After the SW:TOR beta weekend

My thoughts on SW:TOR...

After so much time time waiting, i finally, with thousands of players, got access to the beta. Was a short beta, just the weekend, but gave me some time to make more acquainted with the game.

Since i want to create a Bounty Hunter on game release (yes, i didnt need the beta to make the decision of playing or not), i decided i should go and try the Republic side as a Trooper. 

First things first, character creation is rather poor, but since we aren't playing a Barbie's game, it will do. I just didn't like male models size, just 3 types, from tiny and skinny, to fat large. 

Queue in the typical scrooling text from Star Wars, then a small in-game intro for your class and off you are playing. There 4 starting zones, 2 for each faction. But each class has their own class quest line which makes them kinda unique. The Trooper starts in Ord Mantell, in the middle of the Civil War. We are part of the Havoc squad, with a specific objective of retrieving a bomb that otherwise will wipeout the entire island where we are. Besides the class quest line, which by the way gets really interesting as it goes, there are the typical sidequests, just to make you feel more busy. The good thing about the quests in SW:TOR, is the fact that they can be a bit more dynamic. I mean, some quests will allow you to pick which option to choose from, since we always interact with the npcs. Say you wanna be a Jedi Consular, but following a dark path, then by all means pick up options suited for a bad guy. Same applies to Sith if they wanna be good doers. The fun really lies on interacting with npcs, and pick some punch lines. Even more fun is when interacting with npcs as a group. System works in a roll, everyone picks an option, the higher roller wins and gets to the talk. It's fun when you want to go dark side and all your group mates want to be light. Laughs included.
Combat wise, the game works as most games, based on push buttons for skills. Only difference is that, there isn't any auto-attack, so your it's all skill oriented.
Also at a given point, each class will receive companions (pets if you want to). They can work as tank, dps or healer, depending on the companion.
Crafting is again as all the rest, get materials, do the item, get a skill point. Gathering professions give skill when you gather. A player can have 1 crafting and 2 gathering or 3 gathering, but never more then one crafting. The big difference here, is that, if someone dislikes crafting, but still want to rip-off the benefits from it, he can use the pet to do all the work. That includes gathering and/or crafting. Just pick the crafting or gathering professions, choose what you want to get or do, and send a companion. After a couple of minutes he comes back with the result. Also another fun thing, is whenever you find a node for gathering while adventuring, you can send your companion to gather it.

So until level 10 or so, you are at starting planet, doing your class quest line. When you reach 10, and your off the planet, you have the chance to pick between 2 specializations, for each given class. As a Trooper, i went Vanguard, for tanking purpose.

After that me and some friends, also give a run to the first instance at level 10 or 11, Esseles. Sorry not instance, flashpoint! This Esseles isn't more then a space ship who is taking us to Coruscant, but gets blocked by an Imperial warship that is looking for a specific Ambassador that is going in the ship incognito. So we have to fight off the imperials while trying to save (or not) as much lives as possible. I really enjoyed it!

Flashpoint done, and we are in Coruscant! And boy this place is huge! As a matter of fact, even on the first planet or the flashpoint, i felt everything was rather big, so for my exploration part, this is great!

My adventures ended up here. I did quest a bit more but since it's a beta and i already had a taste of the game, i end up not doing much more.

The game feels polished and fun. I do admit, for most, it's nothing new. It's the old do quests for leveling gameplay. The theme mmorpg. But on the contrary to other games, where you just click as fast to get the quest, open map and see where it, here you have a chance to follow the quest and actually feel more involved. You do believe that i'm playing Everquest 2 for a couple of years now, and still don't have a clue what's going on, lore-wise? Same goes to WoW. While on the RTS games i always had an idea, since the game became mmorpg, most quests are just click to grab, do and deliver...

My only question, relies on the end game for SW:TOR. How is it going to be? I think it will be the same as most, but let's hope for the best.

I did enjoyed my time there and can hardly wait the game release the next month. I have bounties to collect!

This is just nuts!

And i was trying to rant f2p and now this news...

Some people have way too much money in their hands... Link here!

I don't even know what Dark Orbit is all about!

F2P, is it worth it or not?

In the past 2 years lots of existing mmo games switched from the p2p to f2p version. We have the following examples:

- DDO
- LOTRO
- Everquest 2
- Age of Conan
- City of Heroes
- Champions Online
- DC Universe Online
- Lineage 2
- Fallen Earth
- Pirates of the Burning Sea
etc..
And probably more will come in the future. But is this change for better or worse?

The formula for f2p is already well known. Everyone is given, supposedly full access to the given access from level one to max cap level. When one first reads it, might get illuded with the fact that actually everything is free. Ok so we create an account, download the game and load it up. First things first, we notice in some cases we can only create 2 characters. Besides that, we can only create a certain type of class, others are premium only(can read also, p2p users). Fine, most can play with 1 or 2 characters, no big deal. So games up and we are in. Cool, apparently everything can be used. Oh but wait, my inventory only has one bag, i might need some more in a near future. But wait, whats this? I need to buy more slots for bags? Ok, how much it costs? . Ok one for f2p, zero for players. Same deal with bank. Two for f2p, 0 for players. And i haven't touched other aspects. And not gonna to anyways. In some games you have to buy adventure packs, other forces you to buy gear unlockers, so you equip better gear.

In game shops you can find  anything useful for game, from the basic fluffy stuff, like appearance gear, to mounts, to the most expensive stuff like expansions, quests, character slots or classes.

But for me that's not the issue. They can place whatever they want in a shop. My only concern is that in most f2p games shop becomes an utter ripoff to players. In some cases, it's just far more better to just subscribe to a given title then to just waste time on the specific shop.

So far, i do admit i haven't explored much any of the titles as a f2p player, but from what i can see, basically the best offers in market at the moment are DDO and LOTRO, because of a player can, as a f2p, acquire in-game shop coin to spend. Although i do admit it can become a really tiresome process, the fact that actually one can acquire the given coin while playing, is a sure plus for me. Turbine found a nice process, for instance in LOTRO, that when a player finish a given deed (one can consider it as an achievement, in other titles), a very small amount is awarded. But don't worry, a single character can get more then 5000 Turbine Points (LOTRO shop currency). For instance with those 5000, you could buy the latest expansion, and still save around 1800 points. In the end of the day (ok maybe not a day, more), a player can really play LOTRO without spending much or any. Although, of course, if you subscribe the game, every month you would receive free a nice amount of points to spare. DDO also offers points, but i think it's in a smaller quantity.

On the other side, we have Age of Conan. Besides Age of Conan, most titles don't give a chance to players actually get any coin to spend in-game except by buying. And the problem is that, these shops are way too expensive, and in short one rather just subscribe the game and save money in the end of the month. Sure you can play the game as f2p, and while you level everything seems okish, when you reach max level things get rough. 

Other title deserves mentioning is Fallen Earth. From what i've played, although yet the game doesnt offer any possibility of acquiring any store currency while playing, it didn't seem to be severely limited. But i do need more time to play it.

Also, a small note to Pirates of the Burning Sea. It's the only game that actually allows players to sell in-game currency for shop in trade of the regular game currency.

And i haven't touched the subject of pay-to-win, that's not even worth the time.

Overall i think game companies should re-think their f2p business. Sure they need to make money, but if they are sending a game to f2p they should be aware that at the moment, there lots of options for players to pick, and as far as i think, if you pick free to play is because you don't want to spend much money. Game companies, see Turbine f2p model, and pick up ideas, work on that, and give players actual freedom. You can still make money if you are smart enough. I have my own ideas, maybe i'll share in the future, for each given title.

Star Wars The Old Republic Talent Calculator

Soon i will start posting stuff about the Star Wars The Old Republic, that is going to be released at 20 of December.

But for now, why not give a look at a beta version a talent calculator for this game? Can check it here.

So... DC Universe Online

Since DC Universe Online came out, i always been tempted to try it but due to the fact that i had other games and RL messing around i always postponed it. And also because i wasn't sure i wanted to pay for it.

To be honest i was going to play the game anyways, since the fact that Star Wars Galaxies is leaving us in 15 December, SOE decided to award players that had an SWG account active by the 15 October, with free game time to titles Everquest 2, Everquest and DC Universe. I wasn't expecting to get any free time on DC Universe, but since i got it i took the chance. :)

So DC Universe, here comes Bibora!

So i decided that i should be a nice sidekick to Batman, hence created my character has an hero with skills based on the Bat. Mind that the game boosts an good amount of heroes or vilains to base our powers on, but for some reason if not happy with those you can always create your own hero, with powers and abilities you wish for. Although the character creation isn't as deep as, lets say, City of Heroes, it's still quite more deep then most modern MMO's and will allow players do customize many details of the character. And if you still ain't happy with what you got, while you play the game, whenever you get a armor piece, it will had that appearance to your character to suit your needs as you play.

Character created, and off to the tutorial. Ok, for a first character, the tutorial is fine and interesting enough. After that i just wish we could skip it, it's a bit of time consuming. It teach us the basic ropes of the game. Not that's an hard game to learn or such. After the tutorial we are released in the local police department, and from there on, quests will be either handled, directly to the player, or one can cross around the cities (Gotham, Metropolis) for any quest giver npc. It's straightforward enough if one follows the quests given.

As a low level character we can't do much except questing. As we grow up, several games with show up, like pvp battlegrounds (which one can play with DC Universe heroes, such as Robin or Bane), instance grouping at level 9 (know as Alerts), some world events if any (at the moment there was the Halloween event going - a instanced dungeon where you fight agains Scarecrow), and other.

As you level you also have access to skill points, that will allow to buy new abilities for your hero. I'm still level 11 so it's a bit a while to find out the full potencial of my powers. And yes, you have also gear much like any other mmo out there. By the way, there is no crafting in game.

The gameplay of the game, it's more action oriented. You do have the powers on your bottom bar, up to 8 powers at a time, but many attacks are a sort of key combinations. I haven't tried the game with a gamepad, i just use the mouse, so for i have for instance a stun attack that i need to make a combination of 2 fast left clicks and a third one so i can stun the enemy. I guess with a gamepad is a key combination of some sort. It's fast, it's furious and it's fun. Only thing annoys me (but because i suck on it) it's the pvp. They always manage to keep me stun! Those damn villains!

I do hope i manage to get to level 30 (that's the max level) and try one or two raids, to see how the game behaves in high level. Besides that, i can always make several alts based on different heroes (Green Lantern is really cool) so the game can keep one busy for some time.

Overall is fun game, and it wants to be slightly different from most MMO games out there, maybe exception goes for City of Heroes and Champions Online. Although i admit City of Heroes is still better then DC Universe, i never was a fan of it, and i'm enjoying DC Universe more.

Bye EQ2X, Hello EQ2 Free to Play

Yep another SOE blow on Everquest 2.

Don't know how good or bad this one gonna be, but with the eminent expansion release (and also very little info about or as far as i know testing), they just release information that Everquest 2 is going free to play in a very short future (and even the date isn't 100% even by SOE themselves). Date of free to play release should be around the end of the month.

More info here.

And also the, for me infamous now, membership grid, can be checked here.

And also, a FAQ is here.

Will this be a good thing for Everquest 2? Well with the eminent release of Star Wars The Old Republic, and the prospect of yet loosing more subscribers to another game, maybe opening EQ2 to the f2p crowd, wont be a bad move. And from what i've heard, EQ2X server, Freeport, was full of players, so i guess this means more servers even more players. Only question for me remains, for us, long time subscribers, what does this mean? Will we get the same game as always, or will there be some tricks to pocket even more money from our pockets? I sincerily hope not...

More info to come.