Friday, April 19, 2019

Let The Good Times Roll : SW:tOR

After yesterday's post, in which I wondered aloud whether my increasing lack of patience with labored, time-consuming mechanics was a sign of learning through experience or a lack of inspiration, I had a thought. Maybe I don't have to wait for Ashes of Creation or Pantheon to reach a playable build before I test those hypotheses. Maybe I could just try a new MMORPG right now.

There are still one or two genuine, Western AAA MMORPGs out there that I haven't tried. Hard to believe, I know. I've made a concerted effort over the years to run through them all, at least far enough to form an opinion. For some reason, though, there have always been one or two that have eluded me.

In part, I think it's because I've been holding them in reserve, just to know there's something in the tank should I ever need it. Mostly, though, it's because for one reason or another they were games whose setting or premise or I.P. never appealed to me.

There's Trion's Defiance and Defiance 2050, about which I know almost nothing, not even what control scheme they use. There's Pirates of the Burning Sea, which for some reason I never played even when it came under SOE's umbrella. There's Age of Conan, for which I actually own a sealed, boxed copy that I once picked up for a pound in a Manager's Special dumpbin at PCWorld, and there's Star Wars: the Old Republic.


Were I to find myself  looking for a new MMORPG to play, SW:tOR, the MMORPG with the most irritating acronym ever, and which I shall henceforth refer to as TOR, would appear to have a good deal to recommend it. It's World of Warcraft in space, after all, which means it's yet another reskin of the DikuMUD model that's served the genre so well for decades.

I like that model. I prefer it to all the other flavors of MMO I've tried. It feels like a classic to me, a sound and solid structure, capable of supporting an almost infinite number of variations. In the case of TOR it means tab targetting and hotbars, levels, xp, linear progression and gear ladders. All the good stuff.

It also means Star Wars, which is why I've never played it. I am not a Star Wars fan.

Sometimes, when someone says "I'm not a Star Wars fan", what they want you to understand is that they're somehow above such trivia; that it's too juvenile or too lowbrow to deserve their attention. That is decidedly not what I mean.

Such pretension wouldn't wash, really, not when you consider the way I devote almost all of my free time to playing and writing about video games. Nor how I was such a major comics fan in my twenties and thirties that I published fanzines and interviewed creators. And anyway, claiming not to be a Star Wars fan wouldn't really cut much slack among the intellectual elite whileI also find myself inexorably compelled to take any and every opportunity to out myself as a Buffy fan, a Scooby Doo fan, a Supergirl fan...


No, it's a lot less convoluted than that. The thing is this; I never really thought Star Wars was all that good.

As I've mentioned before, I kind of took against the whole project in the months when the original movie was breaking all records in America but hadn't yet been released over here. I even wrote a song about it, the first lines of which went "Star Wars' a bore and I haven't even seen it/Critics say it's good but I know they don't mean it".

Of course, the moment it released in the U.K. I did go to see it and I thought it was great. Who wouldn't? That first movie is great. The second one was great, too. After that... not so much.

Despite my lack of personal interest, I remained well in the loop about Star Wars for a very long time. My college-era girlfriend (now, and for a very long time, my ex-wife) was a member of the Official Star Wars Fan Club. I remember their magazine, Bantha Tracks. I think she had some spot illos published in it at one time.

Much later, when George Lucas decided to trash his own legacy for the new millennium, even though I hadn't much thought about Star Wars for years, I went to see all three movies on release because my movie buddy was crazy for Star Wars at the time.


And yet, despite all this exposure over the years, Star Wars and I never quite connected. I can remember quite clearly back when Raph Koster's Star Wars Galaxies MMORPG was anounced. I was hip-deep in the hobby and desperate for any new MMO that might come along. It's not like there were so many you could afford to ignore a big one.

But ignore it I did. My interest in SWG never sparked, despite the fact it was being produced by Sony Online Entertainment, my favorite developer, makers of my beloved EverQuest. I didn't apply for the beta, even though I pretty much applied for every beta in those days. I didn't buy it when it launched. It would not be unreasonable to say I barely noticed it existed.

Looking back, I'm not sure exactly why that was. Mrs Bhagpuss isn't much for Science Fiction and wasn't at all interested but I've always played a lot of MMOs that she wasn't interested in so it can't have been that. It was before SOE invented the All Access Pass so I'd have had to pay a full subscription, which probably would have been enough to put me off dabbling.

Whatever the reason, I didn't get around to trying SWG for myself until it eventually did become part of the All Access subscription. I downloaded the game and made my first character about a week after the NGE hit. Timing is everything.


I didn't dislike SWG but it was a bit dull. The colors were dull, the costumes were dull, the quests were dull... I pottered around for a few sessions and then forgot about it. And when the hype train began to pick up speed for TOR I was very much not on board.

All of which brings us to now. Last night I downloaded TOR. I already had an account, never used, which, of course, didn't work so I made a new one. I logged in, made a character, played for a couple of hours, logged out. I was Level 11. This morning I logged in, played for about three hours and logged out. I was Level 17.

I will be doing a First Impressions post soon, although xp comes so fast I may have forgotten half the things I was planning on mentioning by the time I get around to writing it. So far I will say that, while the game is not without its flaws, I am having a good time.

But then, I almost always do have a good time at the start of a new MMORPG. How long the good times last is another question altogether. Let's find out!

22 comments:

  1. Coincidentally I just finished a post on TOR, though due to my being technically at work (shhhhh!) and my boss knowing about my blog, it won't publish for a few hours. I did play TOR at launch and a bit of my post is about how they REALLY want you to skip the vanilla game now, what with the 200% experience buff while playing the original content. It really is quite ridiculous and makes the game incredibly easy.

    On the other hand I can now solo content I never experienced in the old days since I would've needed a group for it. So, two-sided issue, I guess.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was fast enough last night but this morning there was a double xp patch! I think it's fine in as much as if you're going to do all the class stories you don't want to have to be grinding xp just to get through them, but I noticed I was already being level-adjusted before I got out of Ord Mantell.

      Delete
  2. My goodness, I thought hell was going to freeze over before you were going to try SWTOR! Looking forward to reading more about what you think of it.

    Also, I've been playing this game since launch and yet at least two of your screenshots had me go "where is that"... I mean, I know smugglers start on Ord Mantell, but there are at least two spots in those pictures that I can't quite place. Well done!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ord Mantell is a really, really ugly place to start! More about that when I do First impressions. Even so, I did do quite a lot of off-piste exploring. Only times I died were once when I tried to take a shortcut over a lava pool and missed the jump and once when I tried to climb down a cliff to take another shortcut. Looks like TOR doesn't really support ad hoc parkour.

      Delete
  3. Like many of my generation I saw my first Star Wars movie when I was about 10. It was Return of the Jedi for some reason, and I can say without hyperbole that it kind of changed my life.
    Hence the original trilogy will always have a special place in my heart, as will Star Wars as a whole, despite everything that came after being either meh or outright shitty.

    Lakisa and I played TOR from release and stayed for quite a while. We did everything there was to do at the time including the raids (called operations here). I also became one of our regular raid leaders, and we even took over the leadership of our guild for a while.

    Yet over time I've come to dislike quite a lot about the game. I quit, tried to get into it again after a year or so, then quit for good. I won't go into detail as to why, I don't want to bias you in any way. I hope you'll have fun, and I'm looking forward to your impressions.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm enjoying it so far. I'm already wondering what it might have been like when you had to, y'know, actually play it, though. I just knocked off all five Weekly Heroic (2+) Missions one after another like shelling peas, which I am not sure is something a brand new player ought to be able to do on Day Two. Three of the missions I didn't even need to kill anything but the final target because Smuggler Sealth seems to be permanent, unbreakable invisibility.

      Anyway, early days!

      Delete
  4. Interested to see what you think of SWTOR in more detail! From what I know of your tastes, I don't think it's a game you'd enjoy much in the long term, but I have been wrong before.

    I do think that not being a fan of Star Wars shouldn't dissuade one from trying it. I've long been an outspoken critic of the Star Wars franchise, and I've still had a great deal of fun with SWTOR. I think it fixes much of what's wrong with the movies.

    Judging from the screenshots, it seems you're playing a smuggler. If you must play Republic, they're not a bad choice. Of all the classes in the game, smuggler's story is the least serious and most humorous, which could be a pro or a con depending on personal taste. I found their story a fun romp, but it's not my favourite.

    I would strongly recommend giving Imperial agent a try at some point. They have the same class mechanics as smuggler, so you won't have to learn anything new, and agent is rightly viewed by most as the best class story. Beyond that, I also loved Jedi consular and Sith warrior.

    Oh, also, I have bad news: Ord Mantell is actually one of the prettiest planets before expansions, so if you think it's ugly... yeah, it doesn't get better from here.

    Regarding the other major MMOs you mentioned not having tried, Age of Conan is mostly a very traditional MMORPG aside from having slightly different combat, so you might enjoy it. My main issue with it is how hard it tries to be "mature," but mature in the way a fourteen year-old boy would understand the term. It seems mostly devoted to cramming in as much gore, boobs, and hamfisted sexual innuendo as humanly possible. Some cool classes, though.

    Defiance/Defiance 2050 is a third person shooter, and I'm not sure how you feel about those, but otherwise I think it's a game you'd like. It's a lot of wandering and doing massive, chaotic public events. It reminds me of Guild Wars 2 a lot, actually, though I won't pretend it has quite the same level of quality as GW2.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You pretty much nailed the reasons I have avoided AoC so far - dodgy combat mechanics and adolescent smut and gore. I'll get to it eventually though. Defiance looks interesting. I'm fine with 3rd person shooters although I only ever seem to dabble in them; they never really grab me. I had noticed the big public events, too - that sounds good.

      You have got to be kidding about Ord Mantell though! Half of it looks like an abandoned 1970s out of town shopping center and the rest like a deserted municipal waste dump! If that's going to count as a "pretty" planet I'm going to be struggling for screenshots. Coruscant is very impressive, I thought, and the Republic Fleet is a welcome jolt of color after Ord Mantell.

      I like the Smuggler story so far. It's simple but coherent and I find the loss of my starship quite motivational. I did think of looking up which stories were reckoned to be the strongest before I started but I thought I might as well just go with the class that looked the most appealing. I'll probably get through several of them, depending how much I enjoy the game. The voice acting is certainly better than average, which helps.

      Delete
    2. Really gotta disagree with Tyler on Ord Mantell being particularly pretty. I mean, I never thought of it as ugly either - it's supposed to feel like a war-torn backwater and in my opinion it succeeds at that - but there are definitely much better sights coming up even among the original planets: Alderaan, Balmorra, Belsavis, Voss...

      Delete
  5. I'm with you on not being that big a Star Wars fan. I love the sci-fi aspects, the spectacle of the movies, and so on. I just find the Jedi ethos and the Force... boring. Too vanilla/black & white. I greatly enjoyed the tension in The Wheel of Time series with that "magic system" and I think Star Wars would be infinitely better if they had went that direction instead of generic Dark Side = evil.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Star Wars, after four decades, is a whole lot of different things. There are probably some particularly good parts in there somewhere but the parts I know, the main movies and the original Marvel comic series, seemed very bland. As I said, I do realy like Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back but even then I kind of appreciate the historical significance more than the actual narrative - or acting.

      Delete
  6. I can be lukewarm on Star Wars. I like it and I do see all the movies, but I am in it for the spectacle as much as anything. As a setting it was never as compelling as Star Trek was. But SWTOR does the one thing I really don't like, which is put words in my characters mouth.

    I realize that is the whole BioWare thing, and I must have been okay with it at some point in the past... I did like Baldur's Gate back in the day... but the responses in SWTOR just irk me, and probably more than they should. And then there is the whole light/dark points thing, so you feel like you have to keep going with one or the other no matter what you might actually want to respond.

    All of which I probably could have gotten past if I had found something else about the game really compelling... but I never quite did.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You cut right to the most interesting part of the whole experience for me. I'm sure I'm going to end up writing at some length about it. I have always preferred the Silent Protagonist, as seen in The Secret World, over having words put in my character's mouth and as I was saying only yesterday I have huge issues with the whole concept of "meaningful choice" in MMORPGs, but...

      So far I am enjoying that aspect a whole lot more than I expected. I particularly like the way I often can't quite tell from the short phrase on the options I'm offered whether they are supposed to be the Light, Dark or Neutral choice. I also like the way my character frequently says something I wasn't expecting. It does mean I am sitting back a little and thinking of her more as "the protagonist" rather than "my character" but for now that's working.

      Anyway, too much for a comment. I'll get back to this later.

      Delete
  7. When they were first announcing SWTOR as a game I made the acronym even worse (in jest) something like SWTORMMORPG with a couple extra letters thrown in. I meant, it's not as bad of an Acronym as a deliveey company here in Canada - Skip The Dishes (STD).

    I had good fun with SWTOR to the Hutt expansion, did it a couple years ago, left, and haven't gone back. It's a way better game if you sunscribe once as there are some benefits that live on after you do (even when you stop playing). At least, was back when I rebooted it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. When I was in a band in 1977 we all adopted "punk" names, as was the fashion. Our drummer decided to call himself STD. If anyone asked he would always claim it stood for Subscriber Trunk Dialling.

      I am already considering the frequently-advised route for TOR of subbing for a month and then cancelling so I get those Preferred benefits. As yet, though, I'm not feeling any noticeable rstrictions.

      Delete
  8. Enjoy the ride with SWTOR, the class stories and planetary stories are worth seeing at least depending how long you stay. With the faster leveling speed keeping crafting up with your character's progress is probably a hopeless task but I usually try as I like to make consumables (e.g. Biochem) in MMOs- if you're exploring a lot then gathering will not be an issue.

    I'm sure I don't need to tell you this, but don't rush this game: the base game planets deserve playing through and not racing past as is so often the fashion among MMO players. I guess I have the opposite view of others, I really dislike silent protagonists so SWTOR ticks a lot of boxes for me, story-telling-wise.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I just got my ship back and I'm a whisker short of 27. I'm doing every side quest I see and exploring a bit as well. The zones are ridiculously huge so I'm sure I'm missing tons of little corners. I haven't really done anything with crafting/gathering yet. I did take Biochem when the Start Crafting quest prompted me but I don't have a gathering skill. The Scoundrel story isn't bad, helped by some halfway decent voice acting. I like my character but I don't really think of her as "mine" the way I usually would in an MMORPG. She's much more like a character in a novel or a movie. That works for me for now.

      Delete
  9. "In part, I think it's because I've been holding them in reserve, just to know there's something in the tank should I ever need it."

    That's amazing. As you said yourself, not trying out such a game totally doesn't sound like something you'd do, and still you did. And even more interestingly, I can understand your reasoning on some level. For almost the same reason, I've never seen "Lolita" or "Inland Empire", so I would have one Kubrick and one Lynch film to watch if I ever feel nothing else will do. Of course, the fact that neither is considered the resistive respective director's finest film might have also helped saving them up until now...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Argh, no "resistive". I should've known better than to write on my phone

      Delete
    2. I'm extremely good at deferred gratification. Too good, if anything. Still, if you're saving something for a rainy day you do eventually have to check the skies. It's been a really long time since a AAA Western, WoW-Style MMORPG came along and I'm not sure if we're due any more before Pantheon, which could be years. Ashes of Creation kind of might be similar but i expect it to be closer to Black Desert than EverQuest. I just happen to have this unexpected time off work and I'm not supposed to do too much, physically, for a couple of weeks or more, so it just felt like a window had opened...

      Delete
    3. You do have to check the skies eventually, indeed. In the case of MMOs, it has indeed been too long for a blockbuster, AAA, Western, MMORPG. Wonder like you if we'll ever seen one again, or whether they went the way of the click-and-point adventure which I adored in the early 90ies. Still there, but only as the occasional indy release...

      Delete
  10. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete

Wider Two Column Modification courtesy of The Blogger Guide