Jan 12, 2012

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All The Galaxy’s A Stage: A Role-Player’s Confession…

All The Galaxy’s A Stage is a regular column at Ask A Jedi with some lofty, creative goals.  On one hand, we will be discussing and exploring meaningful topics to support the role-play experience and community.  On the other hand, we also want to introduce the casual Role-Player to the writing-acting experience that can add so much more to an MMORPG like Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Share your perspectives and experience as we co-create magical story in that galaxy far, far away!

When I started playing Lord of the Rings Online I remember the Role-Play flowing from day 1.  I still recall many of the early story events and RP running every evening.  It was all I could do to get my character to level 10 (with lots of RP along the way) so that I could comfortably RP the trip to Bree.  And then when reaching the Prancing Pony the stories we created together only got better.

Well, I have a confession.  So far I’ve not done much RP in TOR.  Why?  The story…

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Jan 5, 2012

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All The Galaxy’s A Stage: Time Out (Of Character!)

All The Galaxy’s A Stage is a regular column at Ask A Jedi with some lofty, creative goals.  On one hand, we will be discussing and exploring meaningful topics to support the role-play experience and community.  On the other hand, we also want to introduce the casual Role-Player to the writing-acting experience that can add so much more to an MMORPG like Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Share your perspectives and experience as we co-create magical story in that galaxy far, far away!

For many years I role-played with a house rule known as the Time Out for an in-person RP chronicle.  Calling for a time out would happen maybe a couple of times a night (we met weekly).  The reasons for calling a time out from the RP included: resolving opposed challenges (where someone tries to oppose what you’re doing), combat and some intricate interpretation of the rules.  The benefit of a time out was that it allowed everyone involved to explain their position, and provided the Game Master (GM – the referee for those not familiar with this role) time to make any decision needed.  It took a GM or assistant GM to call, or approve the calling of, a time out.  Occasionally a player would call for a time out but a GM would have to approve.

I got to thinking about the idea of a Time Out in an MMO.  Our real-world RP had a GM to make sure the concept of a time out wasn’t abused.  Certainly calling a time out made sense in those particularly tense situations.  But time outs also interrupt the flow of RP, and break immersion.

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Dec 29, 2011

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All The Galaxy’s A Stage: The Dissonance Of Determined Dialogue

All The Galaxy’s A Stage is a regular column at Ask A Jedi with some lofty, creative goals.  On one hand, we will be discussing and exploring meaningful topics to support the role-play experience and community.  On the other hand, we also want to introduce the casual Role-Player to the writing-acting experience that can add so much more to an MMORPG like Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Share your perspectives and experience as we co-create magical story in that galaxy far, far away!

With a couple of weeks of play under my belt I am not surprised.  BioWare’s dialogue wheel for TOR is everything I expected it to be.  I have a background for a character.  I get presented with situations which call me to make a choice from three options.  When the wheel comes up I know the top choice will (generally) be the virtuous one.  The middle choice will be some aspect of neutral.  And the bottom choice will be selfish or evil.

This has led to a far-from-surprising conversation around the Web about how unique an individual player’s story for TOR can be.  The good news for role-players is that (in my humble opinion) this is a non-issue.  I think the real question is; will the story and dialogue choices presented by BioWare inspire the development of my character and personal story in any way?

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Dec 22, 2011

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All The Galaxy’s A Stage: The Story So Far…

All The Galaxy’s A Stage is a regular column at Ask A Jedi with some lofty, creative goals.  On one hand, we will be discussing and exploring meaningful topics to support the role-play experience and community.  On the other hand, we also want to introduce the casual Role-Player to the writing-acting experience that can add so much more to an MMORPG like Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Share your perspectives and experience as we co-create magical story in that galaxy far, far away!

I’ve now had a chance to play my character on the Shien RP-PvE (NA) server for over a week.  With some time under my belt in the actual game some things are definitely jumping out at me.

Not bring able to sit on chairs is really a gap for me.  Well, that’s not completely true.  I can sit on chairs in my spaceship.  However, if I want to chill in the Cantina then I am out of luck.  I miss being able to have my avatar sit on chairs.  I am hoping that this is a feature that makes it in a patch…soon™.

There are no chat bubbles for launch.  I’m not too concerned about this personally.   But the RP community has many, many citizens who are dismayed at the lack of chat bubbles.  If it’s an option that can be toggled on and off, then I say bring it in.  Hopefully, chat bubbles also make it into the game…soon(tm).

Do you remember my article about the hidden grind of Social points?  Have you tried to get social points lately?  My main is at about 400 social points and I’ve been doing a notable amount of questing with guild-mates and others.  I am just over halfway through Social I.  I may be missing something, but social points are proving to be harder to get than a deal from a Toydarian.

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Dec 15, 2011

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All The Galaxy’s A Stage: The Brady Bunch Legacy

All The Galaxy’s A Stage is a regular column at Ask A Jedi with some lofty, creative goals.  On one hand, we will be discussing and exploring meaningful topics to support the role-play experience and community.  On the other hand, we also want to introduce the casual Role-Player to the writing-acting experience that can add so much more to an MMORPG like Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Share your perspectives and experience as we co-create magical story in that galaxy far, far away!

As a Role-Player I enjoy the idea of a surname for my characters.  It is fair to say that over the past thirty years most of my characters have had surnames.

But I will say this.  As a rule of thumb I’ve never made a habit of giving all my characters the same last name for my characters.  Come to think of it I’ve never done this once.

I’d also heard that BioWare are Role-Players.  I’d like to think that any Role-Player worth their salts has not given all their characters the same last name.  It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to assume that RPers like Daniel Erickson have followed this normal convention.

That is unless you’re playing in a campaign to act out your Jackson or Brady Bunch fantasy.

Can you see where this is going yet?

For those of you that don’t know, the Legacy system is a feature that kicks in once you’ve completed the first chapter of your first character’s story in-game.  At that point you get to give your character a surname.  Having been confronted with no option for a surname at creation most Role-Players would be forgiven their excitement at learning this.  I too was excited when I encountered this during game testing – until I read the fine print.

The thing is, you get one UNIQUE surname per account.  Or is it server?  it doesn’t matter.  Either scenario is *word left on the editing floor*.

Since inception this column has been generally warm toward BioWare game design choices.  In my opinion this is one of the most disappointing design choices for Role-Players that has been made in TOR. I cannot for the life of me believe that a Role-Player made this choice.  Perhaps the design team wanted to pay tribute to the Brady Bunch?

I tried to consider technological constraints.  Perhaps technology makes this difficult?  And then I realized that other games have given us unique surnames.  So it is not an impossible thing to do.  It must be a design choice.  But why, BioWare, why?

A unique name per server (or account) means I get to play alts, but can forget surnames for any characters that are not married (to my other characters?) or are siblings of my main.

I am curious to see if other RPers are in agreement with me.  It’s probably too late to change, but I would like to get some numbers rating dissatisfaction on this feature.  If you really care about this topic please let your friends know about this poll and convince them to come and vote.  BioWare staff do read these columns and, if they can see past how much I’ve just mocked their decision makers, perhaps they’ll consider changing this some day.  Stranger things have happened…

As a Role-Player do you like a single surname as a Legacy reward?

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Dec 9, 2011

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All The Galaxy’s A Stage: The Role Player’s Hidden Grind

All The Galaxy’s A Stage is a regular column at Ask A Jedi with some lofty, creative goals.  On one hand, we will be discussing and exploring meaningful topics to support the role-play experience and community.  On the other hand, we also want to introduce the casual Role-Player to the writing-acting experience that can add so much more to an MMORPG like Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Share your perspectives and experience as we co-create magical story in that galaxy far, far away!

During game testing I had a chance to take a quick peek at social and alignment gear. And what I found was a mixed-bag. On one hand, there is social and dark/light sided clothing that offers richer wardrobe opportunities than you can get with quest gear alone. On the other hand, it appears that getting some of the snazzier looking clothing is going to take some significant effort.

Socially Acceptable

Social gear is gotten from social points.  Every conversation dialog you participate in gets you points. If you’re in a 2, 3 or 4 player group and enter a heroic instance you are going to get social points. Specifically, you get a point for each player in each response if you don’t win the roll, and two points if you do. When rolling with a 4-player group you will get 8 points when you win and 4 points when you lose.

But what does 8 or 2 points for each moment of dialog actually mean?  Well, the scale on the character sheet seemed to go up to at least a thousand points. I was not clear (since I did n0t get into many groups) as to how this works over time. On average there seemed to be perhaps 3 to 5 opportunities for dialog in a heroic quest. I suspect we will be looking at between 10-20 points per heroic quest run. Approximately 60-70 heroic quests will be needed to cap out that first tier of social points, assuming 1,000 social points is the target.

That does it! I hate these pants, and I'm simply done with this grind.

That does it! I hate these pants, and I'm simply done with this grind.

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