I’ve been digging around some of the Dev Diaries for LotRO and found a bunch of neat info about the Siege of Mirkwood (SoM) expansion.  Just thought I’d post some of them here.

I’m liking what I’ve seen thus far.  There seem to be a lot of innovative ideas in SoM and some improvements for a couple of long-standing gripes I’ve had (like the mount changes).

Note: the links probably contain a ton of spoilers, etc.  If you’re one of those folks that likes being surprised by content, etc., you may want to pass on clicking below.

~ Siege of Mirkwood Features

~ Mirkwood Regions

~ The Skirmish System (also contains some neat info about how Development happens in a studio)

~ Mount System changes

~ Shared Storage

It’s been a while since I’ve posted.  I’m still kicking around LotRO at the moment.  I was subscribed to SWG but my old PC bit the dust and I had to get a new one.  SWG is a moderately fun game but, with the new machine, I don’t feel like reinstalling a game I’ll hardly play across the Internet.

I’m interested to see what will come up in the Siege of Mirkwood expansion for LotRO.  There’s a dev diary about the skirmish system – sounds neat.  I’ll have to wait and see how the whole thing turns out.  I know MoM was devastating for my kinship.

Speaking of which, my kinship, a group of casual players who liked to do it all, is no more.  We’d been around since open beta, been through the Rift and Helegrod, raided the Moors together and generally had a lot of fun.  Sadly, the raid changes in MoM cost us too many good players (most of whom went to hardcore raiding kinships).  We also had several officers leave the game or take extended breaks as well as some members.  It was the perfect storm of crappiness.

We merged with an ally who wasn’t experiencing quite the same level of burnout and attrition.  Generally, I view the move as positive.  I’m still getting to know the new players.

I’m already being considered for an officer position in the new kinship.  I’m not sure I’ll take it though.  I’m a tad burned out from all the drama of the last couple of weeks and I’d like to spend some time with nothing more pressing to do than stab the snot out of some orcs.

Some of the folks taking a break from LotRO have been trying Champions Online.  I’ve also had a friend at work try the game.  The feedback I’ve been hearing is that it’s a good game and an interesting take on the superhero MMO but the story lines aren’t as developed as they could be.  I have no first-hand knowledge so I couldn’t say.  I’m sticking to fantasy at the moment so a new superhero MMO isn’t going to be in my near-future.

And that’s what’s going on.

Happy gaming!

Happy Labor Day!

Turbine has announced it’s upcoming Book 9 expansion: The Siege of Mirkwood.

For those, such as myself, that don’t care much for the Legendary Item system, it appears that there will be some improvements coming.  Other neat updates include henchmen, a level increase to 65 and more raids, normal group (6-player) and small (3-player) instances.

One thing I noticed is another 12-man raid.  Should be interesting to see whether or not they’re planning on enforcing gear gateing this time around and, if they are, how stringently.  Specifics are a bit light in the announcement, so I’ll be keeping an eye on their expansion site to see if they expand on any of their goals in coming weeks.

I was on a “staycation” recently – that’s basically me taking my required time off but being too broke to go somewhere cool.  I did a couple of non-sitting-at-home things but at night I found myself back in my apartment.  I figured why not also make it a gaming break from the norm too?  The only MMO I’m currently playing is LotRO, so I put that on a back burner.  I rummaged through my old gaming CDs and there amidst the WoW expansions and old games I haven’t played in years (Heavy Gear 2, Quake 3 Arena) was my Elder Scrolls: Oblivion CD.  Oblivion is a game I remember fondly from a couple years back, so I checked my PC and I still had it installed.  I popped in the game disk and away I went; I created a new character and entered the tutorial.

The introduction tutorial features the player escorting the current emperor Urial Septim on his escape through the city jail area.  As players use different skills, the game is making calculations about what kind of class they should be.  Like using stealth and ranged attacks a lot?  Perhaps you’d like to be an Agent.  Want to charge in and bash heads with a heavy two-hander?  Maybe a warrior-type would be more to your liking.

Once you’ve made your selections about what kind of character you want to be, you’re off into the world of Morrowind.  And once you’re out, you don’t have to do anything!  That’s one of the things I really like about Oblivion – players can follow the main quest line immediately and do everything they’re “supposed” to – be the hero, rescue the embattled people of wherever – or ignore the main quest and do whatever you like.

This time around, I decided to mix things up a bit.  Once out of the tutorial, I stole a horse and made my way to the priory to turn in an amulet.  As I mentioned above, the turn-in isn’t mandatory but going to the priory would get me some cheap armor and weapons and access to a non-stolen horse – you know, just in case I decided to hop back on the straight-and-narrow at some point.

Unfortunately, I forgot about the whole horse-stealing thing so on my way into town, several guards challenged me and, without my thieve’s guild network set up yet, I had to do some jail time.  It was amusing but not quite as funny as my best in-game arrest: in a previous game the guards arrested me for horse thievery while I was escorting the Prior and the Heir back to town.  I broke through the baddies in Kvatch, shut down an Oblivion gate, opened the city front gate, rescued the heir, saved some citizens from a horrible fate … and got jailed for stealing horses.  The funny part was the Prior and the Heir were both standing right there and had just finished telling me how great I was.

Once out of the slammer, I went about joining the Thieve’s Guild and setting up my fence in Bruma.  That done, I was ready for my epic crime spree!  I also inadvertently killed a civilian (what can I say: he was some random guy standing around in the wilds at a camp site – not a good thing to do in Morrowind) and I got a visit from the Dark Brotherhood guy which I’m not sure I’ll follow up on.  I like being a thief but a random killer sounds a bit too much.  Then again, the Fighter’s Guild doesn’t want me to steal, the Thieve’s Guild doesn’t want me to kill, but the Dark Brotherhood is cool with anything I decide to do.  The Dark Brotherhood: we love you just the way you are.

While playing though my new adventures, I noticed the same stuff in the game that made me like it so much the first time through.  The NPC AI is wonderful.  My first time through a spy quest, the person (NPC) I was spying on went to church, then went for a walk and then did some gardening.  This time around on the exact same quest, she went to church and then stayed home the rest of the day.  Why?  It was raining out.  One doesn’t go for walks or garden in the rain.  Quest NPCs are marked on the map, but where they’d be at a given point in time was a crap shoot.  Also: they sleep behind the locked doors of their houses at night so no turn-ins for them at night (there are some that seem to always be around though).  The NPC AI can also lead to some odd behaviors.  One NPC in the Fighter’s Guild in one town prefers to eat breakfast naked for some odd reason.

Another thing I liked is that my accomplishments changed the world around me.  This time around I was careful about how far through the main quest line I went.  I haven’t gone to Kvatch yet to save the heir.  Once I do that, Oblivion gates will start opening all over the game world and right now I’m having too much fun in the world without them.  I like being able to experience the world before it begins falling apart.  However, when I do start in on the main quest line again, the forces of evil will begin their invasion and I’ll see signs of it all over the place.

I could also sleep or wait to quickly pass time in the game.  I would reawaken several hours later and could approach contacts in the morning.  Leveling occurs after a rest period and when leveling the whole world levels with you.

All of which brings me to wonder why it is we don’t see more of this kind of game play in MMOs.  The time-shifting bit would be hard to replicate as well as the whole world changing at once.  I’d still love to see NPCs that actually behave like people rather than standing stock-still in shops at all hours or wandering the same predictable patterns in the woods somewhere.  I’m sure some of the auto-pilot players would complain but I think the occasional inconvenience of having a quest to turn in to an NPC that is currently at home in bed is worth it for a world that feels dynamic and alive.

Why keep levels?  Why not find a way to make the game interesting right out of the gate?  In games with levels, players will reach the cap much faster than anticipated anyway.  Why not make a game which is essentially “end game?”  Right out of the starting area, you’re faced with mobs the same level as you … and you can travel anywhere in the world and they’d be the same level (give or take a level or two to account for difficulty, etc).  Players could engage in raiding, PvP, storyline quests, etc. right out of the gate without restrictions imposed by a leveling mechanic.  I know many players like levels to get a sense of forward progress or getting more powerful.  I’m wondering though if there aren’t other mechanics available players could use.  The guilds in Oblivion for example offer players more assignments based on their status within the guild.  As players progress they get harder and more interesting stuff to do.  The rewards for completing interesting content is more interesting content.  Stories lead to stories.  Also, the quests result in money and more content, not gear.  If I want better gear, I need to go adventuring.

Game makers could use gate mechanics like reputation or factions to herd players through certain areas or expand content.  In LotRO, for example, Lothlorien requires that players have a certain amount of rep to get into the zone.  Then we need another amount of rep to get into the city.  The division into rep levels isn’t too bad – I think I made it into the zone in a couple days and into the city by week’s end – and the set up allows players a noticeable forward progression unlike the Council of the North rep where there was no outward sign that I was progressing, just a little slider bar on my rep panel and the deaths of many of exactly the same kind of mob to get the rep item drops I needed.

I’ve been enjoying my break from MMOs for the past couple days and will probably continue with Oblivion for a bit longer this time around.  Maybe I’ll even get a house in my beloved Bruma this go-around too.

Still alive here.  Work has been crazy for a couple of months now.  Also, I’ve been trying my hand at writing some short stories – some fan fiction and some in my own world.  They all suck thus far, but if I get something worth posting, I just might stick it here. 

On the gaming front, I’m still in LotRO.  There were some nice three-man instances added in the last book which my kinship mates and I have been enjoying.  My kinship has been doing a lot of turtle raiding (thus getting me a teal jacket and pants – both radiance items, thereby sparing me some of the radiance item instances which I’m not a fan of).

A friend of mine has been keeping me up to date on the upcoming Champions Online title coming out soon (you can pre-order at this point).  I’m not that into superhero games (though I did enjoy CoH back when I was playing it) so for now, I’ll sit this one out.  I’m still keeping an eye out for Star Wars: The Old Republic which is still a ways off.  Looks like they’ve got some new info about the Smuggler class.

And that’s what’s happening.

Happy gaming!

Turbine recently released Book 8, a free content expansion, and I actually found some time to log in and check some things out.

The radiance armor instances in Moria are a bit of a sticking point for me; they’re not that interesting to see the first time through let alone the six-to-ten times each needed to get a radiance piece from them.  Furthermore, the radiance pieces are pretty much the only reason anyone goes into those instances – once someone has their piece, it’s not like they’ll be anxious to go back again.  The radiance six-mans got me to thinking maybe all the fun my friends and I had with Carn Dum, Urugath and the Rift was a fluke.  Maybe Turbine forgot, or never really knew, how to make a dungeon crawl fun.

I’m happy to report that Turbine seems to have gotten its groove back with the new instances with Book 8.  I have only been in one of the six-mans (there may be more than the one I was in) and one of the three-mans of which there are two.

The six-man instance was fairly straightforward.  There are many trash mob pulls followed by boss fights which usually involve some sort of puzzle or trick.  In one fight, for example, the boss was standing in a room of colored squares.  Each square gives him an advantage for a certain type of fighting and gives him weaknesses for others.  Based on the group composition, players need to decide which square to keep him in.  It was a fun romp through a new dungeon.

The Waterworks three-man is a blast.  It’s an instance filled with levers and wheels which trigger gears and extend bridges.  Players need to figure out where they want to go inside the instance and the right series of levers they need to pull to get there.  For example, in one section there is a bridge which would lead us to one of the boss fight rooms.  The problem is: the bridge is retracted so we couldn’t cross over.  To get across, we would have to make our way through a gate which would drop before we could get through it because the lever was too far away.  Our solution: one of the team opened the gate and I jumped through before it closed.  Then I sneaked to the lever for the bridge, evading elite mob patrols on the way, and threw the lever on the other side so my team could get through.  Then we killed off the patrols and got to the boss.  The instance is filled with little things like that.  One has to be careful though: some levers which activate one thing may simultaneously deactivate something else.  At one point, we had three of us toggling levers in different locations to open one of the rooms.  We got the room open but in the process retracted a bridge on my route to where they were.  Not being the most observant person, I promptly barreled right off the edge and into a chasm and had to rez at the entrance.  The atmosphere in the place is great as well.  Massive gears churn, waterwheels creak and moan, and the place looks like it is an aging ruin subjected to decades of humidity and decay.

Both the three-man and the six-man run have a hard mode.  Since I’ve only done the hard-mode fights, I’m not sure what the difference is between them.  Another nice thing about the runs is that -everyone- participating gets a gem at the end.  Collect a certain number of gems for the instance and you can trade them in for a radiance armor piece.  While Turbine persists in its gear-gated style of raiding, it’s good that they’re making some of the armor a bit easier to get.

In addition to the Book 8 instances, I’ve also been doing some of the Summer Festival events.  Many of the old stand-bys are there: fishing, horse races, etc.  There are two new events this time around though.  There’s a hobbit race in the Shire and a dwarf race outside Thorin’s Hall.  Players can get two betting tokens from an NPC (by the party tree for the Shire race and inside Thorin’s Hall for the dwarf race).  Players will then go to the race grounds at the top of the hill (over Bag End) or on the steps in front of Thorin’s.  When the four racer NPCs appear, players can bet on which one they think will win.  Once the race is underway, the NPCs will run to a table and eat or drink.  After they eat/drink they may: race right off to the next table, linger a bit, or walk slowly to the next table.  Between all the stations, the walk / run / linger transitions can make for a pretty exciting race.  I’ve had my chosen racer start off slow but end up rocketing past all the others and had some with an early lead fritter it away.  The races are pretty clever mini-games and it’s fun running along with other players to see what happens.

There’s an interesting article in RPG Vault recently about addictive gaming.

It’s a tricky thing to define, but I’ll take a crack at it. A design is addiction-based to the degree that it encourages players to experience the same content again and again (often referred to as grinding) in return to obtain a series of rewards. These can be simple labels with no tangible effect (like an in-game title or some achievements), or they can be character improvements that give the ability to move on to a new location with a slightly different sort of grinding. I call this the grind/reward cycle, and it can keep players coming back to one game for years.

One key aspect of this design is that it gives many small rewards instead of a few big ones, so that the player is receiving constant positive reinforcement. A classic example is the style of skill improvement in World of Warcraft and EverQuest. When you gain a level, your skills don’t go up five points. Instead, your maximum goes up that much, and then the skill itself increases with use, a point at a time. Splitting up the reward into many parts increased the number of reinforcements.

The majority of games classified as MMOs these days adhere to a greater or lesser extent to addition-based game play.  Do x until you get y, then move on to z.  Repeat.  Sadly, games don’t seem to deviate much from that pattern.  Star Wars: The Old Republic seems to be attempting to move to a more story-based model.  Whether or not it’s successful, only time will tell (the game isn’t even in alpha yet).

Like the author, I’d love to see more options in games.  One gripe I’ve had with LotRO is their new-found gear-centeredness.  Like WoW, LotRO seems to be heading towards making players loot-crazy to keep them playing.  LotRO’s problem is they can’t make the instances interesting.  Rather than becoming loot-crazy, players are taking extended breaks until the next content expansion or leaving for other games once they hit the cap (that seems to be the general pattern I’ve noticed, anyway).  Personally, I’d like to see more community-based activities in MMOs … I mean, we play MMOs to play with other players so encouraging players to work with each other doesn’t seem like a bad way to go.  I don’t mean that forced grouping should become the norm, but it would be neat to encourage players in other ways (clever game design pushing them into proximity, better and varied PvP activities, trading-card type games where players can interact, etc.).

New models of “addictive game play” may help the industry out of its current rut.

I was having a discussion on Ventrilo the other day with some folks in my LotRO kinship.  We were lamenting the roughness of the LotRO end-game and were talking about some of the hurdles different IP-based games are having.  (That is to say, games based on a third-party IP – technically, all games are based on someone’s IP.

Blizzard owns the IP related to WoW.  So if they want to add space-ships or player-controlled flying mounts, the lore folks just say it’s possible and then it’s up to the software folks to make it happen.  There’s almost nothing standing in the way of a gaming possibility, the lore creators just have to figure out the story behind it and then it’s ready to be built into the game.

Turbine does not own the IP behind its LotRO game, Tolkien Estates does.  Everything in the game Turbine build has to conform to the lore as Tolkien imagined it.  There are exceptions (like the number of adventuring hobbits running around) but the places, the overall feel of the game and many of the character names and abilities are limited by the IP.  As such, players cannot be wizards (there are only a handful in Tolkien’s world), players cannot ride eagles (riding eagles is a rare privilege); the lore curtails many of the possibilities in an online world in favor of sticking with a set, third-party IP.

The lore of a game is sort of like the net and fault lines in tennis: the net and lines limit the number of possible movements and place restrictions on what the players can do.  Tennis players can’t do a bank-shot off the stands – it’s out of bounds.  They can’t hit the net or go outside the lines.  Tennis is a skill-based game because of its rules.  Without the rules, it’s just a couple of people playing with some paddles and a ball.

The restraints in an MMO can be much more flexible yet they have to exist to give player actions meaning.  In a fairly restrictive IP like that in LotRO, a lot of possibilities get cut off.  No player-wizards.  No flying mounts.  WoW’s IP is less restrictive: in the game now, engineers can build a motorcycle.  The motorcycle exists in a world where gnomes can already build flying machines and a tram, so a player building a motorcycle isn’t that much of a stretch.

All of which brings me to Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Like the Tolkien IP, there is a large chunk of the Star Wars IP that is known.  The movies introduced a lot of the Star Wars history of a certain time-period.  But The Old Republic is set in a time-period about which much less is known.  Bioware has a great deal of freedom to make a game which is both Star Wars in feel but where they can open up a lot of possibilities without having to adhere to what is already known.  They don’t have to tap-dance around the issue of Jedis; there are a lot of Jedis in their world.  They don’t have to worry too much about Darth Vader; the game is set well before his time.  Since less is known, they are free to implement some things that would make for an exciting MMO and introduce storylines which place the player at the center of the story instead of playing second fiddle to NPCs.

I’m too jaded to say “this is the game we’ve all been waiting for,” I’ve seen too many new hopefuls crash and burn or turn out to be less than spectacular.  SWtOR seems to have a pretty even chance, if it actually gets made, of being a decent MMO; its IP is known (bringing in the fans) but flexible enough that they could do some really cool things with it.  Also, it’s Bioware, a company which has a reputation from creating really good games.

For now, Star Wars: The Old Republic is a game worth keeping an eye on.

Check out a movie about the worlds of SWtOR.

I’m still alive over here.  I haven’t posted in a bit as real life has reared its non-pixilated head and I’ve been working quite a bit.

On the game front, I’m still playing LotRO but have reduced the amount of time I’ve been playing.  Part of my play time reduction has been work-related but part has been due to game play.  The current crop of hard mode “end game” instances doesn’t appeal to me at all.  I also don’t care for the gated content of the Watcher raid.  In Shadows of Angmar, players could play with their friends.  Gear seemed less important than trait selections and a little skill so a raid that was short a minstrel could just grab another one without too much concern.  Nowadays, I see things like “LF minstrel, must have 50 radiance or better.”  50 radiance can only be gotten by equipping 5 items (+10 radiance each), which in turn means 5 hard mode runs at a minimum.  Turbine often flits with a fine line between “epic” and “tedious” and for the MoM end game instances, I’ve found very little epic about them.  Some of them I like (Fil Gashan or the Grand Stairs) but most I could do without.

The sad thing is that I can see the strains forming in my kinship.  Those who went all-out to get through the six-man instances are chomping at the bit to down the Watcher.  Those of us that are taking our time or don’t particularly care about the six-mans are getting left further and further behind.  Friends can’t group up with friends anymore without also asking how much radiance gear they have.  I’ve seen this before in WoW’s Burning Crusade and have no desire to repeat that kind of loot-centric game play in LotRO.  There’s a lot of chatter on the blog-u-sphere lately about community building.  While there are a lot of things games can do to foster community, I’m pretty sure one of them isn’t wedging gear requirements in-between friends.

My burglar is level 60, has well-enough armor and weapons and has his talents maxed out.  So, other than the occasional rep grind, there’s little else for me to do in LotRO until book 8.  I have some alts which I play occasionally but without other people my level to play with, alts don’t interest me that much.

In other news, some friends of mine who left LotRO resurfaced in WoW on a new server so I re-upped my WoW account to play with them there.  Together, we rolled a small group (warrior, priest, and hunter) and are having a blast with the small-group stuff WoW has to offer.  For giggles, we also all rolled gnome Death Knights.  Hilarity ensued.

Now is the time in the Ebon Hold when we dance.

In addition to my warrior and new death knight, I’ve also created a dwarf paladin.  My how things have changed!  I recall when seals only lasted seconds.  Now they’ll last thirty minutes unless you do a judgment on them.  They seem to have lengthened the amount of time the blessings last as well.

While I haven’t given up on LotRO and plan on heading back, my game vacation in Azeroth has been a lot of fun.

I’ve been enjoying the new content in the Lord of the Rings Online but I’ve also been poking around for something different.  I’ve spent a lot of time playing game in the fantasy genre (WoW, EQ2 and LotRO) and wanted to see what things were like in some of the Science Fiction games I hadn’t picked up.  I had an unused fourteen day trial of Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) sitting around so I thought I’d give it a go.

Once the software was all set up, I logged in; created a character on the first server recommended to me and away I went.  The first character I made was a smuggler.  Smuggler at first seemed like a really cool choice.  I could do a decent amount of damage (both ranged and melee).  The intro quests had me helping out Han Solo and Chewbacca.  I shot down TIE fighters, got parts for the Millennium Falcon and did a bunch of standard MMO-type quests (kill ten x, get parts by killing, click-the-glowy, etc.).

Once I made it to Tatooine, I decided I didn’t like my smuggler.  I rolled him as a squid-looking guy and didn’t really feel like looking at him the whole time.  While I was in town I also noticed that there was basically no one else there.  There were a couple of lowbies like me, but running into people was a rarity.

I made a bounty hunter on a different server.  Bounty hunters also seemed pretty cool.  They have lots of ranged damage and snares.  Their armor also looked cool and the fact that I chose a human this go-around also improved my disposition towards the character.  Away I went, blasting the snot out of stuff for Han and Chewie and also getting to interact with Boba Fett this time.  This time I also started running the space missions right in the tutorial.  Very cool!  One of the things that keep me from trying out Eve Online is the lack (as far as I know) of personal avatars.  You are your ship, it would seem.  SWG allows characters to play as a normal walking-around toon or to be in their spaceships.  I like it.

Once out of the tutorial as my bounty hunter, I was again greeted by a low population world.  As I did more quests without seeing another living soul, I decided that, while the bounty hunter was interesting, it wasn’t going to be my thing.  So I rerolled again.

This time, I ignored the recommended server thing and went to the server list.  All the servers had “light” or “very light” loads except one which was marked “medium.”  That’s the one I picked.  When I arrived in Mos Eisely, it was packed with players doing your typical MMO stuff (dancing, dueling, etc).  I was in a world again.  *GLEE*

Also this time, I created a Jedi (LINK).  He’s now level fifteen.  I find it odd that in a science fiction game I’m sticking with a character that plays mostly like a fantasy character.  He has melee attacks and an electricity-looking attack too.  He’s got a couple of different stances but I’m not sure yet what they do.  One has an icon that looks like a guy in a mask; the other has an icon that looks like a smiling jelly fish.  Since I like guys in masks better than jelly fish (Even though it’s smiling, can you really trust a jelly fish?), I went with the guy in the mask.  I got to use my awesome Jedi powers to kill ten of a number of things, find many parts and even click on a few things that were glowing.

Stuff I like:
Thus far, I’m enjoying the Jedi class.  The game also has an appearance slot system available right at character creation so I’ve been working on getting him a look that suggests powerful Jedi master even though he’s a lowbie.  Another thing I really liked was access to transportation.  My very first quest out of the tutorial was to build myself a landspeeder.  It’s good that a game-maker realizes that players like their mounts and extras.  The world(s) themselves are also impressive.  Tatooine is HUGE.  I’ve completed a dozen or more quests and ranged all over the place and still haven’t seen but a quarter of the planet yet.

Another thing I really like is the spaceship system they have.  Each character has access to a little fighter spaceship.  You can use the fighter to complete pilot missions (available at first from the freelance pilot trainer in Mos Eisley) to get ranked in space combat.  For some reason, I was also given a luxury space yacht.  Once I’m in space with my yacht, I can actually step away from the fight console and walk around in my spaceship with my toon!  It’s pretty sweet.  As I change the altitude and trajectory of the ship, the view outside changes.  One time I located a fellow yacht owner and parked along side him in space.  I could look over his ship though the windows in my ship and I walked around inside it.  Also, as a ship owner, I visited other planets (Dantooine, and a couple I can’t recall the names of).  It was a lot of fun, though exploring the other planets usually meant me driving out from town a ways and then fleeing back inside as some purple-con mob decided to eat me.

Stuff I’m lukewarm about:
The graphics are dated.  The character models don’t interest me that much and the animations are a bit clunky.  They’re not horrible, but at the same time, it’s easy to tell the game is five or more years old.

Most of the quests are kill-ten-x or click the glowy types.  I’m not sure I can get into another game like this.  Were it not for the lore, I likely wouldn’t be playing LotRO either.  I like the Star Wars lore but I’m not sure I like it enough to commit to a generic play MMO about it even if I can be a space-flying, landspeeder-driving Jedi.

Like EQ2, another SoE game, SWG is a tad light on player help.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it forced me to think about where I could find things (like the pilot mission guy or to figure out which selections to make when I had profession points to spend.  I don’t like relying on external info when playing games so some of the information lack may get on my nerves a bit over time.  There’s no information about what zone or area might interest me next.  Given the size of the planet, it could take a LOT of exploring to find things to do from one area to the next.  Again, it’s not necessarily bad to push players to explore and think things though and, as someone who enjoys exploring, I may actually come to like it.  It’s just that there are some times when I really want to advance the character over anything else and lack information about where to go next to gain XP can be a substantial roadblock.

Stuff I dislike:
Nothing really jumped out at me screaming “this sucks.”  Other than its generic MMO-ishness, I thought it seemed like a good game.

 
SWG seems like it would be fun but I’m not sure I’ll be paying for it once it comes time to fork over cash or get out.  Space flight and having a walking-around toon seem neat and the combat was fun in both avatar and spaceship form.  I found the people on the medium population server to be friendly and helpful so, if I do stay, I will have picked a good place to play.  The downside is that more time for SWG means less time for LotRO – although as a lifetime member in LotRO, I don’t have a monthly subscription so picking up SWG to play occasionally wouldn’t be a bad thing as long as there’s stuff I enjoy about the game.  I’ll just have to wait and see what happens.  Next I’m due to pick a faction to fight for.  Hrm … perhaps I’ll try to be the first Sith lord to join the rebellion.

*dreamfade*

Rebel captain: “The Empire is breaking through!”

Darth Khan: “Curse those handsome devils and their highly-charismatic leadership!!”

*awkward silence*

Rebels (all): “Get him!!”

Darth Khan: “Aieeeeee!”  *flees*

*end dreamfade*