Just a BioWare Fan

With the addition of strongholds to Star Wars: The Old Republic, BioWare has found a brand new way to suck time out of my life I would never have thought would work. I’ve become a magpie, searching for shiny things dropping from mobs or popping up in vendor listings.

I troll the Galactic Trade Network for cheap decorations and in the vain hope that someone has mispriced a jukebox. The preview window now consumes much of my time and designing bedrooms for each of my characters has taken an embarrassing amount of resources.

This post begins a new series in which I’ll be including screenshots of decoration and views I like, support for things that work well, and a wish list for things I want to put in my various homes around the galaxy.

As a side note, the legacy storage is a beautiful thing but the cost of unlocking the various doors really points up the problem with having no legacy bank. If I have four alts with half a million credits each I have to e-mail all the cash to one character rather than piling up my take from various dailies, weeklies, and runs through the latest expansion to open it with whoever happens to cap off the required amount. A bank would save me a fair amount of irritation and reduce the amount of loading I have to do to get the last hundred thousand credits for the balcony view on Coruscant.

To begin my bragging, here’s a shot of the urban jungle my smuggler is building in that same penthouse. I’m going for variety, here, so there’s still room for more plants as I find them around the galaxy. I wish more of them were like the Rishi flora rather than being potted but I’ll take what I can get!
Next, a lovely fountain on Manaan I would adore having out on my giant landing pad.
This was just an taste of SWTOR strongholds. My next set will focus on signs and banners, both those I want and those I already have. It will include more than a measly couple of pictures, too! If only the screenshot button worked during cut scenes. [sigh]

It’s conspiracy theory time, boys and girls! I’ve come up with my own little pet theory regarding the fantastic news about Dragon Age: Inquisition that has now been released. We’re waiting an extra year but oh, the tradeoff!

We’re told that the extra year will be spent on such beautiful things as mounts, multiple player races, and wider exploration with partially interact-able environments. Should you not have heard this news, enjoy the squee of joy over letting your dwarf ride a pony for a moment.

Now that you’ve considered the excitement of playing elves (prettily redesigned once again) and weather affecting movement and combat, you might wonder at how BioWare convinced EA to grant them this extra year. This is where that conspiracy theory arises.

As the title above suggests, what I’m painting here is a best-case scenario. This is where I would like to see the game heading, not what I think will happen. A girl can dream SWOTR dreams, can’t she?

With the release of the Makeb expansion for Star Wars: The Old Republic and the interview which seemingly spells out the abandonment of class-specific stories, my mind wandered to what I would like to see from future content. As I’ve got one character of each class (and a series of duplicates) I’m pretty familiar with the beginnings of all of the classes, though I haven’t yet finished but three stories. That’s due to hitting level cap, which the expansion fixed, so I’ll be spending a lot of quality time on Corellia in the near future.

My thought was this: wouldn’t it be lovely if Makeb were simply an interlude in class stories, a setting for the next stage of your PC’s involvement in galactic matters?

When I first came to BioWare, it was via Dragon Age: Origins. Thus it was through those boards that I began seeing how BioWare interacts with its customers. It turns out, though, that the Dragon Age team has a unique relationship with fans of the game, even among the company’s own employees.

If you spend time on the DA boards, whether DA:O, DA2, or the brand-new Dragon Age: Inquisition subforum, you’ll see writers, QA guys, and various other devs wander in—sometimes to stay a while—and discuss the game and its lore with people. They respond to threads, they talk about other games and their preferences, they drop teasers and generally are well-liked members of the community.

David Gaider pops in to dismiss nasty rumors or start them. He’s sardonically funny and very opinionated, but he’s clear on his vision and sternly corrects people providing disinformation or making wild assumptions. He’ll stay and argue his point, as well.

A spin through the Mass Effect boards used to be similar, with devs and writers answering questions and giving insight to their fans. That changed a great deal with the frankly abusive behavior of some folks on the BioWare Social Network surrounding Mass Effect 3 and, to be honest, I haven’t spent much time there since. The atmosphere became poisoned and too much of the fun went out of the conversations.

And then we come to SWTOR. The Star Wars: The Old Republic forum is kept completely separate from the BSN, which I suppose I understand to a point, but to me it really hurts the former. The people who have fun at the BSN don’t frequent the SWTOR boards and Star Wars fans don’t see what kind of community BioWare fosters around their other games.

The folks on the SWTOR team, however, work for BioWare and must know folks on the other teams. Were they willing to put in a little time dropping teasers and discussing what’s already been released the complainers who point out—quite truthfully—that no one from the company posts would be silenced. I don’t think one post a week saying, essentially, “You’ll love it, just wait, but we’re not going to tell you anything,” counts.

Thus my suggestion to whoever leads BioWare now: get some of the SWTOR team into the game’s site to talk about the game as it exists. Let them answer questions about class stories and companions. Have someone finally explain why we have clickable escape pods that don’t do anything. Give them a little room to show their passion.

As an example, I just finished Chapter 1 of the Jedi Knight story. I found the final three missions exciting (and that burning planet was gorgeous!) but I never thought of going to the boards to thank the writers or the art team. Had it been DA or even ME I would have found a thread doing so already and added my kudos, fairly sure that it would be seen by at least one person who could feel the love and may have already posted there thanking people.

Then once staff has had a chance to play a little, link the two sites. Nowhere on the BSN could I find anything about SWTOR nor vice versa. Had I not been introduced to the game via the original BioWare site I wouldn’t have known it existed. People bashing BioWare in general, rather than just the SWTOR team, for never communicating with their customers might get a real eye opener if they clicked over to the BSN and saw how staff on the DA team operates.

My hope is that a thriving group like Dragon Age’s fans can show the SWTOR folks that’s there’s more than enough room for fun and civil debate even in the face of no real information from devs. Sure, there’s criticism and (to me) ridiculous amounts of hyperbole in describing the failings of older games. Trolls troll, haters hate, the world is round, a community works a lot better when the devs are willing to show their digital faces and act like they give a hang.

That’s what missing from the SWTOR community: proof that the people making the game care about it. The vitriol and the absence of an “official word” on pretty much anything drives away anyone looking for a fun place to discuss the game outside of general chat.

Paid PR people, enthusiastic though they might come across, don’t count, in this endeavor. All of the negativity and hysterical posts, with that little BioWare tag showing up almost nowhere but the sticky posts, gives a strong message that staff don’t care. Whether that’s accurate or not I have no way of knowing because they don’t tell me any different.

Get them posting, BioWare. Have SWTOR writers or designers post at least in the Story and Lore or Classes subfora. Let them talk about their favorite story moment or explain how the team decided that a smuggler would be willing to work exclusively for the Republic for a good long while. (Note: “Han Solo did” is not a useful response.)

If the Star Wars: The Old Republic writers and other devs have any passion for the game, the community has not been allowed to see it. There will always be whining, complaining, the not-infrequent rage-quit, and even some constructive criticism. As it stands the most-passionate community members, the ones who are willing to wade through the cesspool of fury that is the SWTOR boards, would benefit from seeing that some of BioWare’s employees care at least as much about the game as they do.

In a perfect world, the devs would change from faceless pencil pushers working as EA’s lackeys to talented, invested people that the community welcomes with open arms. In this one, well, that will still happen to an extent. The transition may be ugly but, with a lot of moderation on the boards and a committed effort to engage their fans, the forums on SWTOR’s site can turn into a place for players to turn rather than one they avoid like the rakghoul plague.

I’ve been playing SWTOR for a year, now. I’ve got four characters at level fifty (the current max) and six more anywhere from baby eleven through thirty. I haven’t yet finished most of the class stories (waiting for that level cap increase) so the end is nowhere in sight for me.

With the conversion to free-to-play for the game, I took a hard look at how I play and how much I would spend on frills and unlocks that BioWare has included in the price of a subscription. Then I considered how the restrictions would affect me.

I came to the conclusions that, with so many alts in mid-story, being restricted to only two would drive me bonkers. Some days I want light sabers. Some days the pew-pew-pew is the only way to go. Hubby and I play some characters together and others are strictly solo and PUGs.

For those of you who are curious about SWTOR and its vaunted class stories (and excellent voice acting) but reluctant to pay for the privilege of experiencing it, good news has arrived! In the near future—sometime this fall, which could be anytime from next month through the end of the year, depending how you define fall—you’ll be able to pick up the game and play up to level 50 without paying a subscription.

Fifty is the current level cap, so that number may change. If they increase the maximum level for characters the free-to-play (F2P, as they say) limit may be raised as well or it may be extra incentive for non-subscribers to buy access or pony up that fifteen dollars a month to see the end of their story.

The point is that you can leap into the Star Wars universe, run through the main story line in at least one of the classes, and get a good sense of what SWTOR is all about without committing to the monthly subscription. In fact, I’ve seen the possibility of two free character slots thrown around the forum so you may be able to unlock your legacy and establish a relationship between a pair of them without paying a dime.

“You know, Corso,” the Captain said casually, her eyes on her screens and the still-distant docking bays, “it’s times like these for which pilot’s pants were invented.”

Corso never knew where she was going with these nonchalant little comments but they invariably led to his blushing madly at her audacity and making him want her even more. She was so different from anything he’d ever known. His stint with the Republic Army had left him feeling urbane and experienced compared to his fellows on Ord Mantell but the smuggler operated on a whole different level.

“All right,” he said with a nervous laugh, “I’ll bite. What are pilot’s pants?”

“Let’s get married, Captain,” Corso said to me, all earnest puppy dog eyes and hopeful expression, down on one knee. “Will you marry me?”

I had a hard time keeping my own eyes from rolling in their sockets. “We’re in the middle of a war, Corso. I’m not really thinking long-term right now.”

“I love you,” he said. “I want you to be my wife, like you would be back home.”

I sighed. His constant idealization of his backwater life sometimes made me want to fly back to Ord Mantell and drop him right back where I found him.

Space combat plays an important role in Star Wars, as much in SWTOR as in the movies. But how does The Old Republic handle those battles?

Those of you who cut your digital teeth on flight simulators likely look forward to skimming enemy space stations and making that skill shot down a ventilation shaft. (How many of the rest of you are picturing the Death Star exploding right now?)

I had a thought the other day, in reading the SWTOR forum. At yet another accusation of greed, something to which I’m sympathetic, it occurred to me that servers, hosting, and patches are not BioWare’s only costs.

What’s the name of the game, here? Star Wars, of course. And when you see that splash screen while loading LucasArts appears prominently. Are they known for being loose with their copyrights? Do you suppose EA Games perhaps pays a hefty, on-going license fee to set this game in George Lucas’s universe? I would bet you a month’s subscription fee that they do.

I’d also bet that any new content BioWare plans has to get the stamp of approval from the folks over at LucasArts. This added layer of bureaucracy, understandable and possibly even necessary though it may be, adds to the cost of running a game of this nature.

I already gave an overall review of BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic and mentioned that I’d been sucked into buying the game. For the most part I run my characters solo through this MMO but there are times when you must have a group. This will be my take on how groups have worked for me in SWTOR.

Let’s be clear: I’m shy and I’m self-conscious about being a noob. I won’t go around asking people to be in a group because, great heavens, what if they say no?! But I want to see all the juicy Star Wars universe BioWare has created and that means working within their multi-player system.

Thus I rely on what are called, in MMO-speak, pick-up groups or PUGs. I’ve done half a dozen and my experiences have been universally positive. For all the bemoaning on the SWTOR forums about people spamming the chat window with LFG (or looking-for-group) requests all I’ve ever had to do was be near the start of one of the instances and I’ve been invited to join a group.

Some of the darlings at the BioWare Social Network have persuaded me to give in to the Dark Side and purchase my very first MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic. They promise to play nicely and forgive me my newbie ways. The first month is included in the price of the game so if I really hate it I can find out without paying extra for the privilege.

For you, my readers, that means at least two more reviews of SWTOR. Once I’ve actually managed to perform group combat I’ll tell you all about, including whatever utter humiliations ensue from wandering off or clicking the wrong thing. My ego can take the honesty.

And I’ll offer an opinion of the story arcs, as well. I’ll start two separate characters: one for the group and a new smuggler to run solo and see how pick-up groups work for me once I know how to be in one. You know I’ve got to roll at least one Dark Side character to see how that goes.

So stay tuned: there’s a lot more Star Wars to come. I can’t promise any fanfiction, though Bioware does seem to inspire it, but I’ll definitely give you my RPG impressions as I go. At worst it will give me something to do while I’m waiting for Mass Effect 3 to arrive!

Release Date: December 20 ,2011
Price: $59.95 ($379 if you want the Collector's Bundle)
Monthly Subscription: $15

I'm a complete and utter MMO noob (that'd be an inexperienced Massively Multi-Player On-Line game player, for those even less in the know than I). I decided nonetheless to take Bioware up on their invitation to beta test Star Wars: The Old Republic, or SWTOR as it's commonly known.

I love Bioware and I love Star Wars so what could possibly go wrong, except for the part where I had no idea what I was doing? So there I was, waiting for the SWTOR to start, waiting to review this brand new game, but still undecided: Jedi Knight? Imperial trooper? Smuggler? Bounty Hunter?

Half an hour before the game started I was reading through the SWTOR forum for some hints. I thoroughly intimidated myself by reading posts from people who had been playing MMOs for years, confused myself by wondering if I was supposed to be in a guild, and generally got so nervous I decided to stop reading.

This will be a long review so let’s be clear from the beginning: I leapt into the Star Wars universe as interpreted by the talented Bioware writers and the great voice actors with both feet. I played the game for three days, until five minutes before the test ended, trying to see and do as much as I could. Star Wars: The Old Republic offers expansive worlds and vast story lines that intertwine and split in interesting ways.