Yet, now that WoW has seen a consistent decline in subscribers, we see a marketing shift away from endgame. While yes, they have acknowledged how important raiders are and plan to accommodate them in large fashion, their marketing has followed a much more casual air, highlighting Pokemon battles and pandas.

Pandas which while might seem ridiculous, strike me like a breath of relief. For years, we’ve seen Blizzard present “big bad” after “big bad” with a seriousness that is both too much and not enough over what the adul-cartoon art style leads you expect. After all, it has gracefully stolen the middle ground between playfully safe and cartoonishly serious. They have repeatedly denied that Pandarians would ever be part of the game yet here we are with an entire expansion devoted to them.

Maybe they were talking to a different audience. Those old schoolers (5 years or so at this point, right?) have had it reinforced again and again that WoW is just a FOTM – a noteworthy point in an evolving personal history. Absolutely, that’s not how they think of it in private, but culturally, that’s the reason we’re seeing the changes of the 2011-2012 MMO. WoW, as it happens, is just a great tracking point. Look to Blizzard’s added feature list and then to the MMOs recently released, and you’ll get a pretty good picture of MMO history.

Those 5-plusers want the competitive seriousness of the endgame in the same way the most vocal Ultima players wanted open-world PvP and scripted everything. Three generations in so few years: First: EQ/Ultima/DAoC +; Second: WoW/EQ2/LotRO Pre-F2P; Third: Allods/RIFT/Aion/SWTOR.  (There are way more games but we both know that, so let’s move on, shall we?) Gen3 is the Facebook generation, the Farmville daily, and only caught on to WoW after the vets got done arguing about who should be able to enter a raid instance and became a memory of yesterday’s blogs.

Those vets don’t play WoW anymore, not in the same number. I’d say they’re probably off in RIFT or SWTOR and probably both eagerly awaiting GW2. Good for them.

My point?

Maybe now that the subscriptions are leveling out the developers are more free to build up parts of the game their corporate backers considered second-rate. What does a world matter when it’s all about retention? (A cash register rings in the background). Is it at all possible that Blizzard’s dev team really did give a shit about virtual worlds and all those other fundamentals they destroyed?

Or is pokemon and personal farms a sub-grab, noteably the first outside the MMO genre?

So why am I getting this thing? Because it’s effing cool, that’s why. Sony went all out to make sure it’s impressive and succeeded. The graphics, as shallow a consideration as that might seem, look great on that 5″ screen. The rear touch panel is an immediate win, too; though admittedly it sounds like a bit of a gimmick, but with the way you hold the Vita it feels incredibly natural to have that extra finger control.  Developers are already using it to great effect. Another nice thing about that rear touch screen is that sections can be mapped by game creators to simulate a traditional DualShock controller. More than anything, though, is that developers have really gotten behind this thing. When it “officially” launches on February 22nd, it will do so with the biggest launch line-up of any game-dedicated machine ever. There are some really cool things devs can do with this system and it really is like a console in your pocket.

I’ll wrap by sharing this amazing trailer for Gravity Daze. It’s a game coming out in May that looks really innovative and fun. This trailer, though, just like IGN says in their caption, is stunning.

(If you can’t tell from the trailer, turning the Vita alters the direction of gravity)

The second thing I wanted to mention is that I seem to have found a sweet spot making money in SWTOR. Everything in that game becomes ridiculously expensive as you get up in levels (anyone else notice this?), so I took up slicing early on.  Now, at level 34, I’m sitting on 350k in credits with another 36k in stuff for sale. I don’t know if that’s great or average or what, but I have a feeling that if I keep this up all the way to fifty I might be sitting on close to 700k or more even after my level 40 mount. This is a load off. I hate feeling like I’m perpetually broke, so having a steady income for once is pleasant.

If you’re having money problems, this is what I do at 400 slicing: send multiple companions out to gather, but only on Bountiful and Rich yield missions. There’s a common misconception that slicing gets you rich out of the money lockboxes. In fairness, they’ll usually pay for the mission, but the real money is in the rare and legendary mission discoveries. Bountiful and Rich yield-types have a much better chance at including these in the reward. Underworld Trading, Treasure Hunting, and Slicing missions (340), all net around 15-18k each. I send another companion out on Bountiful/Rich yield augment missions. Augments have a huge range in sell value but sometimes you get lucky. I sold one a couple days ago for 85k.

Still, I don’t think it’s necessarily good design to make players grind gold just to get something as basic as a mount, especially in a game as large as SWTOR. But I digress.

In any event, I’m here and playing. Hope you’re all well.

I have to ask, what is it exactly people want? We complain when things are too big; we complain when they’re too small. We complain when zones are too linear; we complain when there’s poor flow. We even complain that they’re not doing enough with the hallways. 

When I first started playing MMOs, what spellbound me was the idea of connecting to a virtual world. I have always, always felt that tiny zones, unenterable buildings, and the “look how big we seem to be but actually aren’t!” window-dressing did as much to destroy the virtual world as the quest progression system. So when it comes to TOR, it’s almost refreshing to see a game finally bring back the sense of scope we’ve optimized out these last few years. There are moments where you can’t help but to stop and appreciate how grandiose everything is. When you see a pyramid, it looks like a pyramid, rising high into the sky above you. When you enter a headquarters, there’s multiple floors, bunches of rooms, and lots of “extras” playing out all over the place. It’s atmospheric.

I find it so odd that people would want to strip that from the game. Isn’t Star Wars all about the infiniteness of space — being a part of a tapestry much larger than yourself or any other one player? Can you even approach that going small? I understand that running between objectives gets boring, but when that starts to get to me, I ask myself: would I change it even if I could? And the answer is no.

Scale is one of those things that might annoy players in the moment but that sparkles in the memory. It’s also a passive means of drawing you in and forcing you to appreciate the world you’re running through. Artificial slowing? Maybe. But then again, it’s like we tell our kids in school, it’s better to do too much than too little. Bioware opted to go big or go home. We received the many worlds and space stations of SWTOR a result. The other approach we’ve already seen. It’s the Cryptic model; release early, expand later. If that’s what people are asking for, to take a step down, then I suggest waiting here until something better comes along.

This might be why EA stock just dropped and and analysts rethinking their “churn assumptions.”

I see things a little differently than dedicated MMO-exclusive players in that my work requires me to play many non-MMO games over the year. So when I approach TOR, it’s with a particular eye to what Bioware is doing in terms of unifying their console and MMO experiences; what lessons have they learned, and finally in the online space, what is it they’re really trying to do with it. Comparisons to the Mass Effect series are inevitable, and with even the lowest level quests being fully voiced, I find it very hard not to feel like questing is that unifying attempt to bring the non-MMO player into the fold. Here, it says, you know this from our console titles… step in a little deeper.

And that’s really the part where it falls flat and why I think resub-rates rumoring low is probably pretty accurate. As all of these single player gamer’s sign up and take on the world without ever once grouping, they start to realize that damn, this is a really long game. At about 60 hours, it’s become, damn, I’m just skipping this other crap and listening to my class story. Fast forward to 100 hours and, damn… why am I even doing this anymore? I’m not even level 40… and this story is so SLOW.  The experience of playing through those hours varies from class to class, as does the scenery, but the repetitive nature of the side quests is static.  Compared to the $60, much more exciting console game, and the many hundreds of hours awaiting the final assent to 50, my only surprise is that players are closing the door quietly as they leave.

In the world of console games, forty hours is a harrowing experience; sixty is epic. TOR tries to offer you the same thing but asks for hundreds and hundreds of hours beyond that. It’s a recipe for burn out.

That said, TOR provides LOTS of grouping opportunities. Every planet has a handful of heroic instances for the leveler and there are dungeons (flashpoints) throughout. Great PvP, too, now that the bracket has gone in. So lots of opportunities to break from the monotony of quest grinding.

If TOR was released as a single player game, it would have gone down as one of the most long-winded and drear-failures in Bioware’s history. But it didn’t, so what does Bioware have to do to remind its players that it’s an MMO they’re playing in. From my seat, I offer a global LFG channel.  An easier way to jump in and out of other people’s groups. An easier and cheaper way to fast travel back to headquarters.

So this is my advice to help you prevent burnout: Step out of your comfort-zone and  invite people to groups yourself. Get in there and experience the group content. It will remind you that this is an MMO and that people who call the game an sRPG have only been telling half the story.

Class quests aside, I still haven’t decided if sRPG is made better or worse by how bad (read: pointless) it all seems.

I couldn’t help myself. Since you can’t summon them inside the ship, I targeted him with my selector and clicked. He always glowed a little when I did that. I opened the chat window and the characters rained down like hammer falls from Heaven itself. /__D__I__S__M__I__S__S__ . And with that keystroke he looked at his feet and disappeared.

I breathed a sigh of relief. It worked. All that was left was a red lightbulb were he had stood. Heading out into the hallway, I thought that Khem would meet us at our next stop, safe and sound. The light from the holoterminal bloomed in my eyes as I passed it. We’d be fine. In the meantime, the robot or our new-hire, some Tatooine pirate or some such, would take over responsibilities.

But there was no robot. R2-NV isn’t allowed to leave his charging point by my very orders, yet his receptacle stood empty. It looked downright eerie. The light from the red blub above gave the compartment a blood-slicked look.

This wasn’t good. Oh no, the pirate – the cockpit – manning the flight! I raced into the cockpit, tripping over the heavy metal. All three seats stood empty. Auto-pilot had been at some point engaged. I turned to where he most often stood, leaning against the rear wall.

Another red light.

Red is the color of blood and something I’ve done here is staining my ship with it. I had to get out.

I sat down at the captain’s chair and open the galaxy map to resume controls. I select ‘fleet’ where I had a room to think. The screen flashed red. I couldn’t afford the fuel cost. I ran to my room and checked my coffers and found them empty. It was then the alarm started to sound. LOW ON FUEL. LOW ON FUEL. Red warning lights flashed at me in rhythm. They were against me, the whole damn ship, it knew what I had done. Red is the color of blood and blood is the truest color of guilt.

There was no way we’d have enough fuel to make it to the next station. What was this? Did those Tattoine bastards not fully restock us?

And just like that, all the lights went out on the Fury. All of the buzzes and whirrs ceased entirely. Even the repetitious beeping of things requiring attention stopped. No more thrusters. No more ventilation. The only thing that remained was the feeling of drift as we floated through space.

I clawed my way to the cockpit and looked outside. A planet! Alderaan. Probably only a few light years away. The computer was unresponsive. I tried it, again and again, until I relented and began beating upon it in earnest. Close enough to see saving and yet too far to ever reach.

So now I sit in this empty, black shell that used to be a spacecraft and dwell. I have enough food to last me several months, and there is enough air that seeps in to prevent my suffocating. But there is very little to do in space and I fear I’ll lose my mind before rescue comes. Already, just so soon in, I feel the tendrils of darkness begin wiggle and burrow inside my mind.

Heed this message! And learn:  Don’t /Dismiss on your ships!

Seriously, it’s kinda creepy when a crew suddenly disappears mid-flight. I made Khemmy-poo sad and wanted to get rid of him. Dismissed! Then, I see the robots gone, except for a second where I could see his silhouette through the light of the holoterminal. The pirate left no trace since he just seems to be catching a ride. Reminded me of an old sci fi story by George R.R. Martin.

Believe it or not, I actually think this shows how well Bioware knows their playerbase. The PvP situation has gotten progressively worse every day since launch — a bracket is desperately needed now to keep things balanced — but had it been in at launch, all we’d hear are frustrated powerlevelers with no one to fight. Releasing the bracket with next week’s patch comes at just the right time to prevent the all-too-common ragequit from the less dedicated majority. Once it goes in, we’ll be rosey.

PvP in SWTOR works with a bolstering system similar to that of Warhammer Online and RIFT. When a level 10 enters, they are given a boost to their stats making them roughly equal to a max level character. The level 50 — let’s say a fresh 50 with quest greens — may hit a little harder, but the real benefit comes from the extra skills at their disposal. If they play smart, they can and will beat a low-level in perpetuity. After they’ve been at the cap for a spell, they’d have to be AFK to lose in a 1-on-1.

The bracket is skipping even this slight chance and are relegating 50s to their own warzones. 10-49s will fight alone now, without the “instant win” hardcores that dominate today. And that is fantastic. The bolstering system isn’t perfect but it’s better than anything MMOs have presented so far. When a level 10 faces off against a level 49, sure, the 10 will be at a disadvantage — but it’s only a disadvantage. Play it smart and there are no more guaranteed wins. The level 10 has value beyond being cannon fodder. 10s, 20s, 30s, and 40s are all deadly if played correctly.

For some reason, the PvP in SWTOR has me more enamored than any game in the past (MMO-wise). It is just a hell of a lot of fun to have skill and strategy rule the day and gear be an after thought. That’s why these 50s need to go. Their competition is all about gear, and it turns the PvP paradigm on its head.

So until the bracket goes in, I’m out working on class quests.

How about you, have you had much luck in PvP?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and step back from the jaded, “I’ve seen at least THREE MMO releases and that means I’m vet” self, and admit that TOR has inspired more awe in me than any MMO since my first. I was skeptical of their very stylized art style right up until I played it in beta – and I’ve been blown away since then. There is a level of detail here we’ve never seen in this genre before. From the spaceships outside the fleet dock, to the arcs of lightning in your first real instance, TOR delivers the periphery better than I ever thought they could. It is, in a word, immersive.

I’ve been playing a Sith Assassin and having a fun time, if a little disappointed in the side quests. The main questlines are fantastic. Sure, you get your fair share of “go here, collect that” but between the lines are some real nuggets of good storytelling. For every kill quest worthy of skipping, there are three well-acted, well-told story quests. I often listen to podcasts as I play, yet I find it almost impossible to do so when entering a cut scene for my class. There a simply too many interesting characters, twists, turns, and lore tidbits to offer half my attention. It’s engaging to be sure.

PvP is an interesting proposition. It doesn’t change from start to end; you have three warzones, no brackets, and skippable cutscenes. The battlegrounds are two-thirds fresh. Huttball is a good time, especially when you can knockback players into walls of fire or acid pits. Voidstar is an MMO take on Battlefield’s Rush mode. Alderaan is Alterac Valley… or Domination or Conquest, take your pick. The Assassin is an incredibly capable class and I’ve managed to top-three every match I’ve played – and this from the self-professed mascot of noob-PvP. Once again, I must remind rogues that you are overpowered and should be loving every minute of it (the assassin is effectively a rogue if specced right). My one issue is that PvP gear is only awarded at levels 20, 40, and 50. Successful PvPers could easily acquire all of the available gear as soon as they ding, leaving little reason to grind the in-between. PvP specific players will very likely have earned the vast majority of commendations needed to buy a full PvP set before they even reach those levels. Or so says an Assassin.

Overall, I’ve been extremely impressed. I’m on Dromund Kaas, almost finished, and if one thing has sunk in, it’s this: it took millions and millions of dollars, but a game has finally matched WoW’s level of polish right out of the gate. We wonder why TOR took so long or cost so much, but the answer is effectively this: they set to match a seven year shined game and succeeded. People said that was impossible and Bioware just did it. Even if you hate themeparks, that deserves a nod.

Thanks for reading,

I’ve thought about how things are going over the last two days and, internally, things seem to be going nicely. Players aren’t overcrowded, lag isn’t bad, queues are, as of this afternoon, still non-existent. Bravo for that, guys, it’s a nice feather in your cap. Although, then I look at the invite process and it starts to become clearer. People who pre-ordered the game five months ago were lucky to get in yesterday. Not all of them did. Today, it looks like we got up to September in invites, if the forums are to be believed (a big if).

Then we look at how invites have been distributed. Yesterday, if you didn’t get your invite by 3PM EST, you didn’t get one. Today, if you didn’t get yours by 1:30 EST, you weren’t getting one. Um, what the fuck? Okay, we’re staggering. Sure, right on, maybe they invited 100,000 people in the four hours the doors were open. It’s doubtful to the point of wishful thinking, but hey, maybe 100,000 people pre-ordered in the first few months.

But something doesn’t add up there. This is the biggest video game project ever. In the history of video games, this is the pinnacle. You mean to tell me Bioware is on a 9-to-5 schedule when they’re finally ready to show it to the world? No wait, you also mean to tell me that keeping servers on low-to-mid load at peak hours is necessary to keep things running “smooth”? Please don’t buy into that. It’s a lie. Anyone who has ever played through a launch should be able to tell. A server can function fine when the population is “high.” As a matter of fact, a server can function fine when the population is “full.” If you don’t believe me, please explain what the purpose of a queue is if not to ensure “things run smooth.” But there is no queue, because waiting in line with the promise of playing that day is worse than waiting in line not knowing if you’ll play at all.

Now if they did invite 100,000 people this morning, maybe we could see how they’d need the afternoon to keep things in line. Except, yeah… no. Not unless EA-Bioware is totally and completely inept should that be believed. Trion let everyone in and regulated through queue limits. So did Blizzard when Cataclysm came out. So did Aion. So did LotRO. You get the picture. I refuse to believe that things are so tough as to prematurely cease invites unless there’s a second motivation.

Hype. What’s happening this week? The launch of TOR. What’s a good way to keep it a #1 Google search? Keep a lot of people in anticipation. Everyone NOT in the game, rapidly writing blog posts (like this one), tweets, and forum rants ensures the game stay on the forefront of MMO player’s minds. It keeps us chomping at the bit until we can join our friends in the fun. You can be sure that EA wants this to be as big a deal as possible. This type of marketing is nothing short of viral… except insidious is probably a better word.

And it’s worked. People are going bat-shit crazy that they’re not playing yet and gamer’s everywhere are turning to take notice. Win for EA – and a great way to be a douche on the first day your product is out. EA being EA. Bioware being influenced by their main corporate backer… not unexpected.

That’s all okay, though, because they told us this would happen. You remember, back when they pressured everyone into buying a game they were still being tight lipped about. It was the Faith Pre-Order and be wary ye’ of little faith. Everyone playing the game right now fell easily into the “give us money now” camp for whatever reason and are being rewarded for it. That’s good for them but, again, it’s a pretty lousy thing to do as a company.

For what it’s worth, I didn’t expect to get in. My “official” pre-order went through Sunday, so I’d have been crazy to. That said, the true story is, they stole $5 from me, messed up my order, and precluded me from early access because I wasn’t going to sign up for them to do it again. Origin, taking $5 pre-orders, holding $65 for the next week, and then forgetting the whole thing happened. That’s why I’m not in – I figured, hey, they kept my $5, they must charge when the game actually releases. Nope. Friday evening, I opted to ask for it for Christmas and be done with it. (What, you can be 25 and still get Christmas presents from Mom and Dad!).

Anyways, I am a little bitter that their system messed up, but whatever. This isn’t a post to say that they’re some evil company, out to get us, and laughing as they count their bills. I just think you have some clever marketers who think we’re sheep and too dull to see what they’re doing. Sheep who will pay for a product on “it’s the next big thing!” alone. That kind of makes them marketers. Then again, meh. We’ve waited this long, another few days won’t kill us!

You know what I so vainly hoped? That Bioware would keep up it’s reputation of respecting their players. If there is any truth to my theory, they’ve thrown that out the window. That lack of respect for our intelligence, expectations, and our money, is what leads MMO companies to make major mistakes. It’s what leads Blizzard to cockiness at one Blizzcon and apologetic fan service at the next. It’s what leads to suits who know little if anything about video games directing business strategy. Tell me, does that sound too unlike the EA you know?