Dark Age of Star Warsalot

Darth Hater reporting from PAX Prime:

Q: Can a good Sith or bad Jedi change sides? Faction changes?

A: No. Interesting story... originally there was a third underworld faction (Wall of Crazy)! It becomes very expensive from a development point of view if we'd have to double the number of stories. However we are always looking for ways to figure that out in the future. You never know.

Now, let's just imagine that for a second before we let reality crush our fantasies once again.

Is BioWare saying "you never know" an actual "you never know" or a "that's never fucking happening"?

I think allowing faction-switching would be fantastic for story and roleplaying reasons, but godawful for the whole MMO part of it. Imagine if you lost half your guild because they suddenly decided they wanted to be Sith. Imagine PvP balance if the underdogs decided they'd rather be part of the zerg on the other side.

Cute idea on paper, probably a nightmare in practice.

The 3rd Faction is not ever going to happen. (Not enough time, resources or Force users to go around.) If you want 3-faction RvR (and you should), you will have to actually hope that Prime and TSW aren't garbage. Because you won't ever see it happen in SWTOR. No matter how much we all know that the game needs one.

Dirtiest Lines In Star Wars

I'm re-posting ancient chain e-mails. Someone stop me before I start posting lists about why cats are better than men.

"Star Wars IV: A New Hope"

1. "She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid."
2. "Curse my metal body, I wasn't fast enough!"
3. "Look at the size of that thing!"
4. "Sorry about the mess..."
5. "You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought."
6. "Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?"
7. "You've got something jammed in here real good."
8. "Put that thing away before you get us all killed!"
9. "Luke, at that speed do you think you'll be able to pull out in time?"
10. "Get in there you big furry oaf, I don't care *what* you smell!"

"Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back"

1. "And I thought they smelled bad...on the *outside*!"
2. "Possible he came in through the south entrance."
3. "I must've hit it pretty close to the mark to get her all riled up like that, huh, kid?"
4. "Hurry up, golden-rod..."
5. "That's okay, I'd like to keep it on manual control for a while."
6. "But now we must eat. Cum, good food, cummm..."
7. "Control, control! You must learn control!"
8. "There's an awful lot of moisture in here."
9. "Size matters not. Judge me by my size, do you?"
10. "I thought that hairy beast would be the end of me!"

"Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi"

1. "Rise, my friend."
2. "Open the back door!"
3. "Hey, point that thing somewhere else!"
4. "It's just a dead animal..."
5. "Not bad for a little furball."
6. "How can they be jamming us if they don't know we're coming?"
7. "Come here, I won't hurt you. You want something to eat?"
8. "Keep on that one, I'll take these two."
9. "I want you to take her. I mean it, take her!"
10. "I don't think the Empire had wookies in mind when they designed her, Chewie."

Top ten sexually tilted lines from the trilogy

10. "What could possibly have come over Master Luke?"
9. "Hey, point that thing someplace else."
8. "You're a jittery little thing, aren't you?"
7. "I never knew I had it in me."
6. "Someone must've told them about my little maneuver at the battle of Taanab."
5. "There is good in him, I've felt it."
4. "Grab me, Chewie. I'm slipping -- hold on. Grab it, almost...you almost got it. Gently now, all right, easy, easy, hold me, Chewie. Chewie!" (Han) with "A little higher, just a little higher."
3. "Short help's better than no help at all."
2. "Hey, Luke, thanks for coming after me -- now I owe you one."
1. "Back door, huh? Good idea!"

The Secretive War: TSW PvP

Secret World preview from Dealspwn.com


Ten Ton Hammer Interview

*new Massively preview from PAX 

It's good to finally see more about the open world PvP, but I'm seeing really very few new, meaty details. We already knew about the 3 different battlegrounds, although we did learn that there will be collision.


We learned that the open world battlefields will be persistent and provide buffs to the controlling faction. (This was expected, what would be nice would be knowing what kind of buff(s), how many battlefields are we talking about and if they tie together somehow.) 


It's sounding a little like Warhammer and (bleh) Aion, but of course, TSW would have a 3rd faction and all the other weird shit that could make it worth playing. Players in the demo assault an objective (an Anima Well), which grants you charges to knock down the door of an enemy-controlled temple. Players then try to buzzsaw through defending players and kill the temple's big-ass NPC defender, who will then magically become your bitch and fight for you.

Sounds neat, I'm sure this will sound swell to plenty of RvR'ers, but I still cringe hard whenever I see Player vs. Door mechanics and NPCs in PvP. 

One thing that oddly bothers me way more than it should is the uniform system. Whenever you're in a PvP setting, you'll automatically appear to be wearing a role-specific faction-colored uniform ... so, if you have tanky abilities, you'd appear to be wearing say, a bulletproof vest and riot mask or something, none of the gear you're actually wearing will show. 

I understand the need to do this in a game where players seem to equip hoodies and leather jackets as armor, but it definitely mutes your sense of individual identity ... something that's kind of a big deal in a MMORPG, especially one so story-driven.

Head to Head

VIDEO: Guild Wars 2 PvP Instance - Khylo

VIDEO: Old Republic PvP Instance - Alderaan

VIDEO: Old Republic PvP Instance - Huttball 


It's been interesting to see a bit of compare-and-contrast with SWTOR and GW2's PvP this week.
Official GW2 Blog about the Khylo map and a GW2 PvP Overview

GW2: All players in PvP are automatically set to the maximum level and given access to "all the necessary skills, items, etc."
SWTOR: There's a Bolster system so that if you want to que with higher or lower levels, it roughly evens out. While you're in "open bracket" PvP, all the T2-T3 lowbies are boosted to about the strength of an average level 40, they're just missing the skills that come with it.

GW2: Everything's cross-server.
SWTOR: Nothing's cross-server.

GW2: Hot-join PvP can be played from 1v1 all the way up to 10v10
SWTOR: Warzones are usually 8v8, 12v12, give or take a group possibly.

GW2: 5v5 Mega E-Peen Ladder Tournaments.
SWTOR: If you want to tournie, you'll have to go on the forums or IRC and arrange your own personal blood orgies.

GW2: All their maps revolve around Conquest gameplay with some mega lazers, trebuchets or angry dragons thrown in.
SWTOR: The few maps I know about seem to want to be completely different. Huttball is pseudo CTF - basically football with swords and guns, Alderaan is Domination, Voidstar is a big sprawling Conquest map.

GW2: Open PvP is essentially the instanced WvWvW (server vs server vs server) map-chain.
SWTOR: There are PvP lakes in shared zones starting around level 20, and there's speculation that they might add an entire endgame PvP World. Also, there's PvP servers, if you know, you're into that sort of thing.

Extended Star Wars Collector's Bundle

So you've preordered Star Wars and will be getting early access. Enjoy those first days of playing in style - by never getting dressed and wearing only a Star Wars bath robe for the entire week of non-stop marathon gaming.

Complete your Collector's Bundle :


Leia and Yoda pet costumes, for when you want real Character Companions.
(You shouldn't really kill off these ones, either.)



Choose between blue and red lightsabers without having to quest or craft at all.
Unless by "quest" you mean "work" and "craft" you mean "have a credit card."


Decorate your personal housing with a relentless Bounty Hunter lamp /alarm clock (which I'm guessing you can set to a silent Boba Fett mode and it will quietly wake you up with a flamethrower to the face) or a plush Jawa, which will not kill you, but it will have glow in the dark eyes.


I'm sincerely hoping you can recreate the Slave Leia ~ Jabba scene in TOR in the same way I want to recreate the scene in real life.

Well... maybe not exactly the way I want to recreate the scene, that would give the game an entirely different rating.

ArcheAge PvP Battlegrounds HD Video

First, let me explain what I think I'm seeing here.

This battleground takes place in a castle populated by sentient Shipping Crate creatures. This is a crucial battle taking place because the winner gets to enslave the Shipping Crate nation.

It appears you score points by climbing ladders and dying pointlessly, it's all very strategic.

The Illusion of Reporting

Everything we buy now comes delivered into our hands dripping with hateful bile, bitter with the reek of a clinging cloud of pessimism. I've come to accept that, because I choose to read the papers, watch TV and browse the net. It's the way things work now.

I'm fine with people shitting on the shit I like because it's not the shit they like.

But the thing that's bothering me about the ever-swelling black clouds rumbling alongside SWTOR is that so much of the opinions being espoused are sort of ...well... short-sighted, let's say.

There are definitely legitimate concerns as far as gameplay goes, like, I don't like that level 1 characters supposedly can queue alongside level 50's for Warzones. That's a pretty valid point, I'd say. But the thing is, I'm not raising hell about it on my crappy blog no one reads, screaming to the internets how BioWare is Fail.

It might be a non-issue for all I know, hell, it might be something that makes the game much better. I'm not going to rail against a feature that I've never even seen put into practice yet.

The problem is, everyone else is really passionately railing about all sorts of things and has been doing so for months and will continue to do so until launch. And they need to step back and ask themselves if what they're decrying actually make the game better or worse?

That's just your opinion, man

I'll lurk on the forums and see people proposing completely empty, barren, pointless worlds, they'll ask to  kill all the players everywhere and spam /spit emotes on their corpses, they demand that you can play as mute midget teddy bear creatures.

Which is all well and good. The problem is that so much of the "mmo media" (I can't even type that without laughing) is doing the exact same thing that mouthbreathing forum trolls are doing and are being looked at as sources of credible information.

I'm sure they're just doing their job, being opinion columnists ya gotta have some opinions, you know? But they're framing a lot of absurd arguments with really unwarranted hysterics, just like deranged forum fanboys.

A writer knows that by entitling an article Illusion of Choice, he's making a pretty big accusation...

Readers see this and read the article and the takeaway is pretty straightforward:


"BioWare lied about what they were going to do and your choices won't matter".

Again, this is the same sort of jump to judgement and sensational, hyperbolic reaction to things you'd see on the forums. It just seems like more angry rabble-rousing to me.

Point: BioWare listened to testers and decided not to allow the ability to kill your companions.

Point: You can hit escape to start over a conversation if it isn't finished yet.


Neither of these 2 points negates the "Choices Matter" mantra from BioWare. The inability to kill off a companion doesn't invalidate any of the other story choices you make throughout the game.

The ability to do a "start over" in mid conversation doesn't invalidate the choice-making system either ... in fact, it's much better for clarifying just what choices you are making.

I mean, personally, I don't like the idea of having ten seconds to try to figure out what sort of game-changing decision I'm making based on the 4 word options these games give you...

"Will you help blow up the Death Square?"

A. "I'm a loner, Dottie."
B. "This city is a dying whore."
C. "I do what's needed."

I think what many people wanted with Choices Matter was neither freedom of Choice nor degree of Mattering, but this idea in their head of tangible, dramatic Consequences -- watching a companion die, seeing the world change because you sneezed and killed a village of Fish-dudes, shit like that.


But that isn't what "Choices Matter" means. If you want soap opera moments, play a 20 hour single player game; if you want a persistent world where the stories you've seen and the kind of character you become are based on choices you've made, play SWTOR.