Jun 27, 2011

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Blue Milk & Cereal: Should You Be Able To Keep Your Trusty Blaster Or Lightsaber Forever?

No day would be complete without the breakfast of Jedi: Blue Milk & Cereal.  Every morning, Joanis and 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 both of our interviews with him, BioWare’s Principle Lead Systems Designer Damion Schubert hinted that players would be able to tinker with their items to either improve them or change them in some way. He even hinted that you might be able to change vibroblades into lightsabers. The main idea I’ve gotten from it is that players will somehow be able to upgrade their weapons via crew skills.

Many fans have mentioned that almost every famous Star Wars character has his or her weapon of choice. Both Han Solo and Darth Vader used the same weapon for all three movies of the original trilogy. If we are able to upgrade our weapons in a way that allows us to convert our favorite lightsaber from a level-24 to a level-47 item, then players could theoretically use their favorite weapon forever.

However, if players were able to upgrade items indefinitely, then raid and dungeon drops would be used much less frequently. MMO gameplay, at its root, is based of players leveling up and upgrading their gear. If the drive for loot is partially or totally removed from the game, there will have to be other reasons for raiding.

Do you think people should be able to keep the same weapon or armor forever? Do you think such a system can hold up in a loot-based game?

Should you be able to keep and upgrade your weapon for as long as you like?

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Jun 24, 2011

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Blue Milk & Cereal: Do You Want To See Holidays In TOR?

No day would be complete without the breakfast of Jedi: Blue Milk & Cereal.  Every morning, Joanis and 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-game holidays never caught on with me.  I’ve spent most of my MMO career playing World of Warcraft, and many of its in-game holidays are copies of real-life events such as Christmas and the Chinese New Year.  Every year the holidays would come along and my guild-mates would log on and force themselves through the quests for achievement points, but I didn’t. The quests were often annoying and the result didn’t warrant the effort.

TOR offers an opportunity to do something different since the Star Wars universe actually has its own holidays.  While many of the holidays sound similar to those we have in real life, BioWare isn’t limited to holidays that are already canon.  If there is enough community interest, BioWare could create holidays to meet player demands.

Do you want to see holidays in TOR? Should they be based on real-life holidays? If there are holidays, do you think holidays should have gameplay elements attached to them? Vote and discuss!

Should there be in-game holiday events in The Old Republic?

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Jun 23, 2011

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Blue Milk & Cereal: Are You Going To Miss Swimming?

No day would be complete without the breakfast of Jedi: Blue Milk & Cereal.  Every morning, Joanis and 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!

As you stroll through the Jedi compound on Tython, you are continually awestruck by the beauty of the planet. The landscape is dotted with sparkling lakes and one with a particularly beautiful waterfall catches your eye. You run over to check it out. As you stand at the edge, you wonder how deep it is. You stare at it, sigh, and walk away. There will be many more unexplored lakes in your future. Somewhere in your Jedi training they forgot to include the skill of swimming.

Aion, World of Warcraft and other popular MMOs all offer the ability to swim. One could even say that swimming has become a standard feature of modern MMOs. When BioWare announced that swimming would not be included at TOR’s release, there was a massive outcry from TOR’s community. Citing that they would have to create underwater content to justify adding swimming, BioWare’s Georg Zoeller responded that it’s something they might do at a later time.

So, are you going to miss swimming? Do you think adding swimming at a later date is a bad thing? Will it affect your decision to buy TOR?

Does the lack of swimming in TOR surprise you?

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Does the lack of swimming in TOR bother you?

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Jun 22, 2011

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Blue Milk & Cereal: Is TOR Going To Be Your First MMO?

No day would be complete without the breakfast of Jedi: Blue Milk & Cereal.  Every morning, Joanis and 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!

I still remember my first MMO. Like many people, my first MMO was World of Warcraft. To this day, it pains me to look back on my first year playing the game.  It took me 10 months to reach maximum level, and even then I had no idea what I was doing.  It was unlike anything I had ever played, and it quickly became the world where I spent a great portion of the following six years.

If you’ve never played an MMO before, something specific always draws you in. For me it was a world that I already knew a lot about. I had played Blizzard’s Warcraft strategy games for years. Once WoW was announced, I was eager to experience my favorite game world in a different way. However, if it hadn’t been for the Warcraft universe, I can safely say it would have taken me much longer to get on the MMO train.

For many future TOR players, this will be their first MMO. The Star Wars universe is richer and more developed in history than Warcraft will ever be, guaranteeing it will have a pull just as strong as WoW did for its followers.

Is TOR going to be your first MMO? What kept you from playing MMOs before? Or are you an MMO veteran looking for the next big thing? Discuss!

Will Star Wars: The Old Republic be your first MMO?

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Pretty much this.

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Jun 21, 2011

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Blue Milk & Cereal: How Hard Should Titles Be To Earn?

No day would be complete without the breakfast of Jedi: Blue Milk & Cereal.  Every morning, Joanis and 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!

BioWare announced some time ago that players would able to earn titles for their exploits in TOR. Some of the titles include Master, Lord and Darth. While some of the titles will be rewards for quests, others will be rewarded for raiding and player-versus-player combat. Some of them are going to be easier to get than others.

My opinion is that if titles such as Grand Master or Dark Lord are attainable, only a few people per server should be able to get them. It should be a long and difficult quest that takes hours and hours to complete. Such titles shouldn’t be rewarded for things that most people are expected to complete, such as class quests and raid content. If everyone has a title, it has much less meaning.

Others should be easier to attain. It shouldn’t take 40 hours to get every title. Only those select few that mean the most should take a lot of effort. I’m totally okay with every trooper running around with the Sergeant title.  Grand Generals should be much more uncommon, though.

How hard should titles be to earn? Do you think everyone should have the opportunity to get every title?

How hard should it be to earn titles?

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Arise, Darth Snoop! (Hey, he knew the handshake...)

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