Archive for the 'Star Wars: The Old Republic' Category

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$150? Are You Nuts?

Posted by Ethic on July 21, 2011 in Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2 and Star Wars: The Old Republic. 30 Comments

Bullet Points made me do it.

Star Wars The Old Republic has priced their collector’s edition at $150. I just do not see the value here. Perhaps because the figurine/statue thing is not something I give a rat’s ass about. I’m still not even sure I want to play this game and this is coming from someone that buys and plays every mainstream MMO. Heck I even have the Age of Conan collector’s edition somewhere around here. With that said, I would have probably foolishly purchased the SWTOR-CE at a price point of $79.95 based on my past history. I really like soundtracks and art books (Guild Wars gets me every time). Thank you Bioware for putting more money into my motorcycle parts fund.

I guess I finally have reached a point where I can see through the hype a little bit and have no problem waiting for a chance to actually try before I buy. However if this was Guild Wars 2 I’d be frothing at the mouth to throw money at them and I barely ever play Guild Wars 1. They know how to turn me into a customer.

I really don’t have anything else to say other than this: If you bought the CE, enjoy it! If you didn’t, enjoy your money!

- Ethic

Note to self: Use bullet points next time.

Post Weekend Release

Posted by Ravious on May 2, 2011 in Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2, Rift and Star Wars: The Old Republic. 4 Comments

It seems the Monday blues have destroyed any creativity for a full-on, introspective, analytical blog post. Instead I’ll just bait everybody with random thoughts I had over the weekend.
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[BioWare] No Good Deed

Posted by Ravious on February 14, 2011 in Star Wars: The Old Republic. 11 Comments

EDIT: So BioWare it seems is pretty swift with making sure this is made right. They sent me a copy of the email, which I am not authorized to share, but it does break it down in a pretty “plain language” format. I still think they are a little bully-ish because it starts out with mention of the “binding legal contract,”  which can set the reader to defensive right away. But, the crux of the email is “we want to promote you guys!” The email even discusses the need to pay for server costs, etc. vs. the benefit of being promoted. Thanks to BioWare for the clarification.

Wait a minute. So BioWare contacts Star Wars: The Old Republic fan-sites, those that are exclusive to their game, and reminds them that if they are making money on their fan-site, then according to a two-year old click-through agreement, BioWare cannot promote the fan-site. And, this is controversial? Did I miss a takedown notice or Valentine’s day sacrifice of a goat force fed chocolates to death on BioWare’s steps?

To be fair (and given that I have not seen this offending email), it seems that BioWare’s intention to promote community backfired. It seems to me that BioWare wants to promote fan-sites, and are trying to remind the fan-sites that BioWare can only do so if the fan-site follows some reasonable terms. This of course blew up in their face, as most things do, when a simple request is inundated with legalese to a ridiculous degree. Of course they came off as bullies when using language that normal humans don’t speak. Even my wife [constantly] reminds me of that!

Lawyers should not be contacting fan-sites unless they intend to sue them. If all BioWare wanted to do was hope to promote more fan-sites a short, simple email from a community manager would have sufficed. Don’t fire the Death Star when a simple psychokinetic strangling will do the trick.

–Ravious
the first one’s free

Hat Tip: BioBreak

Oh, the Controversy!

Posted by Ravious on January 5, 2011 in General, Rift and Star Wars: The Old Republic. 5 Comments

Pundits across the board must have had some soul-bearing New Year’s resolutions. No longer will they toe the line. They will say what they have to, goddammit! It seems that this was also the week to strike. The surprising thing is that most MMO blogs around the ‘sphere have been pretty tame when it came to 2011 predictions and 2011 posts. It has been the big gamesites that are deciding to no longer be kept down by The Man.  In no particular order:

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2011 – Hopes, Dreams, Fears

Posted by Ravious on January 3, 2011 in DC Universe Online, General, Guild Wars 2, Rift and Star Wars: The Old Republic. 16 Comments

I am too antsy to work. Most community managers on the West Coast aren’t even awake, but it is the first business day of 2011. The 2011. The Year of the MMO. It feels like something should be coming any second, but I have to tell myself that things were not so different a week ago. All morning I have been trying to write this post. What are my baseless speculations on the MMO genre this year?

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The Opposite of Grind

Posted by Ravious on December 8, 2010 in General, Guild Wars 2 and Star Wars: The Old Republic. 66 Comments

Timeless MMO topics are worming their way, yet again, around the ‘sphere. Oh, I can definitely take part of the blame since I strongly dislike subscription games, and what I feel they entail. Clearly, I am neither alone, nor am I objectively correct. Julian, KTR lurker in the threshold, threw down an excellent comment, which in part reads:

The question is why are we seemingly unable to, after 10+ years of designing these things, to avoid the grind? It is generally accepted as un-fun. It’s been a major player complaint since forever. Why are we still operating under the design assumption that grind is somehow “needed” or “part of the flavor of the genre”? Why are we unable to come up with something better?

Which made me think, okay, grind equates to gameplay, but we hate it (mostly). So, what else is there?

“Content,” is what one of my little resident voices said. If defined in such a way, content is the opposite of grind. (Random Google’d website Wordhippo tells me the opposite of “grind” is “joy.”) Yet, from another standpoint grind is content. Our blog would have a completely different name if that weren’t the case.

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SWTOR: Wizard Renamed and New Crafting Class

Posted by Makkaio on December 3, 2010 in Star Wars: The Old Republic. 1 Comment

There is always a present from BioWare sitting in my RSS feed on Fridays. I know…you get them, too. This week I thought I’d share the (/sarcasm) ground-breaking news in case you’ve missed it…

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MMO Overload in 2011

Posted by Makkaio on December 2, 2010 in Final Fantasy XIV, Rift and Star Wars: The Old Republic. 15 Comments

With the announcement that Star Wars: The Old Republic will be released sometime after April 2011…I’m thinking, “Ut oh.  Here we go again!”  Instead of a somewhat steady stream of major titles being released the last couple years, it looks like they’ll all be released within months of each other in 2011.  You might have your favorites and be able to pick one.  But for me, it’s going to be overwhelming and expensive.  And I’m looking forward to it…

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A long time ago…

Posted by Dragon on November 23, 2010 in Star Wars: Galaxies and Star Wars: The Old Republic. 3 Comments

…in a galaxy far, far away, the NGE hit Star Wars: Galaxies. The date: November 15th 2005¹.

Five years later, despite server closures and merges and a minimal population, the game is still going and content has still been added to the game including, amongst other additions, the planet of Hoth which went live on November 20th 2008. The latest patch, Game Update 18, was released last month.
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Of Sausage, Fandom, and Vision

Posted by Zubon on October 30, 2010 in General and Star Wars: The Old Republic. 6 Comments

Long ago, I saw an interview with one of the makers of Casablanca, in which he explained that had they known they were making one of the great classics, they would have done a better job of it. Production was messy and rushed; Ingrid Bergman displayed real ambivalence between the male leads because the film was only half-scripted when filming began. We now know what “if he could do it over again” looks like: the Star Wars prequels and Greedo shoots first.

Reading the recent rumor-mongering and the trolling, flaming wreck of its comments section, I was struck by how people seized on a SW:TOR aside in a WAR post and how emotionally vested some people are in (and, quite vocally, against) Star Wars. It is strangely circular to have competing religions of fandom and hatedom exist around a setting that is only important because so many people are emotionally invested in it. Continue reading ‘Of Sausage, Fandom, and Vision’