Posted by Shockum | 12 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: What Kind Of Raider Will You Be?

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!

Raiding is a staple of the MMO genre. Over time, it has evolved to become the premiere form of end-game content, where players can band together to take on the greatest foes a particular game has to offer. With Star Wars: The Old Republic, BioWare seems to be looking to add more to end-game, but raiding is still present in the form of Operations, the first of which is the Eternity Vault.

The multi-player component of MMOs is important, and raiding serves to bring players together in a big way. Not only is it a catalyst for joining a guild, but there is almost a “meta-community” that has formed around this aspect of gameplay. There are “rock star” guilds and players, and sites dedicated to tracking guild progression as well as assisting players in optimizing for this style of gameplay. It’s only a matter of time before these elements emerge in the TOR community as well.

The notion of raiding has always brought with it the perception that large chunks of time were required to progress and be successful, because mostly it’s true. Blizzard has achieved some success in making raiding more accessible by introducing smaller groups and harder challenges for those with more skill and time. It’s yet to be seen how BioWare will handle this, but it’s safe to assume they’ll work hard on accessibility as well.

So the question today is – are you a raider, and if so, how would you classify yourself? Let us know!

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Posted by ReDDoT | 34 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: What Do You Think Of The Loot Container System?

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!

At this point, we know that Star Wars: The Old Republic will have raiding (known in TOR as Operations), which of course is an MMO end-game staple. But what will keep Operations interesting? Running with your guild mates? For sure. The challenges thrown at you? Most definitely. The story line that will grasp everyone? Very possible.

But perhaps the most appealing aspect of a raid to an MMO player is the idea of acquiring that new piece of gear – the loot. It keeps players coming back hunting for more gear to start or complete their sets. Some gear can be so unique and hard to get that it is exclusive to only a few players on a server.

And to make all of this looting fun rather than a chore, you need a fair system for loot distribution. It needs to be flexible enough to allow guilds to implement their own rules, while allowing all players present to have a chance at getting something from  participating. A few days ago, Stephen Reid gave us some preliminary details on the “loot container” system that is currently being tested. Here’s the quote:

As it’s currently implemented, at the end of a key encounter within an Operation, upon looting a high-level opponent, everyone in the Operations group will get an individual container which has a chance to give you a random piece of loot that’s specific to your class. It could be part of an armor set, a weapon, and so on. If you don’t get loot, you’ll get commendations which can be used to purchase gear.

From this, we can see that everyone will walk out at least somewhat happy after completing a high-level encounter in an Operation. Of course, some will be more lucky as they might get a piece of a gear, but everyone will have a reward of some sort. In my opinion, this is a great change that will attract even more players to participate in Operations. They know they won’t leave empty-handed.

So what do you think? Is this a new, innovating idea? Or is it essentially the same old thing wrapped up in a new box? Will this solve loot disputes? Let us know your thoughts!

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Posted by ReDDoT | 13 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: What Is Your Ideal Raid Size?

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 a player goes through their class story in Star Wars: The Old Republic, and finally reaches the level cap, he will reach the end-game. While we don’t know BioWare’s exact plan yet, this end-game content is crucial for any MMO, as that’s normally what progression is based around, and what keeps players coming back for more. In many MMOs, this end-game content takes the form of large groups known as raids.

Among the huge variety of MMO games out there, each stands with its own specifics in regards to how many players make up a “raid” group. For example, World of Warcraft’s first raid – Molten Core – was originally a 40-man raid. Today, World of Warcraft’s largest raid size is 25 players. Most current MMO games have raid content that accommodates group sizes of about 20 people.

So far, we know that TOR’s raids will be called Operations. We even have a trailer for one of the operations, titled the Eternity Vault. And just recently we found out from a german GameStar magazine, that interviewed BioWare’s Gabe Amatangelo, that all raids will come in 8 and 16-man sizes, with different difficulty settings per size. This news immediately sparked a large debate on the official forums and is still quite heated. Of course, any news will do that. :)

Personally, I think an 8-man raid is a perfect size. It allows the groups to be organized much quicker, requires a reasonable amount of people, while still keeping the functional organization and coordination at a challenging level. I went through 40-man raids, 25-man raids and many others – and I believe that the ideal size of a group hovers between 8 and 18 people, luckily, TOR seems to be just in that range, so big thumbs up to BioWare from my end.

What about you though? Are you happy with the 8 and 16-man raid size? What’s the ideal raid size for you? Let us know!

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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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