After a week of hiatus due to me moving into a new place TOR Lore is back! This week I’m walking you through the history of Nal Hutta, capital of Hutt space and starting world for the Bounty Hunter and the Imperial Agent. Though it was not the original home planet of the Hutts, it is now the one they call home to their species and where the Hutt Cartel hold their meetings. Its swampy, bloated terrain matches the form of its masters, and it is part three in our look at the origin worlds in SWTOR. Continue Reading »

Tags: bounty hunter, Hutt, imperial agent, lore, Origin World

Star Wars: The Old Republic is slightly less than two months away. This is great news in many ways! But for many people, it can also be a source of frustration as more and more Old Republic related books are released. Let’s face it, TOR isn’t cheap and the current world economy isn’t exactly the best right now. I am sure that there are many people out there who may have had their financial reality make the choice of the version of TOR they are getting, rather than what they actually wanted. And forget buying the novels, graphic novels and other items.

If you haven’t played Knights of the Old Republic, or its sequel yet, both can be found for relatively cheap online in most cases – but there is an even cheaper method of getting your hands on all of this stuff that you may not have considered. Your local library. I know, for books, it is like saying, “Did you know that water is wet?” But stick with me a moment. With the internet, many people have stopped thinking about their local libraries, which is a shame. I already have Revan on hold at my library for when it comes out. Sure, if I can buy or win a copy, that will be a lot better – but until that happens, at least I know that I will be able to read the book not too long after it comes out.

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Tags: Daelda, lore, star wars, swtor

Yeh that’s right that is me saying that and I still have the hate, a hate relationship with everything about the game. Blizzard may have done a great deal right yet this is no excuse for doing other things that are so wrong.

Leveling is a grind with little to no fun to be had until you reach the end-game. Gear being junked after every expansion and all your hard work gaining those items washed-out from one day to the next.

Dumbing down of content so anyone playing 3 hours per week can have epics when you slogged you guts out getting them.

Then there is the other side, the side of the players. We on the outside only really see the bad points. Constant bitching in the forums and in-game. QQing about things being to hard which force Blizzard to dumb down yet more content. And when someone has a different opinion than those of the masses they get shot down as if there is only one view and flame anyone that sees the world in a different way.

Above all I hate anyone who has only every played WOW and thinks everything WOW has to offer was invented by Blizzard.

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It is Sunday evening. Lets have a nice chuckle before dreaded Monday.
 

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Better than Pandas IMHO.

“There is no formal diagnosis of video game addiction in current medical or psychological literature. Inclusion of it as a psychological disorder has been proposed and rejected for the next version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).”

I have seen several lengthy discussions about SW:TOR, parental controls, gaming addiction, and what responsibility, if any, BioWare has to protect us from ourselves. I would like to take this opportunity to present my opinion:

There is a difference between addiction and obsession. Addiction is when you have to do something due to a physical or mental craving and suffer from withdrawal symptoms when you are deprived of the subject of your addiction. Obsession, on the other hand, is a persistent, disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling; broadly : compelling motivation. And while you may have obsessive thoughts about the subject of your obsession for a long time, there are no actual withdrawal symptoms present – as there are with addiction.

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Tags: Daelda, MMO, mmo addiction

Today I have the honor of announcing that one of our Staff members here at the offices of Swtor-Life has decided to throw his hat into the ring and begin writing articles for the site.  I am very pleased by this as he has been a long time contributor to the SWTOR community from twitter, the official SWTOR forums and many other places.  Those of you who are regulars here probably know him from twitter where he goes by the handle @Daelda.

His first article will be posted today in which he talks about “MMO Addiction”  It should be a fun time complete with many thoughts and ideas that the MMO community needs to hear.

I look forward to his future articles and I know that he has particular fondness for crafting in MMO’s so I hope to see something from him on that train of thought as well.

Join me in welcoming him to the writing staff and give him your support!

Here is a little bit from him about himself to help you get to know him better,

I served in the US Military for 8 years. I have worked in several Civilian jobs, including Co-Owning a game store for several years – selling RPGs, card games, board games and the like. I have been a GM for 28+ years and enjoy Role-Playing – which is how I met my wife of over 7 years.

I have been owned by ferrets since 1992 and currently have 4 Ferrets. I am now permanently disabled, making it hard for me to socialize IRL, so my main socialization occurs via my online interactions – including playing MMOs – which, due to a VERY understanding wife (who also plays), I can play almost as much as I want (well…as long as I don’t neglect her, the ferrets, or my ‘house-hubby’ duties). This results in an average of 40+ hours a week playing most MMOs, with more time spent during Launch events of course.

I am a Completionist, an Alt-O-Holic to the extreme (I plan on playing 16 Characters in SW:TOR – one of each AC, with two of each Species (one male and one female)), a light Role-Player, an Explorer and a big Crafter. I plan to be a Dedicated Crafter in TOR, using the Crafting System to is full potential if possible.

I have never been much of a PvPer or a Raider, but I am planning to use TOR as my “Reboot” MMO, where I try to give everything a fresh chance to win me over – and after watching the videos and demos, I am actually very excited for both Operations and PvP.

I have played MMOs for many years – starting briefly with the MUD Harshlands, then moving on to EverQuest, EVE Online back when it first launched (where I learned to dislike PvP), Final Fantasy XI, World of Warcraft – where I spent many years as a Guild Officer, Lord of the Rings Online – where again, I served as a Guild Officer, with brief stints in City of Heroes, and Age of Conan.

I *almost always* join a Guild before I even purchase an MMO, because it’s more fun to play with friends to at least talk to, than be completely alone, but I tend to do a lot of Soloing in MMOs, in part because of just how many hours I spend playing them. After spending so many hours grouped up, sometimes I just feel the need for some ‘personal time’ – even if I still stay in communication with my Guild Members. I enjoy helping others, especially those new to MMOs and have been known to go out of my way to take pity on a clueless newbie, with some basic Crafted gear and instructions on how to play.

I am also a fan of Single-Player RPG and Strategy games.

Tags: Daelda, editorial, writing

((The RP XP with MJ #9))

The bounty hunter looked over at the agent as her fingers danced across the controls of the ship. The engines rumbled to life and the entire ship began to shake as the coiled energy above the landing struts began to take offense to gravity.

“Do it!”
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Tags: character, female, MJ, Roleplay, RP

Just as it was announced yesterday, The Old Republic media blast has begun and articles with reviews and impressions have been popping all over the place. The press was allowed into the beta and they can talk about the Republic side of things for the first 15 levels or so. We’ll try and make a comprehensive list of links below:

• Massively.com – Hands on by Larry Everett (Jedi Consular and the Smuggler) and Jef Reahard (Trooper – perspective of a sandbox lover)
• MMORPG.com – Full Beta Preview (Trooper hands on, PvP, Companions)
• IGN has a Beta Info Hub page put up with Trooper impressions and Companion and Crafting impressions, PvP and they will be releasing a new batch of articles soon so come back for more
• The Escapist – general review with mention of all four classes
• Rock Paper Shotgun – In depth Jedi Knight with mild spoilers

 
All of the reviewers have promised more articles in the coming days and it seems that the Imperial side will get a proper treatment as well, but that the embargo for them has not dropped yet. I think the general consensus is that the story is as good as advertised. The choices feel real and are cool to make. Multiplayer dialogue works. Companions ‘just work’ (quote from mmorpg.com article). None of the reviewers are calling SWTOR revolutionary, but all of them seem to think it is a quality game.

This will be my second time at getting this post out. The first I went too much into how other games have handled macros in the past.

But after 3000+ words it was plain to see that other games can not and do not make a case for or against TOR having macros.

I’ve played many mmo’s in the past that have had no macros what so ever, then games like Ultima online and SWG which had vast amounts just so you could play the game. Without them your existence within the realm would result in constant pain and anger.

Yet the games that had macros needed them and without some sort of macro system the game was unplayable. Take Ultima Online. The lack of a skill-bar you have to make a macro for every spell, heal and simple things like mining.

Yet that game could see you complete a wealth of tasks that would run for hours just by the click of a button.

With my limited time with TOR, its clear that how other games handled macros has little to no relevance on how macros would be beneficial to the game.

So just looking at TOR what stands out first is the lack of an auto-attack and lets not forget that 1.5 seconds global cool down (GDC). Now you may think that 1.5 seconds ain’t too long, but let me tell you I can bash a skill an average of 3-4 times before the next skill shoots off.

This was at low levels with around 7 skills on my bar.

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It seems that Press has been beta testing The Old Republic recently. Guess what – they will talk about their experiences with the game starting tomorrow. It was first mentioned on IGN that tomorrow at 9AM PDT you can expect a pile of new content and then Monday (24th) to Friday new article each day (news spotted at Darth Hater). It has been confirmed now by Stephen Reid, Bioware Senior Community Manager, that this is in fact true and that tomorrow we can expect loads of articles all over the web. Here’s a quote:

• As others have noted, we have a press embargo on #SWTOR dropping tomorrow. We’ve had press in for a while. Testers are still under NDA.
• That means if you’re in testing, you’re still bound by NDA. Only press who have been admitted will be sharing their impressions.
• Watch the @SWTOR account for retweets of coverage btw.

We’ll also try and gather all the press coverage in one convenient post for you to browse through, but all of that tomorrow 9AM PDT. Gonna be a hard wait for hardcore fans. In the meantime – we give you the facebook image of the week just to spice this article up with some media and because this image is actually very cool. It represent a trooper in some kind of very large hall (apparently it is The Gormak King’s Hall) running towards what could be a King’s throne (perhaps the said king is present as well). This feels like an instance footage to me.
 

Click on the image for full size

Tags: facebook, media, press, reveal, The Gormak King’s Hall