MMOs, Console Games and anything else with buttons
With all the news and debate this week about subscriber numbers, it’s a good time to get some feedback on how people tend to tell their friends about the game and maybe even convince them to jump in and have a go.
Have you successfully convinced a skeptical friend to give SWTOR a try? If so, post away in comments on what you did!
Asher has backed up with an extra episode of his video news, dedicating an episode to the issue of SWTOR’s 400K drop in subscribers.
He makes some interesting points, some I agree with and others I don’t – which is what makes discussing any MMO fun! I too like the point on higher population servers increasing the chance of people getting their friends involved in the game.
Have a look for yourself:
What do YOU think?
Now that Patch 1.2 has dropped and we’re all happily checking out new content and features, it’s time to focus on what’s next. And what better way than asking you what you think should be coming up in the next big update.
Whether it’s something you thought should have been in 1.2, a feature that you know is on the developer’s roadmap, or something totally out of left field, we want to hear about it.
Post away in comments so we can keep the merciless fan-driven demand for features in SWTOR going!
First things first for those under the age of 40 who may not know what the term ‘Jumping The Shark’ means – here’s some free edumacation for you.
Now that’s out of the way, here’s why I think SWTOR will never be at a stage of ‘jumping the shark’: because the Star Wars franchise made that jump years ago. Before you start entertaining the idea of inserting a light saber in one of my cavities, let me explain.
At risk of sounding like an old bugger, it can be pretty easily argued that the Star Wars universe’s best work is behind it. No-one would argue that it isn’t totally embedded into Western culture in particular, but that widespread love and acceptance is predominantly based on the original three movies and to a lesser extent Episodes 1 to 3.
Sure, there have been TV series, toys, piles of books and stacks of comics, but it’s the movies that are the foundation of everything Star Wars. And those original movies are the pinnacle of what has been achieved in Star Wars. Everything since then may have been enjoyable, engaging and even of higher quality, but it’s all of lesser importance (my, I can already hear the sound of this site’s server sighing as it prepares for the onslaught of comments).
Now before anyone gets totally up in arms, I believe that this is actually a great thing. If Star Wars were still the groundbreaking new kid on the block, imagine the pressure on an MMO like SWTOR succeeding. And it’s likely it wouldn’t succeed, because it’s taken all these years for Star Wars lore to be rich enough so that something like SWTOR will appeal to a big enough group of people to make it viable. It’s easy to sell a Star Wars Lego game, but an MMO is a much different beast and only now after so many years is it a viable option.
So overall, although there’s no shortage of criticism of SWTOR, and some of it is certainly valid, SWTOR is in a space where it’s likely to go from strength to strength. Obviously in a number of years it will decline like any game, but that’s no jumping the shark. That’s plain old ageing.
Over to you as always: have I jumped the shark in my jumping the shark analogy??
[Superb image via http://ulysses-gorge.blogspot.com.au]
For a lot of us it’s time for a four-day weekend, likely to be filled with the odd few minutes of SWTOR. If you can drag yourself away from eating chocolate and/or playing the game, we’d love to hear about your ‘easter eggs’. Not the round chocolate variety but those unexpected little gameplay treasures you’ve stumbled across in SWTOR.
It might be a glitch, a Star Wars in-joke or a particularly striking piece of scenery: what easter eggs have you found in-game that have made you smile?
It’s time for our weekly issue of contention. As always, we love it when you jump in and make some passionate points. This week, let’s talk about the imminent 1.2 update.
More specifically, the class changes: have any of the class changes made you more or less likely to get immersed in that class? Whether it’s your primary toon or a neglected alt – do the upcoming changes impact how you perceive that class in-game?
Fire away!
It’s hump day +2 so it must be time for an instalment of Suggestion Box. This week it’s all about the much-anticipated 1.2 update for SWTOR. It’s going to contain a bog-load of new stuff, not least of which is the legacy system.
That’s all set in concrete, but one thing we don’t know is when 1.2 will drop, so let’s start guessing.
When do you think 1.2 will hit?
Over at GameSpy, Leif Johnson has a great piece discussing the amount of venom sprayed at SWTOR, particularly on the official SWTOR forums.
Have a read for yourself. I found there was very very little to disagree with, and it’s an issue that’s fascinated me for a long time. Every single time I log into SWTOR I’m still excited to be doing so and really enjoy the whole experience – and I can only see things getting better.
How about you – is Leif on the money or being too forgiving of BioWare?
[Thanks to Jay over at the SWTOR Gamers of Oceania Facebook group for the heads-up!]
The New York Times has an interesting piece this weekend on Flynn Michael, who runs the New York Jedi Club.
Here’s a brief taste:
The New York Jedi club meets here weekly. To an outsider, it might seem like stage-fighting with battery-powered lightsabers, but to Mr. Michael, it is aspiring righteous warriors communing with the Force, that energy that gives the Jedi his power and binds the galaxy. So what if the place attracts, as Mr. Michael said, “a bunch of ‘Star Wars’ dorks.”
“They come in geeks and go out Jedi warriors,” said Mr. Michael, a founder of the group and a self-ordained Jedi grandmaster.
A sound engineer who lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and a self-proclaimed “sci-fi, heavy-metal, over-the-top geek,” he was born Michael Brown and grew up in Rhode Island, where, he said he watched the first “Star Wars” film 32 times in 1977, the year it was released. He recalls first seeing Luke Skywalker learn about the force from Obi-Wan Kenobi and saying to the screen, “I want to do that.”
Have a read through, it’s pretty damn interesting. The key question is: who’s up to create local clubs? You know it makes sense!
[Thanks to reader Phil for the heads-up!]
Ahh, the weekend. Even if you work on weekends, it has that more relaxed vibe usually, so it suits this week’s Suggestion Box topic: referring friends.
In case you hadn’t heard, SWTOR now has a refer-a-friend feature, allowing up to three of your friends to try out SWTOR for seven days for free.
So: ignoring totally your actual friends, who would you invite out of anyone worldwide to try the game out? Assume that whoever you invite will accept and play for the seven days. Be as creative / cynical / harsh as your weekend vibe allows 😉
I’ve chosen:
My boss: in the hope I’ll then be paid to play SWTOR as a business exercise
George Lucas: who wouldn’t want to thrash him in PvP or a duel?
Julian Assange: he’d so be rolling an Agent or Smuggler.
So let’s hear yours!
Oh – and we’d love it if you could fill out our reader survey – there’s a t-shirt prize on offer 😉
With Day 1 of the 2012 SWTOR Guild Summit totally done and dusted (our coverage of the key panels here, here, here,here and here), there’s one very striking theme that resonated with me.
SWTOR is here for the long haul.
A lot of you will rightly say “what, you only just worked that out?”. I suppose I’ve always realised this is a game that has a good lifespan ahead of it, but today’s panels really brought home the depth and breadth of developments BioWare are working on in relation to the game. Sure, any MMO has never-ending development requirements and yes, there’s no shortage of stuff some people argue should have been in the game before launch anyway.
All that aside, the amount of new stuff on the horizon, whether officially on the development roadmap or on the “wall of crazy” referred to during the day, is enormous. I see that as nothing but a sign of a game that has a lot of fun twists and turns ahead.
Another encouraging observation was the obvious interplay between members of the Dev team. Although like any team there’d be tensions and conflicts, there was an obvious robust respect between the panel members and humorous comments where there were philosophical differences in approach to the game. Assuming it wasn’t a front (and I doubt it was given how long the panels went for and the obvious good humour), this also bodes well for the game.
So for me overall, the Guild Summit is more than just an event for BioWare to schmooze some of the more hardcore players in the game. It’s also been an interesting illustration of an engaged development team and a long list of future improvements to the game which should see its viability continue for a long time yet.
Do you agree?
Guild features with Damion Schubert:
The details disclosed:
– Guilds extremely important to BioWare
– Guild leader is a hard and thankless job that keeps people invested in the game
– Guild UI could use more features
– Guild banks in 1.2
– Up to 7 tabs can be bought
– Detailed control for guild leaders for every tab
– Can set some tabs to require authenticators reducing chances of a guild being screwed over
– guild ledger that filters out the repair transactions
– guild log with everything including hyperlink to item added or removed
– after 1.2: guild calendar, share events with non-guildies, drop a guild emblem onto armour, in-game guild advertising, guild progression is in the works (no timeline), guild capital ship design exists (but no timeline)
Q&A
– Guild mail: trying to implement something but has big back-in implications as far as storage, no ETA
– Guild interface improvements: will be able to invite people to a group from guild list, will be able to mouse-scroll down guild roster
– Checking crafting skills on guild roster: coming sometime after 1.2 but soonish
– Taxation system: just trying to figure out a way to do it now – no ETA
– Guild approval system from pre-launch being implemented (i.e. you don’t have to be online for GM to approve your membership): “maybe”
– Guild repairs and respecting from guild bank will subtract from allowance
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