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Mandalorian-themed gaming community for Star Wars: The Old Republic
September 2, 2011 by blur

Before you choose a guild…

As they say about a lot of things, the proof of the pudding’s always in the tasting. And it’s no different when it comes to MMO guilds. Until you take that final, figurative step through the door of a guild, you really don’t know if you’re going to like it or not. It is, on some levels, a leap of faith.

The good news is, of course, that if you don’t end up liking a guild you can simply leave.

That said, joining a guild, finding you hate it and then leaving is a time consuming process. It’s much better to get it right the first time and, when it comes to TOR guilds, like Beskar, I advise:

  • Checking out a guild’s recruitment thread on the TOR forums. Does it have lots of funny chatter between tons of friendly people, or is it 2-3 people repeatedly bumping with nonsense messages? The one to choose is obvious.
  • Has the guild invested in its own website (whether a self-built site or a paid-for site through one of the guild providers out there)? Have they invested in a quality Vent server, or similar? Investment = a good sign that a guild is serious.
  • What’s the chat like on their forum? On their Vent? Try and get a feel for it. Does it feel like chat you would like to be involved with? Is it MA-rated when you want PG? Or is it PG when you want MA? Try and find this out. Research it.

Being in a guild is, primarily, about being able to mix with the people in it, whether just in the game (for some guilds), or in the game AND socially (for other guilds).

Decide if what the guild offers is what you want. Because, if it isn’t there’s a TON of guilds out there. Just under 50,000 English-speaking ones at the time of writing, infact.

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April 23, 2011 by blur

Why I Became a Guild Leader

There’s a thread on the TOR forums at the moment, asking people why they became guild leaders.

As part of my ongoing mission to become better known to all of you, I’ll reproduce my answer:

I became a guild leader because, in the past, I have helped lead guilds and, in the process of doing that, have seen those guilds make bad decisions and the same mistakes, time after time. But wait… why didn’t I do something about these bad decisions and mistakes if I was helping to run these guilds? Glad you asked! Because typically being only one of several people running a guild, ie: in a “council” situation, you can give people all the good advice in the world and point out all the potholes and speedbumps in the road ahead, but at least one of your peers, if not more, will always think they know best and want to disagree — sometimes just for the sake of disagreeing. And, all the while, you watch the guild hitting all the speedbumps and potholes you warned everyone about, but couldn’t do anything about. My peers would turn into Nero — fiddling while Rome burned — and I can’t begin to tell you how frustrating that situation is to be inside of.

(And don’t even get me started on this one guild whereby one of the council members was permanently absent with “medical issues” and didn’t contribute anything real to the guild for, literally, years — but was allowed to keep her seat on the council because the overall leader was such a desperado when it came to women and point blank refused to replace her because his obsession with her meant he didn’t want to make her upset. That said, she should have done the right thing and resigned her post, given her situation, anyway. Regardless, stupid stuff like this happens in guilds all the time.)

So when TOR came up on the horizon, I thought there is no way I was going to end up in a council scenario ever again, being overruled by clowns who couldn’t run a drinking contest in a brewery, much less a fully-fledged guild, and conversely there was no way I was just going to join a guild, and be subject to the same sort of thing; without ANY chance of trying to change things. So I figured the only way to be truly happy, and see my vision in action, was to do it myself.

That’s why I am a (sole) guild leader today.

(And, given that the guild’s going extremely well without even a game yet, I guess that vision isn’t a bad one…!)

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March 19, 2011 by blur

PvP kids do themselves no favours when they talk about ‘real life’

There’s tons of people in the MMO and wider video gaming community that bug the hell out of me for different reasons. But sitting near the top, however, are those folks who are heavily into PvP and treat it like the most macho activity in the world when you just know that, in real life, they probably wouldn’t even raise their voice if they saw someone getting mugged in the street. Nope, all their machismo happens on a computer screen, only in the privacy of their own bedroom or study.

And you can see the mentality of the average loudmouth PvPer in the way they will actively seek to criticise people in MMO communities who, for example, don’t PvP at all (calling them, “carebears” and such), or conversely, berate people who choose to do their PvP on PvE servers.

One of the all-time classic comments you’ll hear coming from PvPers during attacks like this is that, “PvP servers are like ‘real life’, man! It’s a war! You can get attacked anywhere!”

Which begs the question, how many of you seriously expect to run into an enemy army on your next trip to the shopping mall? Conversely, how many of you would expect to run into an enemy army if you were dropped in the middle of, say, Libya or Afghanistan right now?

Thank you, you’ve just proved the point I’m about to make.

The concept of contested areas on a PvE server — just like an Afghanistan or Libya — is realistic. If you venture in, you will end up in a fight. Meanwhile, if you’re just doing something mundane, like driving to the mall, do you expect the Libyan army to start shelling your car?

But that is the PvP kids mindset — that you are just as attackable by the Libyan army on the way to the mall as in Libya itself. And it’s a nonsense argument when they present this as being like ‘real life’ because real life isn’t like that. Again, how many of you expect to run into an enemy army on your next trip to the shopping mall? The simple answer is, it’s not going to happen.

Yet on a PvP server… its equivalent happens 24/7 and the kids call it ‘real life’.

The great irony here is that PvE servers with a PvP component are actually closer to ‘reality’ than their PvP cousins. How so? It’s pretty simple. On a PvE server, you live your life not expecting to get attacked by an enemy army around the next corner in most places you walk. But if you CHOOSE to walk into a warzone on a PvE server… expect to get attacked. THAT is realistic.

So this is why I laugh long and hard every time I see some kid defend PvP servers by saying, “PvP servers are like ‘real life’, man! It’s a war! You can get attacked anywhere!” Because it’s actually less like real life than the PvE experience they are invariably seeking to talk down.

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Permalink | Posted in Opinion, Rant | 6 Comments »

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March 14, 2011 by blur

Advice for TOR guilds – don’t end up as “filler”

I’ve just posted the following text on the TOR forum but, in case it gets deleted or buried under a ton of meaningless nonsense, I’ll reproduce it here, too. Enjoy.

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As of a moment ago, our trusty database returned:

There are 14,203 PvE, RP/PvE and PvP guilds matching: English Language, US East or US West.

Sobering, isn’t it, that for all the people posting here whom, on the whole, are English speakers with their eye on either US East or US West servers, there are already more guilds than is practical and yet, more and more guilds are still being created every day.

(And yes, I know there are “joke guilds” in that total, ie: someone has made a sock puppet account and created a guild that they have no intention of ever developing. But even when you take away a percentage for those guilds, there are still way too many guilds out there.)

I’ve actually made this point a few times over the last two and a bit years and have often got stuck with people saying that there’s enough to go around and “everyone” should be able to create a guild if they want. Now, this is a great comment from a free-market, right-on, go-get-em-tiger, you-can-do-it, POV but, despite all that, is still false.

There is such a thing as too many guilds.

And sure, I know some people will probably stop reading as of that last line and are already hitting reply to tell me that I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I’m going to push on here because there’s a meaning behind all of this which anyone who wants to take their TOR gaming seriously needs to understand and get on-board with, or be left behind.

When it comes to servers, and who we’re gaming with, TOR isn’t like other games. Anyone looking to enter TOR at launch needs to be entering their guild, and it’s members, here on the site — http://www.swtor.com/guilds — during Phase One (that’s now, by the way).

Next, in Phase Two (When’s that? We don’t know), you need to be preparing to list up to three allied and/or adversary guilds whom you’d like to have on your server.

Then, in Phase Three — the live game — all of us will log in and be TOLD what server we’re on — and not only what server we’re on, but who the guilds with us will be, too.

I can see this isn’t very well understood via a lot of commentary going around, so please pay attention: If you’re going into the game, in a guild, at launch… Your. Server. Will. Be. Assigned. To. You. This isn’t any other MMO where you log in and there’s 20 server names and your guild picks one that sounds “cool” or “funny” or “befitting our faction”; you are actually going to have the choice made for you and when you log in, you will be told where to go and play. No ifs, buts or maybes about this fact, guys.

So what are you going to do about it? If you are anything like me, you want:

* To be on a strong server.

* To have good “neighbours” (both friend and foe).

Now this is the whole reason for starting this post with that guild statistic. If you are in a guild and it’s just yourself, or you and a mate, or even half a dozen of you… do you think you’re a desirable group for others to align with? If you said yes, fine, there’s nothing more I can do for you. Thanks for reading!

If you were honest and said no, meanwhile, my suggestion is that you need to work at building your guild up. You need to be in a position where your guild is attractive to other like-minded guilds — and their guilds are also attractive to you, of course — so that in Phase Two of the guild process, you can start tying yourselves together and getting placed on a server which might not be “the top” server, but if there’s you, and your pals (both friend and foe), and you’ve all got guilds of 10, 20, 30 people… you’re going to do OK. You will have a nice experience.

Stick with a tiny guild, meanwhile, and you will be filler. Sounds horrible, doesn’t it? But just because it sounds horrible doesn’t make it untrue. If no one wants to be aligned with you, and there’s just you (or you and your best mate), you will get placed wherever there are holes, or cracks, in the system. You could end up anywhere. Would you like that?

That is why I am saying there are too many guilds right now and although the problem is unlikely to go away in total, those who are smart about these things will consolidate with other, like-minded guilds and, in this way, not only will more of you end up in decent sized guilds which allow you to do more (and thus have a good TOR experience in general), but you won’t end up as “filler” and, thirdly, if more guilds consolidate we will actually have less guilds overall.

Think about it. You know it makes sense. And… you’re welcome.

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March 10, 2011 by blur

Bioware’s Pre-Launch Guild Program gets things right…

What might get lost in the previous post, which was an epic rant by anyone’s standards, is that I think Bioware’s new Pre-Launch Guild Program is fantastic. Simply fantastic. There, I said it!

And I couch it in that sort of language because anyone who has read this blog in the past knows that I have been highly critical of Bioware — and will no doubt be so again in the future. But here, today, right now, I am happy to say that the new guild program is the bomb. I’ve come across nothing like it in 14 years of playing MMOs — almost as long as some of the 16 year old gamers I see running around, causing havoc in games. It really is a breath of fresh air for guild leaders in particular.

What’s not to like about it? Sure, the previous post outlined what a bunch of whiners on the TOR forums have been banging on about all day, but so long as you haven’t been planning something utterly stupid for your guild over the past year or two (let’s say, a Sith-Republic hybrid guild with 37 levels of member access), the new guild program is a treat that will pay dividends going forward.

It breaks down into three distinct stages — Formation, Alignment and Deployment.

In the Formation phase, guilds are encouraged to form. Pretty simple stuff. A guild leader creates a guild page, and his existing members can apply to join it, whilst further down the line, anyone searching for a guild will now be able to plug their key criteria into the TOR database and see all guilds that fit the bill — a much better system than what is done currently with people making posts on a forum. They can even apply to the guilds using a pre-determined list of questions provided by Bioware, which I’m sure some guilds will use. Not us, it must be said, as we have specific questions we want to ask, but for an average, run-of-the-mill guild, the system will give them a level of professionalism that they might have even previously lacked in their recruitment process.

Next, the Alignment phase — which will happen at a yet-to-be-announced time — is REALLY interesting to me. Basically, guilds will be able to specify any other guilds they wish to be aligned with, either as allies or adversaries, so that when the game launches, these designations will influence which guilds are placed on the same server. Which leads us to…

The Deployment phase. Or, in other words, the live game. This is where guilds will be assigned a server; ideally with the people they flagged themselves as wanting to play with in the Alignment phase. I think this is a very brave move (as it’s essentially asking guilds to put their trust in Bioware while admitting, at the same time, that they might not get what they want), but it’s also a very gutsy move that should be applauded as it will have the effect of being able to balance — in some way at least — the number of Sith and Republic guilds on each server. And that’s a massive issue in games where, sometimes, a particular server name might appeal to one faction over another and, for no other reason than just the name of the server, there are twice as many guilds from one faction as the other. This system should do something about changing that equation.

Alongside all of this, Bioware has also added some guild management goodies to its website, which both look good and will be quite useful for guilds. Frankly, I couldn’t ask for more. I think this is a great day in the game’s development and while other issues might still rankle, or remain unresolved in general, I’m happy to praise something I think is very praiseworthy and say that I’m really loving what Bioware unveiled today. Kudos to you, Bioware. There, I said it!

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February 2, 2011 by blur

What are flashpoints?

Some missions are too dangerous for just one hero. In Flashpoints, players team up with others to confront monumental challenges at pivotal moments in the game story. Fight deadly foes, make decisions that determine the outcome of the story, and get some of the best rewards in the galaxy as you and your allies experience Flashpoints.

The new Flashpoints Game Systems page features more detailed information about Flashpoints along with an exclusive video look at Taral V, a never-before-seen Flashpoint from the game. Get ready for great multiplayer action in Flashpoints in Star Wars™: The Old Republic™!

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August 15, 2010 by blur

The concept of “story” might keep some of us in the game, literally…

I like to think I’m a fair man when it comes to talking about computer games. When Bioware does something good, by my estimation, I’ll be on the front line telling everyone about it. When Bioware does something bad — again, by my estimation I need to stress — I’ll be as cutting and scathing as I can be. In other words, I’m not a Bioware fanboi, but nor am I a Bioware hater, either.

I also like to think that I can judge an MMO pretty well these days after playing a wide array of them for over a decade, often for long periods. “Been there, done that & got the t-shirt…” doesn’t even remotely begin to explain my background with these frustrating, addictive, OCD-friendly pieces of code that have worked their way into my very DNA over time.

And as it so happens, just lately I’ve been doodling with the trial version of an MMO that I’ve played in the past, but thought I’d revisit at the moment because, honestly, I’ve been bored. I wanted something to do particularly on these cold weekends (I’m in the southern hemisphere), when neither my wife or I particularly feel like venturing outdoors.

Now, I’m not going to name the game in question because the game itself is irrelevant. It could be just about any MMO ever made because it’s what the game was making me do that I found so offensive.

Yes folks, it seems that after all this time, I’m finally sick of the grind. Even with an open mind, and hour upon hour to kill, the thought of running back and forth across a map to kill critters which slowly increased in toughness — with slight changes to their name to show this — was enough to make me almost throw my PC out the window.

Why do we play these games? Where does it lead us? What does it achieve? Who cares in the end? Why aren’t they FUN?

There… I finally said it. MMOs just aren’t fun. Even when you get to the “cool stuff” at the end of an MMO, like raiding, or PvPing, more often than not it’s full of frustration and time wasting and unexpected moments of sheer misery compared to what they should be offering, given that we call these things “games”. And that thing, once again, is FUN.

So I was standing in the shower earlier tonight — a great place for thinking — and it occurred to me that for all the crap that people hang on the concept of “story” in TOR (and I confess, I’ve found plenty to criticise myself including the fact that if our race is dictated by the background we want… or our background is dictated by the race we want, then we aren’t playing a very fun or open RPG for starters), that this could actually be the thing that saves TOR, and ourselves, from mind-numbing boredom.

Honestly, at this point in time, I don’t think I could play another “traditional” MMO from start to finish (and by “finish” I mean the level cap), but if a game can tell me a story, and keep me interested in that while the character grows and levels without me noticing then, hell yeah, this could be a good thing.

Of course, it doesn’t get Bioware completely off the hook with other aspects of the story but, in terms of simply keeping my interest and keeping me in the game, story is where it’s at. It blows my mind to already read comments from people about wanting to skip the storyline elements…!

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Permalink | Posted in Opinion, Rant, Star Wars, The Old Republic | 5 Comments »

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August 12, 2010 by blur

Forced background? Pure crazy, if you ask me…

In the recent Forced Species article at Massively, there’s a comment:

I do not know all the details at this time, but I do know that — as it stands — there is only one backstory choice which allows for a non-Human for each class. If we take the bounty hunter, for example, the choices are currently Outlaw, The Merc, and Gladiator. If you choose the Outlaw or The Merc backstory, you get a Human; whereas, if you choose the Gladiator backstory, your species will be Ratattaki.

I’ve read through the article once, twice, three times and it doesn’t get any better. The decision is ridiculous. It’s like Bioware, who always harp on about understanding RPGs, don’t actually understand RPGs at all.

For example, if you want to be a Ratattaki you MUST have the Gladiator background?!? Excuse me?!? Where is the diversity and imagination and everything else we associate with roleplaying in that decision?

I don’t even WANT to be a Ratattaki Bounty Hunter but, for those who do, I imagine some might like the option of the Outlaw or Merc background instead. Yet, they get wedged into being the Gladiator background only.

Crazy.

Pure crazy.

Who sanity checked all these ideas? Or was it just a group of guys sitting around a table too scared to disagree with one another for fear of being the odd one out (not dissimilar to the way the Star Wars prequels were made — and look how they ended up???)

And now some dummy, over on the TOR forums, has said to me that players still “have control over their character” in response to me making the point that this takes some of the control over a player’s character out of the player’s hands.

I mean, in what universe? How wrong can you be? If your race is dictated by the background you want… or your background is dictated by the race you want, YOU ARE NOT IN CONTROL. That is so obvious. Sheesh. The Bioware fanboi’s are out in force today, I can see.

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Permalink | Posted in Opinion, Rant, Roleplay, Star Wars, The Old Republic | 9 Comments »

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August 6, 2010 by blur

Why I think The Old Republic will have one server type

When people talk about TOR, they often project their hopes and dreams onto the game which is understandable because we all like unreleased games to meet our own hopes and expectations. Sometimes, however, these hopes and expectations might be unrealistic.

A good example of this kind of thinking occurs in the area of servers. But more on that in a moment.

Typically, there are two kinds of servers in MMORPGs and two roleplaying variants of the same, as follows:

  • PVE server, with PvP restricted to closed zones or battlegrounds.
  • PVP server, with open world PvP in several zones.
  • RP-PVE server, with PvP restricted to closed zones or battlegrounds. Roleplaying is always encouraged.
  • RP-PVP server, with open world PvP in several zones. Roleplaying is always encouraged.

Now, many TOR fans are expecting to see all four kinds of server in operation. Yet, I have a feeling there will be one only:

  • PVE server, with PvP restricted to closed zones or battlegrounds.

How have I arrived at this? Easy.

First, there’s the issue of PvP. And you know what? After watching the 50 minute panel at E3 where it was stated, flat out, that while there’s PvP, nothing we do can actually affect the gameworld (because, “It has to be there for people when they play the game later on, to have the same experience…” or words to that effect), it became apparent to me that the TOR guys are leaning towards battlegrounds — specific areas where PvP will take place — and the rest of the game will be PvE, basically.

Second, there’s roleplay. And I just have this funky idea that in a game that is so roleplay-centric where everyone will be roleplaying to a greater degree than in other MMOs, I query if Bioware will bother marking some servers as RP servers. And if you’re sitting out there, spitting beer all over your monitor and shouting, “I’m no %#%@ing roleplayer!”, you will be in TOR’s eyes.

I’m thinking here specifically about elements like multiple answers characters will have in quests and all the other staples of single-player ROLEPLAYING games that Bioware is famous for.

I understand that gamers might want to elect a particular server within the TOR community as being the server where people will do very overt roleplaying, above and beyond what other people will do by default, but I doubt the game will suggest any particular server over another as THE roleplaying server; it will want to see its game as a roleplaying game, period.

So that’s my reasoning. Strip away the RP tags and strip away the world PvP and what have you got?

A PVE server, with PvP restricted to closed zones or battlegrounds.

For everyone.

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July 30, 2010 by blur

Comic-Con 2010: Beyond Solo: Crafting the Multiplayer Story in Star Wars

Ahoy Beskar members, check out BioWare’s James Ohlen (studio creative director and lead designer), Drew Karpyshyn (principal writer) and Alexander Freed (managing editor), all discussing the creation of the multiplayer story in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Lots of good information here — don’t let the 50 minute run time put you off at all — for you to digest and talk about.

Click here for the video.

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Permalink | Posted in News, Star Wars, The Old Republic, Video | No Comments »

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