Mind of the BeholderPart 4

Something about simplicity

This is no mere ponder.

There once was a plumber. A simple, practical man, his overalls a second skin which come in handy whenever he needs to get down to business. Ready to collect his due anytime, anywhere - even if he needs to knock a few heads. Never does it tarnish his sunny demeanor. He's not just some plumber, he's the royal plumber. He cleans out all the pipes, in all the castles, in all the lands. He'll never stop, even if his employer gets kidnapped by a capricious giant turtle dragon that shoots fireballs. He scoffs mushrooms to bulk up, gets high on psychedelic flowers, dons a cape to fly like Superman, wears the corpse of a raccoon to use its tail as a flail. He stomps all the wildlife in his way for coin, because there's no such thing as a free lunch and his favorite shrooms are expensive. He's out to slay the dragon and save the princess like Saint George. You know of whom I speak, it's-a-Mario from Nintendo.

_{Crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentations of their women.}

The universe Mario inhabits is related to our reality in the same way an acid trip is and even though it may not make sense, it makes perfect sense as a game where rules rule. They've barely changed: navigate this spacial maze, run and jump, collect coins, splat enemies, defeat the dragon and save the princess. Easy to understand, the crazy world Mario inhabits doesn't get in the way of game logic.

There once was a hero of no repute and no description. He filled in the blanks and did not worry, he worked things out as he went along. He wanted to swing a sword. He'd swing it until he'd become the best Sword Swinger in the whole world. Then he realized the sword swinging was rather ethereal and couldn't deal very well with the realistically fleeing A.I. of the world's inhabitants so he made a career switch to swinging a bow and arrow. A resounding success! When our hero discovered he could perch atop a boulder and snipe giants with impunity he used realism to break the rules governing this universe. He also discovered that the world more or less dictated the way one was to behave and that it didn't make any qualms about breaking its own rules. Rules such as a prison having keys for all but one cell door, ironically this happened to be the only occupied cell. The hero's mission was to bail out the occupant with coin, which he did, but then the guard joked that he'd let him go 'eventually', little did any of us know the key must have been destroyed and this was an obvious bail-out racket. Or else all of this makes little sense.

_{Crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentations of their women.}

We are all sentient machines that explain. The highly interactive world I thought a game like Skyrim would portray is a pipe-dream. Bethesda had to ship the game at some point and I think they did right with Skyrim, even though some elements drove me up the wall. I'm all for an interactive world. I'm all for far-reaching consequences. It stands to reason that if you poison a town's water supply, anyone who drinks from the well gets ill. Yes, this has been done before, but I've yet to see it as mere possibility. Not as part of a task where the game supplies a button to click to apply poison to the water. Entirely different still if the game mandates through a quest text, that the well needs to be poisoned and all that's required is that:

1. The player get the necessary 10 ingredients from slaying glowing rotworms
2. Synthesize the poison by clicking the Synthesize action button supplied with the quest
3. Apply the poison by clicking the well

This final example is usually found in a game that is built for questing and not for interactivity. It's also as exciting to play as flipping switches. On the other hand, having to feed my companions in Ultima 7 was, while funny at times, a chore. I could lead to interesting situations in a highly interactive world, but if feeding is abstracted to the following isolated actions it becomes annoying:

1. Either collect ingredients for food or earn currency to afford it
2. Spend either to obtain food
3. Put the food into the player character

While realistic, it's not fun to play unless it ties into other meaningful game mechanics. In this case, if the food is there to prevent a debuff, and I assume this applies to NPCs and not just the player's party, why can't I poison the well so that I can prevent the removal of the debuff? A game not only has to simplify reality, it has to do something interesting with the result.

Because of their time investment, their associated cost, their hidden complexity, their demanding nature, it seems apparent that MMORPGs may be getting pushed (back) into a niche unless they can solve one or more of the listed issues.

The checklist quest I mentioned before is typical for MMOs. They have a reputation for supposedly being easy. But I feel as though I've made a grave error when I mentioned this before: MMO's are more complex than they let on. Especially at the highest level, where every feature comes into play. I recently continued my stint in Star Wars: The Old Republic and was momentarily lost in its complexity even though I had played it for months before. MMO's demand hundreds of hours which in turn lets players nestle themselves into its web of mechanics and mini games. By which I really mean that the MMO player interested in endgame content isn't casual, but very hardcore. Complex is a way to describe how a raid boss fight is conducted. There's little to sneeze at because this is essentially the multiplayer equivalent of a Metroid boss fight.

_{Wildstar's boss fights are some of the best in class.}

Because of their time investment, their associated cost, their hidden complexity, their demanding nature, it seems apparent that MMORPGs may be getting pushed (back) into a niche unless they can solve one or more of the listed issues. Wildstar's entire success hinges on its ability to appeal to the most hardcore MMO player base. How the genre is to succeed while having to rely on a shrinking audience is worth a guess. But sure, having a MOBA styled PvP map seems like a worthwhile effort.

I thought it curious how hardcore an MMO can get, considering the trend of other big releases. Diablo 3 is a lot simpler than its predecessor. The Elder Scrolls games have lost some of their rules over time. Dragon Age, as seen in the previous post, has been dramatically and ruefully simplified. However, not all of it is bad. Simplification usually happens for good reasons. I buy coffee in its ground-up form rather than as beans. This saves me the hassle of grinding them up myself; I'm not hardcore enough to enjoy grinding.

In general, there's nothing wrong with streamlining. Less is more. But quality of life isn't the only argument for keeping things simple. For instance, Guild Wars is proof that limiting the skill bar in a party based RPG can have great gameplay value. At the time this set it apart from games that would plaster the screen with floating skill bars. With limited options, the player must select the right ones. Synergize skills, build a party with a game plan then test it against the game's challenges.

_{Guild Wars' skill bar, 8 slots is all you have to work with, better make the most of it. This includes an Elite skill, distinguishable by the gold trimming.}

This is the reason I was excited to hear that Dragon Age: Inquisition would also feature a limited skill bar. Eight skill slots is all you have to work with. Eight skills to be carefully selected from a wealth of strategic options. Eight representatives of a tactical plan, each character fulfilling a role in a large master plan that will foil the schemes of the arch-villain du jour. Sadly, I later learned that DA:I doesn't have the wealth of strategic options I would have liked. It still has the trinity roles, but each role only has a handful of skills - leaving some out in favor of others doesn't even factor into it. It is possible to combine roles to a fair extent but suffice to say that the game has a very narrow focus.

_{Dragon Age: Inquisition has a limited skill bar but you won't be able to fill it long before the game's finale. The setup in the screen is that of a Knight-Enchanter, its gameplan is to conjure magical armour while it wades into combat wielding a magical sword. That's it. Strategic choices are quite limited.}

I think the reason for the eight skill slots has everything to do with controller design, the game's UI is a dead giveaway. A controller has four (face)buttons, each of which is assigned to its own activated skill. Swap this initial set of four with another set of four using a trigger and you end up with the total of eight skills. I can't call this a console compromise because the classes were built from the ground up to function with only a few skills, but it does influence the game design taking it a far away from Origins - this was also its main source of criticism.
Dragon Age: Inquisition thoroughly simplified the character building by removing attribute point management - Dragon Age: Origins still had this - and has chosen to put the attribute growth on the passive abilities in the various skill trees. This ensures that if you go down the skill tree of a tank build where lots of hit points are a concerned, enough attribute points will be added to constitution, which governs the HP pool. This takes away user error, but one could argue it also takes away user choice.

I have slagged on god-character RPGs a lot in these series. But, admittedly, Diablo 3 does it rather well. It's where it slaughters demons by the hundreds. This is a class based game, each with its unique style and limited skill bar. The player is allowed to swap skills on the battlefield. Different problems, different solutions. Sadly, the game doesn't really take advantage of this: the players only need to build an effective damage dealing character so there's a tendency towards cookie-cutter builds. Here the game becomes too simple for its own good. Even if Diablo dictates what happens in the action RPG genre, there's plenty of wiggle room for competitors.

_{Diablo 3 has a limited skill bar, skill selection is mostly governed by personal preference rather than the game's challenges.}

It also removed attribute point management, Blizzard did the logical thing by removing a mechanic that just led to Min-maxing. Which is the phenomenon in which players maximize the primary statistic on a character, ignoring less useful stats. Using the game rules and simple maths it's possible to figure out at what stat allocation a character is at peak performance - once known, why deviate from it? In this case you could end up with a warrior with 265 strength, 15 dexterity and 15 intelligence. The requirement on melee weapons and damage output would typically be based on strength, so why add points to anything else? An image comes to mind of a barbarian who can twist open a jar of pickles in one go but can't tie his own bootlaces. I usually feel min-maxing is a bad thing too, because it allows the player to sidestep part of the game design, particularly if it isn't very sophisticated. I think Blizzard did the right thing. Diablo isn't an RPG in the classical sense so it doesn't hurt the game.
Note: During the writing of this text, the Paragon system patch was released in the ramp up to the Reaper Of Souls expansion. This allows max level characters to put paragon points into certain stats to specialize the character even more.

Diablo's story is insanity incarnate. Typically Blizzard, who continue to publish a sort of fantasy anime with a western Warhammer-esque esthetic. Featuring overconfident characters with megalomaniacal vocabularies, wielding words like "misbegotten" as if they were never used in a Blizzard game before. It's really quite funny: Sanctuary is the sort of place that's a one-to-one conversion of real, I use the term loosely, life monotheistic beliefs and superstitions, in a what if it was all true way. This is the setting's most relevant point. An earth-shattering, eternal conflict between good and evil where mankind is victimized, slain, enslaved and ultimately championed. Both forces of good and evil are heinous - only humanity has the right mix of salt and pepper to rise above the conflict - a sentiment I can appreciate. Vanquish demons and angels alike and so remove the conflict that poisons the world. Encapsulated in this caricature of delusions is the solution to it: stomp it out with extreme prejudice. Should you feel a little down on the whole premise there's the materialism needed to stoke your rage, loot fixes everything.
 
A bit of a shame, really. The game could be more thrilling if the pace was turned down a bit, and the enemies tougher, smarter and fewer. Anyone would argue this would make the game less 'Diablo', who am I to argue. Maybe there's another game to scratch that itch.

Diablo 2 didn't have class flexibility (skill trees, no respec) and an even more limited selection of active skills. Hotbars weren't yet current and the game forced the player to only use the two mouse buttons. Skills could be hot swapped by using the F-keys, it was clunky and hard to use. Its sequel fully incorporated modern interface design and made the game much more approachable. Diablo 3's gameplay received a similar treatment. Something as simple automatic gold pickup removes the tedium of having to... "aim and click" the cursor on a few coins then wait for the character to complete the move and pickup routine. Much more satisfying to watch the coins fly into your pockets, like a reverse gold fireworks, and it all happens without forcing you miss to a beat of the action. And let's also be honest: in a game where any sort of grind is involved wasting time is anathema.

_{Health orbs, shown as red spheres, keep the pace of the game up.}

Another noticeable evolution in the Diablo formula is the use of health and mana potions. The first two games had the, presumably unintended, phenomenon of potion chugging, meaning you could 'cheat' your way out of tough spots by using health pots which would restore hit points over a very short time. Chugging one after the other would make the player character near-invincible until they were all spent. In Diablo 3 this was corrected by putting a long cooldown on the use of potions. To compensate, slain baddies now drop health orbs which, like gold, are magnetically absorbed and replenish some health. Notice there's an added bonus for gameplay here, bosses are able to spawn additional baddies that drop health orbs too, making the fight less punishing and potentially more interesting as the developer can count on the fact that health replenishment is available during the fight. Which they cannot if the player has a limited and uncertain amount of potions. Not forcing a restart once health runs out relieves some of the stress while learning the fight too. This kind of regenerative health also makes it almost impossible for a player to get hard locked into a situation where he has neither potions and money, in which he has to restart the game, rerun the level, or grind more mobs for more - all of which are generally a bad experience. Taking a page out of the Zelda and God Of War playbook, health orbs fit rather nicely with the absurd premise of this game and its action gameplay. It's also easier to suspend your disbelief when an abstract idea like 'health orbs' are involved then it is to accept that a character instantly consumed a vial of liquid or in the case of Skyrim: an entire roast pig. Solving this is easy enough: take away the basis in reality is to remove the illusion-breaking issues that clash with said reality.

Many games use the eat-to-heal mechanic. Think of the Bethesda games. Worse yet, think of early World Of Warcraft, where the player character would always have to sit down, eat and drink in between fights to heal up. It coupled the unrealistic idea that food heals wounds with the realistic idea that eating takes a long time. Inanely absurd! It was one of the early signs that this game was not for me - it encouraged me to pull out hair, nails and eyes while waiting for the animation to finish.
An example of a game where I can get on board with the concept of food and cooking is Guild Wars 2 where it is one of the available, and optional, disciplines. The food it yields provides a temporary stat buff. This game's professions even provides a real sense of experimentation as the player is allowed to match ingredients to discover new recipes. It feels more playful than tedious.
When it comes to healing, GW2 adheres to the modern idea of rapid health regeneration, or even resuscitation with a severe stat penalty, once combat has ended. Numerous games use this to bypass the manual healing a player would usually have to do by casting a healing spell, then wait for it to come off cooldown, then to recast it till the character is back at full health. Needless to say, this bogs down pacing and creates tedium.

_{Guild Wars 2 is full of good ideas, but lacks some of the ones that made the original such a unique design.}

Like its predecessor compared to its contemporaries before it, Guild Wars 2 is special and may as well have "Detox MMO" for a subtitle. The reluctance to waste the player's time with grind and nonsense is part of the developer's design philosophy. It doesn't have any signpost quests but area based, timed missions the player just wanders into while exploring. Participating is optional and the rewards are according to player performance. It has flexible classes. It doesn't have a library of skills, its skills are tied to weapon types which in turn also dictate playstyles. Toggle between two weapon sets for adaptability and combos.

_{For comparison's sake and symptomatic of how this game is played: Guild Wars 2's skill bar, 3 slots for the main hand, 2 for the off-hand, a healing skill, 3 class skills and 1 ultimate.}

It has a personalized story that defines your character as a personality and not just as a player avatar. It uses a handful well-defined hero characters as anchors to the world instead of endless anonymous quest givers. It doesn't have separate PvP and PvE gear tracks. It doesn't have a sub fee. Sadly though, it takes a step away from being a Role Playing Game and towards being an open playground theme park. It doesn't have the 'poison the well' interactivity, but it does have spontaneous events that make the world appear more alive than the competition's. However, it also doesn't have the trinity and its mechanics, it doesn't have its predecessor's companion system and its open ended party building. These last two points have a pretty big impact. What makes having a party so valuable? Well, I really should make a separate post on the topic.

Related posts:

• Mind Of The Beholder, Part 1, where I talk about past RPG experiences.
• Mind Of The Beholder, Part 2, a long overdue rant on leveling and experience grind.
• Mind Of The Beholder, Part 3, about how RPGs are being influenced, by example, design and market.

Mind of the BeholderPart 2

Level Up!

"Endurance +1, intelligence +3, wisdom +1, charisma +2"

The Role Playing Games genre is unlike any other. Not only has the face of games with the label changed considerably over the years, it has even been applied to games that aren't RPGs at all. The simple reason is that RPG elements have made it into other genres. Even in Need For Speed: Shift players drive for experience. No, this isn't the advertised Real Driver Experience but the numerical indicator on the top of the screen that climbs higher and higher to suggest your driver's level.
Call of Duty 4 is another example, as one of the first games that kicked of the trend. A brilliant game, unique in the way how it's remembered for its story campaign. However, the multiplayer design in particular stuck with the series, structured a bit like an RPG. It also stuck with EA's Battlefield series, EA's Medal Of Honor series, EA's Titanfall series, Crytek's Crysis series, THQ's Homefront series, Sony's Killzone series. And so on.

What is Prestige mode?

Entering prestige mode in Call Of Duty is the ability to reset one's progress. The player loses all unlocked items, experience points, the ability to make and use custom classes. The idea is to revert back to the very beginning of the multiplayer game. In exchange the player obtains an emblem beside their name to show off their prestige level. This can be repeated about 10 or 15 times, depending on the game.

Safe to assume this system was universally considered a good idea, it enthralled its gamers. To some it ruined the First Person Shooter genre - adding an XP grind for items and prestige system which enabled online boneheads to boast about their levels as if it wasn't an indicator of time played but of actual rifleman skill. The real crux of the matter is if this system makes people play the game because of good gameplay or because of the carrot dangling fifteen minutes in front of their crosshairs. This question isn't as innocent as it may appear: if an opponent prevents our brain from getting the dopamine fix we are expecting, like animals we rage. You can't blame the person for this because that's how people work. Critisism befalls the game. Other than this, CoD really isn't the worst offender: the XP grind to unlock all is short, prestige mode: optional for those with time.

I generally distrust any game where "level up" or any similarly worded bullet points make up part of the main features. Nor do I enjoy the marketing that raises level caps as if the grind to come is something very enjoyable. I say this because I've never found theme park MMOs to have anything resembling a worthwhile story. I'm not averse to theme parks. But if a game is made up of roughly similar looking attractions and I have to ride said attractions until they start boring me, about 3 times, the theme park quickly becomes a vision of hell, where everything that was once enjoyable becomes as stale like food without taste of which no amount will ever satisfy your desire. Until the bell of the next level-up rings, not as a reward but as the sign that the ride on the caravan of the damned has one less stop to make towards the end of the line. Logically, I don't think it speaks in favor of your game design if the host of the game allows you to take a mercy shot taking you to the end of the line if you pay the price of the game over one more time - logical if it means you won't pay to play the game for another few months this way. Only fair to make up for lost revenue, right? Well, your RPG should be a game, not a damn business model.

The back of the box of World Of Warcraft reads:

A World Awaits...
Descend into the World Of Warcraft and join thousands of mighty heroes in an online world of myth, magic and limitless adventure. Jagged snow peaks, mountain fortresses, harsh winding canyons, zeppelins, epic sieges - an infinity of experiences await. So what are you waiting for?

Ask any guildy for the reason why they can't come play in your party and chances are high he won't repeat the box quote but will say... "I'm leveling." Again, WoW isn't the worst offender. Blizzard made old content a lot more rewarding enabling players to do one quest instead of twenty to progress to newer areas - saving time and keeping their playerbase at the latest zones.

_{Star Wars the Old Republic started out spectacular but imagine what if this was the intro to a Mass Effect-esque Knights of the Old Republic 3 instead.}

I don't really mind the limited range of things a player can do in a game (fetch quest, kill quest, escort quest, collect quest, etc) as long as the motivation is right. Proof of this is Star Wars the Old Republic, where the story missions were as highly enjoyable as the ones you'd find in a single player RPG. The fully voiced cast of companions and related NPCs draw you into a world that has more to offer then any vendor-trashable quest reward ever could. However, set foot outside the neatly drawn line of the story areas and you won't see its kind again for literally hours while you, a level 43 imposing and life-destroying Sith Lord, would listen to NPCs whisking you along with their petty sorrows and requests, to get kittens out of the old Bantha tree by either shooting the kitten, cutting the tree down or climbing up there, a right Sith monkey - each solution with its proper light and dark side implication.

Who knows, maybe in-between battles Achilles also had to mend the sandals of scores of Greek villagers in order to allow them to yield unto him the required amount of frustration that would allow him to angrily slaughter his King's enemies on the next battlefield.

Hardly the stuff of legend, but who knows. Maybe in-between battles Achilles also had to mend the sandals of scores of Greek villagers in order to allow them to yield unto him the required amount of frustration that would allow him to angrily slaughter his King's enemies on the next battlefield. No, The Old Republic tragically and quite literally bored me to tears near the end, so I got off the snail train through Purgatory. The uninspired way EA/Bioware decided to turn it into an micropayment advertisement insulted my sensibilities and previous dedication so it lost me as a player too. I could come back to the game, it has many saving graces such as customizable companions, but only if I was convinced the slow progression wouldn't dampen my enjoyment. Unfortunately the game has already caused some offence when it culled my ingame funds when it (partly) transitioned to F2P, deleting everything above the limit - an eye-watering amount.

Another MMO I played for a few months is Wildstar. An impressive design, limited skill bar, creative classes, great art style. It's not even big on grinding - in the sense that you're able to blaze through content rapidly if you have the right class and setup. I clocked in at about 2-3 weeks of intensive playing to take a character from the creator to the endgame. Again, I'm stressing the leveling in this game because there's nothing else to propel you forward. This game has no story, heroes nor villains, no endgame content save for a couple of areas where the player repeats daily quests - another theme park from hell. Each town hub has its own set of quests, with a small narrative red line, but nothing that stands out. The game is made up out of Sci-fi and Spaghetti Western tropes - much more tired than witty. I don't see myself picking it up again even though I really liked the class designs.

No game should consist of boring stuff to pad out playtime. That task should fall to the co-op or competitive PVP modes. No game should be played for the sole reason of gaining XP. If the experience bar is reduced in such a way that all it basically does is exchange rewards or trickle content for time played, why keep jumping those hoops? Real RPGs have levels to roughly indicate where your character should be in regards to the story or place in the world. Each level brings with it more tricks and solutions to tackle the game's challenges. It usually also brings an increase in stat points making the characters stronger in order to cope with increasingly stronger enemies. When the player gets relatively stronger due to more tools and superior stats, there should be satisfaction: all the thinking, building and strategizing is paying off in a real way. Some games don't even need the experience track for that.

_{Despite its age, Guild Wars Factions still stands as one of the finest RPGs I have ever played. Expect it to show up a few more times in this series.}

One of such is Guild Wars. With a top level of twenty that was never raised by expansions mandating their purchase. The game is quite big, yet max level is reached about halfway through a single story, concluding an introductory period. After that the game truly breaks open. You'll become competitive in PVP multiplayer matches, explore zones to hunt for useful elite skills learned from vanquished foes, forge armor that doesn't infer any special benefits other than look splendid. Al the while the XP bar becomes a detail that pops off every so often to announce another spendable skill point has become available. None of this is insanely time-consuming so a player is invited to create a new character and replay the game. Before you ask: character slots are limited to one of each class. Additional slots, one of many but far from necessary convenience items, come at a small fee. The only real cost was the game's box. It didn't waste your time because that would cost the developer. Nor did it chain the player to the game with subscription fees. Considering all it had to offer, Guild Wars as an MMO comes closest to the single player RPGs that came long before.

In its undiluted form, the traditional cRPG, exist mostly in the past. Venerable names such as Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, Ultima, Icewind Dale are nearly a decade and half old and have yet to get proper successors. Only now with indie developers and without the nay of big publishers, do we see a resurgence - to slake the thirsty and arguably aging masses. That is not to say that I have a cRPG shaped hole in my nostalgia that absolutely needs to be filled. The bigger need is that of good game design, an engaging story or universe dealing with interesting issues. To drive the point home one more time: none of these old masterpieces even considered wasting their player's time. To nostalgic players these new classics do away with the dictated, often unwanted (in the case of SWtoR) megalomaniacal multiplayer component found in MMORPGs and focus on what RPGs should be about: story, characters, universe building and challenging combat supported by a solid foundation of game mechanics.

Related posts:

• Mind Of The Beholder, Part 1, where I talk about past RPG experiences.
• Mind Of The Beholder, Part 3, about how RPGs are being influenced, by example, design and market.
• Mind Of The Beholder, Part 4, simplicity in RPGs and the evolution thereof.

On Star Wars: The Old Republic

Only a master of evil, Darth.

Hoth: a planet in need of conquering, solely for its iconic look.

Long time readers, by which I mean I write long posts, will remember I wrote a considerably insightful post about The Old Republic when it was first announced. Some of the elements I divined were actually in the game, so allow me to gloat, if just for a few seconds. You same long time readers, by which I mean you're probably the same person, will remember I had a hard time avoiding writing about Star Wars. I eventually did, but I'm glad to break my streak by talking about Star Wars: The Old Republic. I have been playing since January, or more aptly put and regrettably too: since I stopped writing more blog posts. Prior to signing up for ToR I finally finished up on the original Knights Of The Old Republic, and despite it being a very old game I enjoyed it a whole lot. Needless to say, I was pretty psyched for Old Republic. After much thinking and deliberating I settled on making an Imperial (of course) Sith Pureblood Warrior who I'd want to make into a Juggernaut, the Darth Vader archetype.
I knew in advance that this wasn't the typical MMO due to the voice acting and storytelling. I curbed my expectations but wasn't disappointed at all. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the voice acting, the animation and the, subtle, cartoon-like art style. This was much more of a cross between Mass Effect and the Star Wars animated series then I'd originally thought. The action was snappy and responsive, all nicely animated, the frame rate kept up. The effects and combat: very satisfying.

The story, twisting and turning in great Sith fashion, took me across the galaxy. I built my team of companions, upgraded my ship and my gear. About a month of intense gaming later, the story finally closed up in an open ended galactic stalemate. This isn't much of a spoiler as the game requires two factions, neither of which can win the War of Stars lest the game end.
Since then I have made 3 more characters. A Jedi Knight Sentinel, an Imperial Agent Sniper and a Sith Inquisitor Sorcerer. Yes, It has been a busy few months. I am currently in one of the most prominent PVP guilds where i'm joined by generally great, smart people. I have some renown as a PVP player so I'm pretty happy to be where I'm at in this game.

These last few months months though, despite added features with the Legacy System the game has been in somewhat of a decline. The server seems to hold less and less players. Given the nature of an MMO, less people is bad. Especially since there are a lot of servers with the same low population. There are a few more problems affecting the game, making it seem like a less desirable choice compared to other games. Like World Of Warcraft. As I said, one of them is the population. Only so many games can vie for the time of hardcore MMO players, which is a limited group of players. Solve this by making playtime more valuable or get more (new) players into the game. The latest big Idea is to change the monetizing of the game. Such as Free To Play. This doesn't improve the quality of the time spent with the game but at least you won't have to pay for filler content. So you can feel a little better for not having to pay for time-wasting fetch quests. To be fair in this case, ToR makes a little more effort to make the filler more interesting by tying quests to the overall story line. The level design also helps. In most cases players pick up all relevant quests for an area at the starting point, go into the zone and finish up all quests in one run. The run usually isn't really short, but at least you don't get the nagging feeling you're wasting time by running from A to B.
Considering that the game is very much designed with efficiency in mind, it still takes about a month of full time playing (about 4 hours every day) to get a character to maximum level. It's no understatement to say that the game is huge.
Yet, maximum level is generally the desired place to be because it opens up high level PVP, operations, gear... All of which demand a lot of time if a player is to really become powerful. All of this is where the game has a bit of a problem.

A couple of days ago, I shotgun blasted a couple of thoughts on twitter in a fit of righteous rage. It seems only fair that I elaborate a bit, right here.

Make the game free to play and boost the population. Stop wasting all those costly servers.

At launch, EA and Bioware opened up a bazillion servers to cope with the immense demand of new players jumping into the game. This avoided frustration from long waiting queues. And it worked, I never, ever had to wait to get onto a server. As time went along players finished the content, got bored and left. If the game content doesn't grow at the rate players are consuming it and the endgame isn't there, or isn't interesting enough to keep them busy. They will leave. This is what happened and now many servers are ghost towns, where everyone else knows you by your first name. Which is no exaggeration, at times when I see a new character on the fleet, I see traces of the naming convention a player has made for himself, identifying the character as an Alt. In fact, we all do this.
Being stranded describes it tragically well, because there are no server transfers and no cross server matches or grouping options. If you want to play on one of the populated servers, you need to create a new character and spend another month to get it to a competitive level.

While writing this article Bioware has started server transfers for selected servers. Players on said servers are able to get their characters to a destination server. A change for the best in the worst possible way. Players who don't transfer will be even more alone if they stay, or will be in for a rude awakening if they missed the memo. There's also a lot of caveats attached to the transfer. You will lose all your "loose ends" such as in-game mail, auctions, guild and friends list. I guess simple server merges were either too complex technically or too damaging to the company or game's image.

Boost XP gain so players don't have to slog through the filler, and let them experience the character stories. Monetize the stories.

Spending time is what generates revenue on a subscription based MMO. But to keep people playing, and not spend more budget than people will actually pay for, the creators have to fill the game with some trite content to prolong the gaming experience.
Bioware set out to differentiate the game from the competition by telling good stories. And again to be frank, the stories are interesting and really well made. Each class has it's own story line, so there's a potential of 8 separate stories. If you were a dedicated player it would take more than 8 months to get through them all. Unfortunate then that many players left the game in the first few months. Wasting the potential.
To explain it in more detail. There are two active story lines at all time, the class story (such as Sith warrior) and the faction story (Imperial of Republic). The story line is made up out of a series of quests big and small. Each planet has it's own part of the story line. Every area on the planet has a small plot point area which only the relevant class can enter, or all classes in the case of the faction story line.
All other quests are side quests and are the water to the fine wine that is the main story line. I would even say the faction story plays second fiddle to the class story line and should be lumped in with the side quests. In almost all cases it comes down to something like this. "My Lord! I know you are on an urgent personal quest for vengeance, but while you're here, could you win this war for us?". Then you do and once you finally arrive at the next planet, Imperial or Republic incompetence goads you into winning the war again, and again.
The downside is that planets have a level requirement associated with them. For instance: on Tatooine a character must be at least level 25 to survive. And you can't get to level 25 if you do not complete all main and side quests on all previous planets. At least if you don't do a lot of PVP or flashpoints besides playing the story, which takes at least as much time. This makes the side quests not quite as optional as you would think.
For me, the meat of a game like this is in its PVP content, because it's far more interesting to play against humans than the AI. The side quests get in the way. On a bad day, I wish I could just make a lvl50 character.

And yet... and yet. I was really amused when I found out that my Jedi knight character's story was about cleaning up the mess "my" Sith Warrior left behind. Only after playing a couple of characters do you realize the story lines are actually linked in more ways than one. Making it extra fun to play alts and experiencing different story lines. The more is to pity that I can't bring myself to slog through the filler content to see all the story lines. I can't just play SWtoR. Time is too valuable and it's not the only game worthy of my attention.
It's clear that story is a very strong point for SWtoR so I think it would be best if EA/Bioware allowed for players to just play the story lines and keep to the good stuff, skipping the side quest filler.
They could even get away with selling the game in chapters at a reduced price, where one chapter could be a character class, and its story line. Or even break down that story line per act for a smaller price. If SWtoR is 8 times a KotoR game, sell it as such, but at a reduced price. That way, players won't feel the frustration of paying for content they'll never get to experience unless they invest their life into the game.
I should hasten to say that the game becomes substantially faster and easier if you have a partner to play with. But lately there are very few people to play with (see my previous point) and no real life friends of mine play the game, so I am forced to play a single player MMO.

Remove expertise, stop making PVE&PVP separate games with separate gear grind. Us with a disposable income don't have time to grind.

The success of World Of Warcraft made it the blueprint for SWtoR. Bioware had no qualms in copying liberally, including the gameplay mechanic that is expertise (resilience in WoW). Expertise gives a bonus to damage and defense vs other players, and a healing bonus to friendly players. And is only present on PVP gear, where it takes the place of the bigger non-expertise stats on PVE gear. Gear, much like character level, is a requirement for high level operations of PVP - without it you won't survive for 5 seconds. So where PVE is more powerful in general, PVP gear is stronger against other players. Making both variants nearly useless in the mode they weren't intended for.
WoW had evolved this kind of system over time because players would whine about the fact that either PVE or PVP made it easier to get top level armour, effectively gimping either PVE or PVP players who'd rather play that mode. I had never gotten far enough into WoW to even know about this. But I had played Guild Wars for years, a game that had no need for such a system because the game was more fair. My mind was sufficiently boggled when I heard about the need for this dodgy gameplay mechanic.
But Bioware copied the thing anyway, further carving the game into smaller compartments of players. The only time to break out of the compartment is to spend even more time with the game and get both PVE and PVP armour sets. Woe is the player that has to get multiple armour sets to fulfil more than one combat role. I feel that Guild Wars would have been a better role model for ToR. Where PVE and PVP sets are the same, the only difference is that the PVE sets look cooler, but take a bit longer to get.

Make the Legacy bonuses free upon completing the XP requirement, don't ask 1 mil+ creds for them after unlocking.

One of the big features that would further set SWtoR apart from the competition was the Legacy system. A set of perks for a player's account, which includes all characters on a server, unlocked through playing the game. It would fit with the Star Wars philosophy that your characters are somehow related. Just like Luke and Vader. Opening up the possibilities of inheriting items, talents, etc, on all characters at once. It would stimulate the creation of more characters to the benefit of all. On paper it sounded very promising. Some of the perks were very cool indeed! XP benefits, faster travel speeds, better items. It held the promise of making playing through the game easier and quicker. As an avid player my legacy level was quite high so I was eligible for many new perks. In the back of my mind I was already creating backstories for my future alts, which would soar through the game's content, making my legacy a force to be reckoned with. Yet it was not to be. And this has pissed me off quite a bit. The alleged unlocked bonuses were merely unlocked for purchase. This wouldn't be so bad if it was for a token amount of credits. But to my horror, the costs ran from 250.000 to 2 million credits. This for a bonus of +2% XP gain? To me, this was more proof that SWtoR is an exercise in greed for EA.
It takes about 1 week of daily missions to get around 1 million credits. The daily missions themselves take from 3 to 5 hours to complete, many of which can't be played without a group of players. Want to spend multiple millions of credits on legacy bonuses? You'll be paying many monthly fees to get them! After which you'll pay for many more if you want to actually experience the bonuses. The legacy update has forced me to adjust my expectations for the game. If future updates will be this lackluster or restricted, the game's future looks grim.

It's disappointing to see that a game which was "made for the fans" is becoming a desperate grab for money, no matter what the PR says. Players won't stand for it and now the game is getting its comeuppance. Players are leaving, servers are emptying. The production costs were astronomical and needless server costs aren't really helping. The pride Bioware once displayed when showing off the game has traded places with thinly veiled apologies, hollow numbers and the promise of features that should have been present on release in order to make the game on par with the competition (by which I mean WoW).

But pay no mind to the hushed tones of the audience, and the forced tone of Dr. Ray Muzyka in the following clip from E3 2012, last week.

Enjoy indeed.

You might think I'm enjoying bashing a game, and I usually do, but not this time. It's not so funny when you see the potential of a game absolutely squandered and paying a monthly fee for it only makes matters worse. For the same amount you could get a game that has more content, more features, more players, better service, better performance, funny pandas, less bugs but worse storytelling. The competition is murderous.

Stop aping WoW, learn from Guild Wars. Better hurry, Guild Wars 2 is right around the corner. If you think the Diablo 3 release hurt...

When Diablo 3 was released there was a pretty substantial drop in SWtoR's activity, at least on my server: Hydian Way. Which goes to show that the audience for the game is limited. I too have played a lot less in favour of Diablo 3.
I can only imagine what will happen when Guild Wars 2 is finally released. I imagine EA/Bioware being absolutely petrified. My Republic Guild has already promised to reform in Guild Wars 2 and my Imperial Guild has only a small percentage of players dismissing it a priori. Chances are that they will eventually jump ship anyway, to keep the group together.

A few days ago, and to my surprise while writing this article, an Old Republic designer told the press they were looking into F2P options, but I really hope for their sake, that it isn't too little too late. The classical MMO genre is getting stale as it is, while MOBA games are on the rise, so playing catch-up alone might not be enough. The willingness to change is a good sign though. So I hope that in the future, we'll look back on the first half-year of SWtoR as the beginning of the game.