Posted by Lethality in Blue Milk & Cereal | 17 Comments
Blue Milk & Cereal: Are You Enjoying Space Combat?
No day would be complete without the breakfast of Jedi: Blue Milk & Cereal. Every morning, the team at Ask A Jedi will get Force-induced thoughts coursing through your head with delicious issues from around the galaxy! Join in the discussion below to make your voice heard!
The other day, we talked about how Warzones as a great diversion from leveling through your class story. They’re easy to get into, give experience and other rewards for minimal effort, and of course there’s nothing more fun that making anyone from the other faction extremely miserable.
But today I wanted to talk about another diversion: Space Combat. When BioWare revealed at San Diego Comic-Con in 2010 that players in Star Wars: The Old Republic would get their own starship – and be able to use it in epic space battles that Star Wars is known for, everyone was ecstatic! It was one of the major questions about the game up to that point, and BioWare finally answered!
Once we learned a bit more about Space Combat, some of the shiny came off. It was revealed to be a mini-game that didn’t tie into your story in any way. Worse, it was what they call a “tunnel shooter”. That means that you don’t actually get free control of your ship, but rather it’s “on rails” and has a very arcade-ish feel, rather than the freedom you’d expect from an MMO. Further, Space Combat had no multi-player modes and there was no PvP.
Having said all of that, once players finally got their hands on it, there was no denying: it’s fun! The gameplay is satisfying and the visuals are gorgeous. Not only that, it’s very easy to pick up and do a few missions when you have very little play time. These are the kind of dailies I can stomach.
So we just want to know… are you getting into Space Combat? Are you upgrading your ship? And what are your hopes and thoughts about how BioWare might expand on it in the future?
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I’m actually quite surprised by it. I hated the idea of an on rails mini-game (that’s not swoop racing which still takes some strategy). But it is actually enjoyable and a good way to get some experience very very quickly
I actually may have gotten a little too much XP from it, because I played the space missions very frequently. By the time I got to Balmorra on my Jedi, I was about 4-5 levels above the content… oops! :)
Yes. It reminds me of Rebel Assault, which is a nice little nostalgia trip.
Perhaps someday we’ll have free-roaming space flight a la the X-Wing/TIE Fighter simulator that everybody seems to want, but it’ll probably be a long way off, if ever. I’m fine either way, though.
This is how I feel as well. I would rather have some free roam space content, but I won’t say I don’t enjoy the current space content just because I didn’t get what I wanted. The current content is a great mini game.
On the one hand I love it as a diversion and mini game, then again I don’t do it much since it gives WAY too much experience (I am at level 33 now), and all my quests have already been constantly green since level ~10.
Around level 20, you can do 3 daily space combat quests featuring (if I remember correctly) 5 different missions. If you do just these, the experience point gain surpasses 44.000 XP, which at that level is around a quarter of the level.
So I probably won’t do it until much closer to level 50, same goes for PvP. I don’t want to be too high level for all those wonderful planets out there, just because I enjoy some space combat and PvP on the side. That will be a guilty pleasure on max lvl =)
I actually jumped about 5 levels above my questing zones through Space Missions and PvP. My quests have been Green since Coruscant. I do EVERY quest outside of the Bonus Series on a planet too… So now at level 43 I’m just getting to where my quests are Yellow again. Hah.
It looks great and is fun to play. I love the Makem Te Assault setting. Upper Atmosphere combat? Awesome.
I tried it once and haven’t been back. Coming from SWG’s space experience I have a hard time with it, but mostly I am just having too much fun in the actual game. I like that it is there and I enjoy mini-games, so I expect I’ll be back at some point.
Played it dailiy during the levelling process. Haven’t touched it at 50.
It’s enjoyable but.
Very surprised at how much I love the Space missions.
I was space mission ambivalent until I tried it – really like them now. 5 minute run times without having to gather a group first, token rewards for upgrades, titles and XP – whats not to like.
I would, however, like to see something like X-wing. Many, many mis-spent hours on our schools old Win 3.1 PC’s :)
I enjoyed it, especially the first time you do it and clear a whole level in a short amount of time. Far more enjoyable than a WOW Gryphon Bombing Run :P
End game wise, its lacking, fully geared with epics the rewards for continuing space missions is paultry and not worth the effort, and I no longer do it on my L50 main.
I was however disappointed it was not in the class mission series or any other storyline… it would of been a great segway for a mission to disable a corvette and then board it. Instead any and all ship boardings were *screen black* your on the ship!
There was an earlier dev post from some point during the beta where they talked about this. It sounded as if they had integrated space missions at one point in the design process.
But! ultimately they stripped it away so they wouldn’t be forcing anyone to participate in what is ultimately an elaborate mini-game. Not sure if you’re a PVPer, but imagine if they included forced warzone participation in the class stories?
I agree that some would find the mini game requirement a bit tedious to be able to access content. But what if they required that someone in the group had to have done the mini game to access the flashpoint content.
That might make it a bit more palletable for folks. Plus I see it as being optional content just like heroics and flashpoints. Some will play to 50 and never do those quests, just as some will level to 50 and not PvP. Why not add additonal optional content that requires space combat to unlock a mission. Of course the other option is to make it a choice at the start of the mission. `Sir will you be flying your own space ship to board the star destoyer`
Give players the option to fly the mission themselves or access the content via drop ship or have someone, Bill the best pilot around, fly across in a cut scene.
More options I belive means more longevity for the game as it allows for multiple play throughs of the content each time picking and choosing differnt quest options to level up your character. Far too often MMO`s add additional content to raise level cap, but for those out there that will play alts, and obviously there are many that do, why not provide additional content to provide for a new feel with each play through. I could see someone choosing to not fly missions with a Jedi Consular, but doing all the flying themselves when playing a Smuggler.
Yes, but I wish they came with a little bit more reward. It seems that I spend all of my money on crafting and other things, so I can never buy the spaceship upgrades I need to continue on into the better space missions, and I’ve gotten to the point where I’m too high level for the first ones that come out. So I’m at a stuck point, where I need to save money I constantly spend on other things, to buy upgrades so I can continue on.
Simply put, I have to spend a lot of money I don’t have if I want to play them at the higher levels…
I love space! Good XP and credits, not to mention it breaks up the ground quests for a while….it gives you something else to do.
For those worried about money, I do point out that even the grey dailies still give cash. If you’re looking to get into space missions, the trick is to go back and do all of the greys you can for a day or two to pay for the next level of upgrades.
Similarly, when I strapped that day for leveling something, a speeder, etc, I’ll run the highest level greys for the cash just to make ends meet.