Posts Tagged ‘Star Wars: The Old Republic’

Thanksgiving 2012

By Wade On Nov 21, 2012 Uncategorized 0 No Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

It is that special time of year again; the nationwide sacrifice of 45 million turkeys to the god of genocide.

Eat up, fuckers.

With that being said, here are the things I’m thankful for this year:

  • My wife
    Another year of putting up with my bullshit. How and why I have no clue, but it is impressive.
  • Jay Wilson
    He destroyed one of the greatest franchises in gaming and saved me a lot of time by not waiting for Diablo 4
  • SWTOR
    Made me realize that anything that promises to not suck is going to be the worst game of all time.
  • Mists Of Pandaria
    Finally gave me a farm to plant juicycrunch carrots on.
  • Mitt Romney
    Showed the world that 48% of this country is unequivocally stupid
  • Barack Obama
    Showed the world that 52% of this country is smarter than the average evangelical.
  •  My friends
    They bought D3 & SWTOR yet they still talk to me for some reason.
  • My family
    They have stopped calling me a nerdy loser for the most part. YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH THAT HURT ME.
  • The proclivity of politicians to eat corn dogs
    The pictures of them eating them in extremely suggestive ways have made me quite a bit of cash. Thanks, google images!
  • Brazil/The Phillipines/Eastern Europe/Australia
    Without any of these fine places, my gaming experience would be significantly reduced. Keep on gaming, fellas. Dota2 would suck without you!

 

CNN Analyzes SWTOR, Gets It All Wrong

By Wade On Aug 16, 2012 Uncategorized 0 No Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/10/technology/star-wars-free-play/index.html

 

CNN makes some big assumptions but just doesn’t get it.

SWTOR sucks. It is a shitty WoW clone with a tenth of the content (yes, even shitty content counts) and none of the soul. People pay $15 a month for WoW STILL because they’re addicted.

What could SWTOR have that could possibly justify spending a subscription for? The frequent content updates?
Please. Bioware flunked that test with the incredibly lame, pointless, and completely worthless Legacy patch that contributed to the happiness of one guild of RPing losers.

 

CNN goes on to further demonstrate their cluelessness with this quote:

That hasn’t stopped the traditional publishers from flocking to it. Star Warsjoins a free-to-play club that includes Everquest, Aion, Guild Wars, Dungeon & Dragons Online, The Lord of the Rings Online, and other landmark games.

Guild Wars isn’t free to play. Aion, DDO, and LOTRO were all “WoW killers” that failed spectacularly and were relegated to f2p purgatory. I don’t even know if CNN means EQ or EQ2, but the point stands if they’re speaking of EQ2. EQ1 is in its second decade of existence and therefore gets a pass.

 

Then there’s this jewel:

The Old Republic, which launched in late December, was supposed to be the next Warcraft. It started off strong, attracting more than 1 million players in its first three days — a record pace. But within a few months, the subscribers began drifting away. EA won’t comment on the game’s current paying audience, saying only that it’s north of 500,000.

 

Rather than impugn SWTOR, CNN chooses to make a sweeping generalization and state that the industry itself, not just another shitty game, is to blame for a 50% loss of subscribers.

There are many reasons why SWTOR failed, and I know it will be discussed for years to come as how not to build a MMO. However, the fact that WoW is able to continue to operate as a subscription-based MMO is a dagger in the heart to CNN’s premise that f2p is the future. There just hasn’t been a game worthy of $15 a month that has come out since 2004.

 

 

SW:TOR Goes Free To Play

By Wade On Jul 31, 2012 Uncategorized 0 No Comments Tags: , , , , , , , ,

 

 

 

No big surprise, but EA/Bioware have announced today that SW:TOR will become f2p in the autumn.

 

 

Since launch, our team has spent a lot of time trying to find new ways to be able to bring the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ experience to as many potential players as possible. We quickly became aware that our subscription only model was a major barrier for a lot people who wanted to become part of The Old Republic universe. In fact, many players who have left the game said they would happily come back if they could play without the commitment of a monthly fee.

Translation: the game is really bad and we have no clue what to do so we’re going f2p.

 

Starting this Fall, there will be two ways to enjoy the game. First, you can continue as a subscriber, which gives you unlimited access to all game features and future Game Updates at no additional charge. Second, you have the option to play free to Level 50, with game play restrictions that limit game options and access to certain game content. Our goal is to ensure that our current players continue to receive the AAA content they are used to and enjoy the new rewards. To that end, I am proud to say that we have a lot of great new content coming your way, and that it will be coming more frequently. We have a great lineup in development including: a new Operation, Terror From Beyond, a new heroic mission series on the planet of Belsavis; a set of level 50 space combat missions for those looking for the ultimate challenge mode; introduction of a dangerous new Companion to accompany you; and for our PvP fans, a new warzone, Ancient Hypergate!

Translation: lol ty 4 ur $$$$ here are some shitty space missions, a lousy companion that you won’t ever use, and another warzone where you can get shitstomped repeatedly.

 

Starting today, you’ll be earning rewards as part of our new rewards program, making your current subscription more valuable than ever. Current and lapsed subscribers will earn 200 Cartel Coins for every paid month prior to today (July 31, 2012) and until the Free-to-Play option launches. For those who purchased the Collector’s Edition, we have an additional bonus reward of 1000 Cartel Coins for you. With Cartel Coins you can purchase convenience items, boosts, visually unique gear, collectibles, and more. The new Cartel Market gives you the option to add to your game play experience with items that fit your play style and allow you to customize your character.

Translation: lmao ty 4 buying the collector’s edition for $150, here are some even more terrible things to justify your purchase.

Our team is extremely excited about this new plan. We are working hard and having a lot of fun preparing new content and items for the game. We believe that this is the right direction for our game – more choices, more options and more ways to customize your play experience to suit your play-style. We want to be able to keep our fans excited, engaged and having fun every time you login. We look forward to hearing your thoughts, suggestions and feedback.

Thanks for your support over the last seven months. We have the best fans in the business!

May the Force be With You.

Jeff Hickman, Executive Producer – Star Wars™: The Old Republic™

Translation: our team has been decimated and it is taking the 3 guys we have working on new shit a long time to make anything new even if it sucks. We also can’t wait to have 1000 pages of crying, whining, and trolling on the official SWTOR forums, and fuck everyone of you that cancelled your subscription.

If you would have told me back in 2008 that SWTOR would flop and go f2p in 7 months, I would have nerded out  and praised Bioware to the moon.

Oh well, on to Guild Wars 2!

 

 

 

SWTOR Put Even Farther Into The Dumpster

By Wade On Jul 17, 2012 Uncategorized 0 No Comments Tags: , , , , , , ,

 

SWTOR’s executive producer Rich Vogel, a veteran MMO destroyer you may know from such titles as Meridian 59,  Star Wars Galaxies,  and Ultima Online has flown the coop.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/174300/SWTORs_executive_producer_leaves_BioWare_amid_layoff_reports.php

Vogel was instrumental in the development of SWTOR, overseeing all aspects of the MMO before and after its launch in December. The online game, though, has lost around 400,000 paid subscribers in recent months, and BioWare Austin recently said it’sconsidering free-to-play options for the title.

 

 

F2P on the way, kids!

Kurtob Speeder

By Wade On Jul 10, 2012 Uncategorized 0 No Comments Tags: , , , ,

 

 

WTF is this shit?  A reward for suckering in 20 people to play a shitty game?

I’ll take it, thanks Bioware!

TF2 and Diablo 3: New Era of the MMORPG?

By Clint On May 14, 2012 Uncategorized 1 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , ,

As the midnight release of Diablo 3 looms, I have been reflecting on a decades’ worth of gaming that has passed since Blizzard’s last foray into Tristram. Mostly it’s has been with a bunch of people who act just like this:

fickle beasts

 

MMORPGers have grown a bit fickle, and who can blame them? New iterations in Star Wars the Old Republic or Guild Wars 2 seemingly stick to the “safe-formula”: promising new “innovations” in the gameplay experience, yet keeping the control schemes pretty safely “World of Warcraft.” It’s a vastly conservative strategy, as companies are solely banking on a sizeable chunk of the gaming world to always be accessible to a particular brand of “button mashing.”

I appreciated the SWToR story single player experience, yet wonder if the precedents of rich storytelling and voice acting only ended up costing the company development time for maintaining an engaging end-game. It takes four months to release a comprehensive content patch — and you have a subscription based business model?

There simply was not enough hooks to pull in a player-base afflicted by a particular brand of MMO-fatigue. Innovations in MMO’s have stalled since the giant leap from EverQuest to WoW. We can all thank the free-to-play business models ushering in a new era of “trial-and-invest,” where gamers are able to engage with new experiences and decide how much money they deem worth to throw down on vanity bullshit.

Leave it to Valve to truly re-define the language of the MMO – albeit in the form of a team-FPS shooter.

tf2

Since Team Fortress 2‘s re-release as free-to-play, the game increased its player base 400%. That’s 400% more people to exponentially randomly get an hourly item, trade it, or smelt it down to craft a particular item. The explosion in the economy boosted profits due to the ability of players to directly purchase item sets they wanted, which affixed real world worth to the in-game trade economy. Not only that, but the items that randomly dropped constantly tweaked each of the 9 characters appearances and actual gameplay experience. Now there are several “item sets” and bonus that effectively created a specialized “sub class system.”

Here are some of my exploits as my favorite Spy sub-class: The Saharan Set

Oh, and Valve has random people paying to host servers? One could probably argue whether or not TF2 has evolved into a MMORPFPS (try saying that fast), but one thing is for certain: Valve is seeing some of the greatest returns on its investment ever.

Which brings us back to Blizzard and Diablo 3. With their bright star, WoW, showing serious signs of burning-out – they are set to release a long-awaited sequel to a game that defined “item porn” for a generation of MMORPGers. Within this context of a random-chance item drop system, Blizzard is introducing a combo in-game money and real-world dollar auction house. Effectively, the company is placing within its established single player experience an MMO economy, with a “rake” component (very much in-line with the roulette item wheel) for 15% of the real-world transactions. Will this “every one wins” economic incentive solve the issues of MMO fatigue? Tonight, we’ll find out just how deep the impact on the subscription-based MMOs there is going to be. For Blizzard, they are again in the position to win back a substantial part of their player-base that was lost. The eternal question: will this new system supplant free to play?

diablo3

Star Wars:The Old Republic Is Dying

By Wade On May 8, 2012 Uncategorized 1 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , ,

There’s a thing that happens to sports teams when the coach ‘loses the locker room’, meaning that the coach has lost the trust and confidence of his team. I think that Bioware has truly lost the locker room with SW:TOR at this point.

The forums have always been a terrible place, but with the failure of patch 1.2 and now the morale-busting news that 25% of the subscriber base bailed last quarter, they are really becoming tough to read.

 

SW:TOR will be free to play by 2013.

Star Wars: The Old Republic Loses 400K Subscribers

By Wade On May 7, 2012 Uncategorized 0 No Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

 

I'LL NEVER LET YOU GO

 

 

The end, I fear.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ea-sales-beat-targets-star-wars-takes-hit-2012-05-07?dist=afterbell

But “Star Wars: The Old Republic” showed signs of weakening. EA said active subscribers totaled 1.3 million at the end of the quarter — down 24% from the 1.7 million reported at the end of the December period, when the game first launched.

Analysts were expecting EA to end the recent quarter with about 1.6 million active subscribers — defined as those paying for subscriptions along with players who are still in the free month of trials after buying the game.

 

 

The news isn’t all bad though, check it out!

The company also expects to release more expansion content for “Star Wars” this year — including two expansion packs in the current quarter.

 

TWO NEW EXPANSIONS this quarter? I wonder if they actually mean content patches, because releasing two expansions in the same quarter is unheard of.

A Dramatic Reading: Mea Culpa

By Ustaiden On Apr 19, 2012 Uncategorized 0 No Comments Tags: , , , ,

Mea Culpa

By Wade On Apr 17, 2012 Uncategorized 2 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Let me preface this with a story: Once upon a time, a group of guys played lots of games together. The oldest, wisest fellow in this troop would get very excited about new, upcoming games. Wanting to enjoy these new games with his friends, he would exhaustively research, post, and hype said games to his buddies.

Throughout the years, some of the “next big games”, at least according to this idiot, were:

  • Hellgate: London
  • Age of Conan
  • Tabula Rasa
  • Warhammer

And his magnum opus, Star Wars: The Old Republic.
This fool, of course, is me.

There are many things to like about Star Wars. The first playthrough is fun and different from what you experience in the typical MMO. Once we had enough people at lvl 50, we proceeded to do Eternity Vault and Karagga’s Palace. While they were entertaining for a while, they quickly because tiresome. Eventually, people only logged in at the scheduled raid (oops, operation) time.

Fast forward to today, and patch 1.2 is out. This massive patch delivered lots of content in the form of Legacy upgrades, a new Operation, and more crafting options. None of this matters in the least to me. The Legacy stuff would have been great if it was in the game at release, but no matter how much of a Star Wars nerd I am, I cannot find the will to log in and do the same quests all over again. Neither can most of the guys that I play with.

In the end, I feel like I got my money’s worth out of SW:TOR. I can honestly say that I had a blast playing through for the first time, but burnout quickly set in. Even if the game had released with all the Legacy features, I highly doubt I would feel differently; the game is much more of a single-player experience than a MMO, an opinion that has been echoed many times. Bioware’s decision to release with SO many servers and their steadfast determination to not consolidate the dead/dying servers or offer free transfers off of them has killed the enjoyment of many players as well.

In fact, many players have opted to reroll on an already heavily populated server, ‘The Fatman’, and have claimed that doing so completely changed their perspective of the game. due to ACTUALLY HAVING OTHER PLAYERS AROUND YOU TO PLAY WITH. Too little, too late for this old nerd.

In the end, this will go down as yet another shitty game recommended by me.

That's me :(

Since 2008, I hyped, pushed, and bloviated over this game. My only defense is the same made by Harold Lauder, its brevity matched only by its eloquence:

I was misled.

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