SWTOR

[Dren]

I'll do my normal routine.  I won't get the pre-order.  I'll come in 3-4 months later and join.  At that point, 10% of you will be left.  I'll get bored and quit too.

Or, I won't play it at all until it goes F2P 6 months from launch.

Fake Edit:  I actually am on the fence this time.  I might get two pre-orders just because my 9 and 11 year old sons are huge SW fans.  We could have some great fun with this.

[Crumbs]

Spy

Smuggler actually.....

[Fordel]

Spies are Imperial.

[Furiously]

I was weak. I pre-ordered today.

[Ingmar]

I am going to need to remember to put up a strict NO SPOILERS policy for guild chat for this one.

[Sky]

Yeah, this game's release is going to be a spoiler minefield.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

I dunno, is it really even possible to spoil a Star Wars plot? That's like spoiling a romantic comedy.

[Cyrrex]

I know you are being snarky, but from what I've seen it will be quite easy to spoil it.  I do not, for example, want to hear anything about how the Trooper story plays out.  Forget about it being Star Wars, there are some really good writers on Bioware (AUSTIN!)'s team.

[Lantyssa]

So you don't want to know how Femsheptrooperlady's rivalry with the Rodian turns out?  Right.  I won't say anything.  Mum's the word.

[eldaec]

Avoiding spoilers for your first swtor dude is fair enough, hard to see how that is going to work for your 8th class, especially if you play it as a multiplayer game.

[01101010]

 

[luckton]

 

 

[Cyrrex]

So you don't want to know how Femsheptrooperlady's rivalry with the Rodian turns out?  Right.  I won't say anything.  Mum's the word.

OMG WHAT RODIAN I MUST HAVE MISSED THAT THANKS FOR THE TIP.

LFG "who shot first" will pay gold!

[luckton]

OMG WHAT RODIAN I MUST HAVE MISSED THAT THANKS FOR THE TIP.

LFG "who shot first" will pay gold!

[Threash]

Remembers how fast "snape kills dumbledore" was on every public channel on wow and feels bad for anyone wanting to avoid spoilers.

[Fordel]

If you are going to want to avoid spoilers, your going to have to close every chat channel in game is my guess.


Even putting aside the usual assholes, people will unintentionally spoiler things for you just by looking for groups for quests.

[Koyasha]

That's one of the things that concerns me about how I'm going to handle it in this game.  Normally I hate getting spoilers for good story games, to such a degree that every time a BioWare game in particular comes out, I tend to stop reading the entire internet until I finish it to make sure I don't accidentally ruin something big for myself.  I have no idea what to do with SWTOR in this regard.

[luckton]

That's one of the things that concerns me about how I'm going to handle it in this game.  Normally I hate getting spoilers for good story games, to such a degree that every time a BioWare game in particular comes out, I tend to stop reading the entire internet until I finish it to make sure I don't accidentally ruin something big for myself.  I have no idea what to do with SWTOR in this regard.

I'm going to attack this game the same way I attacked Rift, and as has been suggested; turn off the chat channels, go solo to level 50, group up for the dungeons or quests that require it.  Play it like a single-player game, and just treat any PCs running around as programming bugs 

[Nevermore]

Before people get too excited, remember Slap is not actually a blanket f13 guild and we do have some extra rules about conduct and stuff (especially in the area of homophobic or racial slurs, "LOL we totally raped that", etc.) that you all may not totally enjoy, but if you're willing to put up with our hippie PC ways then yeah, check us out. (Yes you can say fuck, we're not barbarians.)

Oh and hopefully SWTOR isn't allowing special characters in names, but if they are then we have that rule too. If I can't type it on my keyboard without using alt keystrokes, you don't get an invite.  

I'll be hitting you guys up for an invite if you'll have me.  I feel like I gotta play with the F13 crowd in at least one game 

Spy

 

It would have been a lot funnier if he just called him a Bothan.

[01101010]

It would have been a lot funnier if he just called him a Bothan.

Foresee a ton of guild names built off that, I do. 

[Ingmar]

I dunno, is it really even possible to spoil a Star Wars plot? That's like spoiling a romantic comedy.

Sounds like someone needs some remedial KOTOR play assigned for this week's homework.

[eldaec]

I dunno, is it really even possible to spoil a Star Wars plot? That's like spoiling a romantic comedy.

Sounds like someone needs some remedial KOTOR play assigned for this week's homework.

For that matter, watch Empire again.

It is, however, literally impossible to spoil KOTOR2 as the plot is so mindnumbingly dull you cannot transfer knowledge of it to another human without rendering them unconscious.

[Morfiend]

Two questions.

1) Do we know the difference in gameplay from PVE to PVP servers.

2) Is there a PVP segment of F13 making a guild?

Oh yeah, I also just read that they are having RP-PVP servers.

[Sky]

go solo to level 50, group up for the dungeons or quests that require it.

Do you mean grouping while leveling for flashpoints/heroic quests? Because you want to do that.

Yes, I just said that!

Foresee a ton of guild names built off that, I do. 

Hmmm...Bothan Country....

1) Do we know the difference in gameplay from PVE to PVP servers.

2) Is there a PVP segment of F13 making a guild?

Open pvp? I think the starter worlds are faction-locked. Snakecharmer is bailing on BC for a PvP server, not sure if he has a guild in mind or what. Wonder if it's too rpg-y for Slayerik's crowd :)

[Nebu]

Do you mean grouping while leveling for flashpoints/heroic quests? Because you want to do that.

Why?  In every other recent MMO there's absolutely no reason to do group content prior to max level.  Does TOR give us a viable reason to do group content prior to cap?  I'd love to see that. 

[Ingmar]

Do you mean grouping while leveling for flashpoints/heroic quests? Because you want to do that.

Why?  In every other recent MMO there's absolutely no reason to do group content prior to max level.  Does TOR give us a viable reason to do group content prior to cap?  I'd love to see that. 

The dungeon finder is a fantastic way to level in WoW, actually. Perhaps that isn't a recent MMO anymore I guess?

[Nebu]

The dungeon finder is a fantastic way to level in WoW, actually. Perhaps that isn't a recent MMO anymore I guess?

I'd say an alternative way to level.  If you level solo or level in dungeons in WoW, neither has any impact on the endgame.  It's meaningless from a character development standpoint as any loot or lore is pointless the instant you hit the level cap.  That's my point.  If I'm going to alter my playstyle (playing in a group rather than solo) for a game, I'd at least like there to be a reason beyond loot to do so.  Fun is a good reason, but I rarely find group leveling as fun as solo.  The inefficiency of most people makes me nuts.

[Ingmar]

Below max level the dungeon groups are pretty fun, but YMMV. It is certainly *faster* to level through the dungeons in WoW, particularly as a tank, but anyone can speed their progress up by queueing while they do their quests and taking the groups when they pop up.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by meaningless from a character development standpoint, though. By definition, gaining a level is meaningful to your character development, because if you never gain that level your character won't develop.

[Nebu]

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by meaningless from a character development standpoint, though. By definition, gaining a level is meaningful to your character development, because if you never gain that level your character won't develop.

The only rewards are xp and loot.  I want something that I can't get solo that persists through endgame.

[Dren]

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by meaningless from a character development standpoint, though. By definition, gaining a level is meaningful to your character development, because if you never gain that level your character won't develop.

The only rewards are xp and loot.  I want something that I can't get solo that persists through endgame.

Agreed.  Even in WoW I never felt doing dungeons while leveling up was necessary.  I mainly would just do the quests and rush to max level.  Then I would participate in endgame content.

It would be nice to get special items, for instance, that you could only get in the early content that grew with the character and helped with later content right into endgame.  Achievements are really the only closest thing you can compare, but they do not have any direct impact on the game. 

You don't want to actually lock people out of content without doing prior content though.  WoW certainly tried this in spades and since then "Instance Locks" have become dirty words.

It has to be direct enough to have an impact on your character's performance/ability to handle content later in the game, but not so punishing that you absolutely cannot participate.  Sometimes fluff can fit this well but it has to be more than just a title or 1 achievement out of 90,000.  You might get a special sash that others can see or special access to lore areas that others can't get.  Tough one to balance.

[Ingmar]

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by meaningless from a character development standpoint, though. By definition, gaining a level is meaningful to your character development, because if you never gain that level your character won't develop.

The only rewards are xp and loot.  I want something that I can't get solo that persists through endgame.

Might as well just make grouping mandatory in that case, though (fin trees ahoy). The model that makes most players happy is one where they choose the type of play they prefer on the way to the endgame (and hopefully at the endgame as well although that has been generally less successful for most developers.) If grouping to level is effective people who like grouping will do it, it doesn't need to be incentivized beyond that, permanent exclusive benefits just screws the guy who prefers to level solo. In the case of SWTOR there is going to be story stuff you won't see otherwise, which is going to be incentive for another chunk of players as well.

I guess I just really don't understand the idea that character development prior to the endgame doesn't "count".

[Mrbloodworth]

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by meaningless from a character development standpoint, though. By definition, gaining a level is meaningful to your character development, because if you never gain that level your character won't develop.

The only rewards are xp and loot.  I want something that I can't get solo that persists through endgame.

How about a steady group of friends to play with? 

[Sky]

Why?  In every other recent MMO there's absolutely no reason to do group content prior to max level.  Does TOR give us a viable reason to do group content prior to cap?  I'd love to see that. 

Because it's fun and story-based. MORE STORY. Multiplayer conversations are awesome.

If you worry about leveling in TOR, at least other than thinking about getting your AC or mount or something....you're doing it wrong. Relax and enjoy the story. It's why I've suddenly become a raging fanboy...a game that embraces the journey. Will it please the mmo vets and lookiloos? I DON'T CARE 

If you just want to reduce it to "well, I'll just race to the endgame and grind gear", you're probably not going to enjoy TOR. If you want to look over and cross your fingers that goody-good Jedi Sky in his nice white robe doesn't win the conversation roll so you can vent the engineers into space to save some time...and even better, watch him recoil in horror as you hit the button...then you might dig TOR. The mmo in TOR is (imo) just the foundation upon which the game is built, not the game itself.

[Nebu]

I guess I just really don't understand the idea that character development prior to the endgame doesn't "count".

Consider WoW.  You level from 1-cap.  Once at cap, you are essentially reset to level 1 again just this time in terms of gear instead of a numerical value for level.  All the trip from 1-cap provided was a delay into entry to the new leveling treadmill.  I'd like the trip from 1-cap to contribute to my endgame treadmill, even if it's in a small way.  That's an incentive for me to group and meet people that I would otherwise avoid since I can almost always level faster solo than in a group.  

How about a steady group of friends to play with?  

Silly man.  You know that I hate people.  

[koro]

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by meaningless from a character development standpoint, though. By definition, gaining a level is meaningful to your character development, because if you never gain that level your character won't develop.

The only rewards are xp and loot.  I want something that I can't get solo that persists through endgame.

Social Points. Can't get 'em solo, and they unlock a wide variety of cosmetic-but-upgradeable gear later on down the line. Most people who want the stuff are going to end up having to run a billion flashpoints to get their Social rank up.

That's one of the things that concerns me about how I'm going to handle it in this game.

I'm going to attack this game the same way I attacked Rift, and as has been suggested; turn off the chat channels, go solo to level 50, group up for the dungeons or quests that require it.  Play it like a single-player game, and just treat any PCs running around as programming bugs 

Surprisingly, the best way to go through the game, I've found, is in a dedicated leveling duo. You get XP bonuses, less searching for warm bodies for group quests (the ones you can't duo, at any rate), you can see each others' story cutscenes, and there's even bonus dialogue for doing ye olde average queste you come across in a group instead of solo.