Summer Plans

Summer officially starts for me this week, so I've been thinking about what I want to do with the extra time I'll have while I'm not teaching.  Of course, as any MMO affecionado knows, spare time means video games.  I decided I would like to sit down and think about my goals for this summer to see what I can accomplish.

Goal #1:

I would like to continue playing TERA quite a bit.  Right now, I have an archer and a warrior at level 41, and I think my first goal for the summer will be to get both of those characters up to 60.  I'm not sure yet about how much end-game I'll want to do in TERA, but I'm sure I'll at least give it a shot and see how I like it.

Goal #2:

Grab a couple more pets and maybe a mount from Darkmoon Faire in WoW.  I have been working on this steadily each week that the Darkmoon Faire is available, but I still have a long way to go.  I'll be working on this goal some this week, since it is once again time for the Faire.

Goal #3:

Work on alts in both TERA and WoW.  In TERA, I would really like to create one more character, but I'm not sure yet which class it will be.  I'm sure I'll have to play around with a few to decide on what I want to try.

In WoW, I've had a mage and a rogue sitting in the 75+ range for quite awhile now, but I've never put in the time or effort to get either up to 85.  I would really like to get both of these characters up to 85 sometime this summer before the release of MoP.

Goal #4:

If it looks like I will be successful with the above stated goals, then I'm thinking I might try out a new game or two.  I'm not sure what I might want to try; there are several MMO's that I've read about extensively but never had the time to play.  I've started characters on DDO, LotR, and Rift at different times, but each time my time and attention ends up somewhere else, so maybe I'll go back and pick up one of those again.  I also have my Sith Assassin sitting in the low 40's on SWTOR that may entice me back to at least finish that class story.  There are just so many options for this fourth goal; I'm just not sure what I want to do with my time.

Anyway, it looks like a fun summer of gaming.  I can't wait to get started.

Player Housing

I want player housing! I want it in SW:ToR, and horror of horrors, I want it in WoW. I know that many consider this no more than "waste of time fluff," but honestly, why else do I play games except to waste time. I want to be able to create my own domain and set it up the way I want. I want to have to collect items for my home from drops, or I want to be able to craft those items through a laborious yet rewarding crafting system . . . or both. I want to be able to place stuff in my home where I want it and make the place uniquely mine. I want housing!

I have always wondered why this isn't a priority for WoW and now also for SW:ToR, but I guess when you have over a million players (many more in WoW's case) without it, do you really need to fix what doesn't seem to be broken? But, I love housing.

I've played a few games with player housing, and every time, I find myself spending a lot of my in-game time on decorating and redecorating my home, not to mention the time I spend acquiring the items I use in this decoration. One game I've played with pretty decent player housing is Wizard101. This is very much a "kid-centered" game. At best, I can say that the combat is "cute;" the characters are "fun," and even the housing is not the end-all of how housing should be. However, even here, I have spent hours setting up my house to my liking.

Of course I had to choose the "Death" house as the perfect abode for my Necromancer, and I have worked hard to acquire all the requisite skulls, tombstones, and skeletons to make it appropriately "death-y." It is amazing how often I have repeated content, something that I'm not usually very keen on, simply to get a purely cosmetic drop for my home. Having a house motivated me to play this game long beyond the point when I would have quit otherwise. Even now, when I no longer have an active account and have no desire to reopen one, I still pop in occasionally to check out my house and bask in my decorating abilities.

Of course, anyone who has played Skyrim has had some experience with player housing as well. Yes, I'm aware that one can't really place items as he would want within the house since leaving and returning or logging out and back into the game must produce a high level seismic activity with the fault-line directly under my home, thus depositing all of my well-placed items into a heap of so much rubbish in the middle of the floor; however, I still enjoy having a place to call my own.

In fact, I've gone so far as to buy a couple different homes in Skyrim, and I use them both. I spend so much time moving things around, storing them in containers within my home, and organizing to my heart's content. I'm not even very picky about how player housing is implemented . . . as long as I can have a place to call my own and I can decorate it as I would like, then . . . then, I'll be happy!

Light Side vs. Dark Side Choices

One of the big draws for many playing Starwars: the Old Republic has been the extensive dialogue that allows the player to make choices moving you toward more of a dark side or light side persuasion. This has been interesting for me, but it seems that there are a couple issues with this system that are a bit, for lack of a better term, wonky.

First, when you start the game with a new character, you are forced to choose between a Republic or Imperial character class. These are obviously dark/light side aligned character classes, so it seems that some of this choice has been made for you from the very beginning. Yes, you do have the option of picking dark side dialogue choices while playing a Republic character and vice-versa, but for the most part the choices you have are still very much "light" in aspect.

Second, some of the choices you are given simply don't make sense. For instance (SMALL SPOILER ALERT) in the Trooper/Smuggler starting area, you are asked to recover some medicine that was stolen from Republic troops. After finding the "thief," you find out that it is a cat-lady (don't remember the race) that stole this medicine to help a community of poor refugees, one of which, a young boy, stands with her complaining about an aching head. Now, it seems that these medical supplies have now been stolen from the cat-lady "thief," and it falls to you to recover them. After recovering the supplies, you must decide whether to return them to the cat-lady and her refugee boy or to the original owners, the Republic troops. Playing a trooper, I decided that our troops needed those supplies, they were rightfully ours, soliders were dying, and while I felt for the cat-lady and her refugees, there had to be another solution besides theft. With this decision made, I headed off to the officer who gave me the original quest to return the medical supplies only to find that this was the "dark side" choice! How could returning an item that was rightfully owned be "of the dark side??" This made little sense to me. I can understand how helping the refugees would be a good thing, but to do it through theft and dishonesty didn't seem like a "light side" choice at all.

(SPOILER FINISHED)

I really like the concept of dialogue choices that have an impact on your character and on how you play him or her, but I wish this could have been implemented in a bit different way.

First of all, have every character start without picking a Republic or Imperial side, and have the choices made move them toward one side or the other. I really don't understand the insistence on MMO's to have players pick a side and then to have no communication or interaction with the other side; this obviously doesn't reflect reality. I understand this may cause some issues in PvP, but simply allow players to choose the side they would like to represent in each battle or have PvP start only after the character has chosen a side based on conversation choices, etc.

Second, don't allow players to see the affect their choices will have until after the choice has been made. I know I can turn this option off, but I just can't make myself do so. I have compromised and put it on the "hover over" option to see which choice will cause me to go more to the light or dark side, but if this wasn't an option at all, I think players would spend a bit more time thinking through the consequences of their choices in every single conversation.

Third, have choices that make sense. Don't give situations like the ones I outlined above and then throw in the fact that they are dark/light choices. Make both of them light side, with more points given than the other, or give a third choice that is obviously dark side like maybe keeping the materials for myself or destroying them so no one can have them.

I think that if the dark/light side choices were done in a bit different way, they could have been simply amazing. They are good now, just not amazing.

Leaving my Legacy [SWTOR]

So, last night I finally get done with chapter 1 of my class story on my Sith Assassin. After seeing the culmination of that part of the story (a bit of a twist in there), I was instructed to return to the Imperial Fleet. Upon arriving there, a screen popped up informing me that I could now choose a Legacy Surname.

A Legacy Surname? What was this? I had no idea what I was being asked to do, so I quickly opened up my internet browser and starting reading. It turns out that this is a name added to your character that provides him or her with a last name or a "title" that reads "The *insert name* Legacy". Ok, neat idea. However, I then found out that this Legacy title extends to ALL of my characters. Yes, all eight characters, four darkside, four lightside, on a single server will have the same last name.

I'm not sure how I feel about this feature. On the one hand, this provides a bit of continuity and ownership for all of my characters. Anyone who sees my legacy tag will know this character is part of my cadre. If I'm establishing a good reputation as a competent player then others will see my tag and know that they can expect the same competent play regardless of which character I'm playing.

On the other hand, I'm supposed to pick a "family" name to apply to all of my very disparate characters. I'm not sure how I could ever pick a single name that would apply equally well to my Rattaki Sith Assassin and my Chiss Sniper, or to my "Darth Maul type" (can't remember the name of the race) Sith Juggernaut and my Human Jedi Sage. This was a dilemma that I wasn't sure I could overcome. Seriously, there were a few moments last night where I was considering quiting the game altogether since I couldn't come up with a fitting last name.

It was at this point that I realized you can choose to display this Legacy as an additional title "the *insert name* Legacy" instead of as a last name. Ok, that would make more sense in applying it across all of my characters, so I finally chose "The Craftygod Legacy". I feel pretty good about this one, and I suppose this means I can keep playing a little longer.

What do you guys think about the Legacy system?

LFD in SW:TOR

I've read a lot of chatter lately about how much Star Wars: The Old Republic needs a Looking for Dungeon system implemented, so that got me thinking about what I would want to see in such a system.

1. It should only be implemented for Flashpoints and/or Operations. Heroic content should remain as is, and folks should have to find their own group while on the planet where the heroic content exists.

2. It should allow players to "queue" up for one or more Flashpoints/Operations from any where in the Universe. I would like to see some type of checklist where you can pick multiple FP/OPS and then go to whichever fills up a group first.

3. It should NOT insta-warp you to the entrance of the FP/OPS ala WoW. I think there is a lot of depth lost with this mechanic, and I think this promotes the "stand around all day in one place" attitude.

4. It should NOT be cross-server. I understand the benefits of cross-server grouping, but I really hate what has happened in WoW since this was implemented. Namely, the groups have gotten so impersonal that now my character, who I have lovingly leveled, equipped, transmogged, thought about, developed, etc. is not known by his name, Tykoon, but simply as "Tank" or "Warrior". It has gotten to the point where LFD groups don't even see the names of the characters they are grouped with, simply their functions. I would like to see a system that doesn't take away the personal part of the game.

If this was implemented in SW:TOR, I think it could be a huge benefit that would allow a lot more people to experience what are some pretty good adventures in the Flashpoints and Operations.

The SW:TOR Phenomenon

I have recently been playing Star Wars: the Old Republic, the new MMO from Bioware, and I'm loving it! I'm not sure if my tastes in video games have changed since I'm a bit more "long in the tooth" nowadays, but I am really enjoying the leisurely pace that TOR sets with its cut-scene dialogues. When playing WoW, I have always been someone who pushes hard to reach max level as each new x-pac comes out so that I can reach end-game and stay competitive with everyone else doing the same. I've never been much interested in alts either because I've always felt like that was just repeating stuff that I'd already seen and done. Because of this, with seven years spent on WoW, I currently have only two max-level characters.

All of this is different in TOR. Now, I'm enjoying the questing; I look forward to the cut-scenes because the conversation choices are helping me develop my characters. And notice I said "characters"; that's right, I'm playing multiple characters at the same time because I am enjoying the story line of each, and I'm enjoying the differences in my characters. In fact, I've already created a character for all 8 classes in the game, though some of these are still below level 10. At this point, I have every intention of playing all of them to see the different story lines.

I've been reading lately that people are starting to leave TOR, and many of those leaving are disappointed with their experiences. I can honestly say that had I approached TOR with the same attitude that I approach WoW, I would probably be max level with my one and only character and bored with the lack of much end-game in TOR. But, honestly, these two games don't feel the same to me at all, so I'm not playing them the same way. The best description I've heard of TOR so far is "a single-player game you can play with your friends." That's the experience I'm getting out of it thus far.