I’ve been playing Star Wars: The Old Republic for a couple of weeks now, frying foes with Force lightning, splashing space ships with missiles, chatting up companions and generally having a good old time in a galaxy far far away (not that it really narrows it down much. How many galaxies are *not* “far far away”, after all?).

I thought I’d spend some time sharing my experiences and impressions in SWTOR here on MMOCrunch, and so I give to you the “Sith Journals”, my personal gaming diary/ongoing SWTOR review/personal ranting space that I will subjecting you all to. I’ll try to steer clear of major story spoilers, but there will be some spoiling of story going on, so if you absolutely do not want any part of the SWTOR story revealed to you, just punch yourself hard in the temple whenever you come across a spoiler, and the mild concussion should wipe your short term memory and ensure maximum Old Republic story enjoyment.

I’m not sure how long this journal experiment will run, but it will probably go on until:

1. I feel it has run its course and there’s nothing more interesting to write
2. I get tired of SWTOR and quit the game
3. Mind controlling aliens invade Earth and I am forced to give up my quiet life of supply chain management and computer games writer in order to form a xeno worshipping cult that appeases our tentacle-faced overlords through the means of ritual dancing and human sacrifice.

I have been spending almost all of my time in SWTOR playing my Sith Inquisitor, which I’ve so far gotten up to level 35. So come along with me and let’s jump back two weeks in time and join me as I first stepped out onto the hot sands of Korriban, just another slave with the simple hope of a better life and a chance to melt the faces of people with scorching Force lightning.

After a warm welcome from my friendly trainer, who apparently wanted nothing more than to see us ground up into Bantha fodder, I set about with my various tasks on Korriban, most of which involved venturing through old tombs and recovering some priceless artifact or other.

Considering that the Sith have been present on Korriban for many years, and considering the number of initiates that have been sent through those tombs to kill the undesirable inhabitants and loot anything of worth, I must say that I am quite surprised that they are apparently still full of monsters and archeological wonders.

Much can be said about the Sith, but their skills at retrieving artifacts from right outside their doorstep, and keeping said doorstep free from things that want to shoot them in the face, leave much to be desired.

Continued…

I haven’t yet reached end-game, but I’m moving along at a decent pace, currently level 34 and at this point I thought I’d be enjoying at least some open PvP goodness. Yet in the last three worlds, Nar Shaddaa, Tatooine and Alderaan, all of which have open PvP zones, I’ve only run across two enemy faction players.

So where’s the PvP? Yes, I know I can join the Warzones, but to be honest, I’ve grew tired of them in Warhammer Online and while BioWare has added new elements and Hutt Ball, I still prefer open PvP much more than warzones, plus I hate Hutt Ball. I basically do my one daily Warzone per day and that’s it.

What I really want is open PvP and while I’m constantly told I’m flagged for PvP, I never see anyone. The two times I did, the guy ran away because I was a few levels above him and the second time we actually fought. He caught me during a mob fight so he killed me first, but 10 secs later after I revived myself, I was able to kill him.

Being my first open PvP kill I was expecting some sort of reward or at least acknowledgement of my first kill, but there was nothing, which just left me with an empty, why bother, feeling. I didn’t even gain XP or Valor for the kill.

Now, I’m not asking for a full fledged PvP rewards system like so many MMORPGs have today, because in my mind that just leads to PvP grinding. But I would like at least some acknowledgement of my efforts. Even something as simple as a personal stat board to show me my kills and deaths.

The problem with the open PvP zones is there is absolutely no incentive for players, which is why they’re empty. Why bother in a open zone when you can queue up for a warzone and get all the rewards? While hardcore PvPers will say the reward is in the kill itself, that’s not enough incentive to get most players to participate, so there has to be some reward be it XP, Valor or something else.

When it comes down to it PvP is flat out broken in Star Wars: The Old Republic and needs to be fixed asap. Being a one character per MMO type of guy, I don’t re-roll or start alts, my biggest concern is getting to the endgame and finding out there’s nothing left for me to do.

In a class action lawsuit filed against Square-Enix back in June of 2009, a Final Fantasy XI player accused the company of deceptive and unfair advertising strategies as listed below. On Dec 23rd of this year, the lawsuit was dismissed by the judge who concluded the claims were “without merit“.

This case narrowly focuses on Defandants deceptive advertising, unfair advertising, and fraudulent concealment to conceal certain critical information about their online games. The deceptive advertising, unfair and undisclosed business practices, and concealment concern, among others:

1. Licensing of the online games software disguised as a sale
2. Monthly fees (“fees”) to play online games
3. Penalties for late payment fees
4. Interest charges for late payment fees
5. Charges while the online game account is suspended
6. Termination of the right to use the online game for late payment of the fees
7. User restrictions and conditions related to the online games
8. Termination of game data for late payment of the fees

However in a press release sent out by Square-Enix it stated,

The District Court ruled, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed, that Square Enix’s business practices and click-through user agreements were both fair and legal. Both Courts confirmed that Square Enix owns all of the character-related data generated during gameplay.

While this case was not a direct challenge of who owns the actually gaming account, it does state that Square-Enix owns all the “character-related data“, which in itself if a huge win for MMO publishers. This in itself doesn’t close the debate as to who owns the actual account, but it is a step forward for MMO publishers and a defeat for those players who argue they own their accounts and characters.

The big showdown between the companies that run these virtual worlds and the players the inhabit them is unavoidable and I hope within the next few years we’ll have a court case that once and for all will determine who is the rightful owner of these virtual characters and property.

Welcome to our fourth Star Wars: The Old Republic datacons guide, this time we reveal the locations at Korriban. Datacrons are hidden items and permanent stat boost for your character. Since they are hard to find and get to, we here at MMOCrunch decided to create some video guides to make it easier on you.

Coordinates for the 3 datacons on Korriban.

• Endurance +2 X: 150, Y: 78
• Red Matrix Shard X: -55, Y: 379
• Willpower +2 X: 529, Y: 65

Be sure to check out our Datacron guides as well.

• Hutta datacron location guide
• Dromund Kass datacron location guide
• Balmorra Empire datacron location guide

Below you can find the datacron video guide for Korriban. More guides coming soon.

Continued…

Welcome to our third Star Wars: The Old Republic datacons guide, this time we reveal the locations at Balmorra for the Empire. For those of you who don’t know what datacrons are, they’re items and permanent stat boost for your character. Since they are hard to find and get to, we here at MMOCrunch decided to create some video guides to make it easier on you.

• Aim +2 X: -1017, Y: 1514
• Cunning +2 X: 1853, Y: 111
• Green Matrix Shard X: -505, Y: 1990
  This one required two players to get as you have to activate two computer terminals across a room at the same time
• Strength +2 X: 727, Y: 2033
• Willpower +2 X: 191, Y: -346
  While finding the box is pretty easy, opening it is another matter. To do that, you have to buy a key from a vendor which is marked on the map below. It cost 5000 credits, so make sure you have the cash first. There is also a second lockbox at the vendor with a key that cost 8000 credits and contains 2 Reconfiguration Disassembler Cores (purple). These cores can be used to disassemble the  Matrix Cube that you can create out of the Matrix Shards you’re collecting.

Be sure to check out our Datacron guides as well.

• Hutta datacron location guide
• Dromund Kass datacron location guide

Below you can find the datacron guide for Balmorra as Empire. More guides coming soon.

Continued…

Welcome to our second Star Wars: The Old Republic datacons guide, this time we reveal the locations at Dromund Kaas. For those of you who don’t know, datacrons are items and permanent stat boost for your character. Since they are hard to find and get to, we here at MMOCrunch decided to create some video guides to make it easier on you.

Dromund Kaas has 5 datacrons which are listed below and shown in order in the video.

• Endurance +2 X: -793, Y: 1450
• Presence +2 X: 581, Y: 798
• Strength +2 X: 855, Y: 643
• Yellow Matrix Shard X: -187, Y: 1738
• Cunning +2 X: -1219, Y: 209

Be sure to check out our Hutta datacron location guide as well. Below you can find the guide for Dromund Kass. More guides coming soon.

Continued…

Jedi and Sith warriors invaded Time Square on launch day to battle it out in the heart of New York city. They were then joined by about a 100 SWTOR fans as they froze in place mid fight for New Yorkers and tourist to snap some shots of the epic duels.

While the flash mob fad might be getting old and worn out, showing up everywhere from commercials to TV shows and movies, a SWTOR flash mob is still awesome Check out the video below.

Continued…

MMO’s can roughly be divided into two categories, those that strive to entertain the players and those that strive to let the players entertain themselves.

These two fundamentally different ways of thinking about game design have become more and more distinct in the MMO space over the last 5-10 years. Some players swear by the unconstrained freedom of MMO’s that leave it up to the players themselves to create the gameplay, while others thrive on the content stuffed MMO’s that take you on a more or less pre-planned journey from one end of a fantastic world to the other.

Let’s take a closer look at these two design choices and what it means for the players that play them.

Continued…

There must be something to the sandbox design as it was recently announced that Skyrim has sold over 3.4 million copies in just 48hrs, not including digital sales. This outpaces every game this year with the only exception being Modern Warfare 3.

While Skyrim is obviously a single-player game, the Elder Scroll series has always utilized a sandbox design allowing players to truly have the freedom to do whatever they want and go anywhere. This includes, but is not limited to, murdering, stealing and looting, something that most MMORPGs are too afraid to do these days.

The Elder Scroll series takes a realistic approach to crime, where if the player gets caught they must face the consequences of it, either by going to jail or being killed. In the case where the player can escape, they become essentially bared from that town or city, which in itself is pretty cool.

Skyrim also doesn’t pigeon hole players into a specific class, allowing them to user any gear and weapons they find. Players also have the option of completely reworking their perks or skills if they decide they don’t enjoy the character they’ve created without having to start over.

These sort of features have always been used against sandbox MMORPGs, with the argument being they’re just too “hardcore” for mainstream players. I call BS on that. I think the reason the Elder Scroll series has grown into the RPG juggernaut it is, is because players love the freedom to do anything they want. Stealing from or killing friendly NPCs are one of the great hallmarks in Elder Scrolls. How fun it is to go back later on it the game, kill your NPC trainer and loot their awesome gear.

One thing to keep in mind is that Skyrim is a single-player game, so all of these sandbox features are one sided. Meaning no one is going to steal or attempt to kill you unless you attacked first, so there’s really no sense of constant danger for the player as there would be in a MMORPG.

Even so, I think MMO players are getting tired of the same old theme-park system nearly all MMO games today follow, at least I know I am.

This is an open letter to the gaming industry.

Dear Gaming Industry,

Please stop calling every online game you make a MMO. I’m not sure if you know what that means so allow me to tell you. It stands for Massive Multiplayer Online with the keyword being “massive”, that’s very important. You see when someone sees a game being advertised as massive, that person gets the impression that thousands of players will be able to game and interact together in one world or place. Now listen carefully because this is the most important part, it has to be at the same time.

I know this must come as quite a shock to you, but it’s true.  You’re probably saying to yourself, “wow, that’s a lot of people!” and you’re right, but this is why they’re called massive multiplayer online games, because they are indeed massive.

Now, I want to make sure you’re clear as to what that means, so below I’ve listed a few important rules that can be used as checkpoints so you can correctly determine if your game is a MMO or not.

• If your game has a limit to the number of players that can enter at one time and that number is less than a thousand. Your game is not a MMO.

MMOFPSs tend to be the primary abuser of this rule, but it also happens with other genres as well. You see if only 8, 16, 32 or even 100 players can join a game at one time, then it is not massive. Remember, around a thousand players is the magic number. This is more commonly called an online multiplayer game.

• If the whole game is instanced and the only place where players can see each other or interact with are within towns, then your game is not a MMO.

Since the only place where people can see each other, chat and interact with are in towns, then these towns act as a hub or chat room. The actually game is played in small groups or solo, which again means your game is not massive. Think of it this way, if you log onto BattleNet to play Diablo, you can chat with tens of thousands of players, but when you go into the actual game, only a dozen or so can enter due to the fact that every game is instanced. Your game is the same thing, except your using a “town” as the chat room.

I hope this letter has better explained to you what a MMO game is and hopefully in the future you will start to label your games correctly.

Sincerely,
Mike @ MMOCrunch