Saturday, March 24, 2012

Wait a political posting?  On a gaming blog?.....

Well sorta, with the elections coming this November and the candidates starting their rounds we all need to ask ourselves, "How does this guy effect my life?".  SOPA and PIPA are on the back burner but they aren't gone and we need to ask how will this effect gaming in the future?


With today's access to video capture, sound recording, screen capture etc. made so simple, do we really want to be able to enjoy, and share information concerning games openly and publicly as we do now without the risk of lawsuits?  That's the risk they acts present, they could kill mediums like Youtube, Twitch.tv, Ustream etc. by making it actionable for us to stream content.

I'm sure you may be thinking, "But it's free advertising for their games why would they?", but think of all the angry videos of people criticizing games you see....

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

As I mentioned a bit ago I've been getting lost in the Star Wars: The Old Republic.  The question is, With all of the cloned MMO's out there what makes SWTOR worth playing?

The Answer is:  The Story. 

Bioware actually broke the mold on this one and made a story driven MMO.  On the upside it gives a level of immersion rarely seen in MMO's and via a medium no major MMO has tackled.  Cinematic cut-scenes  guide you from Mission to Mission as you travel through the Old Republic universe.  Each character Class has it's own unique story shared between their two advanced classes, and none of these stories feel dry and drawn out. 

Crafting in the Old Republic is handled by Companions.  NPC's you have limited control over (you can turn on and off abilities), who follow you around (1 at a time and hot swappable out of combat) and assist you as you progress through the game.  As you travel you can gather resources which non-active Companions can transform into items.  Currently there are issues with Crafting that need to be addressed.  Currently most Top Tier craftables are inferior to easily obtainable Mid Tier Raid gear, they are very much in need of being rebalanced for the long term good of the game establishing a player driven economy. 

In reality there are only 4 character classes, each class has a Mirror class in the opposite faction.  Sith Warriors are more or less equivalent to Jedi Knights, Bounty Hunters to Troopers, Imperial Agents to Smugglars, etc.  While there are minor differences they are mainly in damage types, damage application (instant vs animation triggered), and animation types.  Sith Inquisitors for example gain Force Lighting, while their mirror the Jedi Consular gains Force Project (a hail of stones).  All these differences are minor in first regards but can lead to quite a difference in overall effectiveness and tactics.  Unfortunately currently the favor seems to lead towards Empire Faction characters leading to a large imbalance of Republic to Imperial characters on most servers. 

Advance Classes are mirrored as well, if you don't know what advance classes are let me explain.  At lvl 10 you get to choose between 2 paths for a character.  Jedi Knights can choose between Jedi Guardian and Jedi Sentinel, each has different strengths, weaknesses, and roles.  Guardians for example are Tank Classes for the most part, while Sentinels are Melee DPS. 

I will have to say SWTOR is a very enjoyable game, and worth the time to check out.  It's still a very immature game as it has only been live for a few months, so don't go into it expecting everything to be flawless. 

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Yea I know I've not been writing, well I've been busy.  I've been getting down and dirty with SW:TOR



For those of you who haven't played it, well on one side you are missing a game with great potential, excellent story writing an a unique was of delivering the story through it's cinematic.    On the other side of the coin you have a game that is still going through it's initial growing pains and finding it's identity.  End Game content (High LvL) content is still not there yet, Open World PvP is almost non-existent, and a few bugs still riddle the game.   On the up side Patch 1.2 will bring a lot to the table.

In other gaming news Everquest went F2P so if you aren't wanting to invest the money on a new game dig out your old disks and revisit Norrath.

I'll do a bit more on SW:TOR in the next couple of days as well as look at getting some good screenshots. I did some streaming off the Public Test Server the other night showing off some of 1.2's changes, though being on a low level character didn't open up all the possibilities.

If you want to see the video visit my channel at Twitch.tv
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