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Topics - Taith

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1
General Gaming / Transformers Universe
« on: September 18, 2012, 07:58:44 PM »
Transformers Universe

Interview

Oh God let this be good.

2
Star Wars: The Old Republic / Star Wars - Free to Play?
« on: June 15, 2012, 12:31:53 PM »
Cross-posted on the Synch and HoJ forums.

There's a fragment of an interview with the SWTOR lead designer hinting that the game may go full free-to-play in the not-so-distant future. I know it's going free up to level 15, but I'm a bit non-plussed by that. Level 15 is about where I started disliking it.

For whatever reason, I've been thinking back on the game of late. I was openly telling people last year that I wanted to substitute SWTOR for WoW, but the game just didn't work out for me. The option of free-to-play lets me reconsider. If I don't have to pay a subscription, can I enjoy the game at a casual pace past its flaws?

I really don't have a clear picture in my head of what went wrong and what it might take to get me interested again, so I figured I'd open the matter for discussion. My thoughts are below.


The Good:

- Its Star Wars. I may not read the novels any more and the prequels were rubbish, but I'm still on good terms with the franchise itself. I've enjoyed the first two seasons of the Clone Wars CGI series and I plan to watch the third season soon.

- Tython and Korriban are both excellent zones. I played through both several times and enjoyed them. The way my Consular came by her lightsaber was completely epic.

- The storylines: good, if a little too unstructured. (See also below.)

- I really enjoyed the space combat missions. I'm sorry I didn't get a ship for my consular.


The Not So Good:

- Elite quests. I forget what they're called in SWTOR. I think Blizzard have it right here. They're aware people just skip them and are building something to compensate for that. They're a legacy of the pre-WoW MMO market and the audience has moved on from them.

- Coruscant and Nar Shadaa. Note that both are city planets. The design of both of these zones completely ticked me off and I didn't get past either. The Cataclysm underwater zone Vashj'ir is a bit of a trial too, but I've actually played it through several times and will probably do so again. Something is really wrong with SWTOR's city zone design for me.

- Chatty quest-givers. I never imagined this would be a bad thing, but it was surprisingly antisocial. Since the social aspect is a big reason that I play MMOs at all, let alone the ones I choose, chatty quest-givers and their funny gestures proved to be a negative.

- The storylines: a little too unstructured. WoW Cataclysm goes too far the other way, but it nevertheless provides some strong contrast. What do I think should have happened? My Sith inquisitor should have arrived on that third planet (whatever it was called), reported to the local Imperial commander and been routed back and forth to junior officer quest-givers. Pretend my inquisitor is attached to that officer's command on temporary assignment while working on the sneaky overall objective. Instead, as I recall, I didn't meet the local commander until about three quarters of the way through the zone. Narrative cohesion doesn't mean a linear quest structure.

- Stupid evil. On more than one occasion I found myself wondering how the hell the Empire functions at all if everyone sits around indulging their sadism. Quite screwing around folks and get on with conquering the galaxy. I know Star Wars is a straight-out good vs evil universe, but when I mass-murder rebels quickly for the sake of efficiency instead of slowly for chuckles I really don't think I should be earning light-side points.



Any feedback on my points? What did and didn't work for you? If you're still playing, how's it going? If you gave up on it, what would it take to entice you back?

3
General Gaming / Steam
« on: May 13, 2012, 01:31:20 PM »
I do actually need this downloadable from Steam to download games, right?

There's no downside to installing Steam, is there? Just want to be sure it's not going to start blasting me with stuff, or chewing up huge amounts of my bandwidth.

5
EVE Online / Taith's Grand Space Adventure
« on: March 04, 2012, 07:14:55 PM »
So I told someone not to send me an invite to EVE and they sent me an invite to EVE and now I'm trialling EVE.

I've hit my first road-block.

I'm working through the mining tutorials and the third one asks you to create a couple of afterburners. I had a blueprint and I believe I have the necessary tritanium, but when I try to schedule a manufacturing run of them, I get told I don't have "Industry Level 1".

I can't figure this one out. If I open up the Industry skill, I have Mining 2. Is Industry Level 1 something else?

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The Dog & Duck / A Point of View
« on: February 14, 2012, 07:32:59 PM »
A slight re-imagining of a scene from Episode IV.

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General Gaming / Jar Jar in Carbonite in The Force Unleashed
« on: February 04, 2012, 10:40:20 PM »
A little easter egg via Super Punch.

The word "ha" springs to mind, repeated several times.

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Star Wars: The Old Republic / Flashpoint Fun
« on: February 02, 2012, 11:25:39 PM »
Thanks for the fun run through Esseles this evening guys. (Including you Evil Mumblers.) It was good fun. I was a little surprised to see us ripping rocks out of the deck though. On a starship. Not well known for rocks, I'd have thought, your average starship.

The next one appears to be Hammer Station in the 13 to 17 range. Does it require 4 people? I hope you'll join me there once I've plodded along up to the necessary level. And anyone who still needs Esseles, let me know. I would kind of like to see it from a not quite so evil point of view. ;D

9
The Dog & Duck / Alan Moore's Star Wars
« on: January 31, 2012, 03:51:27 PM »
I was reading up a bit on Alan Moore last night and came across this guy who's doing write-ups of his great Alan Moore re-read.

Early in his career (and before Return of the Jedi) Moore did some short comic work for a Star Wars magazine. The story about Vader before he had a conscience sounds fascinating.

It also mentions the Droids cartoon from the 80s. Another moment in Star Wars history that I'd completely forgotten. I still don't remember anything about it. Dare I look on Youtube?

10
General Gaming / Droids have Feelings Posters
« on: January 09, 2012, 02:23:33 PM »
Droids have feelings posters.

I found the droid troopers hilarious in Clone Wars.

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Star Wars: The Old Republic / Combined Star Wars Movie
« on: December 02, 2011, 10:42:42 PM »
Since I don't seem to be able to comment on the movie post directly...

I'm curious about something in the three combined movies for SWTOR. In the first there is a Sith apprentice whose name, if I heard right, is Malgus or Darth Malgus. He's obviously the Sith warrior in the forest battle on Alderaan in the second movie. Is he also the Sith warrior leading the attack on the Jedi Temple in the third movie? He's wearing a big face prosthetic so I can't be sure. It would certainly be in keeping with the day he had on Alderaan.

Nice find that, by the way. They're great movies.

12
General Gaming / The State of MMOs
« on: February 02, 2011, 05:05:32 PM »
It's been a while since I checked in on the state of gaming, having been smoothly distracted by other made-up stuff, so I found this one interesting.

WoW not WoW

Sounds like it's a make or break year for the MMO industry. If none of those games hits it big, game developers will all be off to make Facebook games. (I must admit, I haven't even looked at Facebook games.)

13
General Gaming / RPG Structure
« on: October 20, 2010, 04:22:22 PM »
http://i.imgur.com/bFeoW.jpg

My Japanese RPG experience was limited to Final Fantasy 7, but between that and my long-since lapsed anime/manga habit this diagram sure does ring true.

I particularly like:

ENCOUNTER! Sky pirates! -> Summon a dragon from space


And:

ENCOUNTER! Obligatory Octopus

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The Dog & Duck / The Truth about AT-ATs
« on: January 08, 2010, 11:39:17 AM »
The starting truth about AT-ATs finally comes to light.

Mega-Creatures Who Wear AT-AT Armor - Revealed!

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