Posted by Agent Smashing | 17 Comments

Officially Speaking: Path Of The Cyborg – Is It A Species?

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.

There’s a debate that has been raging on the official forums for months now about available species in Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Never mind the debate on what races should be accessible to players in the game, that’s a whole other article. This controversey focuses on the whether should cyborgs should be considered a race.

It all started some months ago when PC Gamer UK published a “matrix” of available classes and species. One of the entires was “cyborg” and of course that spun TOR fans into a frenzy. Not long after, Daniel Erickson popped in on the thread to offer some advice that not everything you read is final, nor necessarily even accurate:

The species/class combo list you’re referencing is not accurate. If it does appear in the magazine, that’s unfortunate.

My guess is that an enthusiastic member of the press wrote down everything he saw in the character creation screen which, as we’ve stated often, is nowhere near final. Occasionally we’ll have species in odd classes or in all classes because of a bug or testing.

Cyborgs have of course been a part of Star Wars for a long time. Some of the more famous? General Grievous, Luke Skywalker, Darth Malak, and of course Darth Vader.  It seems only appropriate that players are given the option for their character to be a cyborg in TOR. But many players are wondering if they deserve to take up a precious slot as a full blown species of their own.

Read More

Posted by Agent Smashing | 36 Comments

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.

 

Read More

Posted by Rashiva | 22 Comments

Officially Speaking: The Science Of Release Date Speculation

Welcome to Officially Speaking, a weekly 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.

---

In the realm of consistently debated, reposted, and ever-expanding threads on the official Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ forums, few come close to achieving the notoriety and sometimes surprising ingenuity of the “Release Window Speculation” topic, which in its current iteration boasts close to 300,000 views. Much of the current zeitgeist seems to center on the frustration of the legions of hopeful beta testers and future players, who had been waiting on the former “Spring 2011” release window until its adjustment earlier this year to a more general “when it’s ready/2011” response from developers.

While much of the conversation tends to devolve into pettiness and bickering, some of the more ingenious posters follow specific criteria and clues to inform their projected release dates; one poster even went so far as to chart out the release date of every major MMO, cross-referencing that data with Bioware’s release dates of former titles to conclude the most likely outcome, all done in an Excel spreadsheet. Unfortunately that particular thread has been buried beyond my powers to retrieve it, but to give a sense of what these more hardcore speculators focus on, let’s take a look at a post by zewi [edited for general readability]:

Read More