This Never Ceases To Amaze Me

My last beta for SWTOR was uneventful. My opinion of the game hasn’t changed and I won’t be buying it until well after the 6 month mark, just to make sure this game isn’t a flash in the pan. But, I still read the forums daily.

Today, I happened upon this lovely post from a beta tester. This crap never ceases to amaze me.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=701760

As a parent, I would like the ability to disable flirt options entirely. I realize that many people may not be fully understanding of the reasons why, nor am I asking opinions for why this is not a good idea. What I am asking is for people that believe this would be a good option to add is for them to reply to this thread with their reasons for support.

My personal reasons are that I don’t even want to accidently click on such an option. I was personally shocked when I walked into the cantina to find a dancer on a pole. I realize that cantina dancers always existed, but they were at least reasonably classy. Now, they’re just… strippers. I know many enjoy this in the game, and they’re more than free to do so. I don’t expect this aspect to be removed, but adding the ability to disable flirt/romance options would go a long, long way to making this game allowable in my house.

Also, I realize that many would argue that if you don’t like the game, then don’t buy it. Well, that is exactly what I’m going to choose to do without such an option. That’s not a threat to the company but rather an action I am choosing because I don’t support everything being about the relationships that occur between adults. Please add this feature so my family can play.

Sincerely,
A concerned parent

I responded in the thread, but I’m going to respond here. Just in case any people are reading this who are afraid of their own sexuality, the sexuality of their children, or life and reality.

I wonder what this poster thought she was going to find in a Cantina called the “Dealer’s Den”. In game where we shoot other players with blasters and chop them to bits with light sabers. In  a game with espionage, slavery, and racism. In a game with death, destruction and torture.

Did they think there would be a youth minister in the cantina waiting for any wayward smugglers to come in so he could “help them see the light”? Did they miss the part where Bounty Hunters are part of the game? Drug dealers? Street gangs? Death?

Did they miss the gritty, dirty nature of the game, the futuristic parts? Did they miss some of the very abusive scripting and language?

This poster is worried about flirting and a fucking stripper with a pole! You seriously can’t make this shit up. I guess they were expecting a cantina with Hello Kitty decor and some cupcakes for their kids while they await their next mission to kill or torture someone!

This is the future of our society, everyone? Really?

This is why I have less than a modicum of faith in humanity as a whole. The who world is facepalming, right now.

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SWTOR PvP: As Big A Joke As Rift

If anyone ever doubted the state of PvP in December 20th’s upcoming release, Star Wars: The Old Republic, all they need do is read this thread.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=704589

Obviously, that link won’t last forever, so I will caption the part that counts.

As it is now, it seems pvp is in a sad state of affairs in SWTOR; exhaustion barriers separating pvp, removal of pvp in certain areas of the game recently (Nar Shadaa), and separated questing areas between factions have left this game a pve game with some pvp elements thrown in to call them pvp servers.

People are totally expecting PvP in SWTOR to be leaps and bounds above games like Rift, where the PvP is like an afterthought, tacked on because they said, “Oh shit! We forgot the PvPers!” Well, it isn’t. SWTOR’s PvP is a big joke, too. PvP servers are anything but.

 

More after my painful 3rd weekend in SWTOR.

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SWTOR Final Beta, Tonight

I got invited to the SWTOR final beta cycle. It starts today, around 5pm I imagine. I’ll go ahead and try a third time, even though I didn’t even log into the game the last day of the Thanksgiving beta and had no inkling to do so.

The FPS issues were worked out to my advantage the very last day I played. They rebooted the servers and suddenly I was getting 55 FPS. Which for that game is outstanding from all accounts.

Still, the other problems remain according to general testers who are playing this next build. Character creation still lacks substance, the graphics still look like a Clone Wars cartoon, the game is still a horrifying grind at level 25+, still a theme park MMO, still has WoW style pvp that sucks, no space combat or exploration, still can’t sell my smuggling abilities for large quantities of credits…..you know, things that count.

It has been good that this is just beta, because it’s saved me from doing what I do best. Impulse buy. I would have bought this game without thinking had I not participated in two betas. I would have bought the Collector’s Edition for $150! This game isn’t worth $150, no way, no how.

Now after 2 betas and mulling over what I’ve seen and done and what this game really presents, I doubt I’ll be playing at launch. In fact, I’ll probably wait for one of two things to happen first. If not both.

1. The game needs to get past the 6 month player base curse. Mediocre MMOs go through a period of 6 months where the fanbois pick up the game, play for 1 – 6 months, get bored because it is a mediocre MMO after all, and then quit. Resulting in subscriber peaking and drop off.

This happened with Rift, Warhammer, AoC……most of the same ole same oles.

2. For it to go free to play.

I can not understand how this game is good enough for a monthly fee. If you’ve played the beta, you know how in depth the story lines are for every class. Complete with superior voice acted cutscenes. How anyone thinks there is enough content in this game to last everyone until a new expansion hits is beyond me. We had to wait 7 years just for this incarnation of SWTOR, how long do you suppose everyone will wait for them to develop another 8 classes of storyline complete with superior voice acting and cutscenes, along with new areas to level in, etc?

Sorry, I don’t trust EA enough to pull that off. Not in the time it would take someone to play a class, do everything, and get bored out of their skulls. This game never has shown me anything that would warrant a monthly subscription fee.

SWTOR is what BW does best. An RPG. It plays like an RPG, it just has some multiplayer quests sprinkled in it. I’d buy the game and then play it for free, you bet. But, I highly doubt I’ll be paying to sub it. It’ll be F2P in 2 – 4 years anyway.

But, alas, again I fire up the download and the game just to see if they’re going to surprise me this time. I don’t know why I do it. It’s like a guy who hits himself in the nuts repeatedly for an hour and half and then wonders why he can’t walk the next day. Then he does it again the next weekend.

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Band of Brothers In SWTOR

If you’ve never played EVE Online, or don’t know anyone who has, you won’t know who Band of Brothers [BoB] is. However, if you have played the game, or have ever come in contact with BoB, the news of their resurfacing in SWTOR is interesting to say the least.

I won’t rehash BoB’s history here, I’ll link their history instead.

http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Band_of_Brothers_(Player_alliance)

http://eve-history.net/wiki/index.php/Band_of_Brothers

SirMolle, the head honch from BoB, doesn’t really have a terrific reputation within the greater EVE population, but then again, most nullsec sov alliances don’t. I left EVE for awhile, even though I hold a very high opinion of the game. I miss it alot and I know I will return there eventually. I still keep up with the forums and the goings on within the game, so I found this particularly entertaining.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=595503&page=2

The above link will probably not work forever, so I’ll paraphrase the deal. BoB is forming an elite PvP guild on some server in SWTOR.

The reason this is kind of funny is that SWTOR is not a sandbox game. Much to my disappointment, as I’ve said before. But, it’s apparent to me that this guild has no idea that it isn’t. They look to pick up right where they left off in EVE “making alliances to achieve goals”, as was mentioned in one of the posts by a person I assume is Molle’s wife.

That sort of thing is unlikely to happen, unless MrsMolle there is referring to only picking up new blood for their numbers. It won’t happen because world pvp in SWTOR will be as dead as an undertaker’s coffin nail due to the mechanics that Bioware has in place in that game. Sure, there are pvp servers, but there is really no reason to have them because even in the beta there was no world pvp going on in any real quantity to speak of.

You can’t explore the opposite faction’s planets in SWTOR. This kills the idea of Pvp right from the off. There is one planet that is specifically for nothing but world pvp, even on a pve server. Ilum was the planet that everyone held up as their saving grace from the desolate wasteland that is world pvp in SWTOR. Unfortunately, even the general beta testers are left unsatisfied with the state of world pvp in SWTOR and Ilum had no effect.

SWTOR is like WoW in the fact that they’re seemingly trying to discourage open world pvp by including controlled pvp environments like WoW has. SWTOR has warzones, which were pretty thin, anyway. Ilum is nothing more than a glorified high level BG….sorry…..warzone. No alliances will be forming there.

Not that I can’t really blame BoB, here. I too would have liked to see many of the EVE O mechanics in SWTOR. Hell, the name and world really lends itself to that type of warfare! But, alas, we are not getting a sandbox. You can not be anything you want to be in SWTOR, you can be whatever BW and Lucas Arts tell you to be.

BoB’s history, though, precedes them. EVE is really a game of psychological warfare, which took it’s toll on their alliance. In fact, the psychological game of EVE is half, if not over half, of the entire game. Which I love!

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=40139&find=unread

Band of Brothers’ enemies within EVE have already gotten hold of the thread from SWTOR, and MrsMolle herself has acknowledged that they will be ready for any psycho warfare waged on them by their enemies. One poster vowed, “we will find you in SWTOR, you have no place to hide”.

Indeed.

I would have to question the tactics and motive and even the sanity behind taking the Band of Brothers name in SWTOR and holding it up like a badge of honor or street cred. from EVE. They’ve just opened themselves up for moles and spies planted in their SWTOR organization just “for the lulz”. Even though SWTOR has no chance of working the way BoB seems to think it will, or the way many of us wanted to see, there will now be infiltration, I predict.

If they wanted to start anew, this was a shitty was to do it. But, I’ll be watching, now. Because I love this shit. LOL

 

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