May 11, 2012 by blur
When I wrote the previous post on this blog about Star Wars: The Old Republic’s declining population, some folk agreed with gusto. Others were shocked — and I fully expected that to happen. Yet others made the point that I was just talking off the top of my head and wasn’t working off “real figures”. These people had more than a trace of hope in their comments that maybe, somehow, in the absence of figures, what I was saying was totally wrong.
Then, by total coincidence, just a couple of days later came real figures, suggesting that the game has indeed lost almost 25% of its subscriptions since March. Yes, you might need to read that figure twice, like I did. Almost a quarter of the game’s population, gone since March. Now, if someone had told me a quarter had been lost since launch (back in December), I would have been shocked. So to hear a quarter since March… MARCH?!? I was stunned.
Now, much like the last post, I don’t say any of this to cackle with glee because Star Wars was just some kind of passing fad for me and SWTOR can now go and join Star Trek Online, Age of Conan and other games that went the way of the dodo in short order. Indeed, it’s perhaps worth reminding people reading this blog, that I spent three years of my life, pre-SWTOR, creating and running Beskar, fully expecting SWTOR to last years for myself and my members.
So where do we go from here?
I think for anyone who follows this blog and/or the goings-on at our server, Sanctum of the Exalted, the message is obvious: Business As Usual. I think most guilds, on most servers, are in a similar position to us right now, ie: the game hasn’t caught people’s imaginations; numbers have plummeted (and there’s just no getting around putting that any other way as much as I’d like to); and, accordingly, guilds have taken a hit on their memberships. But it’s only a hit.
You see, Beskar still has extraordinarily passionate gamers who are so into SWTOR, I’m sure they’d bleed “story” if you cut them. So for them, this is a very confusing time as they sit there at their PCs, doing their quests, or doing their PvP, or roleplaying, or whatever, and they are totally and utterly enjoying themselves. Yet they look left and right and there are angry people, people quitting, people really unsatisfied with the game. You can see their confusion.
So, as I asked a moment ago, where do we go from here? I think Beskar, like many guilds out there, will go forward looking for new members. Maybe what we’re seeing now is the “true size” of the game and, by association, its guilds? And when I say “true size”, make no mistake SWTOR still has a very, very large base of subscriptions. Now, whether that base has hit bottom, or whether there are more to go, the jury is still out and, for that, we all wait on the edge of our seats.
Tags: 25%, Bioware, dwindling, dying, fee, gamers, low, monthly, players, quarter, Star Wars, subscriptions, SWTOR, The Old Republic, TOR
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May 6, 2012 by blur
It might seem strange for a guild leader to talk about the declining popularity of the game his guild has set out to enjoy for years to come, however, I’m not the average guild leader.
As an old saying goes, I’m known for calling a spade a spade, and I find I cannot — in good conscience — stay silent about this topic anymore. TOR seems to be bleeding gamers fast.
Naturally, we’ve all played MMOs in the past where it seems from the first weeks of its live game, loudmouth members of the community are threatening to quit over some issue or other.
And while we all saw that in TOR as well (ie: people hitting level 50 before the end of December and complaining about “no end game”), it’s what’s happened months later that worries me.
You see, we’re a couple of weeks off the game hitting its five-month anniversary and, aside from a recent Rakghoul-themed event (which some saw as unimaginative), I haven’t seen a lot of recent action.
Indeed, if you visit the forums of other games newly released or in the final stages of beta testing (eg: TERA, Guild Wars 2, The Secret World), you can see a lot of annoyed ex-TOR gamers talking.
And what are they talking about? Anything from the lack of end game to horrible-looking armour sets to a lack of warzones to the grind of playing new characters whose individual stories only go so far.
TOR seems to be, quite remarkably, a game made by master games makers, using arguably the hottest IP on the planet… and people have been walking since just a few months into the game.
I commented to my wife recently that even Lord of the Rings Online (which I wouldn’t play again if you paid me), kept my attention for over 12 months before I felt it was starting to wane for me.
So what is it about TOR that is driving people away? I really don’t know.
Of course, not everyone’s gone off the game. Within our guild here, we still have a larger than average number of people playing; some because they have yet to hit 50. Others because they genuinely like it.
And, make no mistake, I write none of this to hammer nails in TOR’s coffin. I want the game to go on. I want this guild to go on. The relationships we have built up in here are extraordinary. I want new recruits!
But, at the same time, the issue of TOR bleeding members is one I cannot ignore; particularly as a guild leader. MMOs are at their best when you log in and have a vibrant world bustling all around you.
And, again in good conscience, I cannot say that is the case when I have logged into TOR lately. Aside from my guild mates (usually on other planets to me), I’m just not seeing life as we know it.
Tags: 50, ANet, ArenaNet, beskar, Bioware, event, Funcom, Guild Wars 2, GW2, IP, leave, level, mandalorian, population, quit, rakghoul, recruit, Star Wars, subscriptions, SWTOR, TERA, The Old Republic, The Secret World, TOR
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April 25, 2012 by blur
Although highly unfashionable with younger gamers in particular, any guild “worth its salt” will have a charter. This is a document that lays down, in black and white, what a guild is all about.
Beskar’s own charter can be seen here. We’ve used it internally for some time — and its themes go back to years before TOR even came out — but I thought it might be nice to have it in public.
As you can see, we don’t mess around. We have strong, common-sense rules, and those rules have served us well in creating a really nice, tight, family-like feeling among many in the guild.
It’s a great shame, to me, when I look around gaming communities in general and see so many guild thrown together in five minutes, with nothing even vaguely resembling a charter like this.
If a guild wants to last the test of time — and sure, I guess some guilds don’t and just want to “live in the moment” — tools like a good, solid charter are absolutely the foundation to build upon.
Tags: beskar, Bioware, charter, guild, mandalorian, player association, Star Wars, SWTOR, The Old Republic, TOR
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April 9, 2012 by blur
Sit me down with a beer or three and get me talking about what PvP is like on Sanctum of the Exalted and, more often than not, I will inadvertently start quoting the immortal Charles Dickens:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
Why? Because PvP on our server is so incredibly hit and miss, you sometimes think you must be on another server, such is the difference — even between successive between play sessions.
And no, before you think it, I’m not drawing a comparison here between, say, Level 50 PvP and Level 10-49 PvP. What I’m about to relay is the same, regardless of the level of PvP at hand.
You see, you can hit a PvP match on our server and have the time of your life. There are healers healing, there are tanks tanking, there are DPS dealers smashing the enemy and, on top of it all, everyone knows what they’re doing. And no, it’s not a premade situation; this is a plain old PUG.
Then you sign up for the next match and, what the hell, it’s all completely wrong. The tanks are trying to DPS, the healers aren’t healing anyone (except themselves), and, to put it as simply as I can, you have people doing utterly crazy stuff. Here’s my favourite example from the past week.
Picture it. The Alderaan warzone. The fighting’s been tough for both sides. Then word emerges that the right turret only has one guy on it. Myself and another teammate break ranks and run for it. Two on one! Great odds! Suddenly, two more enemy unstealth. Three on two! Not so great odds, especially for attackers! So what does my colleague do? He runs the turret AND STARTS TRYING TO CAP IT. Huh? There are three enemy swarming us, and his first reaction is to CAP the turret? Suffice to say, the three of them stunned him on the spot, and within a matter of blows from each of them, he was through. Then they turned on me. Rinse and repeat. We were both on our way back to respawn.
So I said to this guy, “Hey mate, when it’s three on two, trying to cap the turret isn’t really our best course of action…” In response, the guy lost his mind at me. He claimed he wasn’t trying to cap anything. What the hell? I’d just seen him do it. Yet here he was, bold as brass, denying it. Perhaps because he realised it made him look stupid infront of the rest of the team, I don’t know, but I have a real problem with liars. I reminded him that I’d been next to him when he was trying to do it, and had been trying to stop him getting killed, but he wouldn’t have a bar of it. He denied it completely.
(I actually took a screenshot of all this, so I’d remember his name and guild, and I’m half tempted to, ‘name and shame’, but it’s not really the purpose of what I’m writing here.)
So what am I getting at? Well, I guess it’s just to vent a little. Our server has so many amazing gamers, whether in PvP or PvE, yet we have some complete morons, too. People who won’t play their class properly. People who do the wrong thing, then lie about it. People who spend entire Huttball matches chasing fights (ie: deathmatching), rather than following the ball and trying to score. It’s so frustrating and, as time goes by, it’s only going to push more and more guilded people into forming premades and ignoring PUGs altogether. And then what will happen? We’ll have PUGs crying that, even with multi server queues for PvP, they still can’t get a timely match. But you know what? They’re going to have brought it on themselves, by driving people — like me — away from using PUGs in PvP.
Tags: Bioware, Level 10, Level 49, Level 50, PvP, Sanctum of the Exalted, server, Star Wars, The Old Republic
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March 23, 2012 by blur
Make no mistake, guild merchandise has been something I’ve wanted for Beskar since we began. That said, making merchandise for a guild that didn’t have a game to play back in 2008, 2009, 2010 and most of 2011, seemed a little odd and obsessive (some might even say making a pre-game guild was obsessive in itself, but I digress). While we kicked around ideas, we never produced anything beyond a prototype shirt one time.
Fast-forward to today.
One of our resident artist’s, tesna, sketched out some ideas and worked with feedback from the guild to get a basic design featuring generic versions of the four Sith classes Beskar portrays in The Old Republic. This was then totally redrawn and, with a little lettering work from LittlePowell, now appears as the great new artwork on a range of t-shirts, hoodies, drink bottles and even a mousepad. Thanks tesna!
Already, Beskar members are buying items that will no doubt be worn at future Guild Summit’s, trade shows and other TOR-related events where Beskar members will be making their presence known.
Where can you buy your own piece of Beskar? Easy. Zip over to our CafePress page for more details.
Tags: baseball shirt, beskar, Bioware, blur, clan, drawing, drink bottle, guild, image, LittlePowell, logo, merchandise, mousepad, Star Wars, t-shirt, tesna, The Old Republic
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March 10, 2012 by blur
When I created Beskar, one of the first rules I made for the guild was that we would be all-Imperial, all the time. This was even before the game developers had even said whether a guild could have characters from both factions, or not (for the record, they finally settled on guilds being single-faction only). In other words, if you were a member of Beskar, logging into our server, your character options would be Imperial-only. Want to play Republic? Choose any other server and go for it.
This was a neat solution, in my opinion, for a variety of reasons. First, it meant our members had eight character slots for Imperial gameplay. If they so desired, they could play each advanced class of each Imperial class, ie: 4 classes x 2 advanced classes = 8 slots. Second, it meant that when people logged into our server, they would be focused on Beskar and the Imperial cause. Again, no one would be told not to play Republic; they were simply, and politely, asked to do so on any other server.
But then came news of the 1.2 game update and the Legacy system.
While Bioware has done nothing to make it compulsory to play both factions on the same server, they have certainly made it compelling, with cool rewards and unlocks on offer for people who do it. And for obvious reasons – if people are encouraged to play both factions on a server, and given incentives to do so, it will not only help server balance, it will keep people engaged with the game longer and tie them tightly to their server. That should mean longer subscriptions in most cases.
So, as guild leader, I had a choice. Should Beskar continue down the same path for reasons of “tradition” (and yes, I understand how funny a concept that must seem in a game that’s barely been out for three months), even though members were likely to break the rules and roll Republic characters anyway or, should we approach the topic with good old-fashioned common sense and sit down, as a group, and determine how we wanted to proceed in relation to the Legacy system?
I put the concept of having a guild for Republic alts to the members of Beskar. Overwhelmingly, the membership decided that having a Republic guild would be the best way to move forward. By and large the attitude was, “I would like to have some Republic characters on our server and I would like to do it openly and in a guild with other Beskar members…” Even people who want to play Imperial-only characters on our server saw no real harm to letting fellow members dabble on the dark, er, light side once in awhile. It was a great, mature discussion – as you always find in Beskar.
So there you have it. TOR is changing with the 1.2 update and, as a result, so is Beskar.
Tags: 1.2, beskar, Bioware, faction, legacy, mandalorian, patch, server, Star Wars, The Old Republic, update
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March 6, 2012 by blur
The SWTOR guild summit is happening as I type this, in Austin, Texas. Bioware asked Beskar to take part and, while I would have dearly loved to go, I sent a couple of members who are there at present, and have even popped up in the livestream of the event already.
Already, my takeaway is that the upcoming 1.2 patch is even better than I thought it would be (and, remember, I was already calling it “the Jesus patch”), so I’m going to predict a bounce for the game. I think it’s going to really reinterest and reenergise people.
Watch this space.
Tags: Bioware, guild summit, livestream, Star Wars, The Old Republic
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February 29, 2012 by blur
So here we are, with the month of February zipping past in the blink of an eye and yet, somewhat ironically I have to say, this was the month where everything slowed down overall in TOR. And by everything, I mean everything.
If you’re in a guild that somehow increased its membership in February, or increased the amount of time members spent online by any kind of real amount; congratulations. You are by far the exception to the rule, as far as I can ascertain.
Looking at the way my own guild is faring, talking to other guild leaders and even doing simple things, like keeping an eye on how many players are on a particular planet, or at the fleet, it’s clear to me that February saw a real downturn.
Is this downturn for keeps? It’s hard to say. While people have left the game, claiming it’s “not what they expected” or that, “two months was enough” or even, “where’s the PvP?”, I think some will return.
The much talked about 1.2 patch, which has earned the unofficial title of the “Jesus patch”, is set to make the game more playable; perhaps even what it was meant to be at launch. I know a lot of people hanging out for it. Fingers crossed, eh?
Tags: 1.2, Bioware, jesus, operation, patch, PvP, Star Wars, SWTOR, The Old Republic, TOR
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December 29, 2011 by blur
Given the fact that The Old Republic only launched (officially) nine days ago, it’s pretty amazing that this guild I created to be devoted to the game, Beskar, has just turned three years old.
As I’ve said before, had I known TOR wasn’t going to be released until late 2011, I don’t think I would have started the guild as early as December 2008, however, at the time, no one really knew what was going to happen. All we knew was that the game had been underway in semi-secrecy at Bioware for some years, so a launch in late 2009 (when the guild would have been established for a year), or maybe early 2010, seemed as likely as any other guess we could make at the time.
What this meant, of course, is that the guild had to stick together over a long period of time without an “official” game to play. This was no easy thing. Someone might join in, say, mid-2009 and, by the end of that year, be bored with the concept of a guild that existed primarily as a forum community and would walk away. Two years before the game was even due. Two years. It’s a wonder those of of who stayed the course over two or three years didn’t go crazy. Yet somehow, against the odds, we kept the faith.
And I guess, looking back, it wasn’t all hard-work and suffering; there have been some very clear advantages to starting so early. The game has barely just begun, for example, yet Beskar is extremely well-known at all levels: within Bioware, within the TOR community, and within our server environment.
This is useful as our members are a generally very sociable group of people and if that tag under our names in the game can “mean” something to people (and it seems to), then it opens doors for us to talk to people from outside our group and, more importantly, have those people want to talk back to us. It helps build community, inside and outside our server, and that’s always a very good thing.
So here we are. Happy third birthday, Beskar. You make me proud.
Tags: beskar, Bioware, birthday, clan, guild, leader, mandalorian, members, Star Wars, The Old Republic
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December 20, 2011 by blur
Well, we got there in the end.
Close to three years skipping down the yellow brick road with a changing cast of faces to accompany us along the way, and we’ve finally hit our destination.
Today, December 20th, 2011, marks the moment when, after a week of early access for some, every Beskar member now has access to enter The Old Republic.
For me, this is the end of something. Primarily, it’s the end of running a guild for a long time without a game to play which, I can assure you, is no easy thing.
So it’s actually in a slightly wistful mood that I write these words, standing here at the divide between what Beskar has been so far, and what it is to become.
Looking back over three years, this guild has given me everything from great pleasure, to great pain. It’s shown me the best in people. And the worst. There are moments I wish I could purge from my memory entirely. There are moments I cherish wholeheartedly.
But that’s life, isn’t it? You take the good with the bad. You accept that things won’t always stay the same. You learn that some people, even good friends, don’t stay consistent over time. You relish the growth you see in others as they become better mates.
Looking forward, who’s to say where it will all go? Most of us have played TOR in beta and have decided that it’s a game worth our time in the months, and years, ahead. But by what method will we proceed? What will Beskar evolve into, over time?
That’s for the future to help us work out. It’s exciting to see where it will take us.
I want to thank my beautiful wife Leo for all her support behind the scenes. Even when I have been at my lowest ebb, whether through exhaustion or pain (or a combination of the two), she has been there for me so that most of my struggles have been ‘off-camera’. She has been the one to keep me sane through this whole adventure.
I also want to thank the membership of Beskar, past and present, for helping to carry the load along the way. From those guys and gals who joined us in December 2008 and helped carry the guild in its early months, through to the people who have joined only in the past couple of weeks and who now help shoulder the weight. Thank you.
Beskarians, TOR is finally here for everyone. Jump in. This is YOUR day. I will see you in there.
– blur
PS: By the way, where are all those self-appointed TOR forum philosophers who regularly told me over the last three years that, “pre-launch guilds never make it to the live game…”? *Chuckle*
Tags: beskar, beta, Bioware, guild, mandalorian, members, Sanctum of the Exalted, server, Star Wars, The Old Republic, three, years
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