Star Wars: The Old Republic

[keg in kc]

Don't believe there's a dedicated thread, and since they're starting to release information now, I figure it's time for one.

[keg in kc]

Just got my Orokeet on Alderaan.

[keg in kc]

Very cool event on Tatooine today.

[Hammock Parties]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

Very cool event on Tatooine today.

What happened? Speeder race?

[keg in kc]

Rakghoul plague outbreak. It should be going at least a little while, since the quests involved are dailies.

[kaplin42]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

Rakghoul plague outbreak. It should be going at least a little while, since the quests involved are dailies.

It's fun too. Plus, I want a couple of the crystals. Green with black core. That should look pretty cool.

And spreading my space herpies to everyone on the fleet is awesome.

[keg in kc]

Yeah, it's the most social my server's ever been. We actually have republic and empire characters cooperating to spread the plague more quickly (you can kill someone feverish to make them explode instead of waiting).

[thecoffeeguy]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

I think this patch should be an eye-opener to them about the testing process. Although they did offer titles as an incentive, since there wasn't character copy, there weren't a lot of people playing on the test server.

Ya. They really need to evaluate the process. This is most likely a HUGE shock to their ego a bit, bu they need to adjust, quickly. Getting character copies to PTS is critical.

A lot of PvP'rs are very upset. Lots of people unsubbing.
I think the biggest issue is that they made so many changes while messing with expertise. That cant go over well. Now, people are just melting in warzones.

Before, WZ's were highly entertaining. Fights would last long enough to where everyone had a chance. Now its just faceroll. Its not good at all.

There was a post on the PvP forum by a guy named Redmarx (something like that). Anyway, title was "I told you so, 2-3 weeks ago". He proceeded to pull out ALL the issues with the changes in PvP. The thing is, he pulled quotes that he posted on the PTS board explaining all the problems it would cause. It was incredibly informative. After 700+ replies, 12,000 views, the thread disappeared. THAT bothered me. Not sure why Bioware did that.

Originally Posted by keg in kc

(Although, that said, I don't really believe the majority of people would have spent all that much time testing even if they'd have had copied 50s to work with - and frankly they need people leveling to test stuff on that server, too)

I don't PvP, but the impression I get is that the expertise changes mixed with the healing changes mean everybody's now doing more damage, with less damage reduction and healing. Which is definitely going to be a major change.

Ya, to many changes at once = fail.
I saw this in Rift in 1.5. BW needs to act quickly to restore faith. LOTS of people are mad.

[keg in kc]

People seem a bit more happy this week, on my server at least. I think the tatooine event's a big hit, and it's clearly not something reactive that they just threw in because of the PvP issues. They've had to have had this planned for a while.

[thecoffeeguy]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

People seem a bit more happy this week, on my server at least. I think the tatooine event's a big hit, and it's clearly not something reactive that they just threw in because of the PvP issues. They've had to have had this planned for a while.

Ya, its fun. Bringing out some openworld PvP as well. Also, forget to mention that if you lose a WZ, the rewards are really bad now. In fact, you can get ZERO. Needs to be adjusted.

[keg in kc]

Originally Posted by thecoffeeguy

Ya, its fun. Bringing out some openworld PvP as well. Also, forget to mention that if you lose a WZ, the rewards are really bad now. In fact, you can get ZERO. Needs to be adjusted.

Recent note:

DanielErikson:

Hey folks,

There's been a lot of discussion about the changes to the Warzone rewards system in Game Update 1.2 and the type of play style that it encourages. I wanted to help out a bit and point out a major change not all players may have noticed and share some of our plans.

First of all, rest assured we are keeping a close watch on the results of our reward changes to Warzones in 1.2 and we will continue to pull constant metrics to make sure they are going in the right direction as players get used to the new rules.

To refresh everyone's memories, one of the most important aspects of the new changes is that your team's performance inside the Warzone has a direct impact on a portion of the rewards you are given at the end of the Warzone. Even if your team is losing, the closer you can make the game the better your rewards will be - so don't give up hope! Giving up and letting the other team 'win faster' is now the worst possible route you can take to rewards.

Secondly, one of the things we have already identified to fix is to reduce the minimum amount of medals a player must receive to gain any reward at all. Currently that value is three (3), and we are going to reduce that to only needing one (1) medal to gain rewards. This should make sure we cover that all important backfill player while still protecting against the freeloaders.

As we move forward, we will continue to meet and discuss other possible changes based on the feedback here on the Forums as well as the data coming in from the live servers. As always, we appreciate your comments and want to hear from you.

There was more detailed information on the forum, but the site's down right now for re-launch.

[kaplin42]

Here is my take on the state of the game.



Basically, 1.2 is what the game should have been at launch. As far as content, Legacy and crafting go.

For people who game like Keg, I'm sure there is still some good content left, but for the more raid orientated player, there is about nothing to do. This new zone will last a few weeks, and then I'm sure it will be put in rotation with KP NM. Normally, beyond raiding, I love running Flashpoints (dungeons), but I'm so tired of the ones that are available at 50 in HM, that I cringe when I think about doing them.

Crafting finally seems useful for something other than Biochem, but give it a week or two and that will die out. The fact that set bonuses on anything other than the new gear doesn't transfer really stopped the boat on that in a heartbeat.

PVP is a mess, like it always is. I don't even really enjoy PVP that much, but for those that do, I feel sorry for you cause it's a complete disaster in this game.

What irks the hell out of me is the lack of content and then the gear. I get that you want everyone to have access to the best gear in game, and strangely I'm ok with it. But you should have to work for it. Not be lucky enough that you could possibly only have to run each HM once and boom, you're in full columi. Stats on gear is atrocious, Rakata is worse than Columi, and Rakata is the next tier of gear. I haven't even looked at what the new Black Hole and Campaign gear has, but I hear it's loaded with the unecessary accuracy stat.

On top of that, shit like the rewards from the Rakghoul world event, the boots or gloves, they are all light ****ing armor. Why would a anyone but an Inquis or Shadow pick those. Dumbest ****ing move by Bioware. Fix you social gear, and stop putting out bugged shit just to have it there.

It's like they have some really good ideas, and during the implementation process they go full reerun on pretty much everything. On that note, they had better get 1.3 out in a hurry. This game won’t survive another 3 months before 1.3 comes out. As is, Wookiee Crisps, and almost every other guild that I come across only has limited players (as in can’t form a 4 man group) any other night than raid night, We were 13 -15 strong, now if I see more than myself and maybe my wife on it’s a miracle. Lots of people are going to leave for Diablo 3, BW better have 1.3 ready to go or suffer.

TL;DR More content needed now, with rewards that have proper stats. 1.3 better be here within a month.

[keg in kc]

I'll eventually be a raid oriented player, too, but I have enough experience with MMO's to know that starting out as a raider at launch would lead to burnout within 6 months. Especially with a game like this where there's an enormous amount of content before 50. In that sense, it seemed sensible to approach the game from the standpoint of trying to experience as much of that content as possible in the first year, since it would be the most polished aspect of the game, and then gradually shift toward the grind side of things around the time the game hit the year mark. Because there are only 8 stories to play, and I don't anticipate them adding more in the future. So at some point the endgame will be all I have, too.

The problem with MMOs in a general sense is - I'm not sure how to verbalize this, maybe it's instant gratification, a lack of patience. When a game launches, people spend 40 hours a week online, treat it like a job (when I raid, I probably take it more seriously than any job I've ever had), rushing through to the end game as quickly as they can, and then complain when they're bored after doing the same thing every night for three months. It's rush rush rush, burn out, move to the next game, rush rush rush, burn out, move to the next next game. And it happens with every single MMO that comes out. The reality of it is that none of these games (including WoW) ever settle into what they really are until months and months after release. But by that point half or more of the playerbase has already left for the next greener pasture. The cycle never ends.

I actually tend to wait until 6 or more months after launch to start playing, because by that time the game's are usually pretty set. The games I play from launch I tend to quit fairly quickly (I think my first run in WoW lasted 8 or 9 months - I came back about 8 months after that for another 6 months). When I come into more mature games I tend to stay longer. By that time I usually find that there's an established, dedicated playerbase and most of the people I don't enjoy playing with (I call them "WoW kiddies" these days) are gone, and I'm hitting around the time that the first major expansion hits. I did that with Everquest (my first MMO) and played more than a year - actually quit that because I was spending all my waking hours online. I did that with LotRO and played for more than 3 years.

As far as the WoW kiddies go, I have to be honest, the players leaving SWTOR, at least on my server, have been a net gain in terms of the social aspect of the game world. I literally didn't have General Chat on at all after the first day in the game, because it was just wretched (even worse than it was in Beta). I keep it on all the time now. There's still the occasional douche in there, but generally it's all about the game now, and people tend to be friendly and helpful. So while people quitting concerns me in the sense of keeping the game going financially, it doesn't bother me at all in terms of the kind of people I can actually find to play with now. It's like the wheat's been separated from the chaff.

We'll see where the game goes from here. I would tend to agree that 1.2 is what launch should have been (and what launch was probably intended to be...), and I'm enjoying myself more now than I have at any time since my first beta. Meeting new people, actually grouping up to do event-related stuff. But you're right in that there has to be a point where they stop losing players.

[keg in kc]

Regarding the Tatooine rakghoul event, I'm not sure if any of you guys are doing it, but they've added a new daily to it every day. Pretty cool. Although at some point relatively soon I'm going to get tired of doing the same 5 or 6 quests over and over. I got the crystal I wanted, and have enough for the pale rakling, so I guess it's trying to get companion appearances now. Still have one world boss yet to kill, the one in the open PvP area. I have a feeling I'll never finish that one, because our server like so many others leans imperial. The one group I was a part of to fight that boss got jumped. Which is really kind of annoying when you're on a PvE server and have no interest in PvP. I'm actually the kind of guy who's more likely to help an imperial player (even a flagged one) than to attack, and I'm absolutely useless in any PvP scenario.

[kaplin42]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

I'll eventually be a raid oriented player, too, but I have enough experience with MMO's to know that starting out as a raider at launch would lead to burnout within 6 months. Especially with a game like this where there's an enormous amount of content before 50. In that sense, it seemed sensible to approach the game from the standpoint of trying to experience as much of that content as possible in the first year, since it would be the most polished aspect of the game, and then gradually shift toward the grind side of things around the time the game hit the year mark. Because there are only 8 stories to play, and I don't anticipate them adding more in the future. So at some point the endgame will be all I have, too.

The problem with MMOs in a general sense is - I'm not sure how to verbalize this, maybe it's instant gratification, a lack of patience. When a game launches, people spend 40 hours a week online, treat it like a job (when I raid, I probably take it more seriously than any job I've ever had), rushing through to the end game as quickly as they can, and then complain when they're bored after doing the same thing every night for three months. It's rush rush rush, burn out, move to the next game, rush rush rush, burn out, move to the next next game. And it happens with every single MMO that comes out. The reality of it is that none of these games (including WoW) ever settle into what they really are until months and months after release. But by that point half or more of the playerbase has already left for the next greener pasture. The cycle never ends.

I actually tend to wait until 6 or more months after launch to start playing, because by that time the game's are usually pretty set. The games I play from launch I tend to quit fairly quickly (I think my first run in WoW lasted 8 or 9 months - I came back about 8 months after that for another 6 months). When I come into more mature games I tend to stay longer. By that time I usually find that there's an established, dedicated playerbase and most of the people I don't enjoy playing with (I call them "WoW kiddies" these days) are gone, and I'm hitting around the time that the first major expansion hits. I did that with Everquest (my first MMO) and played more than a year - actually quit that because I was spending all my waking hours online. I did that with LotRO and played for more than 3 years.

As far as the WoW kiddies go, I have to be honest, the players leaving SWTOR, at least on my server, have been a net gain in terms of the social aspect of the game world. I literally didn't have General Chat on at all after the first day in the game, because it was just wretched (even worse than it was in Beta). I keep it on all the time now. There's still the occasional douche in there, but generally it's all about the game now, and people tend to be friendly and helpful. So while people quitting concerns me in the sense of keeping the game going financially, it doesn't bother me at all in terms of the kind of people I can actually find to play with now. It's like the wheat's been separated from the chaff.

We'll see where the game goes from here. I would tend to agree that 1.2 is what launch should have been (and what launch was probably intended to be...), and I'm enjoying myself more now than I have at any time since my first beta. Meeting new people, actually grouping up to do event-related stuff. But you're right in that there has to be a point where they stop losing players.

The above part in bold is just solid truth. And while I don't think I rushed per say, I didn't exactly take my time either. I think one of the things that gnaws at me is that 3 months into the game, I had the best there was to have, and literally nothing else to do.

I like set gear, like Rakata/Columi, I like that everyone gets a chance to earn it, and it for the most part is better than anything you could get out of a flashpoint. I think that is a great idea. I hate that raiding offers nothing better than that. It honestly gives very little reason to actually raid, except that you gear up really fast. On top of that, making it so easy to get really leaves people with nothing to do.

[kaplin42]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

Regarding the Tatooine rakghoul event, I'm not sure if any of you guys are doing it, but they've added a new daily to it every day. Pretty cool. Although at some point relatively soon I'm going to get tired of doing the same 5 or 6 quests over and over. I got the crystal I wanted, and have enough for the pale rakling, so I guess it's trying to get companion appearances now. Still have one world boss yet to kill, the one in the open PvP area. I have a feeling I'll never finish that one, because our server like so many others leans imperial. The one group I was a part of to fight that boss got jumped. Which is really kind of annoying when you're on a PvE server and have no interest in PvP. I'm actually the kind of guy who's more likely to help an imperial player (even a flagged one) than to attack, and I'm absolutely useless in any PvP scenario.

I don't PVP much either, really not my style of game play, but last night we pretty much got ganked doing that, and it was a lot of fun. I got killed a bunch, but at the same time it broke up the monotany of it all.

And yeah I have done all the quests except that. Got my red rakling pet and my green +41 endurance crystal. Going to do enough to get my alt a +41 Power crystal, and then I'm done.