I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Huttball. It's the most complex warzone I know, what with the moving objective, the mechanics of passing and the dangerous terrain. All these things can be great fun if you manage to use them to your advantage, and when a pug really gets its act together and produces some great team play, it's an awesome feeling to see a group of random people fall into a sort of dance together.
On the other hand, when you don't really know what you're doing and neither does your team, Huttball sucks worse than any other warzone. People will be all over the place simply because they don't follow what's happening, and you'll be losing badly. On my main I often used to find Huttball frustrating even when we won, simply because I felt so useless, constantly slowed or punted off a ledge somewhere and miles away from where I would have to be to be useful.
However, while I can't turn bad pugs into good ones, I've learned over time that I can really improve my personal Huttball experience by understanding my role in the game. Like football, Huttball kind of relies on people to focus on taking and holding certain positions: offence, defence and midfield. Characters are better suited for some of these than for others based on their class and spec.
Somewhat counter-intuitively, tanks and healers should be focused on offence, because it's about moving the ball over the enemy goal line and staying alive. Defence on the other hand is mostly the territory of dps. Who else is going to take the enemy ball carrier down quickly?
One of the things I find most frustrating in a Huttball game is when I somehow find myself chasing down the enemy ball carrier on my own, as a healer. Those hammer shots aren't going to do jack, and getting a chance to one-shot the enemy with a well-placed punt or stun in a fire is rare. These days, I rarely even bother with giving chase unless it's convenient and there's nothing else to do. It just gives my pug mates the wrong impression (oh, someone else has it under control and is killing the ball carrier... - no, I'm not; I'm a healer and my damage is terrible!) and draws me away from areas of the playing field where I actually could be making a difference once the enemy either scores or loses possession of the ball.
The other big factor determining your ideal position is your class's mobility. Knights and warriors have the best mobility hands down, and should thus focus on the "ends" of the playing field and getting to the enemy where they are hard to reach and other classes would struggle. Classes with bad mobility (I'm mostly thinking Commandos/mercenaries and Gunslingers/snipers) do best while trying to keep control of midfield, as this doesn't require them to move as much. Everyone else, who usually has some way of getting around, should move between mid and the edges of the playing field as needed.
Obviously these roles aren't set in stone, but I've found that it really helps to use them as a guideline. I've always loved Huttball on my Sage and my knight, because I knew exactly where I should be - running ahead to yank people to safety on my Sage, and chasing people down with leaps and bounds on my knight. On my Commando, I kept trying to be wherever the ball went, and I could just never keep up. It was so frustrating! Ever since I let go of that desire, my games have been much more fun, as I mostly stay around the middle, supporting defenders and attackers as needed, without making any futile attempts to run all the way to the end that never lead to anything anyway. You've got to be able to have some faith in your pug mates, even if they disappoint you sometimes. As you can't personally be everywhere at once anyway, it's better to be where you have the biggest chance of making a difference.
13/08/2012
09/08/2012
Gannifari
While not a huge fan of non-combat pets in general, I have to admit that I kind of like the new Gannifari. I've long held the opinion that the akk dog models in the game look more cute than fierce, and kind of wanted one as a pet ever since I saw a guildie pick one up as a temporary fighting companion in Colicoid War Game. In fact, I was thinking of saving up warzone commendations to buy a Lawgriffarl once I had all the gear I needed, as it looks like it should be using the same model. Now I might not have to, as the Gannifari does the job quite nicely - even if it's just another "have this as a random gift, everyone" kind of pet.
I did feel kind of awkward when I noticed this while doing dailies in the Black Hole though:
I'm sure it wasn't a relative, little one... don't look at me like that!
I did feel kind of awkward when I noticed this while doing dailies in the Black Hole though:
I'm sure it wasn't a relative, little one... don't look at me like that!
07/08/2012
Day 8: Memorable Moments
This is the eighth post in my 10 Days of SWTOR Screenshots challenge. Click on any screenshot to see a larger version.
I'm very much spoiled for choice on this one. So many memorable moments! It was hard to pick just a few.
Let's start with my very first world boss. I must have been level thirty or so then. He was exciting both because he was my first ever raid boss in SWTOR and because killing him was the first major guild event that I participated in. As it happens he also dropped a purple trooper chest which I won, and which I still keep in my bank for the memories.
I could just add lots of raid boss kills to this list, but that would be boring. I decided to simply pick one to stand for all of them, namely the one that was probably the most exciting: the Ancient Pylons on hard mode. It's pretty silly really, because the encounter is so easy, but back when it was bugged so that the consoles would become unclickable when you were about halfway through and the only way to reset them was to reset the instance and thus the entire trash, it gave us nightmares week after week.
After 1.2 fixed that bug and we were finally able to beat it, my guildies cheered louder than I've ever heard them cheer for anything else. It was totally ridiculous because our excitement was completely out of proportion compared to the effort we had to put into beating the fight just then (clicking buttons, yay), but the relief after all those weeks of frustration build-up was just too great.
While I haven't collected a whole lot of datacrons, most of the ones I have found and clicked on have some pretty nice memories attached to them. The Tatooine balloon ride is a good example - I even made an entire post about it at the time.
When my smuggler and her trooper friend levelled through Tatooine recently, we also rode the balloon together, and my heart was in my throat again when we had to make the jump, even though I knew how it worked this time. We got both datacrons on the sandcrawler that time... and also got to witness a poor fool of a Jedi getting punted off the balloon when he accepted a duelling request from an Empire player. Fortunately he took it in good spirits and laughed about it in general chat afterwards.
And finally of course, how could anyone forget the Rakghoul Plague world event? If that wasn't memorable then I don't know what would be.
I really hope that we'll see another world event soon. I seem to remember reading somewhere that information about another world event was already datamined months ago, but I guess other things have been keeping the devs busy since then.
I'm very much spoiled for choice on this one. So many memorable moments! It was hard to pick just a few.
Let's start with my very first world boss. I must have been level thirty or so then. He was exciting both because he was my first ever raid boss in SWTOR and because killing him was the first major guild event that I participated in. As it happens he also dropped a purple trooper chest which I won, and which I still keep in my bank for the memories.
I could just add lots of raid boss kills to this list, but that would be boring. I decided to simply pick one to stand for all of them, namely the one that was probably the most exciting: the Ancient Pylons on hard mode. It's pretty silly really, because the encounter is so easy, but back when it was bugged so that the consoles would become unclickable when you were about halfway through and the only way to reset them was to reset the instance and thus the entire trash, it gave us nightmares week after week.
After 1.2 fixed that bug and we were finally able to beat it, my guildies cheered louder than I've ever heard them cheer for anything else. It was totally ridiculous because our excitement was completely out of proportion compared to the effort we had to put into beating the fight just then (clicking buttons, yay), but the relief after all those weeks of frustration build-up was just too great.
While I haven't collected a whole lot of datacrons, most of the ones I have found and clicked on have some pretty nice memories attached to them. The Tatooine balloon ride is a good example - I even made an entire post about it at the time.
When my smuggler and her trooper friend levelled through Tatooine recently, we also rode the balloon together, and my heart was in my throat again when we had to make the jump, even though I knew how it worked this time. We got both datacrons on the sandcrawler that time... and also got to witness a poor fool of a Jedi getting punted off the balloon when he accepted a duelling request from an Empire player. Fortunately he took it in good spirits and laughed about it in general chat afterwards.
And finally of course, how could anyone forget the Rakghoul Plague world event? If that wasn't memorable then I don't know what would be.
I really hope that we'll see another world event soon. I seem to remember reading somewhere that information about another world event was already datamined months ago, but I guess other things have been keeping the devs busy since then.
03/08/2012
State of the Combat Medic
In non-depressing news... in the latest episode of TOR Reporter, the hosts pointed out that Bioware is currently gathering feedback on all the advanced classes and their specs on the forums, something that I wasn't previously aware of. The threads are over two weeks old by now, but people are still posting in them daily, so I thought that I might as well add my two cents. Better late than never.
2. How do you perceive your own spec?
The two questions asked are:
1. How do you think your (Commando in this case) spec is perceived by other classes?
and
2. How do you perceive your own spec?
As you would expect and as Anexxia also pointed out in the podcast, most people tend to answer with something along the lines of "my spec sucks and needs a buff" to both questions, which is not very useful, but at least vaguely entertaining. I'll try to maintain a more balanced view.
How others perceive the Combat Medic
I believe that the vast majority of the time, people are happy to have a healer at all and don't care about which class said healer plays. They are more likely to be worried about whether the character is sporting an adequate level of gear than whether his or her class is the current flavour of the month.
However, there are some trends. In operations, I get the impression that Combat Medics are considered adequate, but people would probably be a bit weary of a raid in which all the healers were Commandos. We have good synergy with the other healing classes, but nothing about our advanced class screams "I'm awesome no matter what" like a Sage's floor heals for example. (Full disclosure: I play a max level healing Sage as well, so it's not like I'm hating on the competition here or anything.)
In high end PvP, Commando healers are definitely less popular than other advanced classes, as LFM requests for ranked warzones always seem to specify that they want a Scoundrel, or maybe a Sage.
In random warzones, I wouldn't be surprised if many players found our kind a bit of a nuisance to kill. This might be true for any well-geared healer though.
How I perceive the Combat Medic
I'm not a hardmode raider really (though I have done some), but as it stands I haven't run into any content that made me feel like my class's performance was inadequate. Ammo management is challenging sometimes, but I also enjoy it. In heavy AoE situations I eye the Sages somewhat jealously, considering how hard I have to work to keep people alive while they can just dump their floor heal and call it a day, but it doesn't feel truly bothersome.
In PvP I only do random warzones, and there I feel that Combat Medics have both pronounced strengths and weaknesses which pretty much balance each other out.
Our main strength is our heavy armour and survivability, which can make a world of a difference in an environment where you can't necessarily count on other players to help a healer that is under attack. Our burst healing is also quite good, which works like a charm to bring people back from the brink of death when an enemy tries to burst them down in turn. Kolto Bomb as a short-cooldown AoE that can be cast on the move is quite powerful as well, even if it doesn't heal for much.
Our main weaknesses are a lack of mobility and being very obvious targets. We can do a little bit of healing while on the move, but unless we can knock our pursuers off a handy cliff, we have no way of escaping an enemy without help, as we have no speed boost, charge or counter to snares, knockbacks and stuns. We just have to sit there or walk along really slowly and take it. Even with heavy armour that rarely works well.
As far as being an obvious target goes, the fact that all our main abilities have a cast time means that any enemy can immediately identify us as healers. Worse, trying to do any healing with Hammer Shot is like painting a giant target over your head. While I kind of love the green beam in PvE for its sheer weirdness, I think that this is the only thing that I truly find unbalanced in Combat Medic PvP, as our Mercenary counterparts don't have a visual equivalent and can heal from the back without announcing their presence quite so loudly.
Have you submitted any feedback? And how do people who don't play Combat Medics actually perceive them?
31/07/2012
When the trolls are right
... you might end up innocently browsing Facebook and finding something like this. There went my good mood for the evening.
I don't like free-to-play models. I want story updates, not a cash shop filled with silly hats to extract money from "ooh shiny" impulse buyers. I suppose that not much will change in the immediate future if you continue to pay a sub, but in the long run this is likely to lead to a development direction that I'm not really interested in.
More than anything I'm disappointed in EA basically calling the current fans of the game fools for continuing to support it. Regardless of whether there are good F2P games or not, no business changes from charging for its product to giving it away for free unless they think that it's so bad that it's not worth paying for.
I also don't expect this to be good for the company's bottom line. There's got to be a reason you never hear anything about how much money F2P MMOs make after the initial duh announcement of "wow, so many more people play our game when we give it away for free". I expect that they'll regret this once previously happy subscribers cancel their subs and the people who didn't like the game enough to spend money on it before will continue to not spend any money on it (while still hogging server resources).
I don't like free-to-play models. I want story updates, not a cash shop filled with silly hats to extract money from "ooh shiny" impulse buyers. I suppose that not much will change in the immediate future if you continue to pay a sub, but in the long run this is likely to lead to a development direction that I'm not really interested in.
More than anything I'm disappointed in EA basically calling the current fans of the game fools for continuing to support it. Regardless of whether there are good F2P games or not, no business changes from charging for its product to giving it away for free unless they think that it's so bad that it's not worth paying for.
I also don't expect this to be good for the company's bottom line. There's got to be a reason you never hear anything about how much money F2P MMOs make after the initial duh announcement of "wow, so many more people play our game when we give it away for free". I expect that they'll regret this once previously happy subscribers cancel their subs and the people who didn't like the game enough to spend money on it before will continue to not spend any money on it (while still hogging server resources).
29/07/2012
On Being A Lady Smuggler
The levelling duo consisting of my smuggler and my recently referred friend's trooper is coming along nicely. The other night we finished chapter one of both of our class stories.
I won't review the smuggler story until I've completed all of it, but I just wanted to write about a few things that amused me about being a female smuggler. Be warned that this post will contain a couple of spoilers on the subject of romance in Act I.
Maybe I'm slowly overcoming my ineptitude when it comes to Bioware romances, or maybe the female smuggler is just better written, but she's been the first character on which flirting frequently actually felt natural to me. To be fair, it might have something to do with the fact that I've already seen more flirt action in chapter one than all of my other female characters ever experienced combined. When your character never even gets the chance to flirt until you're suddenly confronted with the option to hit on a random quest NPC thirty levels later, it just feels weird. I think it's safe to say that the lady smuggler doesn't have this problem. For extra funsies, your first companion, Corso Riggs, immediately crushes on you and then makes snarky comments every time you flirt with someone else, which makes for some great entertainment on its own.
For example I was most amused by how annoyed he got over my flirting with a young noble on Alderaan. When it actually came to visiting said noble again with the prospect of some BSOCK action, I was actually quite torn about whether to bring Corso along purely to antagonise him for my amusement, but in the end I decided that it would make me feel too guilty and wasn't going to be worth the affection loss. Long story short, Bowdaar is a better wingman anyway. "I'll just be going outside. I wanted to look at the trees anyway!" And he gives you some affection for it to boot.
The absolute highlight of flirting hilarity however was the final confrontation at the end of Act I. To be honest, I had been dreading it a little, because I was worried that it was going to end with the death of my arch-enemy... and I actually kind of liked him. He may have tried to kill me repeatedly, but our conversations were always fun. I didn't want to be rid of him.
Imagine my delight when we faced off against each other one last time, and I was given the option to flirt with him as he was pointing a blaster at my head. I couldn't resist, and before you know it my smuggler and her nemesis were sucking face on a derelict spaceship in the middle of nowhere, while Corso was presumably sitting in a corner, developing a nervous eye twitch and covering his ears while shouting "lalala, I can't hear you". There was a BSOCK which implied even more action, though considering the circumstances of the situation, I'm not sure I want to contemplate the issue any further as it would imply that my character is borderline insane.
Too bad that my frenemy still wanted to kill me after I told him that I was keeping the treasure. However, by that point I felt that I had got some very humorous closure to our relationship.
The only romance option that still confounds me a little at this point is Corso. I can see why people like him, as he has an easygoing boyish charm that reminds me a little of Alistair from Dragon Age (who was very popular with the ladies as well). However, Corso is also annoyingly sexist. It's somewhat mitigated by the fact that he frequently shows that he doesn't actually think of women as in any way inferior or less competent. He's just insistent that there are some things that they should and shouldn't be doing based on what his parents taught him. Mind you, you get the option to tell him off every time he goes on about it, but it's still annoying. All I want to do is sit him down and tell him to use his brain for once, as the stuff he has been taught obviously doesn't match the reality he lives in, but I'm doubtful that the game will allow me to go there. As it stands I'm not quite sure where to take things with the lad, friendly as he is.
I won't review the smuggler story until I've completed all of it, but I just wanted to write about a few things that amused me about being a female smuggler. Be warned that this post will contain a couple of spoilers on the subject of romance in Act I.
Maybe I'm slowly overcoming my ineptitude when it comes to Bioware romances, or maybe the female smuggler is just better written, but she's been the first character on which flirting frequently actually felt natural to me. To be fair, it might have something to do with the fact that I've already seen more flirt action in chapter one than all of my other female characters ever experienced combined. When your character never even gets the chance to flirt until you're suddenly confronted with the option to hit on a random quest NPC thirty levels later, it just feels weird. I think it's safe to say that the lady smuggler doesn't have this problem. For extra funsies, your first companion, Corso Riggs, immediately crushes on you and then makes snarky comments every time you flirt with someone else, which makes for some great entertainment on its own.
For example I was most amused by how annoyed he got over my flirting with a young noble on Alderaan. When it actually came to visiting said noble again with the prospect of some BSOCK action, I was actually quite torn about whether to bring Corso along purely to antagonise him for my amusement, but in the end I decided that it would make me feel too guilty and wasn't going to be worth the affection loss. Long story short, Bowdaar is a better wingman anyway. "I'll just be going outside. I wanted to look at the trees anyway!" And he gives you some affection for it to boot.
The absolute highlight of flirting hilarity however was the final confrontation at the end of Act I. To be honest, I had been dreading it a little, because I was worried that it was going to end with the death of my arch-enemy... and I actually kind of liked him. He may have tried to kill me repeatedly, but our conversations were always fun. I didn't want to be rid of him.
Imagine my delight when we faced off against each other one last time, and I was given the option to flirt with him as he was pointing a blaster at my head. I couldn't resist, and before you know it my smuggler and her nemesis were sucking face on a derelict spaceship in the middle of nowhere, while Corso was presumably sitting in a corner, developing a nervous eye twitch and covering his ears while shouting "lalala, I can't hear you". There was a BSOCK which implied even more action, though considering the circumstances of the situation, I'm not sure I want to contemplate the issue any further as it would imply that my character is borderline insane.
Too bad that my frenemy still wanted to kill me after I told him that I was keeping the treasure. However, by that point I felt that I had got some very humorous closure to our relationship.
The only romance option that still confounds me a little at this point is Corso. I can see why people like him, as he has an easygoing boyish charm that reminds me a little of Alistair from Dragon Age (who was very popular with the ladies as well). However, Corso is also annoyingly sexist. It's somewhat mitigated by the fact that he frequently shows that he doesn't actually think of women as in any way inferior or less competent. He's just insistent that there are some things that they should and shouldn't be doing based on what his parents taught him. Mind you, you get the option to tell him off every time he goes on about it, but it's still annoying. All I want to do is sit him down and tell him to use his brain for once, as the stuff he has been taught obviously doesn't match the reality he lives in, but I'm doubtful that the game will allow me to go there. As it stands I'm not quite sure where to take things with the lad, friendly as he is.
26/07/2012
Silly Guild Names
Guild names are a funny beast. A lot of them are honestly fairly generic: there's the Single Abstract Noun, the Pretentious Latin Name, and all kinds of combinations of certain "cool" sounding words along the lines of Angels/Crusaders/Knights of Darkness/Light/some random place. There are even random guild name generators that will wield results along those lines. That's not meant to be dismissive of guild names like that; I'm just saying that they don't tend to stand out.
My favourite guild names to encounter out in the world are therefore ones that are punny or relate to something in the game in a funny manner. In WoW I remember getting a good laugh out of frequently seeing people in battlegrounds who sported the guild tag "PVP SUX WHENS NAXXRAMAS". I still don't know whether this was meant to express someone's actual sentiments about the game at the time of creation or whether it was intended to sound absurd from the start.
In SWTOR, the main inspiration for coming up with amusing guild names seem to be puns on the word "Sith". Unfortunately most of them aren't really very funny (in my opinion) because they are too obvious and crude, along the lines of "I sith in my pants". I did chuckle though when the group finder teamed me up with someone from the "Ministry of Sithly Walks" the other day.
"Jedi" is a bit more difficult to fit into a punny name I believe, as I haven't seen as many guild names incorporating it in an amusing fashion. However, when I finally saw someone from "Peanut Butter Jedi Time" in a warzone it totally made my day.
There are other Star Wars references to be made as well of course, which on my server includes such gems as "Wookie Tango Foxtrot" and "Ewok'alypse Now".
What are other interesting guild names people have spotted in TOR?
My favourite guild names to encounter out in the world are therefore ones that are punny or relate to something in the game in a funny manner. In WoW I remember getting a good laugh out of frequently seeing people in battlegrounds who sported the guild tag "PVP SUX WHENS NAXXRAMAS". I still don't know whether this was meant to express someone's actual sentiments about the game at the time of creation or whether it was intended to sound absurd from the start.
In SWTOR, the main inspiration for coming up with amusing guild names seem to be puns on the word "Sith". Unfortunately most of them aren't really very funny (in my opinion) because they are too obvious and crude, along the lines of "I sith in my pants". I did chuckle though when the group finder teamed me up with someone from the "Ministry of Sithly Walks" the other day.
"Jedi" is a bit more difficult to fit into a punny name I believe, as I haven't seen as many guild names incorporating it in an amusing fashion. However, when I finally saw someone from "Peanut Butter Jedi Time" in a warzone it totally made my day.
There are other Star Wars references to be made as well of course, which on my server includes such gems as "Wookie Tango Foxtrot" and "Ewok'alypse Now".
What are other interesting guild names people have spotted in TOR?
23/07/2012
Secret Agent Girl
At long last, my Imperial agent hit level 50 and completed her class story. It's kind of amazing to think that it took me this long, considering that she was the first alt I ever created, but all too often the draw of playing with my friends on Republic side was just too strong.
Common consensus seems to be that the agent storyline is the best of all the class stories. I hesitate to say that I agree when I have only played through two of the others in full so far, but it's certainly a very good one. It definitely felt more layered to me, with unexpected twists and turns occurring at every corner. (Except for Alderaan, where I saw the "surprise" coming from miles away and was annoyed that the game wouldn't let me state what I felt was obvious.) Where other class stories are often fairly straightforward in the goals they set you, simply making you jump a couple of hurdles before you're allowed to reach the finish line, as an agent I often found myself going somewhere expecting to do one thing and then having it turn out to be something completely different. If the class stories were films, I reckon that most of the others would be good, solid summer blockbusters, while the Imperial agent story would be something like... I don't know, Inception. (Cue movie buffs being outraged at my totally inappropriate comparison.)
I think my favourite part of the whole experience was that many of the sub-plots required my agent to pretend to be somebody else. There is something about roleplaying a character who is playing yet another role that amuses me to no end - it's one of my favourite plot devices in pen and paper roleplaying as well.
I was only ever so slightly disappointed by the ending - it wasn't bad, but I felt that it gave little closure and I didn't particularly like the new role I was being shunted into. I suppose it's a good setup for your character to continue his or her journeys through MMO land at endgame, but it didn't really feel like a great conclusion to me. I guess the writers are faced with a bit of a catch-22 there: because if they do end the class story with a big and impressive conclusion, like the consular story for example, having the character go off to do dailies afterwards can feel a bit trite.
The agent story also contained my first instance of the game making me feel like something had been written primarily for a male player character, namely when a certain female NPC approached me with big puppy dog eyes at the end of the Tatooine storyline as if she was about to kiss me, though she didn't do it in the end. Actually, my first thought was: "Whoa, did they include some same-sex romance in this game after all?", but I quickly found myself answering my own question with: "No, I guess whoever designed this bit just thought of the agent character as a man." At one point the summary text on the loading screen also referred to my lady agent as a "he". To be fair though, those remain the only times that anything like this has happened to me so far.
I talked about my bad luck with Bioware romances before and also mentioned at the time that my agent appeared to be my only character who might finally have a chance to score with someone. I'm happy to say that this did actually work out. I went through with my "threat" of respeccing from dps to healing post Alderaan just so that I could quest with Vector instead of Kaliyo (two squishy melee dps wasn't working so well for me), and his affection rating soared quite quickly and naturally as he and my agent were very much on the same wavelength. After a couple of companion conversations I found myself really getting into the romance too, as he kind of seemed to play hard to get, always forgetting about my flirtation attempts in favour of focusing on business. Call me strange, but bug eyes aside, Vector is actually pretty close to the type of guy that I find attractive in real life as well: quiet and a little weird, but also gentle, loyal and reliable. (There is a thread on the official agent forums that starts with a funny rant about why Vector is supposedly the worst love interest ever, but then gets mostly taken over by fans of his character. It's currently on sixty-nine pages.)
The only point at which I had to draw the line was marriage, as I felt that it's not a good idea for secret agents to get married. I figured that, not unlike superheroes, they always end up with some very deranged enemies, and officially declaring your love for someone would only result in inviting lots of trouble for that person. Unfortunately that kind of explanation wasn't an option in the game, so I only got to say something like "this isn't what I was going for" and poor Vector got all sad with me. I cursed Bioware afterwards for making me feel bad about rejecting a marriage proposal from an NPC. Damn those really likeable characters!
The agent companions as a whole were a pretty eclectic and interesting bunch - I never got over my hatred for Kaliyo though. She's got an interesting personality, don't get me wrong, but I just couldn't see why my agent or Imperial Intelligence in general would keep her around. The worst thing was when her last companion quest ended on a bad note and with my character effectively telling her to bugger off... but then there was no follow-up to this, and our next chat was all about how everything was peachy keen again and what a great team we were. Harrumph. Kaliyo really made me wish that Bioware had kept the option to get rid of nasty companions in the final game... though I can absolutely see why they didn't. I think I would have struggled to quest my way up into the thirties with no companion after leaving her anarchist butt on Hutta, heh.
After finishing my last mission I had a quick browse around the official forums to read a bit about other people's thoughts on the agent, and the thing that really surprised me was how many different forks there seem to be in the storyline, which is something that you can't necessarily judge very well if you just play through it once. I mostly played my agent as neutral, only sliding into Light I towards the very end of the story, and ended up killing all the major characters I confronted at the end of each act. I was very surprised when I read that you can not only spare some of them, you can actually completely change your allegiance! Now I almost want to make another agent right away just to see some of those other outcomes.
Common consensus seems to be that the agent storyline is the best of all the class stories. I hesitate to say that I agree when I have only played through two of the others in full so far, but it's certainly a very good one. It definitely felt more layered to me, with unexpected twists and turns occurring at every corner. (Except for Alderaan, where I saw the "surprise" coming from miles away and was annoyed that the game wouldn't let me state what I felt was obvious.) Where other class stories are often fairly straightforward in the goals they set you, simply making you jump a couple of hurdles before you're allowed to reach the finish line, as an agent I often found myself going somewhere expecting to do one thing and then having it turn out to be something completely different. If the class stories were films, I reckon that most of the others would be good, solid summer blockbusters, while the Imperial agent story would be something like... I don't know, Inception. (Cue movie buffs being outraged at my totally inappropriate comparison.)
I think my favourite part of the whole experience was that many of the sub-plots required my agent to pretend to be somebody else. There is something about roleplaying a character who is playing yet another role that amuses me to no end - it's one of my favourite plot devices in pen and paper roleplaying as well.
I was only ever so slightly disappointed by the ending - it wasn't bad, but I felt that it gave little closure and I didn't particularly like the new role I was being shunted into. I suppose it's a good setup for your character to continue his or her journeys through MMO land at endgame, but it didn't really feel like a great conclusion to me. I guess the writers are faced with a bit of a catch-22 there: because if they do end the class story with a big and impressive conclusion, like the consular story for example, having the character go off to do dailies afterwards can feel a bit trite.
The agent story also contained my first instance of the game making me feel like something had been written primarily for a male player character, namely when a certain female NPC approached me with big puppy dog eyes at the end of the Tatooine storyline as if she was about to kiss me, though she didn't do it in the end. Actually, my first thought was: "Whoa, did they include some same-sex romance in this game after all?", but I quickly found myself answering my own question with: "No, I guess whoever designed this bit just thought of the agent character as a man." At one point the summary text on the loading screen also referred to my lady agent as a "he". To be fair though, those remain the only times that anything like this has happened to me so far.
I talked about my bad luck with Bioware romances before and also mentioned at the time that my agent appeared to be my only character who might finally have a chance to score with someone. I'm happy to say that this did actually work out. I went through with my "threat" of respeccing from dps to healing post Alderaan just so that I could quest with Vector instead of Kaliyo (two squishy melee dps wasn't working so well for me), and his affection rating soared quite quickly and naturally as he and my agent were very much on the same wavelength. After a couple of companion conversations I found myself really getting into the romance too, as he kind of seemed to play hard to get, always forgetting about my flirtation attempts in favour of focusing on business. Call me strange, but bug eyes aside, Vector is actually pretty close to the type of guy that I find attractive in real life as well: quiet and a little weird, but also gentle, loyal and reliable. (There is a thread on the official agent forums that starts with a funny rant about why Vector is supposedly the worst love interest ever, but then gets mostly taken over by fans of his character. It's currently on sixty-nine pages.)
The only point at which I had to draw the line was marriage, as I felt that it's not a good idea for secret agents to get married. I figured that, not unlike superheroes, they always end up with some very deranged enemies, and officially declaring your love for someone would only result in inviting lots of trouble for that person. Unfortunately that kind of explanation wasn't an option in the game, so I only got to say something like "this isn't what I was going for" and poor Vector got all sad with me. I cursed Bioware afterwards for making me feel bad about rejecting a marriage proposal from an NPC. Damn those really likeable characters!
The agent companions as a whole were a pretty eclectic and interesting bunch - I never got over my hatred for Kaliyo though. She's got an interesting personality, don't get me wrong, but I just couldn't see why my agent or Imperial Intelligence in general would keep her around. The worst thing was when her last companion quest ended on a bad note and with my character effectively telling her to bugger off... but then there was no follow-up to this, and our next chat was all about how everything was peachy keen again and what a great team we were. Harrumph. Kaliyo really made me wish that Bioware had kept the option to get rid of nasty companions in the final game... though I can absolutely see why they didn't. I think I would have struggled to quest my way up into the thirties with no companion after leaving her anarchist butt on Hutta, heh.
After finishing my last mission I had a quick browse around the official forums to read a bit about other people's thoughts on the agent, and the thing that really surprised me was how many different forks there seem to be in the storyline, which is something that you can't necessarily judge very well if you just play through it once. I mostly played my agent as neutral, only sliding into Light I towards the very end of the story, and ended up killing all the major characters I confronted at the end of each act. I was very surprised when I read that you can not only spare some of them, you can actually completely change your allegiance! Now I almost want to make another agent right away just to see some of those other outcomes.
21/07/2012
More Positivity Please!
This post by Psynister caught my eye today. In it he talks about the state of his blog and his gaming. He has the following to say about playing SWOTR:
No matter how much you might enjoy playing the game, if you’re active in social networks where a large number of players are present or if you’re active in the bloggosphere then you’re constantly surrounded by negativity towards the game. Even when you’re having a blast playing it, there’s so much negativity surrounding it that it’s almost hard to still enjoy it. You almost have to escape into the game to get away from all the negativity being directed at it. It’s a bit ridiculous, honestly.
This touched a nerve with me as it's a subject that I've been meaning to write about for a few days: the woes of being a SWTOR fan. (First world problems, I know.) People like to moan about the many ways in which the game supposedly fails, but really, the only thing that's actually inhibiting my fun every now and then are generally people who don't even play the game.
I have to admit that this is something that WoW never prepared me for. Sure, you can find plenty of people who like to moan about WoW too, but for every negative voice like that there are plenty more positive ones, and more importantly, it doesn't really matter. Blizzard is pretty much beyond criticism these days. People will write thousands of ranty words about all the things the company supposedly does wrong, and then admit in the same breath that they bought WoW's annual pass and have been playing Diablo 3 non-stop for the past two months. Actions speak louder than words, and nothing can even remotely threaten WoW's status these days considering that even the people who claim to not like it keep coming back for more (not to mention the millions of people that do genuinely love it).
SWTOR plays in a very different league here. It's still quite a big game, but it's not unreasonable to suspect that EA might have expected it to perform better than it currently does. The game will have to work hard to both keep attracting new players and retain current ones, and people bashing it left and right is not going to help with that.
This is where some smart arse usually chimes in that nobody cares what some dude says on the internet, but put enough dudes together and it will affect public opinion. Don't tell me that you've never become curious about something that lots of people praised or were turned off trying something that a lot of people declared a waste of time. So people continuously bashing SWTOR affects me negatively because it contributes to actually putting the continued existence of the game in its current state at risk (Psynister has a few words to say about that as well).
I'm also continuously baffled by how much hatred people have for a game that they didn't even play for very long. I've always had at least a bit of sympathy for WoW curmudgeons because most of the time their bitterness is based on the fact that the game has changed over the years. If they liked it one way, played for years, and Blizzard took that away from them... well, they really did lose something in a way. Even if I don't agree with the particulars, I can at least see how that would make someone grumpy. Many of the TOR haters on the other hand openly admit that they only played for a couple of days/levels... and yet still seethe with more hatred for the game than even the most evil Sith Lord, even though they realised that it wasn't what they wanted almost from the start. Why they can't just move on to something else I don't know.
Then of course we have the ones who always sound very intellectual somehow and know exactly why the game sucks without even having touched it. They tend to remind me of my dear old mother when she says that internet people aren't real, and there's about as much point in arguing the point. I actually stop myself from commenting on certain blogs nowadays purely because if I mention SWTOR in any positive context at all I know that I'll just have my intelligence questioned by the author or other commenters there.
Maybe it's my own fault for hanging out in the wrong circles. I did "come over" from a mostly WoW-centric blogosphere after all. I suppose I need to search harder to find more blogs that are TOR-positive, focus on reading those and it will all be better.
Unfortunately from what I've seen, even some fan sites aren't unaffected by all the negativity, starting off many an article with lines like...
"I still love TOR but..." [insert countless reasons why this is bound to only be a temporary state]
Can you imagine many happy conversations that start with telling someone that you "still love them but..."? Me neither.
Or how about:
"We can all agree that TOR has many problems..."
Yes, because the first thing that always comes to my mind when I want to talk about something I love are the many ways in which it sucks! It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
This isn't meant to be a jab at fan sites. I wouldn't be surprised if I had started a post myself that way, somewhere, at some point. Neither is it supposed to mean that we shouldn't criticise the game as fans.
However, I think that we should focus on the things we enjoy, and just say what we have to say without sounding like we're constantly apologising for liking the game (or even for not liking certain aspects of the game), as if we expect nasty anti-TOR trolls to jump out of the woodwork even in the comment section of a tiny fan blog. We can't change minds that have already been made up, but we can try to be a good example for those who might not know much about the game and show them the many ways in which it rocks.
(And yes, I realise there is a certain irony in writing an angry rant about how people should be more positive. Normal and more positive business will resume shortly.)
No matter how much you might enjoy playing the game, if you’re active in social networks where a large number of players are present or if you’re active in the bloggosphere then you’re constantly surrounded by negativity towards the game. Even when you’re having a blast playing it, there’s so much negativity surrounding it that it’s almost hard to still enjoy it. You almost have to escape into the game to get away from all the negativity being directed at it. It’s a bit ridiculous, honestly.
This touched a nerve with me as it's a subject that I've been meaning to write about for a few days: the woes of being a SWTOR fan. (First world problems, I know.) People like to moan about the many ways in which the game supposedly fails, but really, the only thing that's actually inhibiting my fun every now and then are generally people who don't even play the game.
I have to admit that this is something that WoW never prepared me for. Sure, you can find plenty of people who like to moan about WoW too, but for every negative voice like that there are plenty more positive ones, and more importantly, it doesn't really matter. Blizzard is pretty much beyond criticism these days. People will write thousands of ranty words about all the things the company supposedly does wrong, and then admit in the same breath that they bought WoW's annual pass and have been playing Diablo 3 non-stop for the past two months. Actions speak louder than words, and nothing can even remotely threaten WoW's status these days considering that even the people who claim to not like it keep coming back for more (not to mention the millions of people that do genuinely love it).
SWTOR plays in a very different league here. It's still quite a big game, but it's not unreasonable to suspect that EA might have expected it to perform better than it currently does. The game will have to work hard to both keep attracting new players and retain current ones, and people bashing it left and right is not going to help with that.
This is where some smart arse usually chimes in that nobody cares what some dude says on the internet, but put enough dudes together and it will affect public opinion. Don't tell me that you've never become curious about something that lots of people praised or were turned off trying something that a lot of people declared a waste of time. So people continuously bashing SWTOR affects me negatively because it contributes to actually putting the continued existence of the game in its current state at risk (Psynister has a few words to say about that as well).
I'm also continuously baffled by how much hatred people have for a game that they didn't even play for very long. I've always had at least a bit of sympathy for WoW curmudgeons because most of the time their bitterness is based on the fact that the game has changed over the years. If they liked it one way, played for years, and Blizzard took that away from them... well, they really did lose something in a way. Even if I don't agree with the particulars, I can at least see how that would make someone grumpy. Many of the TOR haters on the other hand openly admit that they only played for a couple of days/levels... and yet still seethe with more hatred for the game than even the most evil Sith Lord, even though they realised that it wasn't what they wanted almost from the start. Why they can't just move on to something else I don't know.
Then of course we have the ones who always sound very intellectual somehow and know exactly why the game sucks without even having touched it. They tend to remind me of my dear old mother when she says that internet people aren't real, and there's about as much point in arguing the point. I actually stop myself from commenting on certain blogs nowadays purely because if I mention SWTOR in any positive context at all I know that I'll just have my intelligence questioned by the author or other commenters there.
Maybe it's my own fault for hanging out in the wrong circles. I did "come over" from a mostly WoW-centric blogosphere after all. I suppose I need to search harder to find more blogs that are TOR-positive, focus on reading those and it will all be better.
Unfortunately from what I've seen, even some fan sites aren't unaffected by all the negativity, starting off many an article with lines like...
"I still love TOR but..." [insert countless reasons why this is bound to only be a temporary state]
Can you imagine many happy conversations that start with telling someone that you "still love them but..."? Me neither.
Or how about:
"We can all agree that TOR has many problems..."
Yes, because the first thing that always comes to my mind when I want to talk about something I love are the many ways in which it sucks! It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
This isn't meant to be a jab at fan sites. I wouldn't be surprised if I had started a post myself that way, somewhere, at some point. Neither is it supposed to mean that we shouldn't criticise the game as fans.
However, I think that we should focus on the things we enjoy, and just say what we have to say without sounding like we're constantly apologising for liking the game (or even for not liking certain aspects of the game), as if we expect nasty anti-TOR trolls to jump out of the woodwork even in the comment section of a tiny fan blog. We can't change minds that have already been made up, but we can try to be a good example for those who might not know much about the game and show them the many ways in which it rocks.
(And yes, I realise there is a certain irony in writing an angry rant about how people should be more positive. Normal and more positive business will resume shortly.)
19/07/2012
Day 7: Team
This is the seventh post in my 10 Days of SWTOR Screenshots challenge. Click on any screenshot to see a larger version.
The challenge for this day of screenshots as I posed it in the original post was: Like most MMOs, SWTOR is the most fun in a group! Show us your team, however you define that term in this game.
The last couple of months have kind of played havoc with my team. Some beloved guildies have stopped playing, others had to change their names. The Luka Sene server community was transplanted onto and absorbed by The Red Eclipse. I'm not saying it's all bad, just that some of these screenshots are a bit out of date due to all the changes. I just haven't had a chance to take newer and better shots of everything yet.
Here's an old-ish shot of my guild in Eternity Vault. I really love how everyone looks focused and ready to jump into action (a rare state for people to be in, as we spend more time bumbling around and being distracted).
In PvP, everyone who helps our team to achieve its objectives is my friend. Incidentally, the Shadow on the left is a guy from my old server who changed his name to something completely different after transferring. I was really pleased when I discovered his identity by chance. Not that we really knew each other, but he had shown himself to be both competent and reasonable before, so it was nice to know that he'd successfully made the jump too.
Finally, nothing says "welcome home" quite like logging in to a random disco dance party on the fleet.
The challenge for this day of screenshots as I posed it in the original post was: Like most MMOs, SWTOR is the most fun in a group! Show us your team, however you define that term in this game.
The last couple of months have kind of played havoc with my team. Some beloved guildies have stopped playing, others had to change their names. The Luka Sene server community was transplanted onto and absorbed by The Red Eclipse. I'm not saying it's all bad, just that some of these screenshots are a bit out of date due to all the changes. I just haven't had a chance to take newer and better shots of everything yet.
Here's an old-ish shot of my guild in Eternity Vault. I really love how everyone looks focused and ready to jump into action (a rare state for people to be in, as we spend more time bumbling around and being distracted).
In PvP, everyone who helps our team to achieve its objectives is my friend. Incidentally, the Shadow on the left is a guy from my old server who changed his name to something completely different after transferring. I was really pleased when I discovered his identity by chance. Not that we really knew each other, but he had shown himself to be both competent and reasonable before, so it was nice to know that he'd successfully made the jump too.
Finally, nothing says "welcome home" quite like logging in to a random disco dance party on the fleet.
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