Hyperspace Beacon

I've hit a wall in my personal gameplay. Most people run into it eventually when they are dedicated to one MMO like I am. Sometimes, I will move on to another game. Guild Wars 2 and DC Universe Online are calling me pretty strongly again. The problem I'd face if I did that is that I would be leaving behind my guild and the friends I have in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Not that I'm opposed to playing a game solo, it's just that my guild is the biggest reason I still play SWTOR.

I still want to play the game, but my fourth alt is near 50, PvP disappoints me because of the Elite War Hero grind, and my raid group seems to be stuck on a single boss fight. It's not that I don't like the game; it's just disappointing at several turns. So how am I going to keep this game interesting? Well, I didn't join a roleplay server so that I can pwn noobs in PvP; I joined because of the community.

Perhaps some of you are in a similar situation. Maybe you're looking for something else to do in the game, but don't know how to get started. Maybe you've always wanted to break into roleplay, but you weren't sure where to start. If so I have some tips for you.

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All MMOs could use improvements, but that doesn't negate what they have done right. And despite the negativity, SWTOR is doing well. In fact, in a recent forum post Systems Designer Damion Schubert said that the free-to-play push was working quite well: "The success of the market (and it has been quite successful) has given us the time and resources to do some ambitious things on Makeb and plan some very ambitious things beyond." Without even looking at the specific numbers, I can tell that the Cartel Market cash shop is working really well because of the sheer number of items I see on the Galactic Trade Network (auction house). As much as I hate to admit it, if the Cartel Market does well, so does the rest of the game.

I also see other hints that BioWare might be changing up its game a little bit. Direct discussion with the community appears to be on the rise, and BioWare has also admitted and is attempting to properly fix its mistakes. In the wake of Stephen Reid's departure, direct communication had become lax, and besides Ilum, I don't remember BioWare ever truly admitting to mistakes.

Let's take a look at a few of the changes BioWare has already made this year. Maybe it will give us a clue as to where SWTOR is going in the near future.

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How many times have you booted up Star Wars: The Old Republic to have a little fun in PvP only to be frustrated by certain mechanics? How many times have you been playing the Alderaan warzone, or worse, the Ancient Hypergate warzone, and you are about to cap the node but are suddenly impeded because your character has fallen asleep? Of course, you know there's an Assassin or Shadow there using Mind Trap or Mind Maze.

Your first instinct is to set yourself free using your stun break, but it occurs to you that if you use your stun break, then the opponent is just going to use that ability again, and then you won't have any way to break free. However, if you don't break free, then he will cap the node you're supposed to be guarding. It looks to me as if your enemy just hit his I-win button.

If it isn't already obvious, today I'd like to talk about stuns and other movement-impairing effects in SWTOR. Although it'd be really easy to write these abilities off as broken, I believe that there are some misunderstandings about the resolve system and a couple of simple fixes would make the system more palatable to the average player.

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I attended a fantastic roleplay event this past Saturday on The Ebon Hawk server. It was just a social event, but there were added touches like prizes and an in-character scavenger hunt. As a member of the planning crew, I took a look back at what could make an event like this better. The execution of the event could be tightened up, but there are several potential additions to the game itself that would have improved the festivities. This prompted me to think about what improvements could make roleplay better in general.

So here it is: my top five wishes for roleplay in Star Wars: The Old Republic.

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To say that this year has been interesting for Star Wars: The Old Republic would be a major understatement. I think it's safe to say that in the course of this year this game has gone from being one of the most loved games to one of the most hated. Maybe I just like rooting for the underdog, but I still love the game. (There are other reasons, of course.) Love the game or hate it, 2012 has been a wild ride for the game and this column.

As this is the last Hyperspace Beacon of the year year, I'd like to take a moment to reflect on some of the past opinions and predictions I held, then test them against my current stance or the truth behind what happened.

Before I get into the meat of this column, I want to make mention of an event. The Imperials of The Ebon Hawk server are holding a gala in the name of Darth Nox, commemorating the one-year anniversary of her ascension to the Dark Council. Players are invited to come ready to roleplay and participate in in-character games. Nox will conduct a scavenger hunt, items will be up for raffle and auction, and every participant should walk away with something. If you were looking for an opportunity to get into roleplay or just have some fun, be sure to visit the market area of Dromund Kaas (instance 1, coordinates: 20, 200) at 6:00 p.m. EST on Saturday, January 5th, 2013.

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Originally, I had my heart set on playing a Smuggler when Star Wars: The Old Republic went live, so I had intended on not playing one in beta. But the temptation was far too strong. I played a couple of Smugglers to try out the different specs and see the storyline from a couple of different points of view. Unfortunately, that burned me out on the class, and I could never finish the story on the live servers.

Another of my intentions when the servers went live was to max out a character as fast as I could so that I could get to endgame in a decent amount of time. Therefore, I picked a class that I didn't think would hold my interest: the Sith Warrior. Unfortunately -- or fortunately depending on your perspective -- I fell in love with the Sith Warrior storyline. I was impressed that an "evil" character could have such an interesting story arc, so much so that by the end I was really rooting for her to win.

What I didn't know was that there was a connection between the Sith Warrior story and the Smuggler story. I was right there listening to the characters speak, yet I didn't understand at first why I felt that nagging feeling as if I'd heard certain things before. Once I did discover the connection between those two storylines, I sought out other story connections. I found out that SWTOR is full of these tiny links. Since it's been a year since release, I figured that it's safe to share some of my favorites.

Yes, major spoilers follow the break.

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Sometimes we need to see certain things from different perspectives in order to understand the whole truth. If detectives listened to only one eyewitness, then the totality of the crime would be missing. They could head in the wrong direction, thereby letting a criminal go free and possibly detaining an innocent person. Although game design isn't exactly like busting a criminal, it is a lot like other parts of detective work. Designers attempt to determine why certain aspects of a game work or don't work. They gather data and design a balanced system, but the totality of success isn't seen until they gather eyewitness accounts from a number of different perspectives. This is why today I want to look at the positive side of the gear treadmill.

Star Wars: The Old Republic launches a new game update today -- Update 1.6: Ancient Hypergate. Along with new warzone and space combat areas, this update adds a new set of top-level PvP gear, gets rid of a PvP gear set, and makes the PvE gear progression shorter by giving level 50s a set of Tionese gear. This update pretty much defines power creep, and normally, I would say that this kind of thing should absolutely be avoided in MMOs. However, this week, I'd like to take the opposite approach and examine why this is a good thing.

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Lead Designer Damion Schubert made an interesting statement during the last Star Wars: The Old Republic livestream. He proclaimed that although the designers don't want to completely eliminate vertical progression, the stats between the upper tiers of PvP armor will begin to flatten out.

As many of you are aware, I am not a fan of vertical progression in MMOs overall, especially in PvP. I have issued many gripes and even stood on a soapbox proclaiming how it's bad. It's not that I don't want players to have a sense of gain as they play the game, but a purely vertical progression system (in which stats only ever get bigger) invites the dreaded power creep. And as I said on my soapbox, power creep is not good for players or designers. So when Schubert talked about flattening out stats, I was excited. Finally, SWTOR is stepping away from a vertical progression system!

Update 1.6 brings multiple changes to PvP specifically. The new warzone, Ancient Hypergates, is probably the biggest. But for today, the most important change is the elimination of the Battlemaster tier of PvP gear and the introduction of Elite War Hero gear. What does this do to the overall feel of PvP, and are these changes enough to soften the heart of the MMO gamer?

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Although one of the quests in the new daily area of Star Wars: The Old Republic requires you to sift through fecal matter to find a DNA sample, that doesn't mean that quests actually stink. In fact, I believe it's just the opposite. The new quest additions to SWTOR allowed me to overlook some of the issues in the free-to-play model that I mentioned last week.

Subscribers can access the new Section X area for free, and free or preferred accounts can access it for 600 Cartel Coins. The Republic previously abandoned exploration of this area of Belsavis until recent intelligence placed minions of the Dread Master in the area. That, along with the recent discovery of the transport ship known as The Fatality, has piqued both the Republic's and Empire's interest in the area.

Players have two major tasks in the area: The long awaited HK-51 companion quests start here, and a new set of level 50 daily quest are found here. Let's take a moment to examine those two major aspects of Update 1.5.

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In a recent Gamasutra article, Funcom's Craig Morrison argued that most games that have moved from subscription to free-to-play are "using a hybrid model, where the free-to-play is a trial and then what they really want is the users to move on to whatever they've called what used to be a subscription." You don't have to look too deeply to realize that was BioWare's intention when it shifted Star Wars: The Old Republic to a free-to-play model. But is there still some advantage to just playing free-to-play?

Also, the Cartel Market, SWTOR's cash shop, both opened up a new real-money economic arena and transformed the in-game market. Most free-to-play cash shops offer cosmetic items or items that don't give players a clear advantage over other players. There are certainly no endgame items available on the market, but what about other buy-to-win items?

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Star Wars: The Old Republic fans have been anticipating this week since the middle of the summer, and many players who dropped the game shortly after launch are looking forward to trying it out again. Veteran players are most likely familiar with how gear progression works in this game, but those returning will probably need a refresher course. After all, BioWare has made some significant changes, especially to PvP, since the game launched. It's quite understandable if you return to the game and are completely lost when considering how viable your current gear is.

Today, I'm going to speak to the returning players and help them put their gear to rights once Update 1.5 launches. If you are a solo PvEer who hasn't looked too hard at endgame gear progression, a PvPer who hasn't looked at the PvE side much, or a raider who wants to dabble in PvP, this mini-guide will help you get started and will give you the gear-progression goals you should shoot for.

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With Update 1.5 and free-to-play looming on the Star Wars: The Old Republic horizon, many players are feeling the itch to come back to the game. Two and half years ago when I started the Hyperspace Beacon, I compared that itch to that of a freshly shaved Wookiee. Now it can probably be compared to a Gungan rash. But it's still there; you still have to scratch it. Unanswered questions remain. Has BioWare fixed the launch issues? Is there a compelling reason to play every day? And probably the biggest question of them all: Is free-to-play going to make SWTOR worth coming back to? Personally, I'd like to answer yes to all those questions, but I can truly speak only for myself. If you want a real answer, you're going to have to come back to try it.

Hyperspace beacons in the Star Wars lore are stationary probes that navicomputers lock on to so that starships speeding through hyperspace don't crash into a star, planet, or other celestial object. Today, this column will be your guide through the reaches of internet-space so that you can find the information you need to get back into the Star Wars MMORPG.

Angle the deflector shields as I boot up the navicomputer. We will make stops around the best fan sites for news, guides, and community building. If you've been away for a while, you'll notice that galaxy-scape has changed, but I will show you the new landmarks. If you're ready, punch it, Chewie!

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Like many of you, I'm eagerly awaiting the launch of Update 1.5 for Star Wars: The Old Republic, which will hopefully happen next week. Although I have been on the test server and tried out the new content, I don't want to give my impressions until it's officially launched. So this week, I've decided to address an issue I've seen crop up more and more in the roleplay community that has nothing to do with the pending game update.

In any good story, there is conflict -- physical, interpersonal, or otherwise. In MMO roleplay, a good chunk of conflict turns physical. After all, most of our characters are highly skilled warriors and other combat specialists, and physical conflict is the natural course. That means that roleplayers then have to be highly skilled at PvP if their characters are to be highly skilled, too, right? Don't get me wrong, I love PvP, but this supposition always rubbed me the wrong way, especially in a game like TOR where there is a large disparity between PvE skills and PvP.

So what kinds of physical conflict resolutions are there if it's not straight-up PvP? And doesn't the dueling system in TOR limit itself to one-on-one dueling? How do you resolve that issue? Excellent questions. I'm glad you asked. Let's dive in.

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Last week, I discussed the reasons I still play a game that literally a million people have quit playing. I believe a huge part of that discussion stemmed from my expectations of the game. I truly believe that many people expected Star Wars: The Old Republic to be the answer to all MMO problems and Wookiees. Of course, no game could ever live up to that dream. I attempted to curb some of those expectations in a few of my articles, but some community desires were just beyond the scope of BioWare's plans for SWTOR. This led to disappointment and a lot of unreal prospects for the game.

On that note, I'd like to take a look at the free-to-play plans for our Star Wars MMO. Many players hope that F2P will finally launch SWTOR in the right direction. Others believe that if SWTOR had launched F2P, we wouldn't have seen the mass exodus that we saw in March. (Of course, there are also those who claim that F2P is just the next step toward fail and that the game will shut down in less than a year.)

Personally, I'm a fan, so I'm hopeful. However, I take that hope with the realization that this could definitely be the beginning of the end for SWTOR. Ultimately, the potential for success hinges on the disparity between what the players want and what BioWare delivers. Will F2P save SWTOR?

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