Posted by Cormeister | 7 Comments

Wild Space: Questing, Beta Testing, and Mobile Apps

It’s a big galaxy our there, and Wild Space can be a dangerous place. Worry not, explorer – each week we’ll navigate you safely through the lost hyperspace routes of the Deep Core and track down the great articles and entertainment from around the SW:TOR fan community, all in less than 12 parsecs, of course!

First up this week, is great article from Force Junkies about the not-so-heroic quests that all “theme park” MMOs have players partake in. Author Laura H. does a really good job of explaining that this is all going to be different in SW:TOR because in this game, you actually care about what you are doing. As Ms. H explains, you aren’t just killing 10 wolves to get some experience and a minor reward, you’re killing 10 wolves in order to save a village from the persistent, feral attacks by the wolves and in return, the leader of the village pledges his support to your cause.

Making a player care about what they are doing from a story perspective certainly makes doing it much more fun. It’s the motivation for doing the quest (i.e. story context) and the presentation of it (i.e. interactive voice acting) that makes these “mundane” quests not so mundane anymore. Be sure to check out the full article over at Force Junkies.

Amid all of the Warzone update information that came out as part of the Friday Update this week, EA released their Fiscal Year 2012, Quarter 2 Earnings call. These calls are snooze-fests for the majority of the time, but every once in a while we get a pertinent bit of information out of them. Some poor soul over at Darth Hater (author Jaspor, I assume) had the dubious honor of listening to the Earnings call for that bit of information. What he found was even further confirmation (from EA Chief Operating Office Peter Moore, nonetheless) that the SW:TOR beta is going to eventually get downright massive:

“…the Old Republic is in Beta right now and players are blown away by the immersive story, dynamic combat and authentic Star Wars feel. In the coming weeks we’ll invite hundreds of thousands of players into our biggest Beta test to date.”

So if you haven’t gotten into the beta by now, you’re going to have a pretty good chance in the future. Keep tuned to www.swtor.com/tester to see if you’ve been selected for beta testing and head over to Darth Hater for the full article which links out to the official EA remarks and webcast.

What do you all think of one or more SW:TOR mobile apps? Marshall Carr from TORWars think that it’s a pretty good idea and has some suggestions for BioWare about what he wants to see in a mobile app. One idea that quickly jumped to his mind was a crew skills app. Since your crew can be working on Crew Skills while you are offline, an app to modify your Crew Skill queue and send companions out of missions would be extremely convenient. Other apps for in-game communication would also be really handy and I could see even becoming a necessity.

Another thought that I just had is something that the successful MMO Eve Online is already doing: build API tools and let the community create their own mobile apps. With access to an API, the amount and variety of apps created would only be limited by the community’s creativity, skill level, and commitment (and I think that the SW:TOR community can summon up droves of all three).

However, Mr. Carr is quick to point out that there is a concern with creating mobile apps and that some players could have a significant gameplay advantage over others just because they have a better phone. Still, smartphone ownership is on the rise and BioWare is surely thinking about how to approach mobile app development very carefully. Check out the full article over at TORWars and let us know what you think about SW:TOR mobile apps in the comments.

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Posted by Lethality | 0 Comments

NYCC: Stephen Reid Interview With TORWars

Doing all the dirty work in New York this week, the TORWars cartel managed to snag an interview with BioWare Senior Community Manager Stephen Reid. The guys discuss species, racial abilities, launch dates and Operations with Mr. Reid and although they tried, they just couldn’t get more on the Hutt operation out of him!

But perhaps most of all, it’s exciting to see Jeff’s Yoda microphone back in action! /cheer!

 

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Posted by Cormeister | 0 Comments

Wild Space: Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Release Date

It’s a big galaxy our there, and Wild Space can be a dangerous place. Worry not, explorer – each week we’ll navigate you safely through the lost hyperspace routes of the Deep Core and track down the great articles and entertainment from around the SW:TOR fan community, all in less than 12 parsecs, of course!

I’ll just come out and say it: I’m a huge fan of Austen Courpet’s video blog series Yufmelt Shot First on his website Yufmelt.com. The series has been on hiatus for a while until this week when Austen and co. shot (see what I did there?) episode 9. The episode introduces a new cinematography style that looks less like a webcam and more like a professional interview (but where are the awesome posters?!). Since they haven’t released an episode since the release date was announced they devoted this 5:33 gem to talking about it. In short, having a release date is good, but a release date five days before Christmas is not so good. Lots of people who want to be there for release won’t be able to simply due to the release date being so close to a major holiday.

The video is nice and quick, gets to the point, and is done with a terrific sense of humor which keeps it entertaining. Check it out here.

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Posted by Lethality | 3 Comments

Decisions, Decisions – What Makes Choice Awesome

Our good friends over at TORWars supply us with a seemingly endless stream of TOR-licious content. Everytime we hit the page, there’s always something new!

So we were excited today author Mark Douville posted a great piece on BioWare story telling and how choices are going to make all the difference in TOR:

The Old Republic stands out for its use of a, typically, single-player game feature. While it is possible other MMO’s may have a limited ability to decide the path one goes down, it has not been to the scale of TOR. You can shape your world in TOR and make it wholly your own.

I have to agree that this is going to be a great feature in TOR – really defining your character to make him or her unique from others of their class. I will reserve judgement however on wether I think this is a good thing for the game overall. It seems that this type of thing might encourage re-rolling and starting over than end-game forward progression.

In any case, the article is an awesome read for all TOR fans. Head on over and check it out!

 

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Posted by Lethality | 2 Comments

Don’t Worry About Features That Don’t Exist

The publishing machine that is TORWars recently posted an editorial that I think all followers of Star Wars: The Old Republic should give a read to.  It sort of takes the opposite approach as one of our Lethal Injection articles like this one, or this one. And that’s a good thing.

Writer Mark Douville tries to help me, and others like me, just take it all in stride and look forward to the day that our favorite missing features will make it into the game:

Years from now, TOR will have an amazing collection of features and we will all find something else to complain about (that will never end). If your feature isn’t in the game at launch, then just think how excited you will be when it finally gets added.

So do yourself a favor and head over to check out the article, and let ’em know what you think!

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