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Your crew in SWTOR: new details

November 13, 2010 by

Bioware in their regular Friday update have released some more info on how your crew will work for you in-game.

Essentially your crew can take part in gathering, crafting and missions on their own. Whether it’s gathering / salvaging alongside you during a fight or solo diplomacy missions, your crew are set up to assist even when you’re not in-game yourself.

Have a look for yourself:

As someone who’s obsessed with fishing and First Aid in WoW, I’ve been waiting for more info on this stuff. Without gushing too much, I think what Bioware have announced with crew skills, crafting and gathering is a major improvement on anything else out there in MMO land at the moment. From the information at hand, they’ve managed to pull off an engaging, well integrated side game that will strengthen the overall playing experience. That’s all you can ask for really.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: ,

It’s going to WHAT?

November 12, 2010 by

Expecting this for SWTOR?

Okay, what the heck? I was away from the main Star Wars: The Old Republic forums for a while, working on getting a book published and focusing on school and when I come back there are threads out the wazoo about how badly SWTOR is going to fail. Some of the angst that I have read has been internet trolling of course, but some of it seems to be genuine fear. But why? The game looks amazing.

Well, first and foremost in many people’s minds is the debacle that was and is Star Wars Galaxies. Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) will be forever emblazoned in many players memories as the worst game company ever created. They rushed the game out before it was completed, which is nothing new. Many game companies put out games before they are finished, but this game was… well… awful. The only reason people played it at all at launch was that it was Star Wars. The fact that for about three days the players walked around on worlds that had nothing on them, no mobs, no buildings, not even any plants, no NOTHING, was absolutely awful. But players suffered through the bugs, because it was Star Wars, and parts of it were fun. Then came the Combat Upgrade, (Or as we called it Completely Useless) where they made what was one of the most innovative and cool games out there, minus the annoying bugs, the same as every other MMO out there. They didn’t need level defined gear and enemies, but of course, WoW had it, so they must need it, right? Wrong. Then the day that will live in infamy, the day the Next Generation Entertainment hit the servers. SOE lied to their player base. SOE undid in a day what many players had spent years perfecting, tweaking, and basically having fun with. They decided not to listen to the community, to do their own thing. Why should they care if they shafted most of their players? It wasn’t SOE’s problem. Small wonder many of the most hardcore players simply left and will likely never return. I was one of those. The game is still running, on limited servers, but I for one will never touch it again, and I am not alone. SWG failed, and failed hard through no fault of the game, but through the less than intelligent choices made by SOE.

Bioware is not SOE, and while some of SOE’s employees have joined Bioware, I highly doubt that even the most jaded of Bioware’s employees could say that Bioware is going to repeat the same mistakes that SOE freely admitted they made. Second, Bioware has a formula that they use for their games. Well, yeah. How many of us, when writing stories do NOT use some kind of formula? How many of us use an outline, a plan, something? For me, it makes it clear what I need to write next and my stories are nowhere near as complicated as some Bioware games. Some people criticize Bioware for following a pattern, one that I have put as my intro picture. Bioware’s stories are not Pulitzer prize material, but they are also not bargain bin trashy romances either. There are limits to what can be done in a video game story. Admittedly, they are pushing the envelope of what can be done in game stories with what they are focusing on in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Some people have criticized Sol Invictus and others have praised him for making this chart. It is good, as far as it goes. Bioware DOES have a pattern.  But think about it, did the fact that you were following the same general pattern detract in any way from the experience in Mass Effect 1 or 2? I had no time to be thinking about that as I was blasting my way through the games.

Last but certainly not least, we come to the clincher. Many people are saying that SWTOR is going to fail because Bioware has never made a MMO before. They are known for their single player games, but a single player game, no matter how big or complex, is nothing on a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying game. But, they know this. This is why they have spent so long, and such epic amounts of money, to make it. This is no Star Wars Galaxies clone. This is no WoW Clone. This probably will not be a WoW-killer, to use the internet lingo. WoW is simply too huge, too easy to play at the lower levels, for any one game to simply knock it off its pedestal. The only thing likely to kill WoW is Blizzard Entertainment, the same way SOE killed SWG with stupid choices.

To sum up – some people think SWTOR is going to fail. Some of those people are being pessimists or internet trolls. Some of them have legitimate cause for concern, after the horror that was SWG. SWTOR is a massive game, larger than any other. One wonders exactly how many DVDs will be required to carry such a game. Bioware has never made a MMO before, true. But… that also has some plusses. They had no preconceptions. The idea of full voice over for every character was laughable, until Bioware started doing it. Are there going to be problems? Almost certainly, this is a game made by humans, and humans are not perfect. Is it going to flop at launch? Doubtful.

That is my two cents worth anyway. What do you think?

Picture from Game Riot

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Latest poll results: we like to solo

November 10, 2010 by

The second of our ongoing polls has wrapped up. The question this time was around likelihood to join a guild, and if so whether the focus in the guild would be social or serious progression. The results:

The outright winner was soloing, although nearly half of respondents are going to join a guild, with 25% doing it for the progression, the rest for the social interaction. Interestingly, one in five are unsure of what they’ll do. That’s likely to be the cohort who maybe haven’t been in a guild before or who haven’t comprehensively played an MMO before and so don’t know both sides of the equation (solo or guild).

There’s certainly plenty of guild talk on our forums and the oceanic guild listing continues to grow, so there’s no doubt guilds will play a central role. That said, the claimed story-centric focus of SWTOR means that solo or ad-hoc team questing will be a very appealing option as well.

Thanks to all who voted, and the new poll is now up on the site – this time the subject is oceanic servers.

Filed Under: Community, News, Opinion Tagged With: , ,

Star Wars swimwear: R2 in a bikini (sort of)

November 7, 2010 by

Here’s a phrase that probably hasn’t been used that frequently in the English language until recent times: R2D2-inspired female swimwear.

For US$85.00 you can own a one-piece swimsuit titled Artoo, that provides a huge nod to the diminutive droid. According to the vendor there’s big demand for this product. Am I the only one who doubts any of the orders have come from females?

Filed Under: Merchandise, News Tagged With: ,

Bioware ask for community input: Jedi Consular

November 6, 2010 by

Bioware have opened voting to the SWTOR community on naming one of the advanced classes for the Jedi Consular. You have the choice of the status quo (Jedi Wizard), otherwise it’s Jedi Sage, Jedi Seer or Jedi Adept.

For what it’s worth (which is not much), I’ve voted for Seer. That said, I’ll be happy with any outcome that isn’t wizard. To me that title is one of the most non-Star Wars labels you could possibly come up with. Encouragingly, the vote so far reflects that attitude, with Wizard garnering less than 3% of the vote, with Sage leading at 55% and Adept next on 22%.

Anyway, the main thing is, jump in and vote down the Wizard or make a hopefully feeble attempt to save it 😉

Filed Under: News, Opinion Tagged With:

PC versus Console

November 3, 2010 by

Old School?

It used to be simple. Computers were for things like word processing , banking and other real world enterprises.  There were some computer games, but not a lot. I remember games like Parsec and Asteroids from the old Commodore 32, I was 10 when my family got that I think, so that would have been 1982. Its graphics were pathetic, it went at the speed of a snail, but it was the only game machine I had, so I enjoyed it.  In contrast, consoles were for games, period. I remember Donkey Kong for the Atari. One system did not work for the other’s games. Nowadays however, things are nowhere near as simple. Now we have the Xbox 360, the Wii, and the Playstation3, all of which you can do word processing on. The lines between them are blurring. Is this a good thing?

The first automatic computers (like ENIAC) were designed to do specific jobs, which they did fairly well. Then came the 1980s and the dawn of the ‘personal’ computer. Customers demanded more from their computers, and the computer companies complied. Overnight, computer technology changed. Suddenly computers could do more, faster, than ever before. And suddenly the concept of a game for personal computers was no longer ludicrous. Games like Wastelands were no longer the norm after the mid 1980s, now things like X-Wing, Wing Commander, Battletech, Star Trek, all of these and more were suddenly out there and people who did not have gaming consoles had enjoyment time.

For many years, the consoles seemed to be a niche market. Not as fancy as many of the PC titles that were coming out, but they cost less and were generally less complicated. This is no longer the case. A good console these days will run about $250-$500 US for a really good system, although a decent one can be had for $100 US in many places. But the games… When you have to pay $60 US for a game, it gets expensive fast. And from what I have seen of the games, well, they still seem… I don’t know… limited maybe? They are generally shorter than PC titles. Aside from the Roleplaying games, which by definition are much longer, the action games seem to run about 24 hours worth of original play time, not counting rerunning levels and the dreaded ‘Aw CRUD, my cat hit the controller while I was paused to get a  drink, and I lost the game!’. Now, don’t get me wrong, that IS a lot of play time. But for someone used to playing games like X-Wing and TIE fighter, well, they just seem too short.

This has been exacerbated in recent times with game publishers making hybrid titles, once designed for both PC and Console. Probably the worst example of this was Ubisoft’s latest entry into the Splinter Cell franchise, Conviction. Don’t get me wrong, it is a fun game. It’s not Splinter Cell no matter what they might call it, but it is a fun game. But at only 11 levels, and not all very large, it is quite possible to blow through the single player portion in half a day even on the hardest levels. And then we get into The Force Unleashed 2. I beat that, on the hardest level, in a little less than eight hours of playing. Of course I am not a true hard-core gamer, who could likely do it in 4 hours. What the heck?

Is it a cost saving feature? Are they going to try and get us to buy add-on packs to get more things in the games? Things like, the rest of the story? Is that the way that games are going now? Geez, I hope not. I can barely afford the games themselves now.

I don’t think that either consoles or PCs are going away anytime soon. With the standardisation of console hardware, it is much easier for a manufacturer to make a game that will work with any of that brand of console (theoretically anyway). But PCs can usually do more than just games, hence why I myself own a PC and not a console. I can play some console titles on my PC, it just isn’t easy. I would like to know why so many games that are coming out now are so short. Maybe they are just to whet player’s appetites so they will buy all of the add-on packs and downloadable content.

I for one hope that is not the case. Over to you. Do you prefer PC or Console and why?

Image from http://www.library.drexel.edu/blogs/thesuggestionbox/?m=200705

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What is this, the Inquisition?

October 27, 2010 by

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

Um… Wait a moment, no, that was Monty Python… oops, sorry.

No one expects the IMPERIAL Inquisition!

We all know what inquisitors are, right? According to Star Wars anyway. Beings who are trained to ferret out secrets, to work behind the scenes, to plot, and to seize as much power as they can through nefarious means. Where the Sith Warrior prefers much more straightforward methods, such as crushing the skulls of anyone who gets in their way, the Inquisitor is much more subtle. But what IS an Inquisitor?

An Inquisitor, or ‘truth officers’ are servants of an Inquisition. Historically, the Inquisition was an arm of the Roman Catholic Church during the Middle Ages and actually up until near the end of the 19th century. The whole point of the historical Inquisition was to combat heresy. Of course, who defined heresy? The church did. This led to some of the most gruesome excesses in religious history. But this is not real life, this is Star Wars.

In the Expanded Universe, there have been several organizations called Inquisitions from the time of the founding of the Old Republic. The court that tried Ulic Qel Droma when he was captured, before his rescue by Exar Kun, was called an Inquisition. And the leader was the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic. It was interesting that in that particular form, the defendant had no right at all to legal counsel.

Over three thousand years later, Emperor Palpatine created the Imperial Inquisition to hunt down and exterminate the remainder of the Jedi knights. They were dark side adepts, willing and able to do anything it took to get the job done. We don’t know how many Inquisitors were around at this time, but apparently there were enough that they could cover the galaxy with their nets. Their power and influence was feared. As was their authority, they answered only to Palpatine and to Vader.

During the time of Star Wars: The Old Republic, there will probably be many players who play the class Sith Inquisitor. The class looks fun. The advanced classes, what we have heard of them, also sound fun. But this class is not likely going to be for the people who want to wade into battle without thinking. Sith Sorcerer and Sith Assassin are the names for the advanced classes, and just from the names, we can assume that both will do ungodly amounts of damage.

All of us remember the Force lightning from Return of the Jedi, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, right? It has shown up in games as well. Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight, Jedi Outcast, Jedi Academy, and then The Force Unleashed where it was truly insane what you could do with it. The idea of throwing lightning around is nothing new, magicians and sorcerers have had that ability in story and myth since the dawn of time. Odin and Zeus in particular were fond of thunderbolts. So in story or game, it’s cool.

But in practice? Just the thought of holding 1.21 jigawatts worth of power in my hand gives me goosebumps. Lightning is an elemental force, it is awe inspiring, magical in so many ways. And it is utterly terrifying when one is caught out in it. I speak from experience. You have not lived until you have had a lightning bolt detonate a tree less than a hundred yards from where your tent is set up. There was nothing left of that tree but a crater. Lightning is a powerful symbol as well, speed and power.  Anyway, back to Star Wars. How many of us could watch the Emperor throw Force lightning and NOT be a bit awed by it? I mean, here is an old, decrepit looking man, who can kill with a thought. Yeah, it is scary, and that is the point.

While we do not know a lot about the Inquisitor class yet, and likely won’t for awhile, we do know a few things. They specialize in Force lightning and have some very cool looking abilities with it. They have lightsabers, and use them, but their main ability will be with Force powers. I am hoping for a ‘mind trick’ like ability, Force Persuade or something like that, something to confuse enemies, and maybe make them allies for a time.

The whole idea of a Sith Inquisitor is not straight up fighting, although he or she can. It is about sneakiness and power. What better way to win a fight than to use your opponent against his allies? The power of the Dark Side will be manifest in these sneaky beings, and I for one hope to see a lot of them.

What do you think? Does the Sith Inquisitor sound like a good play style for you?

Photo from http://whsdrama.westwood.wikispaces.net/

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Bending a few laws until they squeal

October 17, 2010 by

Well, last week we found out a few more things about one of the most beloved classes in Star Wars. The smuggler has always had an odd place in people’s hearts. The rogue has always been a particular favorite in role playing games of all kinds. Everything from the burglar, to the pickpocket, to the tomb raider and the assassin, have been played in all kinds of games. Sometimes they have a heart of gold and sometimes they have a heart of ice. And sometimes, they are both, depending on the circumstances. Smugglers have a place near and dear to the hearts of Star Wars fans, due in no small part to a carpenter who was given an audition on the spur of the moment. The man who defines ‘smuggler’ for my generation, Harrison Ford, the man who played Han Solo.

Everyone remembers Han Solo, the king of all smugglers. Even if he was down on his luck during the original trilogy, he was still (supposedly anyway) the greatest smuggler of the time. He either had the fastest ship in the galaxy or the fastest tongue. No doubt about it, he was an incredible pilot with great luck at times and absolutely abysmal luck at others. Han was always more my favorite character than Luke, because Han would do whatever it took to win. Luke always had those pesky scruples get in his way. Han was always more pragmatic. He lied, he cheated, he stole. And when it all came apart, he pulled his blaster. He was sneaky. Come on, how many of YOU would have imagined to hang your ship on the back of an Imperial Star Destroyer’s bridge tower while trying to escape it? And by the end of Return of the Jedi, he is shown as truly a good man, not just in it for money. Romancing a princess never hurts either.

A lot of thought obviously went into the smuggler class in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Jedi can live in a perfect world, where they can do the right thing every time. Smugglers have to survive however they can. And if that means a few pesky local regulations, or Imperial decrees get ignored or tramped into the dust? Who cares as long as the smuggler gets what he needs? That may be the goods delivered on time, a ‘special’ job done for the Republic, or simply getting out of a cantina alive after a deal goes wrong. Or it may be something more. Why do people smuggle? In most cases, perhaps 90%, it is economics. I have actually met a couple of people in real life who I am almost absolute certain were smugglers. One of them said something to me that stuck.

She said: “The money is good, but the main thing for many people is the thrill. You are doing something that is against the law. Maybe the law is stupid, maybe it isn’t. But what you are doing is against the law. There is no denying the fact that there is a thrill involved in pulling it off, in showing that your skill is more than the skill of the law enforcement agents.” But then she laughed. “The money doesn’t hurt either.” I never saw her again after that. I never found out her last name, and I am never likely to – it was twenty years ago.

For her and people like her, it was a game, a game with incredibly high stakes. A game with a large element of danger involved. A game where, if you make a wrong move at the wrong time, you are caught, or worse. This is the mindset that Bioware seems to have been shooting for in this game. If so, they seem to have hit the bull’s eye from what we have seen.

The smuggler advanced classes that Bioware revealed last week seem to fit Star Wars to a ‘T’. The gunslinger and scoundrel advanced classes sound like a lot of fun. The scoundrel is the sneaky one. A ‘stealth belt’ and  a scattergun sound right up my kind of alley. But for other types, those who like the Wild Bill Hickok type, the gunslinger is for them.

It is odd, gunslingers were never really heroes. People like Wild Bill Hickok, Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp and others, were anything but heroic. The Hollywood ideal of two men with low slung guns facing each other in the street at high noon is complete rubbish for the most part. Yes, Wild Bill did it a couple of times, but he was crazy. And anyone going up against him was also crazy. And the thing about the gunfight at the OK Corral? According to several sources, half of the Clantons were not armed when the Earps and Doc Holliday arrived. Some fair fight.

But that is the point. Why fight fair? If it is a matter of survival, almost anyone who has ever been shot at will tell you the same thing. HANG scruples, rules, laws or anything else. Give me something solid to hide behind while I gun my enemy down. That part of the smuggler class is very realistic.

These are not stand up fighters, although they can. These are not heavily armored enough to take whatever punishment is dished out at them. And they don’t have some hokey religion and ancient weapon to give them an edge. What they have are their wits, their skills and their nerve. And now, we have seen the ship as well.

The XS Stock Light is based on the old Ebon Hawk from Knights of the Old Republic. Just looking at it, it looks fast and powerful. The fact that it has two turrets and missile launchers will help out when those pesky cops and Imperial patrols start getting too close. The fact that it has smuggling compartments is also a plus, for when you are either caught red handed, or need to hide something. Just as long as you don’t have to hide yourself in one of those compartments. Even if that was a classic scene, Han, Chewie, Luke and Obi Wan sneaking into the Death Star inside one of the Millenium Falcon’s hidden compartments, I don’t want to reprise that scene.

Oh and speaking of that. What is Bioware thinking? The companion for the smuggler is going to be a Wookiee? Aw man… How unoriginal can you get? I mean he is obviously NOT Chewbacca, but still…sheesh.

Over to you. Do you want to be scum and villainy? And if so, heart of gold or heart of ice?

Filed Under: News, Opinion Tagged With: , , ,

For a few credits more

October 12, 2010 by

Bounty hunters. We all know what they are, right? Boba Fett from Empire Strikes back and Return of the Jedi, Jango Fett and Zam Wessel from Attack of the Clones, Calo Nord from Knights of the Old Republic, these are iconic figures in Star Wars. There are other bounty hunters as well who make appearances in various Star Wars pieces, but they are generally not pivotal characters. Bossk, the Trandoshan seen on the bridge of the Super Star Destroyer Executor in Empire Strikes back has received a lot of attention in fiction and games of various kinds. Princess Leia disguised herself as a bounty hunter to gain entrance to Jabba’s palace in return of the Jedi. And then Mira was a HAWT bounty hunter in Star Wars the Old Republic II. Bounty hunters are well known.

But what IS a bounty hunter? According to Wikipedia:  A bounty hunter captures fugitives for a monetary reward (bounty). Other names, mainly used in the United States, include bail enforcement agent, fugitive recovery agent, and bail fugitive investigator. Bounty hunting, and bounty hunters, are actually legal in only two nations: the United States and the Republic of the Philippines. Other countries do not have bounty hunters; they use only standard law enforcement agencies to recover suspects. (Bounty Hunter) So there’s a legal definition of what we know about bounty hunters.

There is another way we recognize bounty hunters. Movies have portrayed people hunting fugitives or outlaws for financial reward for a long time. Movies such as ‘A Fistful of Dollars’ and ‘For a Few Dollars More’ with Clint Eastwood are likely the best known of the bounty hunter westerns. The characters portrayed in those movies are barely one step removed from the scum they are hunting. The thought is that to catch a bad man, you must send a bad man. The Star Wars bounty hunters certainly fit that category as well.

But – the bounty hunters in Star Wars are not JUST bounty hunters. Many of them are assassins as well. Jango Fett, whether he was a Mandalorian or not -which changes from week to week depending on who you ask- was probably the best example of a Star Wars bounty hunter. He was willing to do whatever it took to get the job done, up to an including setting a bomb on a public landing pad to kill everyone in the area to try and get his target. He was willing to shoot his partner to keep her from talking after she had been captured by Jedi. He not only condoned, but participated in the initial acts of the Clone Wars, until he was killed by Mace Windu.

It seemed for a long time that bounty hunters in Star Wars fell somewhere between comedy relief and nameless, faceless masses to be slaughtered by the good guys. We all remember Boba Fett falling into the Sarlacc and the monster burping, right? And that was AFTER he had been 1) Disarmed by a very young and inexperienced Jedi, 2) knocked unconscious by a stray cannon round, and then 3) blindsided by a blind man.

Calo Nord in Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic didn’t even fare that well. He had a ceiling fall on him, and then he was slaughtered with his backup and left to rot in the Tattooine suns. Some ’greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy’ huh?

Then Mira came along. She made bounty hunters cool, not just faceless or stupid incompetents. Her wrist rocket launcher was simply too cool. But then we get a massive let down. Of course she had to be a Jedi in disguise, didn’t she? Bummer. But I have to admit, she looked really, really good in her outfit.

Ok, so we come to Star Wars: The Old Republic. Bounty hunter is the Sith Empire armored ranged class. The images that we have seen draw heavily on the images of Mandalorian armor from KOTOR I and II. The character is not a Mandalorian, that we know of. Of course we do not know a lot of the story yet, and likely we won’t until much closer to launch, if then. We want some surprises. But the mechanics look good.

The idea of a single blaster armed warrior taking on a Jedi or Sith is laughable under normal circumstances, but the TOR bounty hunter seems up to the task. He/she does not just have blasters. Heavy armor, flamethrower, various darts, rockets, a jetpack, all of these have been shown as well as a very cool lasso-type ability. The thought of pulling an opponent through the air to hit him with something is strangely satisfying to me. Maybe I have played too many games where the bad guys can hide and snipe from inaccessible locations. We don’t know a lot about the classes yet, but we have seen glimpses of what is likely the ship for the bounty hunter and various sources have stated bits of gameplay. I hesitate to use some of those sources, because I do not want to violate any legal restrictions. But what we do know is that bounty hunters will have the heaviest armor of the Sith Empire classes. And the armor does look cool. Much cooler than the Inquisitor’s clown outfit.

We know that the bounty hunter is a neutral character, at least at first, not affiliated with either Sith Empire or Republic. But with the current Mandalorians serving the Empire grudgingly, there is lots of room for cool story arcs and plot twists. I look forward to seeing what Bioware can come up with this time.

Over to you: what do you want from bounty hunters in TOR?

Picture from http://beefjack.com/news/bounty-hunter-class-revealed-for-star-wars-the-old-republic/

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Tanks in Star Wars The Old Republic: more than beef

October 1, 2010 by

We have been hearing a lot of stuff about tanks on the SWTOR forums lately. The iconic armored forms of the stormtroopers and Boba Fett come to mind specifically. Hence the focus of Bioware into the Trooper and Bounty Hunter classes. In this installment I will be discussing the Trooper.

We see troopers for the first time in Episode IV. The rebel soldiers who try and defend the Tantive IV from the Devastator’s assault get pwnerized pretty badly by the men in white suits. Yes the men in armor go down fast when shot, but come on! Stormtroopers are not supposed to be heroic, right? They are the BAD GUYS, right? They shoot so badly they became a mythos all their own. Who hasn’t heard of the Imperial Stormtrooper marksmanship academy? The one place in the galaxy where the only one who is safe is the target? They get killed when people miss them, one bangs his head on a low beam… the list goes on and on. They are NOT heroic. It only gets worse for the poor troopers as the movie progresses, an entire platoon getting chased by a lone smuggler, getting outfoxed by an old man in a brown robe, yeesh…

Then we get Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. The Imperials utterly devastate the Rebel base on Hoth, but somehow manage NOT to capture any of the big shots they were aiming for in the first place. Oops. And then to add more insult, in Episode VI who beats the Stormtroopers? An entire legion of troops gets pwned by a small band of commandos, a Wookiee and a bunch of Ewoks. Sigh. It just doesn’t pay to be an elite soldier in Star Wars, does it?

Now before anyone starts screaming about me not defending the stormtroopers – I do. They get a bad rap. When they are facing the heroes of the movies, of COURSE they are going to lose. It would not be a good story otherwise – but let’s look at it objectively. What are Stormtroopers for? They are there for the heroes to show up, outmaneuver or out-fight. Troopers are not heroic in the original trilogy. Even the Rebel troops on Hoth and Endor were there to put emphasis on the hero’s actions, not to actually do anything else.

Then we see Episode II: Attack of the Clones, which showed a very different kind of trooper from the Stormtroopers that we all knew and laughed at. These guys actually had a clue. They actually hit what they aimed at, and when they did, they devastated it. Games like Republic Commando showed a very gritty take on what it was to be a single cog in a huge military machine. I am not going to go into the stuff from the Clone Wars series because I don’t watch it. We all know what happened in Episode III. Most of the Jedi Order were taken down by troopers when Order 66 was given. Was it easy? No. Did a lot of the troops die doing it? Yes. The ones facing Ki Al Mundi lost a bunch of men when he deflected their fire but they took him down in the end. It was a major cinematic moment in Star Wars and it was the troopers who did most of it.

So… Heroic troopers. Special Forces like Delta Squad from Republic Commando are much easier to sympathize with than TK421 ever was. They have personality. Scorch in particular still cracks me up when I hear some of his one-liners, even today. We never see their faces, all we see are their personalized helmets. But it doesn’t matter. We remember them. We remember Sev counting his kills. We remember Scorch saying ‘You want a big crater or a small one?’. We remember Boss saying to a Trandoshan that tried to ambush him ‘You lizards need to realize that I am a lot more scary than you.’

Speaking of scary, we had seen Kyle Katarn be scary and epic in the original Dark Forces, but then we found out that he was a Jedi. Er, sort of a Jedi. He was a lot better as a mercenary than as a Jedi in my opinion, but that is just me. The novelizations of the game absolutely rocked. ‘Soldier For The Empire’ should be required reading for anyone who plays anything Star Wars. The later games were good, no question, but the best was when he was a not-so-common soldier.

In the book Allegiance, by Timothy Zahn, we see Stormtroopers as they were intended. Elite troops. Not gods, but very, very good at what they do. They are not supposed to be common soldiers, so when the heroes beat them, it is supposed to be hard. Not ‘Oh another squad of stormtroopers, I will use my left hand this time, it will be more of a challenge.’ He makes that part of the book believable. The rest was good, but not great. The stormtrooper parts though, ROCKED.

The trooper in Star Wars the Old Republic seem to be taking a similar approach. These are not cannon fodder. These are not people who die from near misses. These are beings who can wade into the thickest fighting and stand there while the bad guys throw everything they have at them. Beings who can unleash hell on their foes while taking the best the enemy can throw at them and laughing at it. Characters who can take and hold an enemy’s attention so that the squishy beings around them don’t. They are tanks.

Tanks in real life are mobile, they are offensive and defensive weapons. They can take punishment while dishing it out. Tanks in games are usually grouped into two general kinds. The uber-tank, like the Tanker from City of Heroes, who just takes the punishment so that others don’t have to. I have seen a tanker stand off Lord Recluse, all by herself, for ten minutes. She just stood there, taking the hits while the group respawned. Then there is the DPS tank who can take some punishment, while dishing out punishment as well. This is actually more like the soldier Shepard from Mass Effect 1 and 2. That character could take damage, but oh man could that character dish it out as well. The commando from Tabula Rasa, for those of us who played it, went this route. Heavy armor, insane amounts of damage done, often in area effect.

That seems to be what Bioware is shooting for in this MMO. Heavy armor, heavy weapons and lots and lots of ammo expended. Sounds like fun.

Over to you. Do you want to give troopers as envisioned by Bioware a try?

Photo courtesy of: http://www.swtoronlineguide.com

Filed Under: Community, Opinion Tagged With: ,

You’ve got to love Star Wars humour

September 27, 2010 by

One of the best things about any well established genre is the satire developed by its community. The best stuff comes when two iconic movies are mixed together.

Take last year’s Full Metal Star Wars – Gunnery Sgt Vader for example. If you’ve seen Full Metal Jacket, you’ll remember the character of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. He makes an appearance in Star Wars, with great effect in the video below.

Enjoy, but a warning: this is in no way safe for work and contains very frequent explicit language:

Filed Under: Community, Humour Tagged With: ,

Remembering History

September 20, 2010 by

Ok, rant on. I am SICK of George Lucas and Lucasarts changing things! First we have Obi-Wan Kenobi being the last of the Jedi in A New Hope, then we have Yoda being the last of the Jedi in Empire Strikes Back, and now we have untold HUNDREDS of Jedi who survived Order 66 and were hiding around the galaxy. After all, we only saw a handful of them get killed in the movie, right? Shaak Ti was the highest rank of them apparently, and of course she gets pawnerized by Starkiller in The Force Unleashed.

So much for Jedi history. It keeps changing, with every season of The Clone Wars changes something else. I guess it is George’s sandbox and he can knock down any sandcastles he wants to. One of the interesting points on Attack of the Clones was the Jedi Archives were supposed to be inviolate. The only ones who could access them were Jedi and why would Jedi change or remove information? Why indeed? Can anyone spell retcon? Rant off.

The Jedi Order existed hand in hand with the Republic for a very long time. As a matter of fact, according to Wookiepedia, the initial study of the Force was undertaken on Tython thirty six thousand, four hundred and fifty three before the destruction of the first Death Star at the battle of Yavin. Since the Republic itself was founded twenty five thousand and fifty three years before that battle of Yavin (there have been several there in Star Wars history after all), this shows the origination of the Order predates the Republic.

Now the actual Order of Jedi that people recognize as Jedi didn’t come to be until much later. And the reason it came to be was typical. Powerful people will have differing opinions on things, this is known. And when those powerful people have access to things like the Force, well… Yuck. The conflicts known as the Force Wars devastated Tython, and the survivors went elsewhere. They founded the Jedi Order some seven centuries later. Interestingly enough, the lightsaber, the signature weapon of the Jedi, was not invented for many years, almost ten thousand according to Wookiepedia. Before that, they used swords, blaster and other weapons as the situation called for it. Of course, once they had lightsabers, all bets were off.

The history of the Jedi Order, unsurprisingly, is dark versus light. Ever since the inception of the Order, heck, before it with the Force Wars on Tython, there were always those who chose the dark path. The Jedi stood for selflessness, for compassion, for mercy, for nobility and courage. This is not an easy path. It is so tempting to give in to expediency, ‘just this once’,’ just for this time’… So, much of the Jedi’s history has been conflict with Dark Force users.

Eventually, this culminates in the events of what we learned about in 1977 in Star Wars: A New Hope. But it takes a long time to get there. The time we are focused on is set thirty five hundred years before the events of A New Hope. It is a time of war, a time of heroes and villains. It is a time where history will be made, and lost.

The timeline on the SWTOR website  is an interesting look at the history as told by a Jedi historian. It is going in reverse order, starting with the Sacking of Coruscant, the defining moment of the game. It is chronicled by a Jedi historian who is trying to uncover the truth behind the war. At the moment, it is half done. Considering that the game is due out in April of 2011 that works well for updates over the next seven months. The reading is fascinating. A great deal of work went into the writing of the timeline, and getting Lance Hendrickson to voice Jedi Historian Gnost-Dural, that was a stroke of genius.

So far, the timeline has covered the Great War itself, and has moved as far back as the Mandalorian Wars, the events that set in motion the game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Now, not all of the material is great, the Mandalorians using Sith Armor is just one inconsistency that strikes me, but there are some parts that just resonate. The Battle of Bothawui was such a powerful piece. Inspired of course, by the last stand of the Spartans at Thermopylae, as was glorified in Frank Miller’s 300, this entry was, in a word, epic. Others were kind of ‘meh’. I personally couldn’t care less about some smuggler defeating a Mandalorian fleet. But for the most part, the entries are very good.

As teasers go, this timeline is probably one of the best I have seen for a game that is not out yet. It gives just enough information to whet the potential player’s appetite while at the same time leaving lots of room for expansion and leaving people hanging. As a marketing tool, it is working. People are talking about it. People are visiting the site, trying to figure out what was left unsaid, trying to fill in the gaps. Which is good, from a marketing standpoint. The publisher wants people engaged, they want it to be talked about. They want the game hyped as much as possible. That said, if it is over-hyped, bad things can result as well. But I do not see that happening. This timeline is a good example of a marketing tactic focused on a particular group, Star Wars fans.

I just hope George Lucas doesn’t start changing things in this as well, or we might wind up with a Kushiban as the Sith Emperor. That would make about as much sense as some of the other dubious choices made in The Clone Wars recently. I loved the idea of The Clone Wars, I HATE the execution.

Enough ranting. What do you think of the Jedi history as told by the Timeline? Does it make sense?

Photo courtesy of Star Wars: The Old Republic RP Wiki

Filed Under: Community, Opinion
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