending on what year you snap shot for the data).

I've read the 20+ pages of the discussion thread on the closure over on the official forums and many people are blaming SOE. I know its easy to blame SOE but please folks: This is 100% Lucas Arts. A lot of SWG's darker days have come at the urging or flat out instructions of Lucas Arts and had very little to do with SOE.

I think if you go back to the earliest days SOE went out to make their sandbox (guys like Vogel and Koster being on the team making this pretty clear). This was their answer to what they saw in their biggest competition (UO) in those days. The problem with that is I'm not entirely convinced SWG was ever the game Lucas Arts wanted them to make. Later Lucas Arts would push SOE to make "a more iconic experience" and the result was the NGE. We all know how that went.

This is all my take based on conversations with the dev and community teams over the years as well as my experiences working as a project manager for a major media outlet. One thing I can tell you with almost absolute certainty the relationship between SOE and LA was workable but always seemed very tense to me. When I was working on SWG Stratics as a project manager we had to clear a lot of what we did with Lucas Arts and it was a terrible pain in the ass every step of the way. I'm not just talking during NDA and pre release times either. There were times we'd have to secure permission for something a thousand other fan sites were doing anyway. SOE was always its usual very approachable and brilliant self when it came to dealing with the media. The managing editor for SWG Stratics (Matt K!) spent many nights ripping his hair out as we'd have to ask LA for permission to breath (I won't shout it out here but I'll never forget the name of the rep we dealt with at LA in all my life - she's on my "avoid this person professionally like the plague" list). If these were the conditions we were operating under what could it possibly have been like trying to develop for these guys?

Enough of the business stuff though (sorry - I can't help myself). I have to get right down to the emotional core of this: I'm really sad to see the game go. I'm sad on two levels: As a fan in general of the genre (in particular sandbox MMOs) and as a fan of the game in particular.

From the genre point of view many people will tell you SWG was a failure. There are many ways to measure failure when it comes to MMOs and I think many of those methods of determining success or failure would tell you SWG had a rough ride. In my mind though the simple fact is SWG was a proof of concept that a major studio could release a sandbox game and could turn a profit doing so. Having the Star Wars IP helps, huge. No doubt. But the complex social and economic systems that were weaved in to the game play stand alone as a brilliant accomplishment (the housing and city system, the player based economy, the crafting - I could (and might in a future post) go on at great length on all the things SWG did right in the sandbox sense).

Repeat after me folks. SANDBOX MMOS CAN BE PROFITABLE AND ARE WORTHWHILE ENDEAVORS. I'm heartened by Smed's SWG Closure Interview with Massively where he hinted that they are going to take another crack at building a sandbox and I really hope it becomes a pillar of what they do with EQ Next (I suspect we'll find out at Fan Faire).

This is a dark day for sandboxes (a very very dark day) but hopefully the vacuum this creates will open the door to the next step on the sandbox journey.

On the personal front. I'm a little heart broken honestly. I haven't played the game much since the NGE (that is to say I haven't played at all in at least 2-3 years aside from a few random drop ins when SOE would do a free welcome back campaign) but that doesn't diminish the sadness at all. Even if I wasn't subscribed I knew my brother in law was taking care of my houses and that my player built town would be there. I had a home to go to and more importantly it WAS a home, just in another world. That I think is the core strength of SWG and other sandbox virtual worlds. The whole point it is it is another world, another place where you exist on some level. There is a connectedness there that transcends what a normal game offers you.

I have so many experiences and moments I want to share. But paramount is how SWG helped me build a relationship with Tammy when we were dating. After we got engaged Tammy and I got married in an in game ceremony that many of you attended, it just felt right that we'd celebrate our engagement using a platform that did so much to bring us together with people we had grown so close to over the course of a year playing the game. When we eventually got married in the real world Raph Koster was nice enough to dedicate a Developer Chat to us!

In the earlier stages of our relationship we would go on dates in the game. SWG was the platform where I fell in love with my wife because over the distance of 3500 kilometers we could have meaningful experiences with one and other. We had met and been talking for a year or so when SWG came out but our exploration trips and little side "date nights" in game really brought us together and strengthened our bond with one and other.

Another favorite story I have from SWG was the founding of our player town Mos Strahteks. Months before the game had even come out we had developed a plan for our town. We knew exactly where our guild hall was going to go and where Tammy's armor shop was going to go. A town of 50 or so people completely planned out in a democratic and very fun fashion.

When launch day came (Tammy called my cell when our server came up a few hours late, I was out, I had to rush home!) we all came together and stockpiled resources and over the course of a few weeks built a city building by building, brick by brick. My adventures with MS are some of the best times I've had in my life. Could I have had those experiences in another game? Maybe. The fact is though that SWG was a platform that enabled these types of experiences. THIS was the content. Working collectively with friends.

As I read through the consolidated shut down thread over on the official forums I see the depth and impact of my experiences reflected by others. My experience wasn't a one off. There were 100s and likely 1000s of people who found so much more than a game in SWG.

In the MMO space we've come to accept the adage "there will never be an MMO you love like your first MMO" and I realize as I sit here and type this that it is a shame that we've let it come to this. My first love was UO. My second MMO love was SWG. There were six years between the releases of the two games, maybe that should serve as a little reminder that greatness can't be expected every year in every MMO that releases. It is a damn shame that it took the closure of this great game, this great virtual world for me to realize the cost of our cynicism as fans and the stagnation from the development and publishing communities (that we enable and even encourage in our spending patterns).

I'll try and get a post up soon on what I feel should be the lessons learned from SWG for anyone who would want to make a sandbox in the future. I think there are many lessons worth learning from SWG and I hope whoever is the next studio to take a crack at a game this ambitious takes them to heart.

The game was far from perfect, but when we look back years from now I think we'll remember SWG as one of the greats.