Strong as a bitch in heat.
Hello ladies and gentlemen, and welcome back to a new edition of Tarantino Theatre! Last time we took a look at Quentin Tarantino’s seminal Pulp Fiction through the lens of the Early Modern period (known to most people as Shakespearean English), and as it’s currently a free Star Wars: The Old Republic weekend, I thought I’d commemorate the occasion!
I’m also still feeling like 6 layers of reheated shit, so you’ll excuse me if I half-ass this blog post. Look forward to some decent content tomorrow, when I report back with my experiences in TOR (and I will have a lot to say, trust me).
Coruscant, interior. MACE WINDU is present, interrogating BRETT, a disheveled-looking Zabrak prisoner. Mace Windu stands over a fresh corpse of Brett’s co-conspirator.
Mace Windu: I’m sorry, did I break your concentration? Ah, you were finished – well allow me to retort. What does Jabba the Hutt look like?
Brett: What?
Mace Windu: Brett, what system are you from?
Brett: What? What? Wh – ?
Mace Windu: “What” ain’t no star system I never heard of. Do they speak Basic on What?
Brett: What?
Mace Windu: Basic, you mynock lover, do you speak it?
Brett: Yes! Yes!
Mace Windu: So then you understand what I’m saying!
Brett: Yes!
Mace Windu: Well then what does Jabba the Hutt look like?
Brett: What?
Mace Windu: Say ‘what’ again. Say ‘what’ again, I dare you. I double droid dare you.
Brett: Well he’s a Hutt…
Mace Windu: Go on.
Brett: He’s bald –
Mace Windu: Does he look like a nerf?
Brett: What?
Mace Windu: (while Force Choking Brett) Does he look like a nerf?
Brett: No!
Mace Windu: (releasing Brett, who slumps on the ground) Well, then why you tryin’ ta herd him like one?
Yeah, I know, I’m a one-trick pony, but it’s a space pony, so piss off.
Amateur Professional 
I love being inspirational for your blogs.
If I wasn’t sick to DEATH of SWTOR I’d tell you to try out the Ebon Hawk Server and I’d join you. But around level 30 the game loses steam IMHO and the game starts getting EXTREMELY repetitive and the Standard MMO/WOW clone factor starts to show through too well.
The first 30 levels or so are sincerely And faithfully full of Star Wars Feel. the last 30 gradually become less so despite the obvious star wars universe that the game is taking place in.
But every new planet has the same basic story (imperials Vs Republic vying for control of the planet, either openly fighting, or backing opposing factions that are fighting).
Still worth a spin, but I’ll be cancelling my sub soon.
Besides Secret world comes out in June…
Mmmm.
It’s funny, I actually picked the Ebon Hawk server when I started it up. After playing for the past couple days, though, I just… eh. It’s not keeping my attention, you know?. I’ll expand more on this, but I definitely agree – the look and feel is great, and the tone is awesome, it’s just that the gameplay is seriously nothing new.
Yup, which wouldn’t be a problem if the gameplay was fun in the first place. I mean, take shooters for example. If you don’t find shooters fun, you won’t find most of them fun.
But the problem with most (all) MMO’s is that they are designed with the following things in mind:
1: Largest possible audience.
2: Lowest common Denominator.
3: Most MMO Nerds have made a huge stink about not liking any FPS elements in a game whatsoever, Nor simulator elements. Basically, if the game doesn’t play itself, they don’t want to play.
4: Old limitations on what was possible for bandwidth and computing power of servers. (Handling 32 people FPS is as hard as handling 3K with simplistic command based – AKA MUD – coding. The first Everquest was just a graphical MUD and used many of the same basic logic functions as a text only version. You could for example play EQ completely with slashcommands. and NPC’s would respond to typed /say dialogues.
5: Lack of balls to do something different.
6: Using an archaic level system to represent progress and dice probability system that are no longer remotely needed in the modern computer age. Gygax used Dice because pocket computers didn’t exist, and needed tables and charts to determine results that today can be modeled to within very close decimal points to reality if so desired (see games like Combat missions by Battlefront.com where every inch of a tanks armor is rated and used to determine if an enemy tank shell penetrates or not).
EVE online, Planetside, and Dungeons and Dragons Online were the only games in recent history to have any success and break the mold in some major ways.
EVE still uses the more familiar function key system, but does it in a completely new and interesting way. Combined with a totally unique Genre, and change from TANK/DPS/HEAL trinity of gameplay, it is really fun. Of the three it’s the most wildly popular.
Planetside was good and fun and popular for a while and was totally FPS, though t had some issues it was the first and only FPS MMO that I know of, of course it was totally PVP so it barely qualifies as a MMO to most die hard MMO players.
DDO was like the best of both worlds, It had function Key special abilities, but standard attack, dodge, and block are all FPS style.
Others have bent the rules a bit, but sadly, SWTOR screwed the pooch almost as much as it rode it around awesomely.
I won’t lie, levels 1-30 do = fun.
But then the tires blow out and the nearest gas station is 20 levels away… And instead of putting air back in your tires, they give you a Go cart and 5 race tracks and tell you that your having fun as a high level then your maxed, your story is done, and re-rolling a new character is only fun if you switch to the other side of the tracks. Because every class does the same quest arc, just from a slightly difference perspective.
That is the pitfall of a Story driven Narrative like SWTOR. The more story you include, the more exciting the game is the first run through, and the more of a chore it is the second, third etc.
With EVE however, the story is in a sandbox setting, the story is what you make it to be, and so long as your taking part in the politics, and goings on of the game worlds players, you will always have some motivating plot going on. Even if it’s just the quest for a few million more Spacebucks to buy that new shiny thing for your mile long leviathan of love, that also shoots nuclear torpedoes.
I have a feeling Secret world won’t be much better, it’s just how things go.
The minute you say RPG, is the minute a million morons who think they are nerds think the game has to have levels, dice, and hotslot abilities.
And don’t even get me started on the Identical train wreck nature of class progression in every MMO on the planet, every warrior is the same, every wizard etc.
EVE isn’t like that so much, DDO kinda is… and secret world will probably be like that.
Oh well… Someday the gaming industry will realism that MMO’s SHOULD, and started out as, Attempts to create virtual worlds with living breathing simulations of the fantastic things we can only imagine.
Not time sinks that basically play themselves and give the player only marginally more freedom of choice than a train simulator.
Last but not least SWTOR has one other major thing going against it…
Bioware works for EA now. Which basically means it was doomed from the start.
TTFN, look forward to your review.
Pingback: This is not the Star Wars game you’re looking for. « Amateur Professional
I don’t know why but WordPress flagged this as spam. Apparently the spam detection program was coded by someone with stock in BioWare/EA!
/tinfoilhat