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Blue Milk & Cereal: Do You Want Achievements In TOR?

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!

Ah, achievements. They’ve become all the rage in the gaming community, and it doesn’t look like they’re going away any time soon.

Xbox Live, PlayStation Network and others have been able to increase games’ replayability with them. MMO games such as World of Warcraft has turned them into a huge meta-game, and may even grant in-game rewards such as titles or mounts. Steam has used these for games you purchase through them. Heck, even social apps like Gowalla allow you to earn them. Everywhere you look, achievements are there!

So the question is, would you want them to become a part of Star Wars: The Old Republic? BioWare has stated they like achievements and want them, but they may not be in for launch.

Personally, I’m torn. If you were to see my now out-dated Paladin from World of Warcraft, you’d see I racked up over 10,000 achievement points. On Xbox Live, I’m sitting at just under 15,000. I’m usually the guy who sits on the achievement screen to figure out what one I could go for today, or slowly work towards.

The biggest drawback I saw with them was that there never seemed to be any use for the points. Sure, in WoW by completing various achievements, we could gain a title, a mount, a pet, or something non-essential to playing. Other than that, it was just a little contest with friends to see who had more. They really just gave me something to do, when I had nothing to do.

In an MMO, problems can arise when it’s something that needs to be accomplished as a group, typically in a raid environment. If your group didn’t get awarded the achievement, everyone would want to die and start over. Sort of takes the fun out of playing the actual game… or does it?

While we still wait for BioWare to put the finishing touches on TOR, we can still hope that we’ll see them. Or pray that achievements will have no place in the game.

Which side of the achievement fence are you on? Do you want achievement points in the game, or prefer they’re not there? If you want achievements, would you want solo, group, or a mixed bag of achievements?

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Posted by Shockum | 21 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: Have You Stuck To Your Guns (Or Lightsaber)?

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!

When Star Wars: The Old Republic was first announced, and you made the decision that you wanted to play, one of the first questions that had to be answered was, “What class should I play?”

There are some of us who need time to make the final decision, perhaps not knowing until the TOR is out and we’re sitting in front of the character creator. Players now had the chance to play classes that resemble characters we’ve come to know and love. Either way, it became a difficult decision.

However, there were some of us, like me, who knew from the get go what we intended to play. Enter the Sith Inquisitor. Being cunning, manipulative, and giving me the ability to shoot lightning was all I needed. I was hooked the moment I read about the class. It all seemed very Sith-like to me. I knew right away I was going to be a Sith. No offense to those of the Republic, but they just seemed to be too good.

Now don’t get me wrong. I wavered on my choice for awhile. Although I always knew I was going to be Empire, I was thinking of setting down a lightsaber for a pistol.

For a brief moment, I thought of Boba Fett and becoming a Bounty Hunter, who only wants to get the job done. I even flirted with the idea of being an Imperial Agent, reminiscent of Thrawn (I’d recommend picking up the trilogy if you are unaware of the name).

But when all was said and done, I could not lay down the neopixel lightsaber. In a way I was asking myself, “Do you really want to do this?” The answer, clearly, was no. Although I’m intending to play each class over the life of TOR and I’ll have a full character selection screen,  my first character will be my first choice.

What about you? Have you stuck to your guns, or lightsaber? Or has one of the other classes caught your eye?

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Posted by Shockum | 15 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: Will You Be The Tortise Or The Hare?

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!

In nearly everything people do, it comes down to who did it first. Who won the race? Who made the first movie? Who was the first to walk on the moon? Questions like these always spark debate and draw the attention of the average, everyday person. You almost never hear the person who finished second. All the glory is reserved for number one.

When Star Wars: The Old Republic launches, we are all going to be level 1, and all starting from scratch. People are going to have the chance to shoot for the first level 50 of their server, class and perhaps even the world.

So, that raises the question: Will you be the tortoise or the hare?

I’m sure many people will plan a vacation around launch time, or at the very least call in sick to get their hands on the game, and hit the ground running. To them, it almost becomes a competition with others – either literal or figurative – to be that first player walking around with Level 50 by their name. To do this, they’ll most likely be hitting the space bar to get through the dialogue faster, ignoring a majority of the voice acting.

On the other hand, there will be others who want to enjoy The Old Republic’s universe and be immersed in it. They are not trying to be the road runner and max their character. They want to take it easy and explore the nooks and crannies of each planet. The idea is to find all the secrets a planet may hold, see how high you can get on a distant peak, find all the datacrons, and enjoy the game as a whole. They may even play multiple characters, trying to get them all to Level 50 at the same relative time. To them, speed matters not.

At the end of the day, it comes down to how do you want to play SW:TOR. No matter if you have energy drinks prepared and order a couple pizzas for an all-nighter, or are actually planning a full night of sleep the day the game releases, you’ll be able to play however you like.

So, how are you planning to play your first character? More like the tortoise, or hare?

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