Two weeks on from the launch of early access for The Old Republic, its probably a good time to take stock and see if the great impressions we got from the Beta were justified and also take a look at the evolution of Nefarious TOR as a guild. I suppose the two go hand in hand as if the game failed then so would the guild, suffice to say both have significantly exceeded expectations.

With next to no effort at recruitment, a single forum post to be exact, the guild has grown from 15 people at guild lockdown to over 40 people today and so far we have to say everyone appears to be having a good time. We have members from all over Europe which is adding a nice flavour to the guild in social terms. Nefarious at this time are approximately twice the size we thought we would be by Christmas.

So far most people have blended really well and made a real effort to get involved in the guild. We have arranged two short guild events so far with a third to follow on Wednesday. Due to the fact that most people are levelling at this time these are centered around the available World Bosses. We all feel these have been a great addition to the game and despite the fact they are technically very simple and straight forward to kill, they have provided a really enjoyable break from the levelling. This has been a good opportunity to get everyone together which has been great fun. The ability to take such a  wide level range to these has been a massive help in terms of grouping together so early in the game. Things like this really help a guild bond and ensure that new members feel a part of the collective.

Below is our rough and ready first look at SD-0 the Coruscant World Boss, since then we have also completed the Taris and Tatooine Bosses.

As for the game itself most people are delighted with how it is panning out. I think most still have some legitimate concerns about what there will be to do at endgame, this could though be somewhat down to lack of information on this topic at this time. With Bioware announcing 3 new raid bosses for the Karagga Operation and a whole new Flashpoint to be launched in January things look to be improving in this regard. This combined with Six Hardmode Flashpoints and the 5 Boss Operation that is the existing Eternity Vault on Belsavis should keep most social and semi hardcore guilds happy for a while. It remains to be seen what the Hardmode and Nightmare mode Operations will be like for the hardcore guilds. If as suggested only the enrage timers and hits are actually different this will not be enough to keep them happy as it is in effect just gear gating. The serious guilds will just render this mechanic irrelevant by raid stacking higher output classes to achieve the timers.

The story, it is universally agreed within Nefarious is brilliant. Myself as a Trooper of level 36 at time of writing am completely engrossed in Havoc Squad’s story. Some of my companions get on my nerves it must be said and I wish there was an option to slap them or otherwise show displeasure but for the most part they are great also. I have made a points of getting a guild group together for all Flashpoints so far and last night completed the Jedi Prisoner storyline in Taral V and Maelstrom Prison. I would encourage any reader not to skip these 2 of all Flashpoints as again the story is just excellent and part of an ongoing narrative that starts on The Esseles, who knows where it finishes. None of the Flashpoints so far have been technically difficult but the tuning is pretty decent as long as you do them at an appropriate level. Within Nefarious we now have a couple of level 50 players with several more in the 40s and the majority of the guild now well into the 30s. It is likely we will arrange our first Operations Group for the Eternity Vault sometime next week. Which for a social guild is nice progress we feel.

PvP has proved great fun also and we eagerly await the introduction of organised pre made or guild groups and also level 50 specific Warzones. As the player base starts to understand rudimentary tactics for each Warzone the quality of the experience improves significantly. Overall I do not this Bioware could have achieved a better launch to TOR. I can see only success for this game as long as they continue to produce endgame support.

I have no doubt that the vast majority of players will make several alts to enjoy the story line as they clearly intend but also these same players do expect to be able to develop their mains beyond the levelling experience. It has to be said Bioware look to be in a great position to really make their mark in the MMO space. At this time, I really cannot think why I would want to log into WoW. I have not cancelled my account yet, but I have considered doing so, and that I did not expect. I sense an excitement about this game, an excitement I have not felt in a long time….. about 6 years to be exact!

Wheat

Nefarious EU have been assigned to the Hydian Way Server ahead of tomorrows early access programme starting. We look forward to meeting both old friends and new on our new server and welcome all to come and say Hi. See you all tomorrow at 4pm if I am lucky enough to get on in the first tranche.

Thought it was about time I posted up my impressions of playing a smuggler in Beta the other weekend.

Got to say it was far more impressive than I thought it was going to be, from the engaging story lines to the game play mechanics and the smuggler abilities for a first cut I was actually stunned by how good it was and am genuinely excited about the launch proper.

Although I do like the Star Wars films especially IV, V and VI (though to me they are still I, II and III) I could never consider myself to be the worlds biggest fan, always been more a LOTR person if the truth be known. However, the access to Beta has reinvigorated my interest in the films and will be re-watching the lot some time soon.

When the hype was first around about SWTOR I honestly was dead set against playing another MMO, WoW absorbed a lot of my down time from work and family and couldn’t see a brand new MMO coming close to the depth of such a long-established game. A number of things happened recently that made me reconsider, these included seeing some of the initial vids and screen shots from SWTOR and the opportunity to be part of the re-launch of my favourite guild from WoW , Nefarious! But the biggest deciding factor was black and white ursa…..Pandas, seriously, Blizzard what on earth were you thinking!!! From the moment I saw these cuddly creatures on the Blizzard website my passion for WoW was seriously diminished, add into this the apathy that comes with familiarity and I was ripe for the picking from SWTOR and only needed a nudge from a good friend to buy the pre-release and sign up for Beta, and man am I glad I did if first impressions are anything to go by.

Onto the class choice, to be fair smuggler was not m first choice when I looked at classes, Jedi Knight is probably closest to my longest standing WoW character and the though of using a Lightsaber is very tempting but when I cane to the character creation in Beta I had a revelation, just who is the coolest character in Star Wars, quite an emotive subject but to me it was always Han Sol and his trusty sidekick Chewbacca, so what the hey this is only Beta may as well give it a whirl.

I found the choice instantly rewarding, after the first few minutes of familiarisation and general running around getting my bearings I was quickly into the story line and easing my way around the mechanics, heard a couple of grumbles about the UI but I really didn’t have much of an issue with it.

The story line was instantly engrossing and enjoyable, the plausibility it gave to a star ship captain being stuck on a starter planet was great and the thread all the way through to getting hold of the star ship again was absolutely great in m opinion. To the point where finding that god damn ship was all-consuming!

I found the game play for the smuggler to be familiar enough to get to grips with quickly yet different enough to keep my interest, the use of ‘cover’ is something that got me really excited and was a true departure from WoW for me.

I set up as Gunslinger when the advanced class choices were available, mainly because I wanted to see what the increase in dps would be dual wielding blasters.

I have avoided PvP and Flashpoints in Beta other than a quick look as I want a proper look at these in the game proper and was fairly time limited in Beta, my impression is that a well played smuggler will very much hold their own in PvP and put out some fairly serious damage in Flashpoints, not had a chance to look at the healer mechanics yet but feel these could well be more of a utility function, time will tell.

Unfortunately Beta weekend coincided with a lot of other happenings in my life so that’s about as far as I got, will I be playing smuggler in-game proper? Sure will! I’ll also be taking a look at other classes but was thoroughly impressed with my look at smuggler in Beta and like I said there really is no cooler character in Star Wars ……

Utarg!

There is much about Bioware’s SWTOR MMO that feels comfortable and familiar both from a general MMO perspective and of course for any Bioware or general Star Wars fan. This is a good thing in my opinion, it allows you to hit the ground running without feeling overwhelmed by a deluge of information. I did however find in my two weekends of Beta that there were more than enough fresh ideas to give me that mystery back that I honestly feel has been missing from my online gaming for far too long.

Playing beta has really hammered home to me what was missing from my online gaming and also what got me into the whole MMO scene in the first place. Some of the ideas implemeted are completely fresh, some are re-workings, others are similar but without the appliance of science available to other MMO’s.

Item modification is an excellent concept and looks to have been pretty well implemented. The idea of choosing pretty much which gear you like based upon aesthetics and being able to migrate stats from other items really feels like a step forward. I am not an RP fan however for those that are I would imagine this adds a whole new aspect. You can look like a ragged old hermit just like Old Ben Kenobi, barely able to spank a Jawa. Whilst in reality that tatty robe has all the powers of a Jedi Master ready and able to bitchslap the Sith Inquisitor Kiddies! SWTOR Face did an excellent video walk through of how item modification all works here.

The Crew Skills crafting is not perfect, the UI for this is not what I would call intuitive at all, most of the areas I felt required work on the beta were related to the UI. I have no doubt the best route for this is via the Mod community but also understand Bioware wanting to bide their time in this regard.

Once you work through that the actual abilities and implementation are really quite cool. Again I absolutely loved looking at all the options working out what complimented what in terms of Crafting, Mission and Gathering skills and playing with ideas. Not knowing what to do and having to experiment was great and so refreshing that when I googled on this topic I found very little of real use. In short I have to damn well work it out for myself. I know that this will soon change as the game goes live but for now its a nice change to not have a line by line do a,b,c and profit type of guide.

The general areas and worlds that I was able to get to in my limited time were more than big enough, they included short cuts and areas of no apparent reason or interest if you looked hard enough, personally I love this. You could easily lose a night or two properly exploring Coruscant, you can easily stumble into the wrong kind of bar and meet the right kind of Twi’lek . The story telling via the questing system as has been extensively discussed is really very, very well done. I am not a big fan of questing in general preferring PvP, instancing, raiding and general exploration much more but before long I was really sucked into the story and really keen to see what happened next, this is really unlike me.

What more than anything for me was truly enjoyable was not having the slightest clue as to how to use my talent points. To know how much weighting to give to each primary and secondary stat in my decisions outside of the obvious. Not having apps, spreadsheets and websites at the ready to auto import my character and tell me mathematically exactly what decisions will give me optimal output was actually lovely.

For me that mystery left Azeroth back in mid TBC and never really returned. I vividly recall putting an Armour Pen gear set together even though the common wisdom was against this at the time. I did it because it just felt right and my personal DPS tests really looked good when using this set, I guess I usd the force and trusted my feelings despite expert writers of the day saying otherwise. WWS started to show the top raiding Hunters were using the same strategy to get insane scores and even in SWP gear the 2 Arp daggers from Zul Aman reigned supreme. By then though the cat was of course out of the bag.

Now I know that the sites, spreadsheets and apps to do all this will come. I know that combat log parses will show us all how to do pretty much everything. I am big and ugly enough to admit that when this happens I will be looking at and using some of these tools. Make no mistake I will thoroughly enjoy doing so. That said it will take at least 12 months I suspect to really turn this into the plug and play science that it has become elsewhere. Until that time I will be reveling in the mystery that exists within the game and using my own personal Force instinct to make those decisions and judgements.

Nothing is perfect and there are some bits and pieces I could moan about regarding the Beta but it has to be said these are few and far between. I personally cannot wait to get into early access and am using the time in between to plan and strategise for my characters. It is some testament that since I got into the beta my desire to play any other game whether PC or console has all but vanished. I have logged maybe 25 hours over the two weekends and can say that I am convinced this game is going to be an excellent waste of time. How long it lasts is really up to Bioware and how much end game content it releases. I would suggest that it will have no problems whatsoever in keeping a thriving community for the next 12 months. Years if they produce via patches. Roll on the 15th!!

Wheat

With the Beta now closed we have had chance to start uploading some of the footage we shot during the last two weekends. The Nefarious EU Youtube channel will host these and more will be going up throughout the week. For now we hope you enjoy the Nef group in Hammer Station as well as some scenery and a look at vanity costumes. Don’t click if you are wary of spoilers.

Hammer Station is a Flashpoint the second after The Esseles we found to be really nicely balanced for a group of level 17/18 the first two bosses were a little too easy but the last one definitely keeps you on your toes looking for bad things and healers reported it was really fun to heal. We sincerely hope this is an indication of the tuning levels we can expect going forwards, it was certainly a great start.

Comments and editorials on beta to follow on Blog throughout the week.

Wheat

Whilst I have no doubt that Lazard Capital Markets are extremely capable equity researchers, being concerned to this level by a survey of 381 World of Warcraft players would seem a bit much, to me at least. 50% of those surveyed said they would buy ‘ competing MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, a further 38% expressed an interest in the title. Vivendi also recently dumped 35 million shares in the company I suspect in reality that and poor Q3 news was actually a bigger reason for the downgrade, but it doesn’t make nearly so fun a story.

Lazard suggest that based upon these survey numbers, when applied to the NA and EU markets Blizzard could lose 900,000 – 1.6 million players to SWTOR. 33% of those surveyed however would return to WoW for Mists of Pandaria.

Lets assume for the sake of discussion that TOR is a success, at this point it’s genuinely looking good for the title. Even conservatively speaking we can say with authority that well in excess of a million WoW players will try it. I would even suggest that they may even achieve a million recurring subs for month two. How many of those though will cancel their existing WoW subscriptions straight away though? I’m guessing less than 10% even in month 2. Even if TOR surpasses even the most rabid Star Wars fan boy’s wildest wet dream I would still bet a good few quid that a fair proportion of ex WoW players, myself included will probably not cancel the WoW sub for a good while.

One of the challenges Warcraft has always had is being able to release content fast enough to satisfy the populace. With every content patch this gets incrementally more difficult and every expansion so far seems to have a 12 month duration for the final content patch. If Blizzard cannot produce more high quality material than this I doubt Bioware can either. Many hardcore players of course love these long expansions to take a break from the heavy, race for first raiding schedules. The decent and semi hardcore players are another story though. Trust me these guys with 500+ Raggy wipes scorched across their soul are totally cured and whilst they will kill Deathwing I have no doubt. will they spend 6 months wiping for heroic Deathwing? Not if TOR is any good they won’t, and that, you can take to the bank. Casual and PvP’ers also, most of them already have every alt they could ever want bedecked in shiny purple dancing pants. What do they do for the last 11 months of the patch when they have got 90% of what they want from patch 4.3? They try out other MMO’s of course.

Blizzard always say that their content is ready when developers say its ready and not before. That will be every 2 years like clockwork nicely in line with market expectations then right guys? I actually think that for the casual player or even semi hardcore raiders having two MMO’s to spend time in is actually a really nice prospect. You can move between the two at your leisure, hell you can even give Diablo a go also if you like. It’s still a fraction of the price of subscription TV or any other comparable media.

My point, if I have one is that first and foremost no matter how successful TOR is, Activision Blizzard profits won’t take the hit that the analysts predict, even if they get a bit of a bloody nose, that wound will soon be dressed, bound nicely it will be in finest silk ripped from the eye covers of Miraluka’n princesses. Diablo 3 with its real money auction house will never have a WoW level of players but will pave the way for Blizzard to get deeper and wider within the gamers wallet and provide them with a business model to greatly increase both customer spend and margins. Blizzard are also wise enough to know that WoW is ageing rapidly, and TOR will in some ways expose this. Inevitably subscriber numbers will fall over coming years. Being the wise old businessmen they are though they roll out The Kung Fu Panda Expansion to catch that younger crowd who have never played a grown up MMO but have been almost perfectly groomed by Moshi Monsters, Bin Weevils and the like. Then we have Starcraft expansions… Project Titan…. and I am sure many other fantastic gold farming ideas we are not yet privy to.

I hope Blizzard stocks tank because if they do I’ll take a pocket full. My prediction is that both Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts Inc will both do very well indeed thank you very much, and as long as they both continue to deliver quality interactive entertainment I will drink to that.

Wheat

Mrs Wiggles (above) the charismatic, deep and edgy, canine Guild Mascot of Nefarious EU SWTOR Guild, would like to invite anyone planning to SWTOR beta test in the EU this weekend to come and join us for some beers, pies, groups and laughs along the way. Several of us are putting some time aside so that we can give the game a good workout and really make final decisions about which classes we will play.

Despite her passion for red and black Mrs Wiggles reminds all that she is a Jedi Consular Shadow of the Galactic Republic but sometimes the dark side does get the better of her, especially if balls, chocolate, cats or laser pens are involved. Therefore whilst we are a Galactic Republic Guild we will also likely be doing some testing of Sith Empire characters too. So please feel free to join us on Teamspeak to chat whatever side you are planning to test.

We will post details of the server we are using for testing on our Public forum section here www.nefarious-eu.com/forum. Please feel free to conatct Wheat in game or by all means drop us a line on our forum and we will contact you direct with details.

Wheat

| Guild Website | SWTOR Guild Page |

Nefarious EU

| Guild Website | SWTOR Guild Page |

Recruitment Status: All Classes Open

• Recruitment: Open
• Alignment: Galactic Republic
• Region: EU
• Server Type: PvE
• Language: English
• Focus: Social, PvP, PvE Progression
• Age Requirement: Grown-ups
• Current Member Count: 10

What We’re Looking For:

• Grown up passionate gamers who like to have fun
• Sociable friendly people who want to make new friends
• Must have a sense of humour and not be easily offended
• Enjoys a shared sense of achievement within a team
• Participates in forums and other social media formats

What We Offer:

• Friendly, funny helpful members
• Relaxed, chatty and warm environment
• Open officer positions, we specifically want new people as part of the Officer team
• Voice Server, Website, Youtube, Twitter, Blogs, FB and Forums
• A group of fantastic people who are also really excited about SWTOR from Casual questing to organised groups for Flashpoints, Operations & PvP.
• No attendance requirements

History:

Nefarious EU is first and foremost an SWTOR based social gaming community, everything else comes after. The guild Nefarious started in 2007 in the MMO World of Warcraft and during BC and Wrath was one of the most successful PVE progression guilds on its realm. We have people who have been involved in managing and participation in organised social gaming going back as far as Counter Strike, Tac Op’s and early XBox live all of these to a very high competitive level.

As this History shows some of us are not as young as we used to be and these days we strive to enjoy a healthy balance within our lives putting family and careers first. This said we believe that a positive online gaming life can be a fantastic way for intelligent, witty people to compliment busy schedules by providing stress free, fun entertainment and meet new and interesting people from all walks of life and all corners of the globe.

Ethos:

We want to meet lots of new people who have matured within this oddity of modern life and are also talented, passionate, social gamers who have found a similar balance to ourselves. Geeks in suits and aprons! We will be utilising all forms of social media within the Nefarious experience to enhance communications and sense of community, this is key to what we aim to achieve.

We will provide structured end game events, however we believe there is simply not enough information confirmed at this stage to say what this will entail in terms of time commitment or approach. We do pride ourselves on being prepared, serious and fun in co-ordinated team gaming in the past though. We would like to retain this ethos. Any events of this type are likely to be later in the evening or weekend based.

Sounds good?

If you are interested in joining Nefarious please check out our website at www.nefarious-eu.com/forum and see what you think. If you like what you see, please feel free to post or pm us an application telling us a little more about yourself and what you want from a guild. If you prefer to use a template there is one in our Recruitment section.

If you would like further information or a chat on any topic please feel free to PM us on the forums and we will answer or can arrange a live chat at a mutually convenient time.

Nefarious EU

| Guild Website | SWTOR Guild Page |

The problem with this is that before we can realistically answer we have to leave our personal baggage at the door. After 6 years on and off with Warcraft Its impossible, for me at least, not to mind map expectations into TOR, the key I think is to know which aspects matter. What can and can’t Bioware possibly achieve on day one that would convince us this is worth our time?

I do not personally believe they can over impress old school wow hacks on day one at least in two areas. There is no way that they can deliver a raiding experience in the same league as WoW nor should they try. Part of the reason they cannot do this is the other area they cannot compete and  that is because they have not had 7 years to fine tune class and encounter mechanics. They do not have development tool sets that have been honed to perfection over expansion after expansion.

The reason they should not try is obvious of course, it would be wrong to tune TOR’s first Operation encounters to players used to Heroic Ragnaros or it would completely suffocate anyone without that level of team raiding exposure. People should also remember they will not have DBM/GTFO/Power Auras and a million other add ons I could name to make encounters like that possible at all. So in essence the way to judge this aspect is how quickly and accurately the Operations develop and if Bioware are applying appropriate resource, also if they balance them with add on development. All that said though, no matter what Biowares intentions for their game you cannot underestimate the value of a solid PvE Raiding end game in ensuring success over time, it is a bridge Bioware will have to cross if they are going to take on Blizzard in the long term.

You can see the expectation in the fact that there are literally thousands of guilds already advertising their recruitment for “World First PvE Progression”. I may be way off but that seems insane given all we have seen is one boss in the Eternity Vault that it looks like any semi competent WoW raid team could one shot. How can so many people base their entire guild strategy on something they expect to exist not know to exist.

This mindset is baggage from WoW after 7 years of it people simply cannot help it. We must strive to create new measurements, cadence and norms and map ourselves and our expectations around this new game and not expect the game to map to our pre concieved ideas. With this very much in mind Nefarious will take the approach of trying, testing and researching all aspects for TOR and then involving the membership in the decisions around end game that we make.

For ex WoW players the other difficulty is undoubtedly finding a class you feel comfortable with. They do not fit into your preconceived ideas of what classes should do. And they seem melee heavy. With eight Advanced Classes per side though each with three Talent Trees, scope must exist to try a few out until you find one that fits. We must challenge ourselves to become comfortable with ambiguity, to step outside the known and go for something different. I am going for something on purpose that simply has no place in other games, a ranged tank. That has to be fun doesn’t it. The thing to remember is that feedback from the beta’s now the NDA is lifted is almost 100% positive. Get past level 10 and the world is your lobster.

So instead of getting all weird about what isn’t what we are used to lets focus on what looks fantastic, I would even say what looks better. PVE Flashpoints look absolutely great, a new twist on instanced dungeons and amazingly scripted from what we can see. Quite frankly the PvP available just at launch is looking so good I will likely do a fair amount of levelling that way. I have now watched several videos of beta testers actually laughing with enjoyment as they PvP, frankly I can’t wait.

The Legacy System announced last night is a touch of genius to have a tangible family feel for all your alts is again next generation thinking. The idea of your Companion character running around grabbing Herbs or Mining whilst you deal with quests, not to mention your ship crew crafting whilst you are offline is beyond cool quite frankly. A million little quality of life items exist within this game that go beyond what we have come to expect from other MMO pretenders.

Reports from Beta really stress how much you feel part of the environment and even the most cynical are getting sucked into the storyline. There will definitely be some kill Sandpeople and collect 6 stacks of Bantha droppings but we know now from these testers that for the most part the questing experience is an incredibly immersive experience. The dark and light side choices, the moral dilemas, the feeling you are actually impacting the characters possibilities and limitiations. The voice acting most say really gives you the feeling of being involved in a movie or the like. I’m hoping for Uldum or Vashjir type cohesion and storyline within the quest path, I felt the balance was pretty good there also. I suspect it will be delievered or bettered.

There is much we do not know yet, and much that is being hyped. I suspect that SWTOR will be extremely successful, the timing is perfect and enough about TOR looks next generation to justify the time investment I feel from any player. Blizzard will respond of course and that can only be good, competition is always positive for consumers. From a guild manager point of view I have to be pragmatic. We can only plan for what we know, so as they say, “we must be cautious.” No one can blame us for being just a little bit excited too, hey maybe this year Santa has a pressie for the adults as well as the kids.

Wheat

| Guild Website | SWTOR Guild Page |