SWTOR: Home Sweet Stronghold

I know, I know. A million years after the fact, right? Not to mention I think I promised a write-up on my thoughts regarding strongholds last week. So here they are. In a nutshell, I like what I've seen so far . . . mostly. No implementation of MMO housing is perfect, I suppose, but BioWare has done a pretty good job of making the stronghold both easy to decorate and functional.

As you can see from the pics, I chose the neutral stronghold on Nar Shaddaa, the moon of Nal Hutta controlled by the Cartel. The planet has an East Asian, neon city feel; and having just returned from a trip to Seoul, Korea, I can appreciate the aesthetic. The other neutral plot is on Tatooine, but is both more expensive . . . and on Tatooine. Right now, three of the four properties are part of cityscapes, and I think there should be more variety and views of nature. I would love to have a place on Alderaan or, perhaps Voss. I did buy a condo on Dromund Kaas, the capital of the Sith Empire, but to visit there on my Pub characters would involve a thousand credits for each trip, so I relocated. Given that he is my highest level character, though semi-retired, the stronghold belongs to Agent Versteckt, though all the characters in my legacy can visit and place decor around the place.

You unlock the condo in sections, and I have only purchased the first area, which includes the landing, an entrance hall, and two smaller rooms. Most of the expansion rooms must be unlocked in sequence, though some can be bypassed initially.

Placing decor involves "hooks" of various sizes. Let's just say I am neutral on the subject. Some people may feel that the hooks limit their ability to get truly creative, and I don't disagree. But it does simplify things a bit for us duffers, and I am guessing that, much like Rift's dimension decoration system, the hooks are essentially what the devs use to place objects in the game environment. The hook is only an anchor anyway; the object, once placed, can be repositioned a bit and rotated to suit the player.

Two things I do prefer about SWTOR's system over Rift's are the interactivity of many objects, and the ability to have NPCs present. I have both a mailbox, a legacy-wide bank, and a few gathering nodes, not to mention decor vendors already. I think there are other vendors available, too, like bartenders. [EDIT: GamerLady told me the bartenders are just for show, unfortunately.] I can emplace all my companions, as well as my mounts and pets. From what I understand, a number of end-game activities reward not only objects and furniture, but NPCs. The player properties I visited before making my own purchase felt alive with all the people standing around. Like the place had purpose. While I think the variety of environments is better, Rift's dimensions feel empty because I cannot really people them. Obviously, having a bunch of other players hanging out would be better. But let's face it, that's not really very likely.

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Free Shuttle Flights to Nexus, Coming Soon

Twitter is all abuzz this morning. And that's always good for a game and studio. Cautious optimism is my reaction to this exciting news. I liked WildStar, in small bits. But Scooter and I left the game just before the Great Server Merger last fall because we couldn't justify the cost, what with Scooter's computer at the time giving her issues.

This announcement has been a long time coming. Carbine admitted to tossing around various ideas for an alternative payment model as far back as the mega-merger, and I speculated on the possibilities at that time. I wonder when we'll have details about the nature of the WildStar's F2P scheme (because they vary widely). [EDIT: Thanks to Alisdair, I got the details.] Will it be relatively innocuous (e.g., Rift) or more in your face (e.g., LOTRO) or horrendously egregious (e.g., SWTOR, to which I am currently subscribed for a reason)?

The link to the official announcement is basically a link page to the trailer and to a post about loyalty awards for those have been subscribed since launch or will subscribe for a bit before the transition. Oh! it also has a place to sign up for beta. Beta, for F2P? I guess that's necessary.

Honestly, if I were not already committed to SWTOR right now through August, I might jump back in, just to get the loyalty rewards, if nothing else. However, as it is, I don't see myself going back before September, regardless of when F2P goes live.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

The Seven Deadly Sins of Gaming

I haven't participated in any of the recent NBI Talkback Challenge dialogues, though at least one indirectly inspired several posts earlier this month. This week's topic is more of a questionnaire than one idea, but it was an awesome idea, courtesy of Joseph Skyrim.

Lust– Do you enjoy games more if they have scantily clad and “interestingly proportioned” avatars? Do you like playing as one of these avatars? Why or why not?
I don't know if I enjoy them more, exactly. I certainly don't have the same issues with scantily clad avatars that some others do. Just the other night, I was admiring the dancer girl outfits from SWTOR. But, while I enjoy playing characters of the opposite gender—and tend to choose physical features that appeal to me—I don't necessarily dress them up (all the time) in chain-kinis. In fact, some of my favorite outfits for LoneStarBelle in TSW are rather conservative, especially for TSW. I find that skimpy costumes, while visually appealing, break immersion due to impracticality.

Gluttony– Do you have a game backlog of unfinished games but still buy new games regardless? Why or why not?
I am not a game hoarder. I have purchased a few games that ended up not being that fun for me. But I can't think of a single game that I've gotten and then never played at all. It helps that I am on Steam in name only. I think I got an account to take advantage of some promotion.

Greed– Do you enjoy hand-outs in a game? Have you ever opted to NOT do an action / in game activity because the rewards were lacking? Why or why not?
I'm not sure what is meant by hand-outs here. I do like getting commemorative stuff for various events. I did stop raiding in WoW partly because I felt that the rewards were too few and far between for the time and effort I was putting in. On the other hand, I just wrote yesterday about continuing on with SWTOR's planet quests even though we are at a level where they hardly give any reward at all.

Sloth– Do you ever leech or AFK in a party? Do you discourage others from attempting things that you feel are difficult? Have you ever seen someone that needed help, but decided not to help them? Why or why not?
I have never gone AFK for the direct purpose of leeching off teammates, but I may have discouraged or declined to do things I felt were difficult. I can't think of anything in particular right now that others were trying to get me to do that I tried to persuade them otherwise. I am fairly helpful, and have developed a few friendships as a result of randomly assisting them with a fight or two.

Wrath– Ever get angry at other players and yell (or TYPE IN CAPS) at them? Have you ever been so angry to stalk a person around in game and / or in the forums? Why or why not?
While I have rage-quit parties on a number of occasions, I don't generally type in all caps. In fact, I have my caps lock remapped to be a regular shift key. SO IF I YELL, YOU KNOW IT'S ON PURPOSE!! Nor do I stalk people, they're not worth my time.

Envy– Ever felt jealous of players who seem to be able to complete content you can’t? Do you ever suspect they are hacking or otherwise cheating? Why or why not?
I have been a little envious in the past about content I was never going to see because I was not raiding. I know there are hackers and cheaters out there, but I couldn't point to anyone I have seen lately that I suspected of cheating. On the other hand, I don't consider most exploits to be cheating. If the game design contains some "flaw" or bug the devs fail to correct, players should be within their rights to take advantage of said flaws. The devs may take action to correct the problem, including removing inventories, credit, titles, etc.; but the players should not be banned or otherwise punished for the devs' oversight. Hacks, bots, and other external cheats, on the other hand, should be bannable offenses. If only there were a way to ban such people permanently from even starting another account for that game. And I have actually met people (former coworkers) who were banned for buying illicit gold for WoW. Honestly, I didn't have much sympathy for them.

Pride– Are you one of those people that demands grouping with other “elite” players? Do you kick players out of your team who you feel are under-performing? Why or why not?
I did once vote-kick someone for being a jerk right before the last boss in the instance. But I'm the polar opposite of elitist; though that, in and of itself, is a form of pride. I have no interest in playing in an environment where the elitist jerks hold any sway. Maybe because I was one of those kids that always got picked last in pick-up sports, I don't want people to feel they don't belong. It's just a game, after all.

Whew! I guess the worst I'd say for me is Lust, at least the way these questions were phrased. Though Wrath is up there, too. I'm easily frustrated, and snappish, at times, as Scooter can attest. But this does not usually come through the keyboard.

If you're looking for something to blog about today, I suggest tackling these questions yourself. Let us get to know each other a little better.

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Trivializing Content

So there was a big hubbub over the weekend about the (lack of) flying mounts in Warlords of Draenor. I guess there is a vocal contingent of folks that would (really, really) like them, but Blizzard devs have staunchly (and rudely) refused to consider the matter, given their experiences with  previous expansions. I personally don't have a dog in that fight, but I noticed something last night that dovetails with Belghast's take on the subject.

So Scooter and I are playing through the Republic planet quests in SWTOR, even though we could skip them entirely due to the 12x XP for story quests currently in place. The thing is, by the time we left Taris (the third world) for Nar Shaddaa, we were a high enough level to tackle Tatooine (the fifth planet). Last night, I noticed that I was only getting about 6 XP for turning in the regular planet quests. We were actually getting more for (some) individual kills than we were for completing entire quest chains.

Needless to say, the questing is easy and we are enjoying the place. Nar Shaddaa has an awesome East Asian neon vibe, and I decided to buy my stronghold there. Right now, even though we can't fly like in WoW, we can easily slip past mobs we don't need to kill. But I can't help wondering if or when we should start skipping content completely in order to find a challenge.

The same thing happened to us in WoW. When I first introduced Scooter to the game during Cataclysm, we had the recruit-a-friend XP boost. Even though we could have skipped the Ghostlands (playing BElfs) I though we should play through, but then we started skipping whole zones because we'd out-leveled them before even arriving.

GamerLady thinks all that content (what can be flown over) is senseless anyway. To some extent, I can agree. But during the course of my playing of WoW, I went from feeling completely immersed in the unflyable world of Azeroth to being fairly disconnected from it. In SWTOR, I pushed through to the end of the second chapter of my old Sith Assassin, skipping all the planet quests on two or three planets. Even though I went through it a few years ago, I have little clue what is happening there.

In TSW, the mobs are never fully trivial, no matter what Quality Level the player's gear is. And there is no good way to bypass them. On the other hand, the XP for going through lower level content never diminishes; rather, XP for higher content is simply greater.

To what extent does the "senseless" content add to the "reality" of an MMO? And how much do we lose when we are able to bypass it in pursuit of our story?

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Epic Speeder Giveaway

I hesitate to publicize this, since I am entered myself, but Ravanel Griffon, proprietor of the Ravalation blog, is holding a SWTOR speeder giveaway. Head on over there if you play the game and are interested in that sweet ride. She's also got a second contest exclusive to members of The Red Eclipse server, so if you have characters residing there, you have two chances to win phat l00tz.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.