Posted by ReDDoT | 9 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: Do You Like BioWare’s Cross-Faction Chat Solution?

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!

Obviously, communication is a big part of MMO games… How would other players know what you’re doing without it? But most MMO games have more than one faction, and the developer sets limits as to how the communication between those factions should be handled. For example, in World of Warcraft – chat between the two factions is not possible at all. Players on opposite factions are only able to communicate via /emotes and physical character actions. Previous experience suggests that a completely open-channel communication between all factions leads to griefing and corpse camping and other potential “unpleasant” aspects.

With regards to TOR, there were a lot of rumors and speculative threads over the last few days, quickly confirming and denying the presence of a cross-faction chat. This chaos was halted by Georg Zoeller coming out and clarifying the topic in a fairly lengthy post. Here’s the most important bit:

As discussed at SDCC, the decision was made to separate the general chat channels by faction. However, this decision ONLY affects the planet-wide chat channels such as “General Chat.” If you’re standing next to another player (local chat), you can talk to them regardless of what faction you’re part of. 

In my opinion, this is the perfect compromise. The immersion isn’t broken by not being able to communicate with the opposite faction, who in theory are able to speak the same language as you. This also helps out role-playing immensely, as well as provides for just-enough trash-talking when you’re face-to-face with the enemy!

What about you? Do you think there is place for a cross-faction chat in TOR? Do you think BioWare’s decision is too limiting or too open?

 

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Posted by Lethality | 12 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: What Did You Think Of The Eternity Vault?

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!

Yesterday during the Electronic Arts press conference, the Star Wars: The Old Republic portion was dedicated primarily to talking about and showing off end-game information.

Dr. Ray Muzyka was on hand to introduce Lead End-game Designer Gabe Amatangelo, who narrated a live demo of 8 BioWare staffers tried to guide an Imperial team through the first encounters of the Eternity Vault Operation. Wether they were successful or not is of some debate this morning ;)

None the less, we got to see some pretty intense action, in fact the first live raid gameplay ever for the public. After the live gameplay ended, Gabe introduced a short pre-recorded gameplay video from further into the Eternity Vault. In this clip, we got to see some different areas, creatures, and what appeared to be some sort of puzzle mechanic.

In my opinion, everything we saw added to my confidence that BioWare is going to deliver an end-game worthy of seasoned MMO players.

But what did you guys think? Was there anything you saw that was cool? Did anything come across as boring or silly? Let us know!

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Posted by Lethality | 14 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: What Do You Hope To See From gamescom?

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!

Since gamescom 2011 kicks off today, we thought Blue Milk & Cereal should stick with the theme!

In just a few short hours, Electronic Arts will hold their press conference in which they’ll demo the latest and greatest of their upcoming wares. According to BioWare Senior Community Manager Stephen Reid, the Battlefield 3 trailer is nothing less than jaw-dropping. But for readers of this site, we also know there BioWare will show a demo of the Eternity Vault, the first Operation (raid) in Star Wars: The Old Republic.

But beyond that, what else do you hope or think we’ll see come out of gamescom? Maybe it’s PvP info? More crafting info? Perhaps the final Holonet tab unleveled? Or maybe James Ohlen’s final “big thing”?

We can only include so many options in the poll below, so let’s here your thoughts i the comments!

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Posted by Lethality | 11 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: Would You Use A Mobile App For 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!

As we all know, MMOs are a great, social way to play games with friends… We also know that players tend to spend a fair bit of time inside of these games. You could even make the argument that MMOs have become a sort of “social network” in and of themselves.

So, it would seem natural that developers and players alike would be interested in extending the game to outside platforms, such as smart phones and tablets, to allow players to stay connected even more!

Blizzard has had a mobile armory for the iPhone for some time, allowing players access to their character’s information. But more recently, for a fee, they’ve allowed access to in-game features such as the auction house. Even more recently, they’ve begun offering the option to participate in guild chat right from your mobile device! The upcoming Guild Wars 2 team has also made some noise when it comes to supporting mobile platform integration with their game in some very robust ways.

If in fact we look at these games and worlds as interactive social networks, and since Facebook, Twitter and others already support mobile platforms, why not MMOs?

So we want to know – would you use a mobile app for Star Wars: The Old Republic? Would you like to see in-game features, or just social features? Would you pay extra for these features? Discuss!

 

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Posted by Lethality | 10 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: Will You Join A Guild 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!

As we all know, Star Wars: The Old Republic is an MMORPG. This means we’re going to be playing in the game world side-by-side with other players whom we may or may not know. If for some reason you were unaware of this fact, give it a moment to sink in.

One of the key differentiators of this genre is the ability to group up with these other real players in order to take on the greatest challenges that the game has to offer. But beyond gameplay, there are usually other reasons to play with other players on a consistent basis. Maybe you all have a common interest. Perhaps you know each other in real-life. For these and other reasons, the construct of a Guild – a formal structure of players in-game – was created.

BioWare seems to be placing more importance on guilds than previous games, with their launch of the 3-phase pre-launch Guild Program back in March of this year. It remains to be seen what else BioWare has in store for guilds – we’ve heard hints of Guild halls in the form of capital ships, and even Guild progression systems. But time will tell what we see at lease at launch.

So we want to know – Have you’ve been a member of a guild in other games (or maybe, this is your first MMO)? And do you plan to join a guild on TOR?

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