Sep 10, 2011

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Officially Speaking: Will Story Be Enough?

Welcome to Officially Speaking, a regular column focused on the most hotly debated topics ever to grace the official Star Wars: The Old Republic forums. Do you have something to add? Feel like it gets lost in the shuffle over there? Join in the extended discussion right here on Ask A Jedi.

One of the biggest debates on the forums right now is the question: “How far can story take you?”.  The famed 4th pillar of story has left some posters curious about the sustainability of content in the game.  One poster Bluerodian asks:

“Eventually, the story runs out. I personally don’t care for either raiding or PvP
so once the story’s done, then what?”

This is a fair question, and several posters have posed it in different ways.  We know that each faction has their own quests that do not interact at all, so there are at least two completely unique play-throughs possible, and we also know that each class has a unique story.  One thing that is shared however are the quests after the starting planets. Every Empire class will be exposed to the same quests on Nar Shaddaa, for example, with the exception of their class quests.  Will voice work help players look past that, or will it instead be more monotonous after the first time?  Many on the forums have taken another position.  Ravak posts:

“I think anyone that has played Mass Effect mutliple times just to see different parts of the story or the different possible outcomes would disagree…”

There are those that believe that the story BioWare weaves will hold up to several playthroughs, just to see the different outcomes.  These players are hoping that the voice acting won’t be skipped through such as quest text might be in other MMOs. Vuldinlol writes:

“Single player RPGs =/= MMOs. MMOs need longevity, and are expected to survive for years. Single player RPGs are bought once, and the company has all they need from the consumer. You cannot make content that lasts for years with story. PvP and PvE endgame is needed.”

After considering all the views, I would say that BioWare expects to offset the “story grind” after one full play-through with endgame.  The fact that all we have really seen of endgame is the Eternity Vault begs the question: is BioWare ready with an endgame worthy of these expectations?

What do you guys think?  Do you have faith that BioWare’s story is so good that you won’t mind playing through it multiple times?  Do you have high expectations for endgame’s ability to hold your attention?  Do you think that a single player game story shouldn’t be compared to an MMO story in terms of replay value? Let us know in the comments below, and I’ll for sure join in on the discussion with you.

 

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Sep 8, 2011

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All The Galaxy’s A Stage: God-Modding And Powergaming

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 those that are newer to the Role-Play experience I thought I’d introduce a couple of dirty words in the world of RP.  Newcomers will undoutedly bump into the terms god-modding and powergaming before long.  And some of the more seasoned RP veterans will tell you that these concepts still crop up from time to time.

This blaster is now the ultimate power in the universe!

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Sep 1, 2011

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All The Galaxy’s A Stage: RP Tracker

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!

We are delighted to introduce the RP Tracker.  From this point forward, the first All The Galaxy’s A Stage article of each month will be focused on highlighting something exceptional that we here at Ask A Jedi have observed related to RP.

To kick things off it’s my pleasure to raise your attention to Segellion’s Guide to Roleplaying over at swtor-rp.com.  RP guides are always going to be frought with controversy.  Some players will tell you that they do not care for being told how to RP.  Others, such as myself, will tell you that a guide related to RP that offers suggestions in a respectful and objective way can be of benefit to the community and, in particular, players new to the genre.

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Aug 18, 2011

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All The Galaxy’s A Stage: To Guild Or Not To Guild…

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!

To guild or not to guild… that is the question.

If you’re a frequent visitor of the official SW:TOR website you’ve likely visited Guild HQ at some point.  Not only is BioWare to be commended for their attention to such a detail pre-launch, but the manner in which they’ve prepared for pre-launch guilds really has impressed me.

When Guild HQ was announced I was also pleased to see RP guilds being taken seriously.  Not only is there a big button for RP Guilds but the last time I looked there were 9,454 RP guilds registered!  Given a total of 54,338 guilds that equates to 17.4% of all registered guilds at the time of writing focused on RP.  Assuming a minimum of 5 players per guild that means at least 10,000 RPers will be in the game.  I suspect that only the truly hardcore are visiting the official forums right now so the total number of RPers in SWTOR post launch should (in my gross estimation) be in the hundreds of thousands!  Not bad for one of the more fringe playstyles, eh?

Join our RP Guild! We haz cookies!

So, why do players join RP guilds?  Likely reasons might have something to do with mutual interests, a common vision for story and how we interpret Star Wars lore.  Yet I know from experience that not every Role-Player will join a RP guild.  There are many great RPers that frequent various RP forums and thousands are already enjoying some Play by Play action ahead of launch.  With 361,957 posts (at the time of writing) in the official SW:TOR Roleplay and Play by Post forum there’s clear evidence that not all RP activity is related to RP guilds.

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Aug 11, 2011

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All The Galaxy’s A Stage: Your Mind Tricks Don’t Work On Me

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!

Like millions of other fans I have many wonderful memories of the Star Wars movies. “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for” stands out as one of my favourites.  When I first watched that iconic scene I remember marveling at the idea.

Yet when I bring this idea together with RP I can’t help but think that we end up with one of the more interesting challenges for RP within an MMO.  I could go about my business but this column wouldn’t be the same if I didn’t discuss the more tricky questions.  With that in mind I will move along.

OK, I’m done now.

What are your views on powers like Mind Trick within RP?  Is your Force sensitive character going to ever attempt to use it (or other mind manipulating variants) on other player characters (PCs)?  Would your PC ever submit to such a power?  Do you find such skills too over powered and prefer to navigate around them?  Perhaps you might rationalize this with the game’s context that you are an elite member of the galaxy and your willpower and training is strong enough?  After all, a quick scan of examples of the power’s use on Wookieepedia does support this approach.

Mind tricks don't work on me. My lekku are simply too awesome!

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