Not entirely relevant, but a good way to start off this post.

Judgement day is upon us! Well, almost. And that’s what this post is about.

Assuming you bought and activated SWTOR as soon as possible, meaning around December 20-21st of last year, you’re probably in the same situation as myself and most SWTOR players. As the days go by, your SWTOR subscription time slowly dwindles away, until you are left with a potentially difficult financial decision. To sub, or not to sub, that is the question.

Sorry, I’ve been reading/analyzing Hamlet for over a month now in Literature class. It just kinda comes out, you know.

For most players, this is an easy decision. Hell, there isn’t even a decision to make, because most SWTOR players are enjoying the crap out of the game. On different levels of course, but I feel absolutely confident in saying “most players” as in the large, large majority. SWTOR is just a good game, and in a lot of ways, a breath of fresh air for the genre. There really isn’t much negative criticism to note – the launch was smooth, the game is at a good level of polish (that $135 million sure was put to work), and the game is just generally fun to play. I have yet to read a blog post or tweet in which someone just flat-out doesn’t enjoy the game.

Unfortunately, I’m in the middle of the road as to where I want to go with this game. Right now, I’m just solo’ing it up. I log in, do a few missions, and then log out to play something else. Some days I’ll have a lot of fun with the game – like today, and everything will just “click,” and other days – like yesterday – I find myself asking “why am I playing this?” It’s not a love-hate relationship or anything. There’s nothing in the game that makes me rage, or feel angry. I like SWTOR, but I just have trouble feeling compelled to play it. Like I’ve said before, MMOs suffer greatly when you’re just not compelled to put in the time, and suffer even more when you play them as if they were single-player RPGs.

I’ve thought about my subscription over the past week, and I’ve decided I’ll be giving it another month. I won’t be committing full-time (and by that, I mean full gaming time) to the game, but I do want to give it another month before I call it quits. I do enjoy the game, but sometimes I’d just rather play other things – and that’s okay. Part of paying for an MMO though is, you know, paying for it, so it’s easy to feel like I’m cheating on SWTOR when I go off to play other things.

So yes, I will be continuing with SWTOR for another month. It’s too early to give up on the game now when I know I’m having fun with it. The question is – and always is – how much fun will I be getting for another month?

-rav4ge

I’ve been putting time here and there into SWTOR and leveling up my Sith Warrior, er Juggernaut, Octavio, who as of this writing is a mere level 17. I say “mere” because I’ve been already hearing about and seeing level 50s roaming the galaxies, but considering how much time I’ve spent on the game thus far (24 hours total), I can feel secure in my slow-leveling pace.

Anyway, I wanted to do a little list of things I’ve noticed about the game that are in some way oddly hilarious, recurring, or maybe just badass. Note that none of these are in order or anything. I’m not sure how I’d honestly rank these guys up, but that’s not the point – enjoy!

1) Sith Headgear makes everything better.

Darth Vader, Darth Revan, Boba Fett… well, technically Boba Fett isn’t Sith, but he is a bad guy right up there with the rest of Star Wars’ most legendary baddies. What do they all have in common? Wicked cool, fear-inspiring headgear, that’s what – and so can you, at a relatively early level!

It hides the mustache and makes me sound like a Principal over the school intercom, but my badass factor has increased.

2) The dialogue choice placement is hardly changed.

I’ve noticed this a lot while playing the Sith Warrior and interacting with quest-related NPCs. They give you a quick run-down on the situation at hand, and you respond in one of three ways:

Now, this isn’t always the norm, and you can’t kill quest givers obviously, but when you’re faced with meeting anyone outside of those specifics, that’s usually the recurring setup, which I find pretty hilarious.

3) Lightsabers rule supreme.

I basically covered this in one of my earlier SWTOR posts, about how I had gone from playing a Commando to a Sith Warrior because, you know, Lightsabers are awesome. And wow, what a difference that choice made. The flair, the animation, the unique humming sound, the light-freaking-saber itself… I just can’t see myself playing a non-lighsaber focused class before I get to 50 with Octavio. There’s just too much fun to be had with these iconic, bright shafts of death.

Heh… shafts.

4) BioWare loves to ravage.

I know ravage is a great verb/noun, believe me, I know. And apparently, so do BioWare, because I’ve seen several occurrences of the word throughout my adventures as a Sith. Funnily enough, I didn’t hear it anywhere as often when I played my Republic Commando. It seems the Empire has seized the word as their own and therefore established it with a negative connotation.

Still, “ravage” manages to make a place for itself in SWTOR as a melee ability (and an awesome one at that), a quest item (the Ravager), a server name (The Ravager), and a formidable Sith Lord, who goes by Darth Ravage.

Totally coincidental, of course, but a nice little observation nonetheless.

5) The Sith are pretty nice guys (and gals).

SWTOR is a solo-friendly MMO, meaning you could play all the way to 50 without grouping, talking, or acknowledging anyone aside from NPCs and your companions. However, this is an MMO after all, and doing so definitely has an impact on the experience. Hell, the only times I’ve ever really enjoyed playing this genre of games for a span of longer than two weeks is when I’ve been involved in an active, friendly, welcoming guild. Soloing MMOs for me quickly becomes rather boring and mundane, especially when there’s better, more engaging single-player games that work better in creating immersive worlds and compelling stories because they’re single-player focused. A good example being Skyrim.

I’m pretty much just soloing SWTOR at the moment, which does kinda explain why I haven’t put much time into it, but I can’t help but want to group up when I come across a Flashpoint NPC or an area of elites. I don’t like that feeling of having to “pass” on a quest because it involves grouping, and luckily SWTOR makes this process pretty easy (most MMOs do), even on the Sith side.

Now, I’m playing on a Role-Playing server, and role-playing a Sith character usually means being kind of a dick, to put it simply. Let’s be honest, Sith are basically power-hungry, self-centered, arrogant parasites who create alliances only to benefit themselves while they last – and when they don’t, someone usually turns up dead.

But even with all of this considered, all of – and I do mean all of the Sith players I have grouped with have been extremely pleasant to play with and talk to. Sometimes, I would honestly forget I was playing a ruthless Sith-in-training up until we’d reach a group NPC conversation and one of my groupmates would execute him or her. And even then, we’d all laugh about it after. I mean, it is just a video game after all, and I bet there are a few players out there trying their best to be the epitome of Sith Role-players, i.e. complete dicks. Which is cool I guess, if that’s your thing. It’s just nice to know that Sith can be nice people/players, too.

So there you have it, five things I’ve noticed in SWTOR that I felt were worth writing about. The adventures continue.

-rav4ge

In my last post, I mentioned how awesome it is that the Trooper class in SWTOR gets a grenade launcher ability, and then I compared its use to the infamous “noobtube” in the Call of Duty series:

BioWare tossed in a lot of varied abilities to keep the Trooper feeling like a little more than just a laser cannon. The second ability you start with is a very handy and very effective grenade launcher, which incredibly fun to use – and the best part is, the NPCs can’t do shit when you use it again… and again… and again. This ain’t no noob tube, son!

Well, that gave me an idea. What if it was used in PvP play, much to the dismay of the enemy who would whine and complain like CoD players do? A bit of video editing later, this is what I came up with (note that the audio/video are both not mine, I just did the editing). Enjoy!