Lets Meet and Greet!

If you are lucky enough to be present in the area at GamesCom this year in Europe you will have the opportunity to meet the Bioware developers at a “meet and greet” that they will be putting on.

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Today we got a big surprise, a Wednesday update!  Today it was announced that Bioware has included a Pre Launch Program for Guilds in SWTOR.

Allison Berryman tells us the following:

 

Today, we’re excited to announce the launch of the new Guild Headquarters (HQ) as well as the Pre-Launch Guild Program. Many members of the community have already been organizing guilds on the forums, and we’re now happy to provide the tools to officially register and reserve your guild’s name. In this new section of the website, you can search for an existing guild to join or you can create a new guild and begin recruiting members. When Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ launches, you may be able to import your guild directly into the game, subject to availability and meeting certain criteria*.

Every guild gets its own guild mini-site on www.StarWarsTheOldRepublic.com, complete with information about the guild, its recruitment status, and its own public and private forums. Create or join a guild now and you’ll have the opportunity to have your own space to socialize and organize before the game launches. Every guild is automatically entered into the searchable guild database, which makes it easy for players to find their ideal guild. Get your guild together early and get ready for The Old Republic!

To learn more about guilds in The Old Republic, check out the Guilds Game System page for details, and to search for or join a guild, visit the Guild HQ now! Also be sure to visit the Guilds FAQ for answers to commonly asked questions.

*Conditions and restrictions apply. See Guilds FAQ for full details.

To report bugs, please use this thread in the Website Feedback and Support forum. Please note that some words and phrases, particularly some relating directly to Star Wars, are restricted. If you feel your desired guild name is restricted in error, please contact us using the site support form.

 

The end result is guilds now have the capability to reserve their in game name, that can be huge for some guilds that have names that are contested.  I see the possibility for griefing here, but hey what are you going to do as a game development company?  You have to give players the chance to reserve some things.

The main thing I do not like about this process is this little nugget of uncertainty…..

 

*”We will make reasonable efforts to ensure that qualifying guilds are imported into a server that meets your specified preferences, but we cannot make any guarantees given the anticipated volume of guilds (among other factors). All server placements therefore remain in our sole discretion. We also cannot take responsibility for technical errors or glitches that prevent your guild from importing into the game as planned. See Terms of Service for more details.

When we begin placing guilds on servers, we will take into account all the information that has been provided, including the server type and the allies and adversaries you have selected. We will make reasonable efforts to place each guild according to their specified preferences but cannot make any guarantees given the anticipated volume of guilds (among other factors).“

 

So what this means is that Bioware will be placing your guild on a server at release, you dont pick they do, and if your lucky you will get to land on the server type you have chosen (pve,pvp,rp-pve)

I dont find this to be very cool at all.  As a guild I should be able to choose the server I wish to play on.  What if certain guilds want to be aligned in game but they get “placed” on different servers?  I don’t think Bioware has put enough thought into this aspect of the system and frankly I am sad about that.  I can understand the reasoning behind it such as server balancing and such but I dont like when my liberties that I have grown used too in past MMO’s are taken away.

There are other requirements or “criteria”  that will need to be met if a guild can successfully use the pre-launch system in phase 3, for example:

 

1) At the beginning of Phase 3, the guild leader must log in to the website and verify that their guild remains active and wants to be imported; and

2) The guild has at least four members who have pre-ordered the game by the time we initiate the import.

3)Guilds will have no more than 500 members.

 

The pre-order requirement is fair i think.  They could have made it higher but i think they chose to be fair and allow guilds that may be smaller the chance to still use the system.  I plan to pre-order.

Also we got a look at what might be the final server play style designations?

Star Wars: The Old Republic will offer different server types that emphasize different styles of game play such as Player-vs-Environment, Player-vs-Player, and Role- Play. When your guild gets transferred into the game, it will be placed on the server type that most matches your selection.

Player-vs-Environment (PvE) servers can be considered representative of the standard play style and rule set. The focus on PvE servers is on experiencing the story and working with friends against the non-player enemies in the game world.

Player-vs-Player (PvP) servers have a slightly different rule set as PvE servers. On a PvP server, players may be attacked by other players from the opposing faction in more areas of the game world.

Role-Playing (RP) servers use the standard PvE rule set, but are identified as great places for players who enjoy acting out their characters in the game world to congregate and find other like-minded players.”

 

So no big deviation from the norm here, PVE, PVP, and RP are pretty much the standard server types and what most players have grown to expect.  I think most of us expected just this type of classification.

All in all it is a pretty neat addition to the options a guild has in game and out of the game, and it helps them get organized pre-game.  This is very important for most guilds that will have formed their member base before release.

I give it a thumbs up even though I am not too pleased with the server placement being out of my control.

 

How can a guild best support their crafters in SWTOR, part 2

 

With the small amount of material available on the crew skills system it is really hard to speculate on what I think will be important for a guild to focus on when trying to support their crafting efforts.  I am going to speculate anyway though because it can’t hurt to guess at this stage.

Read on!

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(A topic suggested by my loyal blog reader Daelda, thanks!)

The question I want to pose to you today is:

How can a guild best support their crafters in SWTOR?

 

One of the things I absolutely hate to see in a guild group is a lack of optimization of equipment.  When I see guild groups in game and I mouse over their equipment and they are wearing shoddy, mismatched gear that is tiers below the optimization that I as a crafter know is available, it makes me sad.

It could be this way for many reasons, either they don’t know any better, or possibly their guild crafters are failing in gearing up the guild.  If it is the latter then possibly it stems from a lack of support from the people they need to be gearing up.

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Past two official Friday updates concentrated on the group content in the Old Republic. Bioware decided to call its small group content Flashpoints, but if you hear people saying instances or dungeons they are talking about the same thing. Here is all the information I could gather up about this game mechanic so you, our readers, can know what to expect.

We first were introduced to flashpoint content back in 2009 at E3 and Gamescom. The next big group content was revealed last year as a multiplayer demo that was played by Bioware staff (at E3) and fansite members at Pax. At Pax 2010 we also saw a video called “Mysteries of Knights of the Old Republic” showcasing a late game flashpoint/dungeon that hints at an old enemy – Darth Malak – known as the villain in the KOTOR game. With the addition of the two Friday updates solely dedicated to the flashpoint mechanic we now have enough information on what to expect from small group content in SWTOR.

Important Flashpoint Information

• Maximum number of players that can enter is four (plus companions).
• Flashpoints are repeatable.
• Flashpoints are much more challenging than single-player missions, but they offer valuable loot and rewards.
• There might be choices associated with a flashpoint (save the captain/kill the captain). When running multiple runs of a flashpoint it is still not 100% clear whether the last choice you made counts, or the first choice you made counts. This feature is being fine tuned in the game testing.
• Based on your dialog choices and bonus objectives you perform, the flashpoint can change so that you get access to more bosses or more ways of beating the dungeon.
• Types of enemies, AI and mob abilities are connected to the story the flashpoint is trying to tell.
• You will be able to take companions into the flashpoint, which means that if your group has no healer you can have 4 healing companions to compensate.
• There will be heroic versions of Flashpoints

Flashpoints that are known to be in the game so far

• The Esseles – Republic Only, early level
• The Black Talon – Empire Only, early level
• Taral V – Republic Only, mid game, ~90 to 120mins for completion, Level 32+
• Boarding Party – Empire Only, mid game
• Directive 7 – Both, late game
• (unofficial) Darth Revan’s Complex – higher level flashpoint

Important Links

• Official Flashpoints page
• Official article on how flashpoints are built by World Designer Jesse Sky
• Taral V flashpoint video
• E3 Multiplayer demo

Flashpoint gallery

 

 

 

 

My question to you today is:

What if the class you choose affects your crew skills ability?

In past games that I have played I have found that sometimes the class I choose to play affects the potential I have to use the crafting system to its fullest amount.  By using certain mechanics of a class system sometimes you can gain advantage over other aspiring master craftsmen looking to advance to grandmaster craftsman status.

Some examples of this to let you know what I mean would be like one of the characters I used to have in Ultima Online. 

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From the last blog post I did we looked at the developer blog “closer look at crew skills” by Patrick Mallot.  It was this piece of it that inspired this blog post and a lot of personal joy from me.

These are my personal opinions anyway.    🙂

“It’s worth noting that players will definitely need to be directly involved in the process when learning rare schematics”

That tells us that there will be such a thing as rare schematics, and that we as a player will have to be directly involved in the learning process.  Learning the schematic won’t be something that the player can pass on to the companion because the schematic will need to inscribe itself into the players learned items database so that the player can access the recipe later when he wants to craft that item from that certain crafting skill.

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As part of their regular Friday update swtor.com released a video of the gameplay showcasing a group of 4 facing some early level group content. All 4 Republic classes are
present and we can see different roles they have within a group. It is not too far off the MMORPG standard. I like how the tank is actually ranged (Trooper carries a massive laser cannon thing) while smuggler’s ability to help just a bit with healing stands out from a “rogue” like role.

Another thing to notice would certainly be how the quest is fully voiced and the group respond mechanics. It seems that when a group initiates a voiced quest each of them picks a response an than the game does a silent roll and picks one of the responses. Social points everyone’s been mentioning and that none seem to know what they are for probably have some role in this whole matter.

You can view the video bellow or on the official site. I also recommend you visit Darth Hater because they did a great dissection of the video here.