If this was any other convention other than E3 I would be kind of pleased with what we got from the show.

But this is not just another convention, this is E3 the biggest and most anticipated show of the year.

 

Even though nothing was promised we expected a banquet of information. What we got started well yet fizzled out like cheap champagne once the cork was removed.

Hopes have been dashed, our banquet was reduced to a $10 meal. Everything started well true enough, per-show reveals as a good starter. The main meal of almost 1 hour of in-game footage (even lack lustre questions did not ruin it completely) then as we were set for the finest of desserts we were left wanting for 2 more days.

These days were filled with mere leftovers and regurgitated  food that we had just digested.

 

For everyone at E3 they see things differently. It’s amazing how hands on time sways you in favour of TOR. I wish everyone could have at least 1 hour to play along, as this would settle many people’s concerns.

But 99.99%+ of the followers have not even come close to sitting down and playing the game.

As such BioWare should have made E3 so much better. BioWare never even came close to having a home run on this show. And so close to an expected release date or window as they call it.

BioWare should have come out swinging. The pre-show and the first day they had all the bases loaded. At this point everything looked like this would be a show to remember. Then they followed it with weakest and uninspiring garbage ever, they managed to grab defeat from the jaws of victory.

 

It’s not like I could not see glimmers of hope in almost everything shown, but after all I’ve played the game for around 8 hours. This is on multiple classes on PvP and also PvE so my perspective will differ greatly to those that have not played.

I’m sure BioWare should of been targeting those that have not had game time, yet the footage we had only increased many people’s concern about TOR on the whole.

 

Mounts – Ok we knew we had mounts of some kind. We got to have a fairly good look at them yet I was a little disappointed with what was offered to us. Not that I was expecting something great or anything. But those shown are nasty. I would rather have a hover scooter than the eyesore that was presented at the show. Also the reasoning behind this was because speeders were over powering when focused around quest hubs.

Why in all honesty would BioWare not auto dismount players when interacting with a quest hubs is beyond me ?

It’s would seems to be a perfect way be the resolve to the given problem. And thinking forward if they had problems with speeders what other mounts would face the cut just to give more space to quest givers. Will these feature heavy as we progress though the levels with only minor tweaks to the looks of it ?

 

Tatoonine – The planet I was looking forward to most, was a little uninspiring. Maybe this was due to the fact I could not eye’s my off those awful mounts….

I’m all for open spaces but open space just for the sake of it is pointless. They has to be something at the end of the line. Yet, in the live feed there was no hint of this.

 

Raids – These were handled really well imo. We got to know that there will be different difficulty levels, and by the looks of it 16+ players may enter. I’m also glad that not too much information come out about them. After all if we end up knowing everything about the game it seems much less important. As gamers we need to challenge ourselves and knowing almost everything about a game before hand, reduces it to nothing more than hollow shell.

Where you follow a given path not trying to learn what and were to do things subtracts from the value. Trying to beat the odds in raids and figuring out the best way to approach it, is almost as good a finishing it for the first time.

Even the mighty Darth Hater could not muster up much about this raid in all its glory so sparse was anything to be considered relevant.

 

Not The Beta – Heck this got to me. 1000 players currently testing SWTOR. Even if this was an estimate and say the real number was 2000 players, I’m kind of shocked at this fact.

This is from all zones across the world, and even 2000 would not be ample to test the stress of the servers. Things start to break once you have a good server load nearing the max. Things that work well every day just magically kill themselves and not even loading servers up before launch could prove a costly mistake.

Also I know the release date was taken off the table before E3 arrived, yet a nice sweetener would have been the time frame that a boost in closed game testing or beta would be ramping up to a point that server load would become an issue.

 

When asked about beta date the answer was 1 million people have signed up for testing. WTF has that got to do with the open or closed beta. Chucking numbers out even bogus numbers does no good to anyone. I know for a fact that many forum members have multiple accounts, people banned, accounts dedicated for reasons of trolling number in the many thousands.

The real number of people who have signed up may be closer to 300K than it would be 1 million.

 

Yet I fail to see the relevance of sing-ups and if or when open or closed beta would show its face. If there was ever a time that BioWare should of took a leap of faith this is where it should have been. Beta has long forgone its use of testing the game. Now more than ever it’s used to temp a new fan base to try a product and get them interested in what the game has to offer.

 

Also you really need to stress the hell out of more than one server in each time zone. Not doing so will end up with you having masses of downtime when the servers go live.

 

Trailers – Well these trumped everything TOR had on offer and I’m speaking of both the Return and the game features videos. Return out did its two predictors and was the highlight of TORs E3 showing. Strange how an outside company out did BioWare at showing off their very own game. I may be old fashioned here but a trailer should get you intrigued and the game should be the highlight.

Game Features video – was better than the hour or so of the live feed. How can 113 seconds out do 1 hour of live playtime is beyond me . More skills more area’s and a lot nicer and pleasing on the eye.

 

Crafting – OMFG rly ?

2-6 months out from release and still no new info on crafting ?

Keep you raid info, hide some of the content from prying eyes if you have to. But crafting a staple of many a player and we get nothing.

The fact we still don’t know what skills to expect this far in is laughable. It’s not like people wanting to know what raids entail or how to kill a world boss these are wants. Crafting is something we must have nailed down before the game hits.

Almost everything in an MMO can be left somewhat open and un-explained. We as players should be expected to uncover and learn raids and how to overcome them. Crafting is not even in the same boat.

There are many things we as future players want to know about the game just out of eagerness. But crafting knowledge is not just a want it is one of the few things we must know before the game goes live. Having such slim pickings after this amount of time is a kick in the teeth.

 

On the bright side TOR does not use the Wii-U as far as I know. If not for the first day, the only saving grace to BioWare E3 TOR extravaganza this show would be a mayor let down that know no bounds.

Other than a mounts (kind of), Blizz and raid difficulty settings E3 was a total miss. I should next expect to much, but I should also want for so much more than what was offered.

 

Until next time, MrWarlock signing off.