Since BioWare didn’t have a very robust comment system upon cancellation, I thought I’d fill out my own, brief exit survey.

What Did You Like Best About Star Wars: The Old Republic?

The story.

One thing BioWare does without parallel is tell a story. The narrative pulls you in and really doesn’t let go. Despite glaring technical issues that prevented me from finishing my class quests, the class quests are by far the best part of the game. Between the high-quality voice acting and writing, you almost forget the gameplay is standard themepark MMO fare.

Every planet has its own story, which isn’t that different from most MMOs–each zone usually has its own self-contained narrative. However, in SWTOR, the player is compelled the care. Some planets are fantastic (Vossvossvossvossvoss!), while others are simply mudholes you want to leave ASAP (Balmorra, that would be you).

Give the game a few years and a couple of expansions, and the storylines alone will be worth the price of a month or two here and there. As it stands, there just isn’t enough variety to warrant an extended stay. Like Keen and Graev said, this is a 3-monther.

What Feature Did You Like Least About Star Wars: The Old Republic?

Honestly? You want my honest opinion here? Really? Well, you asked for it, remember.

The worst feature of SWTOR is its online component. As a single-player game, Star Wars: The Old Republic is great. There is a ton of content with lots of extras and secrets. I mean, two separate factions with 4 distinct storylines each? That’s a lot of stuff to do!

But what if you want to play with a friend? Well, too bad! You can’t! Or, well, you can…but it’s not nearly as cool as if you had done it alone. Despite the inclusion of the tacked-on social points system, the game is about you. Not you and a buddy. The vast majority of the game can be enjoyed alone, and that’s great…because you will most of the time. You’ll find a person here and there while questing, but even on a PvP server, I wish you luck interacting with them. They’re off doing their own thing while you’re doing yours. Talking or fighting together (or each other!) would just slow you both down.

If You Could Improve One Aspect of Star Wars: The Old Republic, What Would It Be?

I would make gear mean less. As soon as players hit level 50 (the current level cap in SWTOR), the gear grind begins and the game moves from being a pretty cool single-player RPG into a fairly mediocre MMORPG. The playerbase begins fighting amongst itself, nitpicking about DPS numbers or mitigation percentages, or just measuring their epeens and proving–beyond a shadow of a doubt–that your purpz are indeed greater-than-sign mine.

If I had it my way, gear would mean less. It would mean something, but the people with the best gear wouldn’t be tiers above people with the worst. They’d be maybe–maybe!–15% more powerful. Just powerful enough to give them an advantage in any given situation PvE or PvP, but not enough that player skill wouldn’t be able to make up for it.

Without a focus on gear, players could then focus on more important aspects of online gaming, such as building a community. Ultima Online proved this kind of gameplay was possible. Sure, people with magic armor and weapons were tough (who didn’t hate fighting a Lumberjack with a Vanquishing axe or a Fencer with a tribal spear?), but if you had a better combination of skill, keybinds, and luck, anyone could beat anyone or anything else.

Final Thoughts?

One: Chiss with lightsabers. Please. Please.

Two: SWTOR stands distinctly as two separate games–one that demands a monthly fee for a story that would be better told offline and one that spent too much time in development limbo to incorporate advances in the genre.

Thank you for reading SWTOR Exit Survey, a post from Professor Beej.

Oh, Utah. You’re so silly.

When she approached the desk, he had no idea what she would ask.

“Yeah, so,” she began, “I know this is Utah and so this is probably a stupid question since there can’t be any books about sex in Utah, even at a place like Barnes and Noble, but I guess I thought I’d ask, even though I know that this is Utah, so–”

“People do it in Utah,” he said. “Have sex, I mean.”

The last thing he expected her to do was roll her eyes in disbelief, but there it was. Roll roll roll.

“I guess, maybe,” she said. “But not like in California.”

You can read the whole thing over at World’s Strongest Librarian.

Thank you for reading Quote of the Day – “No Sex in Utah” Edition, a post from Professor Beej.

And after only 15 rejections! (That’s crazy talk!)

I was absolutely ecstatic. Still am, actually.

I’ve emailed the publication with my formatted manuscript and put the contract in the mail. Due to a backlog, it may be a while before I hear back from the editor, so now it’s just a waiting game.

While I wait, I thought it might be of use to someone to know exactly what I did to get there. I started trying just under two years ago, and I should have my first professional publication by the end of the year. Maybe I did something right. If I did, maybe I can help you, too.

What I Did To Get Published

I have a handful of shorts that, over the past few years, I’ve kept on continuous submission. I never let one sit unsubmitted for more than a day once I get a rejection letter. The way I see it is simple: there is no way to get published if I don’t try.

So I went to Duotrope, picked the professionally paying markets (those that pay $.05+ a word), and started tracking my submissions on a spreadsheet. When a rejection comes in, I label it under “Rejection Letters” in Gmail, mark it on my spreadsheet, and send the manuscript off to the next magazine on my list.

That’s the easy part. Honestly, it is. The hard part, as any writer knows is writing a salable story.

That’s where Tobias Buckell’s Nascence comes in. If you haven’t read it, go buy a copy. It’s worth every penny. I pinky-promise.

I can honestly say that I attribute this sale to Buckell’s advice, specifically to two major lessons I learned from the book.

First, Submit to Professional Markets.

Remember, crap rolls downhill. Shit filters down. If you write stories that are good enough, you’ll eventually sell them to a professional magazine. You’re only as good as the company you keep, after all.  If you’ve exhausted all of the pro gigs, then move into semi-pro.

But why short-change yourself from the outset?

Second, Answer The Question.

What’s that question, you ask? What single question could be that important?

Simple: What’s the fucking point?

If you can’t answer that about your story, then it won’t sell. Period. I had already received a rejection for this story when I read Nascence and saw The Question. When I went back and reread it, I realized, there was no point. It was just an idea.  A good idea, yes, but just an idea.

My original idea was this: Wouldn’t it be cool if there were a zombie in Best Buy?

Then: Wouldn’t it be cool if that zombie got shot in the head and its brains went all over a salesman’s shirt?

That’s it. That was my story. You’ve read it. 3,000 words of that.

What’s the fucking point, you ask me? There wasn’t one. The story was fun and self-indulgent, but there was no fucking point.

Then, I went back and revised it. It ended up being 2,000 words longer than it started, and that’s after I cut out a lot of the crap and found the point.

I found the story. I found the characters. I found that the zombies were, like in any good zombie story, the set-dressing for the people in it.  Here’s the synopsis I included in my cover letter with the story (note: the synopsis was requested as a part of the submission).

“Working Retail” is a comedic look at a recent college graduate who is working at MediaTown to make ends meet after the zombie apocalypse ruined his prospects of employment in his field.  He was promised a cushy job at a tech firm after graduation, but unlike him, the firm did not survive the outbreak.  Now, he is struggling to make ends meet while he not only deals with problem customers, but also zombies who shamble into his department and want to buy HDTVs and laptops.

I am a college English instructor, with my M.A. in English and working toward my Ph.D. in film and television studies. I have recently created and taught a senior-level horror literature course at my institution, where I got the idea for “Working Retail” and what life would be like if a zombie apocalypse did not destroy the basic infrastructure of our day to day lives–how would we adapt to zombies as we work our nine-to-fives?

You see that? That’s the fucking point, as Tobias Buckell would put it. I found it, latched onto it, and sold the story to the first market who read it. All because I found that nugget of what the story was actually about, not what I thought the story was about.

Waiting and Seeing

Now, it’s back to waiting. My acceptance letter said that the story should be out during 2012, which is a pretty quick turn-around, I think. I’ll be sure to post updates as they come and will definitely post the link to where you can read the story once it’s available.

Thanks to everyone for all their support as I built up to this, the hardest sale I’ll ever make. I hope that some of the lessons I learn along the way can help you, too.

Thank you for reading How My First Short Story Was Accepted For Publication, a post from Professor Beej.

• It took BioWare until this week to fix my bugged class quest. After grinding the last 10 levels out sans the Inquisitor story, I don’t feel compelled to go back. Thanks for fixing it, but it’s too little and too late. BioWare customer service = terribad.
• SWTOR is a fantastic game. Unfortunately, the fantastic game is marred by so many small–yet egregious–problems that I don’t know if I’ll ever resub.
• Which sucks because I got suckered into buying the $150 collector’s edition. WTS Level 50 Sith Inquisitor and shiny box. PST.
• EQ2 looks neat now that it’s free.  I would like to start playing because I hear so many wonderful things about the game, but I don’t think I’d have any friends there. Anyone play and need a healy-type?
• Same goes for LOTRO. It looks fantastic, but it appears to be such a timesink for everything that you can do in there. I bet it’d be fun, but I’m not sure I have the stamina for it.
• And now Star Trek Online is free, too. Honestly, why are so many cool games free now? And why do I have so little time to play them? I want to play them all, and I’m too competitive to be casual! Argh!
• WoW is looking awesome again. Le sigh.
• The reason WoW is looking awesome again is because of accessible raiding and content, which all the other options I have are not.
• DDO is awesome. I need to play more. If I had a solid group to play with, I would be sorely addicted. Even playing solo, my Artificer is a beast.
• Skyrim is forever awesome. So much to do. So many stories still to see.
• I really need a good wireless PC gamepad, and not the Xbox 360 controller. Any suggestions?
• I really love watching my wife play DCUO. What sucks is that the PC and PS3 versions aren’t compatible because I’d love to be able to play with her.
• Uncharted and Arkham City are calling my name. They’re both awesome and don’t get nearly enough of my attention. I think they’re going to cheat on me soon.
• Playing tabletop D&D with my buddies is some of the most fun I’ve had in years. Why can’t MMO raiding be as cool as D&D encounters?
• Have you guys played Limbo? It’s awesome. It’s on Steam and the Playstation Network. Not sure about Xbox Live, but if you’ve not played it, go try the demo. It’s so much fun.
• Who would have thought the online game that took the most of my time in the past few weeks was on the iPhone? Hero Academy is simply fantastic. A turn-based strategy game that you can play over the course of a day/week? Yes, please. My username is “professorbeej” if you want to play. I’m always up for a game! I just hope that they release an Android version of it eventually because I have so many friends I want to play with and can’t.

Thank you for reading Misc MMO Thoughts, a post from Professor Beej.

First, Adam “Ferrel” Trzonkowski sent me a shiny hardcopy of The Raider’s Companion from Epic Slant Press. I’ve flipped through it and read excerpts here and there, but I haven’t had a chance to read any whole sections yet. What I’ve seen is well-written, and anything that makes MMO raiding a little more bearable is okay by me. Plus, Amanda Martin’s pictures are pretty. I’ll have the review up soon.

And then there’s Tobias Buckell’s upcoming novel, Arctic Rising. I was able to snag an eARC of this one, and I cannot wait to dig in.  After really enjoying his debut Crystal Rain and the ARC of Nascence, a global-warming-inspired technothriller sounds just great. Not to mention that as soon as I opened it up, there was an airship. And boy do I love airships. I’ll have a review of this one as soon as I can.

Thank you for reading Shiny, New ARCs, a post from Professor Beej.

I recently had a discussion with my wife about this because while watching Doctor Who with my dad, I had one of those whizz-bang ideas that just won’t leave you alone. I pulled out my iPhone and started making notes immediately. The idea was too good to lose.

So I went home, handed the notes to my wife, and told her, “tell me what you think.” I was beaming. I was so proud of myself.

Her response was simple: “Meh. Who is it about?”

I was dumbfounded. I had no idea. To me, it didn’t matter who it was about. The whole point was the idea itself. It was a fantastic idea. It was high concept, something that had the potential to blend genre and literary fiction. The who could come later.

Just not for Jennifer. She couldn’t care less about the idea. High concept or not, there was no one to relate to, so she wasn’t interested.

That got me to thinking: which is more important? As a writer, do I need to focus more on the people these stories are about than the premise of the stories I’m writing? Is one better than the other?

No, one isn’t better than the other. A good story is a good story is a good story. But there are specific elements that comprise a good story, and finding that balance is important.

Tobias Buckell has that down pat. He says that there are two things a writer should remember when putting together a short story: “What’s the fucking point?” and “a short story is often said to be about the most important day of a character’s life.”

When broken down, one is high concept while the other is high character.

High Concept

Ideas are easy. Every writer has a thousand ideas, and every reader thinks he or she has a thousand better ones. Most of those two thousand ideas are crap–rehashed, recycled, cliches, blah blah blah.

But once in a blue moon, you have an idea that’s fresh and interesting, that does something new you’ve never thought of. Old Man’s War by John Scalzi is high concept: 75 year old men and women are recruited for the army to fight in an intergalactic war for territory. “That Leviathan, Whom Thou Has Made” is high concept: Mormon space whales living in the sun. ‘Nuff said.

In these stories, there are obviously characters. But the characters are not the point. The characters, while three-dimensional and real, are not the focus of the story. They are facilitators of the story. They are motivated and pushed through the narrative so that readers get a full view and explanation of the concept at its core.

Coming up with a high concept idea is one thing. Writing it well and making it salable is something else. Short stories and novels aren’t just ideas. They can start that way, but without a rounded narrative, they are empty.

There are millions of desk-drawer high concept novels out there just because the writers couldn’t figure out how to put a beginning, middle, and an end to it. If you’ve got a high concept idea, be sure that you flesh it out, that you make sure it has some meaning.

Take your fantastic idea, and if you can’t answer “What’s the fucking point?” then you should probably keep it stewing for a while until you can.

High Character

On the other hand, sometimes you have the idea for a character and have nowhere to stick her. You have this kick-ass heroine who battles ogres by night and is a world-class tennis champion by day. You have a backstory for her, and you know every detail about why she is the way she is.

But you’ve got no real story other than that. You don’t have the day-to-day life of this person.  You don’t have a situation in which her tennis skills will help her in her crusade against the ogres.  You just know that she’s awesome.

That’s what high character novels and stories are about.  That’s how you can write a story and let the reader see, as Buckell put it, “the most important day of that character’s life.”  That day might be just another day for you and me. We might stroll idly past the ogre-filled brothel none the wiser, but your heroine…no, she goes in there, slaughters some ogres-of-the-night, and comes out an entirely different person.

The events in-between don’t matter. Just her evolution and character arc because we see her going from Point A to Point Z.

There are a lot of examples of high character works out there. Harry Potter is a prime example. Sure, the school of witchcraft and wizardry is cool, but those kinds of books are honestly a dime a dozen. What keeps us reading those books then? To find out what happens to Harry, Hermione, and Ron! That’s what!

Even TV has its high character forays. Take ABC’s Castle for instance. As much as I love the show, the procedural aspect of the series is nothing we haven’t seen before. However, because of who Rick Castle is–a NYT bestelling author with a daugher and live-in, actress mother–I watch the show every week.  The whodunnit aspect of the show is good enough, but the real draw of the show is Richard Castle himself.

In the end…

In the end, though, there’s nothing saying that you can’t have a novel or a movie or a show that has a fantastically awesome premise and a fantastically interesting character to go along with it.  Just more often than not, it’s one or the other.

Do you have a preference for one over the other? Are you more interested in the premise of a text, or the people it’s about?

Thank you for reading High Concept vs. High Character, a post from Professor Beej.

Thus began the first Dungeons and Dragons game I’ve played in about 7 years. And it was awesome.

I don’t get where all the hate for 4th edition comes from, either.  From a 4e newbie,  it’s significantly streamlined from 3.0, and about as far from THAC0 as you can get.  Our DM is pretty lenient in terms of rules, in that he follows the only one that matters: let nothing get in the way of telling the story.

We only got about halfway through the adventure Khyber’s Harvest; however, we still had enough time for our group to prove to me that D&D is full of what I love best: stories and silly moments to remember.

Memorable Moment #1: The Living Lawn Dart

One of our team’s 9-year-old stepson was playing for the first time.  He was a Shardmind Rune Priest with a bloodlust I haven’t seen outside of hungry jungle cats.  He wanted to kill his stepfather for stealing his house (literally–the house was just gone, he says!), so his introduction to the group was a sneak attack from a roof.  He leapt off the roof toward our party…and rolled a natural “1″ on his D20.

The DM chuckled and informed us that we saw a six-foot-tall man made out of crystal fall from the sky and embed himself (face-first) in the street beside us like a lawn dart.

Memorable Moment Number 2: Grandpa Eskimo

In Khyber’s Harvest, an elderly orc approaches your party and tells you to beware of the harvest and that everyone in the village has disappeared.  He’s crazy and fairly useless outside of that bit of information.

But he grabbed me!  Me!

So I pull him inside the cottage and my Paladin friend accidentally roughs him up a bit (by accident–another natural “1″) and knocks him out.  We find some blood and decide to follow it’s trail.  But loving Cleric that I am, I can’t leave the old orc alone in the village to disappear like everyone else.  So I pick him up and carry him Superman-style down the road and to our dungeon.

Eventually, he regains consciousness and screams all the time about not knowing who we are or what we’re doing to him because apparently, he was set-dressing for the adventure that was meant to be forgotten once his message had been delivered.  However, as we made our way deeper into the cultist’s cavern, I protected him and made sure my senile old orc was okay and with me for every step of the encounter.

I loved him and named him Grandpa Eskimo.  I can’t wait to get back to him next session.

Memorable Moment #3: You’ll Poke Your Eye Out

Apparently, the Khyber’s Harvest adventure has a mid-point boss.  You enter a room with a cultist priest (complete with tentacle shoulders!), a gigantic orc in armor, bunches of cultist minions, and a 25-foot-tall eyeball embedded into the wall.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: we have to blow up that eyeball!

I thought it, too.  So did my Warlock friend.  So we, being Dragonborn and very large of stature, convince the Shardmind that his earlier stunt could actually come in handy to us here.  So we tell the DM that we are picking him up and throwing him like a dart directly into the giant, pulsing eye in the wall.

Our DM then promptly has an aneurysm. I roll a 22 for the DC check, and my Warlock friend rolls a 19.   So we toss him. Perfectly.  The giant eyeball explodes into a gooey mess as our Shardmind friend flies through the air and right into the pupil.

Then the problem comes in: he falls 40 feet and takes fall damage to where he’s within 1 saving throw from death.

Whoops.

And you know what else? The giant eyeball wasn’t actually the boss.  It wasn’t even connected with the boss.  It was the doorknob–it just opened the gate to the next area.  All we managed to do was kill one of our teammates and really, really piss off the real bosses in the room–the big ole orc and tentacle priest.

Needless to say, the encounter was a bit tougher than it otherwise should have been.

Other Moments?

We quit soon after that encounter because it was getting late, but already, there are stories to tell.  Our first night together, and there are already memes–Grandpa Eskimo! Stay back!–and we had a lot of laughs.

That’s what gaming is about, and why I remember having so much fun with D&D back in college.  What makes D&D unique is how it puts the players in control of the narrative (it is their story, after all) and that’s what we remember about gaming.  None of us remember the 15th time we kill a boss in an MMO, but I sure as hell remember blowing a dog whistle near some sleeping demon mastiffs back in college, and my buddy asking the devil a riddle before we beat him to death.  I remember that because it was fun, because it was us, and because it was unscripted.

I can’t wait to see what the rest of Khyber’s Harvest holds.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to see where I left Grandpa Eskimo.  He needs me.

Thank you for reading Dungeons and Dragons: Memorable Moments?, a post from Professor Beej.

If there’s one thing I hate, it’s censorship.  Not the kind where parents tell their kids not to listen to explicit lyrics or that they can’t watch R-rated movies.  The kind where the government or another organization attempts to stop the free-flow of ideas and creativity under the banner of doing what’s right and protecting intellectual property.

I, and the rest of the Internet, call shenanigans.

In lieu of blacking out today or even writing a long-winded essay about the evils of censorship and the damage it can do, I thought I would post some links to other writers who’ve posted about it already.  These are some good reads, and if you’ve got the time, I suggest you work your way through them all.

• The ever-vulgar and insightful Chuck Wendig says it best: “Fuck SOPA.”
• John Scalzi changed his whole website (until 8pm tonight) to reflect his thoughts on SOPA.
• Wolfshead is as eloquent as ever when discussing how SOPA/PIPA affect free speech.
• Tesh sums it up: “Stupid SOPA.”
• And finally, something a little more lighthearted from Syp.  If SOPA passes, Geocities sites will make a comeback.  And none of us want that, now do we?

Thank you for reading SOPA, PIPA, and Censorship. Oh my!, a post from Professor Beej.

Now, two years later, I’m running into that same situation once again. Despite my fervent belief that Star Wars: The Old Republic is chock-full of superfuntime storytelling goodness, I have a hard time making myself log on because of the standard MMO gameplay at the game’s core.

And every time I don’t log in, I feel the subscription fee nagging at me.  I’m paying for a game (many times over, if you consider the exorbitant price they suckered me into for the CE) that I don’t want to play, and therefore, I’m subject to what I like to call subscriber’s guilt.

Something’s Gotta Give

The MMO subscription model does nothing to engender loyalty from a gamer any more than a shock collar actually teaches your dog to stop peeing on your flowers.  There’s nothing actually keeping you there other than fear–fear you’ll lose money, just like your dog is afraid of getting zapped.

This is where F2P game companies have it figured out.  Unlike a subscription company, F2P developers have to make you actively want to give them money.  They give you the game, and if they are going to make money, you have to want to play.  Compare this to subscription games where it is in their best interest to keep you around as long as possible, whether their methods for doing so are technically fun or not.

You see, subscription services are tricky.  They’re passive, and they autorenew.  So if you’re not thinking about it, if you don’t take any initiative, you give that company money.  As long as the games are good enough, you’ll keep the subscription active–which is how much of my seven years of World of Warcraft subscription fee was spent, by the way.  And even if you don’t play past that first month, you’ve still dropped $20-6o on the box.

With a free-to-play game, however, you download the client and have to be sucked in if you’re going to spend any money.  You can set up a subscription, but let’s be honest with ourselves: you probably won’t.  Instead, you’ll able to shop the store and see if there are any quality-of-life purchases you want to make–XP bonuses, quest/adventure modules, and other shiny things that are in no way required to play the game.  Your money is then a direct line to the developers saying they did something right.

But the most positive thing about about F2P games is that they are free from subscriber’s guilt.

You want to read a book?  Well, I hope you like wasting $15 a month.  You want to play another game? Again, I hope it’s worth its cost and your MMO’s.  You only have a few hours of free time to play this month?  The value of your subscription just plummeted.

And you know what? I’m not cool with that anymore.

I don’t feel like being guilted into playing a video game just because I’m paying for it.  I want to log on and play when I want to without feeling that I’m wasting my time if I’m not pushing to the endgame, if I’m not having fun.  I want to just play and enjoy myself, and if that’s for 2 hours this month, then a F2P game is fine.  If it’s 50, then even better. Bang, meet Buck.

So What’s The Plan?

For now, I’m going to be spending a lot of time with two titles: Dungeons and Dragons Online and DC Universe Online.

I’ve had an off-and-on relationship with DDO for years, and I have to say, I love the game, and and in 2 years, Turbine has snagged exactly $20 from me–I bought access to the Warforged Race and the Artificer class.  The core of DDO is different enough from standard WoW-style MMOs that I don’t feel that burnout I get with SWTOR, and DCUO is an action game where I get to team up with my favorite superheroes to do quests.  Yes, Nightwing, I will help you kick Bane’s ass after what he did to Bruce.

To be fair, though, DCUO has snagged my wife’s attention more than mine.  I bought her a PSN giftcard for her birthday, and she spent the $5 necessary to get Premium access.  That’s it.  She’s not one for MMO gaming, so she jumps on when she wants to, does a few quests (“Superman and I used teamwork to defeat Lex Luthor,” she told me one morning), and doesn’t let the game drag her down.  When it gets frustrating, she logs out and does something else–a novel idea if I’ve ever heard one–because she is not financially tethered to the game.  No subscriber’s guilt for her.

With the semester coming back into full-swing and the number of projects I have that I want to work on, I don’t have time to worry that I’m not getting my money’s worth out of an MMO.  I’d much rather spend $15 on a couple of quests, character options, and quality-of-life upgrades that I’ll be able to access for the life of the game instead of worrying if I played a game enough to warrant my sub fee.

Thank you for reading In Defense of Free-to-Play, a post from Professor Beej.

My wife: “Wait, you paid $150 for the stupid collector’s edition and aren’t sticking with it? Are you serious?”

The discussion then proceeded into her asking me if the extra stuff was worth it, to which I answered a solid.”Actually, no. It’s not.”

Now, I’ll get my money’s worth eventually.  I intend on playing SWTOR for a while (around 4 months to justify the cost vs. purchasing other games), but I can’t see myself playing for the seven years I dedicated to World of Warcraft.  Instead, I intend on playing Star Wars: The Old Republic as though it were Knights of the Old Republic 3, experiencing the various stories and classes with the endgame gear-grind only a tingle of a thought in the back of my mind.

If you’re like me, you’ve been fiending for BioWare to release KOTOR 3 for the better part of a decade.  So when they announced the MMO entry of the franchise, the online addict in me rejoiced.

As an MMO, SWTOR is every bit as polished as any other triple-A MMO (and more than most). But what about as a single-player game? I mean, it wouldn’t be a BioWare title if the storyline didn’t take precedence over anything else, right?

Well, yeah.  And the storyline’s are good.

So it’s KOTOR 3, then?  Or just as good as?

Eh…well, maybe.  Kinda.  Let’s just say that I’m torn on that particular point.

Having made my way to level 50 on my Sith Inquisitor, I can honestly say that the game’s leveling content is phenomenal. The class quests are brilliant, and each planet has its own enthralling narrative.  The flashpoints (instances) are hit or miss, with some being story-driven and others being WoW-style dungeon crawls.  Depending on your preference, there have to be a couple you’ll really enjoy.

The thing is, though, SWTOR is still a themepark MMO with straight-outta-Azeroth combat (don’t let the no autoattack fool you; it’s WoW combat with a laggier UI) and The Burning Crusade‘s endgame.  Only with lightsabers and a fantastic story.  If that’s not your kind of game, let’s just say these aren’t the droids you’re looking for.

After having done a week’s worth of dailies and PvP, I’m tired of the game at 50.

I still have a lot of content to see (especially as my class quest bugged just a little into Chapter 3–I’ll have to finish it up once BioWare figures out how to fix me), but I’m having a hard time making myself log into my 50.  Instead, I’ve been playing a Jedi Guardian and Jedi Shadow, trying to decide which one will let me most enjoy the Republic’s storylines.

Given that I kind of dread logging into my main, I have to ask the question, is SWTOR worth it?  After splurging on the CE to my wife’s chagrin and setting up a subscription, is SWTOR worth the time and the money?

I think so, yes.

The leveling content is good.  Real good.  Awesome good.

While the gameplay mechanics may be old-hat and the endgame a carbon copy of The Burning Crusade, the narrative is solid BioWare.  And if  the developers are even half as good as Trion in producing regular updates, then you’ll definitely see a lot of value for your subscription. (The first patch they’ve announced already includes a new 4-person flashpoint and additional raid bosses, so they seem to be on the right track.)

If you’re a sucker for a good story, The Old Republic is worth every penny.

In fact, the more you can immerse yourself in the narrative and get over the fact that you’re repeating planet quests on alts, the value of the game skyrockets.  At just $15 a month, getting 200+ hours of gameplay (which is what BW estimated each playthrough should have) isn’t a bad deal.

But if you’re an endgame junkie, if min-maxing is your thing, and you have to grind for gear, points, progression, whatever, I’m not sure that The Old Republic is the game for you.  It’s probably not even close to worth it because the content just isn’t there yet.  It will be eventually, but right now, there just isn’t much variety for that playstyle.

Personally, my plan is to experience the stories, work through the Republic side of the planets, and hook up with friends whenever we can.  I’m not worrying about gear or progression or even seeing the raids and level 50 content just yet.  I am going to be playing other MMOs at the same time (F2P offerings, actually–Dungeons and Dragons Online and DC Universe Online are my current mistresses) and doing what I can to enjoy myself and not burn out.

As a game, SWTOR is worth it.  As one’s sole hobby, it’s not quite there yet.  You’ll have to determine how and why you play MMOs to see if it’s worth it to you.

Thank you for reading How much is SWTOR Worth?, a post from Professor Beej.