Posted by Joanis | 9 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: What Do You Think Social Points Will Be Used For?

 

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 Star Wars: The Old Republic will feature a unique currency known as social points. So far they’ve only announced that the currency will be awarded for completing group conversations throughout the game, and people who have gotten to play TOR have seen social points awarded at the end of in-game conversations with NPCs.

Even though it’s easy to understand how social points will be awarded, we have no idea what they’ll be used for. I can only think of a couple things. Maybe they’ll be used to buy certain items that will increase your rolls to make conversation choices, or unique clothing to wear around.  Outside of these sorts of things, I have no idea.  I can only hope they don’t include rewards for social points that actually make your character more powerful.

What do you think social points will be used for? Do you want them to reward things that affect your gameplay? As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts below!

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Posted by Joanis | 17 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: Are Cross-Server Groups A Good Thing Or A Bad Thing?

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!

There’s a certain thrill that comes with finding a dungeon group. You become familiar with the good and bad guilds on your server and you add good group-mates to your friends list. You might even develop a reputation for yourself as a good player, resulting in a flurry of messages from past group-mates every time you log in.

Depending on the dungeon, finding groups could take some time. When Blizzard added the Dungeon Finder to World of Warcraft, many players were happy with how easy it became to find groups.  The number of people available in a group of servers made finding groups faster and you could do other things while waiting for your dungeon group to fill.

However, constantly grouping with people you never see again took most of the social aspect away from sharing a server with other players. I rarely group with people on my server outside of my guild, since I use the dungeon finder when my guild-mates are busy.

Do you think cross-server groups are good or bad? Do you miss the social aspect of getting to know your server-mates?

As far as we know, TOR will not have this mechanic, at least at launch. But would they be a good idea for TOR? Please vote and explain your reasoning below!

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Posted by Joanis | 16 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: Should There Be Arena-Style PvP 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!

Arena PvP: some people love it. Some people hate it.  Pitting a small number of combatants head-to-head gives the developers an easier time of balancing player-versus-player combat by minimizing variables.  This small-scale combat can be intense and visceral. However, in a class-based game like an MMO, it can often be frustrating.

For me, arena PvP always turned into a flavor of the month-based game of rock-paper-scissors. Some months, your class will be the best in the game, but after they nerf it, you might as well reroll instead of PvP.  While these are exaggerative statements, when your class is out of favor with developers, it can be extremely difficult to do well in arena-based PvP. One overpowered class doesn’t pull nearly as much weight in large-scale battles like TOR’s Warzones.

Despite all these gameplay complaints based on my own opinion, arena-style PvP does have basis in Star Wars lore.  From the gladiatorial arenas on Geonosis to the one-versus-one battles on Taris in Knights of The Old Republic, small-scale battles have always had their place in Star Wars.

Do you think there should be arena-style PvP in TOR? Or do you think the large-scale battles of TOR’s Warzones capture the heroic battles of Star Wars well enough?

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Posted by Joanis | 6 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: Should There Be Cross-Faction Cooperation?

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!

Even during times of great conflict between the Republic and the Empire, situations that threaten both factions occur. Maybe an alien cult is building a weapon that will render space fleets obsolete. Maybe an unknown race launches a chemical weapon that spreads a plague throughout the galaxy. Both of these scenarios threaten the Republic and the Empire equally, and each group would have to plan their own response to the crisis.

If such an event threatened the existence of the galaxy, cooperation between the Republic and the Empire would make sense. However, since each of the two groups is essentially seeking the other’s destruction, my opinion is that both groups would rather operate independently than cooperate with the enemy.

Do you think there should be cross-faction cooperation in TOR? Or do you think it makes more sense for the Republic and the Empire to deal with threats their own way? Discuss below!

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Posted by Joanis | 2 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: Are You Playing Your Class For The Story?

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!

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As you take your first steps as a Bounty Hunter on Hutta, you drink in the proverbial air of your surroundings.  Other denizens of the galactic underworld mill about engaging in activities that are probably against the law. As you walk toward the first quest giver, you dream about your character’s future. What targets will you be tasked with taking out for credits? How will you shape the galaxy’s future?

A lot of these questions resonate with me. I’m excited about my character having a story of its own.  Being able to see my character’s impact on the galaxy from chapter to chapter, as well as the impact of other classes’ stories, is a welcome change from not reading quest text. It is the first time an MMO has a reason to pick your class other than just gameplay.

Will a class’ story have an impact on your decision to play it? Or will the storyline just be a nice addition to make your grind to max level less boring? Maybe it’s somewhere in between?

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