Hello gentle readers. Let’s step into the way-back machine and journey all the way back in history to the golden age of  2002.  Lets re-live a moment of Star Wars mythology that to me at least, was so awesome and anticipated, I have to say it was my single favorite scene in the movie.  In case there was any doubt in anyone’s mind about which piece of awesome I refer to, it is: The minute Yoda went all Toshiro Mifune on Dooku.  If there was such a thing as getting pimp slapped by the force, that would have been the definitive example.

Yoda was a Rogue you see.  Seriously.   He was fast, used little shoto saber(s), did lots of spinny, flippy shit, and tried to basically turn Dooku into some force inspired origami meat-swan. That’s what rogues do, right? Fast agile attacks meant to inflict maximum damage with minimum exposure?  I’m pretty sure that is right, and if not, Sorry.  I’m rusty.  I just couldn’t help but think “WoW, that’s how I fight with my rogue in WoW!”  Are mmo’s borrowing from the movies and lore, or are the movies and modules borrowing from mmo’s these days?  Can all my Iconic Star-Wars Classes be broken down and classified with mmo standards?

There was a great disturbance in the force when BioWare announced the classes and some of the advanced classes that all but confirmed we would be seeing a “Trinity-like” setup for grouping and endgame.   One of the big worries was the newly verified scientific law called “WoW in space” or simply “Whiner’s law”, which states:

Part 1

With all games being equal, World of Warcraft will always rank exponentially lower on the innovative scale, and higher on the casual fanboy scale than any other game it is paired with.  Therefore, any game who makes any decisions based on the success of WoW or it’s business model is doomed to utter failure as it will be too similar and / or too different than WoW, and as no two identical / opposite things can occupy the same mmo-sphere, the larger of the two (Being wow) will consume the smaller of the two (being everyone and everything else) and eventually remove it from the time stream as well. If it is like WoW it is a horrible idea, only because WoW was so successful. We love WoW so much it’s like Diabetes.

Part 2 of the law states:

Bibbity bibbity boo.  There is a God and his name is Celery.

Because it’s like WoW it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Doesn’t mean it’s a brilliant idea either.  My concern personally (other than dying before the game actually launches) is that I will be playing a rogue with a lightsaber, or a paladin with a lightsaber or a hunter…. with a lightsaber.  Will my Jedi, I have waited so long for, play like every other button spamming raid donkey or will it be a unique and new play style.  Do I want that comfortable feel of long played and tested mechanics or that totally new type immersion?  At this time I have to say I just don’t know.  I trust BioWare to make great games, but this idea of going further than imitation into flat out cloning of another game’s mechanics is something I didn’t expect.  I’m not sure if it is going to turn out well for them along a critical reception point of view. Until some widespread people get more hands on time with the game, we just don’t know. An hour here or 15 minutes there is nowhere near enough time to form an opinion.    Just remember folks,  If it looks like a rogue, and stabs like a rogue, well hell….  It might be a Jedi, and I think i’m ok with that.

With Pax now behind us, how did BioWare deliver ?

Well, they gave us exactly  what they said they would (not everything we wanted as fans). What they told us before Pax, they had the goods there. They had the early levels on the Sith classes, and what seemed to be a very respectable mid lvl instance. A great deal of interviews have come in, and I’m sure many more are on the way.

In respect to the game play, most every comment is positive, and from the footage we have seen, the instance does look like a highly engaging, and a somewhat challenging, fun packed run.

The only downside I would call out, is that of queues, that none could of foreseen. A 7 hour wait after 10 minutesof Pax opening, I’m sure you could have had four times the amount of games running, and demand would still outweigh the supply.

Continue Reading »

My main motivation behind this post is the fact that very soon official swtor.com forums will be hitting 1 million registered users. At the moment of this article being written the number of users is 999296 (you can check this by entering http://www.swtor.com/community/member.php?u=999296 and incrementing the number at the end until you get the message “Invalid User specified”). This made me wonder how does The Old Republic fair against the market leader, World of Warcraft, and a popular newcomer that is about to be released this week, Rift. Please note that all of these numbers do not necessarily mean anything, because we are looking at three products in different stages of their lifecycle and the numbers come from “unreliable” sources. They are unreliable because they depend on how active a company is on a certain social network. There are however some trends showing up that I just couldn’t look away from.
NOTE 1: The number of forum members is a bit tricky because just having a WoW account makes you a forum member. SWTOR forum member number is based on reading the URL and it is actually a number of created accounts and not active accounts. Rift is about to be released and I think their current forum number is based on preorders and not all of the people that purchased the game. I will revisit this in a month or so to see how the numbers changed.
NOTE 2: Included are alexa.com traffic rank stats as well. There is a problem with World of Warcraft traffic rank because prior to the release of Cataclysm expansion they moved their main community site from www.worldofwarcraft.com domain to battle.net domain. I am providing a graph of both these domains traffic ranks where you can clearly see the change in traffic rank for worldofwarcraft.com and battle.net. At the same time battle.net traffic rank also includes rank for other Blizzard games. That is why I chose WoW’s traffic rank prior to Cataclysm which was around 1000. Rift’s traffic rank drastically rose around beta time. Prior to that it was at around ~40.000.

	World of Warcraf	Rift	Star Wars The old Republic
Facebook Likes	1,145,267	138,228	253,228
Twitter Followers	113,224	15,244	28,473
No. Forum Users	Unknown	179,055	999296 (estimate)
Alexa.com traffic rank	~1000	6,450	12,494

alexa.com traffic rank 6 month comparison

I wouldn’t want to draw any solid conclusion from this but The Old Republic is doing very good for a game that hasn’t even entered pure beta stage. It is already approximately two times as popular as Rift, which can be contributed to the awesome promotion Bioware has been doing and I think mostly thanks to the Deceived and Hope trailers. We’ll revisit these numbers in three weeks when Rift should be at its peak to see if choosing this particular moment had an effect on Rift’s numbers. I welcome all your comments on the subject and suggestions and interpretations.

There is a feeling of slight unrest within The Old Republic community as of late. We discussed the causes for this in the previous part of this article (which I recommend reading if you haven’t already, otherwise this part will not be so clear) and we’ll try to address some of the concerns in as unbiased manner as possible.

Is there really not enough time to release all information before release?

Lets assume that we have 22 weeks left before the game hits open beta and information is then released by everyone. I have made a list of things we should be receiving info on in the time left, based on what Bioware released so far and new game mechanics we all expect to see in the game:

• Week 1-4: Jedi Consular, Trooper, Bounty Hunter, Sith Inquisitor class trailer/info
• Week 5: Companion mechanics detailed info (all companions should be revealed through class reveals)
• Week 6: Playable species
• Week 7-9: Detailed PvP/battlegrounds information
• Week 9-11: Crafting
• Week 12-14: unrevealed planets (?)
• Week 15-18: End game reveals
• Week: 18-22: Various additional information

Click here to read the full Editorial article

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The Old Republic fans are a bunch of people in love. They are in love with the concept behind the game Bioware is making. Star Wars universe populated by you and your friends in which everyone gets to be a hero. How can you blame them? That is why the moment someone mentions that there could be any kind of trouble with the game there are cries of terror showing up all over the official forums and fansites. There are several things that happened simultaneously these past few weeks that caused the current wave of doomsayers. We wanted to address these in this two part editorial describing the causes in part one, that you are reading now, and offering some explanations and suggestions in part two that will follow shortly.

Causes

1. During the convention season we were treated with loads of new game information. For the first time people were able to sit down and play the game. We also saw some higher level gameplay footage for the first time and were shown Revan’s dungeon. Space ships and advanced classes were also explained in detail. Following up on all that info we were also given a lot of info about the Smuggler and the Jedi Knight. Next three updates were about a planet, biographies and a timeline. If it was any other time of the year these would be enough, but after the eventful convention season all of it feels lackluster.
2. Advertised release date is getting very close. Here’s the math that is scaring fans. Everyone is expecting the game to come out in April, May the latest. Any date later than that is unexpected (even May is cutting it close) because summer is dead season. This gives us 6 months tops before the game’s release. Based on Bioware’s own policy that they don’t talk about it before its done people are thinking the following: “If they are not talking about so many core systems that means they are not done yet. Will they be done by release (in such a short period of time)?”. And MMORPG gamers are already tired of all those rushed out releases that ruined so many potentially great projects (who said Warhammer online, Age of Conan, Star Trek Online, APB – OMG are there that many?)
3. EA Louse. He is a “whistle blower” from inside Mythic (the makers of Warhammer online) that whines about how life ain’t fair and how management is to blame for WAR failing and him losing his job. Since Bioware and Mythic are both parts of EA and some parts of Mythic started helping out with SWTOR some time ago he made a statement about SWTOR. According to him the project already spent 300 million dollars and that it will be the biggest failure in the history of video games. This coming from a guy that works on a game that spent $50 million and has 100k subscribers right now.
4. There is a rumor floating around that at this year’s Game Developer’s Conference people were saying that there is trouble in TOR land and Bioware is flying people into Austin office to help out.

Enough to put anyone caring about the game into full on panic mode, right? Fear not fellow TOR fans, there are two sides to every story and we will be going in depth on The Cures in our Part 2 of this article tomorrow.

After a news-full convention season things have calmed down to the point where regular Friday updates, that the SWTOR community team releases regularly, are becoming a source of frustration rather than source of much needed revelation. In the past weeks we had a new playable planet, Ilum, revealed. We got to view a new entry in Timeline holorecord about the fall of Exar Kun. This Friday was October Fan Friday filled with great community creations, another developer corner and some new avatars and smileys (Ithorians are so cool I had to include the image of the smileys above) for the official forums. Some new character biographies were also revealed.

Guess what – no one seem to care! The community is in a bit of an uproar. With the advertised release date looming ever closer (6-8 months) people are starting to be anxious wanting to find out about core and important game mechanics. We are still missing info on most advanced classes specifics, detailed combat mechanics, end game options, playable species, PvP, crafting, companion mechanics and this is just to name a few of the more important things. Why does the community think that revelation of this information ASAP is so important?

I remember both World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online had extensive closed beta tests for up to a year prior to game’s launch. In these tests rather large portions of the most dedicated members of the community and beta testers constantly provided in depth feedback, based on which developers modified their concepts. Whether this just meant tweaks or completely abandoning certain features it was all done before things were set in stone. With only 6-8 months remaining before the game is supposed to hit the shelves and none of this community-development process interaction happening people are becoming worried. By the way, LOTRO had one of the most successful MMO launches in the history (not in numbers, but in stability and richness of content and features) and we all know about WoW.

I would suggest reading Jedi Archive Online’s article on the subject or visiting Part 2 of a thread on the official forums aptly titled “Bioware, I’m rooting for you, but you’re shooting yourself in the foot” to read more about these concerns.

With all the hype and controversy over Star Wars: The Old Republic, a previous mmo evil has returned to dominate BioWare’s latest soon to be blockbuster.  That’s right. The Dark Lord of speculation with the power to pull facts out of his ass. He has returned to such forums as MMORPG.com, Gamasutra, Massively, and even our beloved SWTOR.com forums.

With so many people knowing EXACTLY how space combat will work, the fact this game will be a direct clone of WoW..in space…with lightsabers.. and the notion that there is ZERO endgame content. That’s right. None. Not one drop. When you hit level 40 (which according to many obvious space-scholars is max level) your toon is deleted, you are forced to roll a new toon, and a man drives up to your house and kills your cat with a currently unknown force power. (I’m betting there is a cat choke tree for inquisitors). There is also the off chance you will proc a “death fee” that forces you to buy 11 xp potions and the “Rifle of Jedi Pwnsauce” from the microtransaction store that appears as a big dollar sign right on your HUD until you spend $413 on game breaking items. Oh. There will be a spectral mou…err…jedi starfighter in there for $100 as well that lasts 3 hours. And makes you glow magenta.

Lets set the record straight. They are all utterly, totally, completely, unequivocally wrong.  Even if the game is exactly like they describe, down to space ironforge and strand of the Tattoine ancients, they are still wrong. Here’s the BW/SWTOR rules to live by…

1. Not confirmed, than it doesn’t exist. Admittedly this requires some bending of time and space, but until confirmed by BioWare, it is pure speculation. At the time these short bus heroes make their statements, they know nothing. Guessing, be it accurate or not, is still a guess.

2. Many of these “speculators” (Latin for idiot I believe)  have the attention spans of a sock. They read something out of context, retweeted by snapperheadMcIdiot and leap across 27 sectors of space to land at some random conclusion that usually makes as much sense as a bag of drunk hamsters. If they cannot spell or speak in complete sentences, odds are they know even less than my semi-retarded 4th cousin Ebert about SWTOR.

3. Most are flat out drama queens posting for negative attention, and sadly, 99.9% of the time, they get it. Feeding trolls is seriouz bidnezz.

In all seriousness the best thing we can do as a community is keep our eye on the ball. A dedicated community of players with no desire for anything beyond a well crafted, engrossing, fun SW gaming experience will never be disappointed. BioWare is and remains one of, if not the best studio in the market for telling compelling stories combined with exciting gameplay. They have enough talent for any 20 of us. I for one wish to support and encourage them in this massive undertaking. We must understand that not everything in SWTOR is going to be perfect for every individual player, but the decision comes down to a very simple ideal: Pick your battles. – We can’t always get what we want, but with a little faith and patience, I think we all will get what we need. And then some.

How does all the negativity and wow hate directed at SWTOR make you feel? Are all these allegations about BioWare being overly ambitious with their budgeting, the focus on story, and the obvious and glaring similarities between SWTOR and WoW making  you nervous?

Make your voice heard, but make it heard with the facts. That is the best any of us can do.

/Flagg. -May the force be with you all.

Release of Star Wars The Old Republic is still some months away and at this point nobody but the people at Bioware know what it looks like or what it plays like in its entirety. Bioware has been releasing a lot of information in this past year about what the game will consist of, but what we always seem to lack are completely detailed descriptions of the announced features. I guess playing the game and seeing that feature in action is the only way to fully understand it.

There are, however, other games that Bioware released over the years and are playable. They even have some features that are announced for SWTOR. To try and understand to the full extent some of the announced aspects of SWTOR, we have decided to play Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age and Mass Effect series and try and draw conclusions on what we can expect in SW: The Old Republic. It is only reasonable to assume that Bioware will base some of the game elements in their new game on success of that feature in the old games.

Spaceships have played a great role in the Star Wars Universe. It can be argued that space scenes and scenes in spaceships are as important as those happening in more “conventional” environments. It is a Space Opera after all. Millenium Falcon, the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy according to Han Solo, is an equally important character as the Droids or the Wookies. In Knights of the Old Republic we, as players, had a chance to own our ship – the Ebon Hawk. It is our means of transportation, our storage facility, it is the place where some major plot-lines are resolved. During 2010 E3 gaming convention Bioware announced that players will also be able to own ships and released a video showcasing the ship’s interior and exterior. In difference to KOTOR, there will be different class ships available. We have created a video pitching KOTOR’s Ebon Hawk versus the ships seen in the SWTOR video.

Click here to read the full Editorial article on player ships and what we can expect

Let me be honest with you. I looked for and found the beta leaks. I was burning with curiosity. The footage was not spectacular, as it mostly showed things we saw before, but it did reveal some of the things we haven’t seen so far. Let me tell you why we haven’t seen them so far, because THEY ARE NOT FINISHED YET. It was glaringly obvious that some of the things were in beta stages and if they showed an image there saying “PLACEHOLDER” it would have the same effect.

This is what bothers me the most about this leak. Some other MMO player or innocent bystander will not go deep into analyzing the leaked footage and will say how Bioware is doing a poor job and that this game will suck. It feels as if this leak was created for just this purpose, to hurt the image of this game. It doesn’t feel as if it was made available to show us what the game is really about. Let me explain why. The things that look good and finished are the things we already saw previously from official sources. Some of the things we didn’t see so far felt unfinished. You can see great potential in some of them but all in all they were not too impressive from a finished game’s standpoint.

In light of all this, we here at Swtor Life, have decided to join the rest of the fansites and declare our resentment with the unapproved leaking of material from the game. We will not be posting, endorsing or supporting sites that post unauthorized materials in any way. We here declare that we will honor the Fansite agreement we’ve signed by creating this site.

To lighten the mood a bit, here’s a girl in a pink Darth Vader costume:

Image via babiesmakingfaces.com