Posted by Lethality | 4 Comments

IGN: Story Matters In The Old Republic

Last week at the lift of the press embargo, IGN unveiled no less than 4 separate articles on their experience in the Star Wars: The Old Republic beta. What’s more is they made a promise for one new article each day this week. Today they began delivering that promise with their next piece on the game: story.

As we all know, this game has story. And IGN’s Charles Onyett talks about his experiences and what it means for him:

The Old Republic beta hooked me. I was up slaughtering enemies of the Republic until the embarrassing hours of the morning. Eventually, I had to ask myself why. The gameplay feels very safe, very much like World of Warcraft. The crafting systems are well done, the world looks pretty, and the companion system is a lot of fun to play around with. It’s a good game, even better than I expected. But still, at this point in my life, after playing quite a few MMOs, the presence of good gameplay systems isn’t enough to make me lose sleep.  It was the story presentation that pulled me along. I knew exactly who I was fighting for, I knew my foes, and I could make decisions about how to proceed. I was, in fact, role-playing.

That’s a ringing endorsement on the effectiveness of using personal story as a driver for the otherwise potentially mundane tasks you’ll be performing. Still, Onyett offered an opinion on what this might mean down the road:

While I admire a lot of what BioWare’s done with story in The Old Republic, I still fear decision-making may eventually feel like a grind. There’s a meter for Light and Dark side points, there’s a meter for social points, there’s a meter for how much my companions like me. Numbers are associated with everything, and I worry after extensive play time the sense of context could disintegrate, defeating the system’s purpose and making me feel like I’m grinding morality. 

Definitely head on over to IGN for the full read, and don’t forget to follow their coverage the rest of the week as they release new content every day!

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Posted by Sa Chi | 17 Comments

All The Galaxy’s A Stage: Does SW:TOR Define Your RP?

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!

An interesting and yet very relevant question was posed on the official forums.  “Does your class define your RP?”  This question and ensuing responses not only reminded me of a concept in RP that I consider sacrosanct but also got me to thinking that there may be RPers that allow the game to not only define their class but also their story.

Character Sovereignty

Character Sovereignty basically means that only you get to decide what choices your character makes.  Your character and their background are yours.  This, in my humble opinion, is an essential and sacrosanct concept in RP.  In essence, this means that someone can’t come in and tell you what your character does or what your character did.

This also means that even though BioWare have created these nifty classes and class stories you do not have to follow what has been presented to you.  It is completely your perogative whether or not to incorporate some or all of the class stories and class make-up as a part of your character.

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Posted by Sa Chi | 25 Comments

All The Galaxy’s A Stage: RP-PvP Servers and Rulesets

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!

Recently, Senior Community Manager Stephen Reid confirmed that RP-PvP servers will be in the game at launch.  In effect, we will have Roleplay servers with open world Player versus Player combat in effect.  However, he also said that RP will be a suggestion only for such servers, and that no ruleset or naming convention will be enforced.

As you can imagine I got to thinking about what this might mean for the RP community.  I can see two perspectives at play and I think that overall the RP community loses more than it gains with BW’s announced approach.

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Posted by Sa Chi | 7 Comments

All The Galaxy’s A Stage: RP Tracker – The Battle of Bogden

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 this month’s RP Tracker I wanted to introduce a new element to this column.  I thought it would be a great idea to highlight some active role-play.  I’ll be returning to this theme so if you are involved in some RP that you think is worthy of highlighting don’t hesitate to post a comment with a link.

The story I’ve selected for the first such feature really is a great example for those of you who have never actually role-played.  A good RP event provides a great back-story, has some great writer-actors plying their craft, is well written, and provides story and character development.  In short, great role-play should (in my opinion) read like a Star Wars novel.

This month’s feature, The Battle of Bogden, manages to cover off the above requirements, also happens to be housed at the official forums and is an open RP event.  In other words, providing you submitted a workable character and premise to be involved in the corresponding out of character thread you were quite likely to be accepted.  The Hands of Darkness RP Guild deserve an honourable mention as the initiators of this creative effort.  However, what’s most notable is that not only did this RP catch the attention of many a RPer but it also drew some very reputable RP Guilds in as well.  And this is no small feat.

And so without further ado, I present:

STAR WARS

Heroes of the Old Republic

The Battle of Bogden

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Posted by Sa Chi | 3 Comments

All The Galaxy’s A Stage: Species and RP

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!

Do you remember the first time you watched A New Hope, and the heroes walked into the Mos Eisley cantina?  I do.  And given how soon this scene had followed the giddy moment of Obi-Wan’s hand waving I knew I was watching a very, very special film.

Are you one of those who when you heard SW:TOR was being developed thought that you’d get to role-play [insert exotic alien here] species?  I recognize that there may be some of you that are lamenting the lack of playable Togruta, Bothans and Nautolans, to name but a few, in the game.  However, this article is not about rehashing the design choice or the subsequent justification that Daniel Erickson keeps offering.  As a Role-Player I’ve spent many nights over the past 30 years pretending I’m not human, and pride myself on my ability to relate to the character regardless of species.  However, role-players are not the majority.

Like many a role-player I spent some time thinking about what role-playing an alien species in SW:TOR would mean.  As I started my mental exploration a series of questions came to mind faster than a smuggler looking to talk up the price.  I started with asking myself if I’d portray a non-playable race?

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