Remember The Secret World beta registration? The strange Facebook application The Secret War that would supposedly grant the coveted closed beta access? That same one that failed to launch, and then after a big community fuss, seemingly vanished without further word? A recent post from Tarib, the senior community manager indicates that they are still hard at work on this fabled minigame.

“The plan is to get The Secret War into the next phase and fire it up fully. We sometimes felt ourselves a bit like some hidden society tried to prevent us from launching it but the way it currently looks we are getting really close now. We hope to have more information and details on this very soon.”

I’ll admit I have my doubts, but I am hoping so! I’ve been watching this game for years now, it looks like everything I’ve ever wanted in a game – if they can pull it off. So here’s to hoping they really mean it this time!

My overall impressions of this game do remain positive, although in many ways it’s a muddle. BioWare is new at the MMO genre, and it very much shows. I generally think ‘balanced classes’ is an MMO myth, but there is very little of it in SWTOR; classes just play unevenly in both skillsets and companion acquisition, crafting is… well, I’ll just say it’s bolluxed. Patches and updates aren’t staying long enough on the test server, BioWare isn’t listening to the testers’ feedback, and has now displayed a pattern of knee-jerk over-nerfs that have seriously hit my enthusiasm for playing. I really have to wonder if anyone at BioWare has ever played an MMO at endgame, or participated in serious pvp.

And yet, my overall impression remains positive. I’m treating this game like it’s single player, or rather, like it’s a LAN. As a single player or LAN, it is a great game.

But on to the specifics.

CHARACTER GENERATION

There is nothing new here since the beta. At first glance, character generation is pretty spiffy. There are multiple ways to customize your character; hair, eye color, different heads, skin colors, tattoos and jewelry, honestly I’ve yet to see a clone of any of my characters (I currently have 6), and I don’t see copies of other players as I run around the game either. There’s really a broad variety of looks you can achieve (unless you’re a Chiss. They’re all blue. But Chiss are cool so does it really matter?), so that’s pretty cool.

Once you get beyond the first glimpse, however, chargen pales a bit. While I’ve never seen someone else with a clone of any of my characters, all of my characters look very similar to each other because there are so few options that I actually like. The tattoos and makeup share the same slider, so if I want that cool looking tattoo over the left eye, I’m stuck with no lipstick. The races with horns have the same problem – horns and hairstyles are on the same slider.

I’ll admit I’m picky. I can, have, and do spend hours on chargen, making my characters look just exactly so. The more options there are, the more time I’ll spend in chargen – I have actually timed out of the game during chargen many times. I’m vain. I spend VAST amounts of time in game looking for just the right outfits, and these days, I’m not likely to even play a game that doesn’t have a cosmetic system. But still, personal preferences aside, there are certain things that lose massive points with me, and different types of features sharing the same sliders is one of them. Is it really that difficult to make it so I can have lipstick and a tattoo, or three horns with pigtails instead of 5 horns? You can’t even use clipping as an argument, because there are hairstyles that clip with the heads! The Sith race in particular is guilty of this, many of the hairstyles clip with most of the Sith heads. I’ve tried many times, but just can’t find a Sith look that I like, due to hairstyle clipping, and shiny mouths because of misaligned jaws. It seems like if the hairstyle doesn’t clip with the head, there’s a glaring white line across the mouth where the jaws don’t properly sync.

But take that last with whatever salt you like. It drives me absolutely insane (to the point that I never ever take long hair on video game characters because it’s almost a certainty that long hair will clip with armor), but I’ve been assured by several people that it looks fine and I’m just super picky.

PROGRESSION

Character progression in Star Wars is pretty easy. Leveling is lightning fast. I’d thought WoW leveling was quick, but Star Wars has WoW beat by a landslide. There are multiple ways you can level, too, which makes it rather fun. You can wander around the world following the story quests, PvP, blow things up in your spaceship, and group in flashpoints and operations. There’s very little that you need that can’t be provided by solo questing … ok, I can’t think of anything I needed while leveling that I couldn’t get from questing.

The story quests are, for the most part, pretty fun. One thing that everyone can agree on is that BioWare does story, and in Star Wars, they did story. In most MMOs I move on once I hit the level to start in a new zone, but in Star Wars most of the time I don’t even notice the pace of leveling. In the places I did skip, I went back to finish up after I hit 50. Many of the quests have multiple endings as well, so there is some variety to be had when leveling alts. Some of it is minor – do you force the girl who has been adopted by bugs to return to her family, or let her stay – but it is also possible to make choices that determine the outcome of planetary conflicts. Honestly I’d assumed that most of the choices mattered very little and you’d wind up in the same place no matter which route you take, but last night while playing another pair of alts, my fiance and I managed to lose a war and cost the Empire the acquisition of one of the major planets. The Darth in charge of the war efforts wasn’t very pleased, but we threatened to kill him if he kept complaining and then just walked out. Now he sends us pissy letters in the mail. Which I’ll admit are pretty funny. I do like getting mails from the various NPCs you interact with in the world.

When it comes to PvP, Mike has already said much of what I’d say. Ilum sucks. The only thing I will add is that the 10-49 queued warzone brackets are pretty fun. It’s world and endgame PvP that sucks. I do have one complaint with the game in regards to pvp however – I absolutely despise pve nerfs because of pvp balance, and BioWare has done just that to one of the main classes I play. One of the burst dps classes is (surprise) bursting people to death, so it’s just – as of patch 1.1.1 – been nerfed into oblivion. Stealth burst dps classes always seem to have this problem, but even so, BioWare has nerfed them above and beyond even my jaded expectations.

Spaceship missions … you’ll either love these or hate them. They remind me of the good old days, when I blew up asterisks and other ascii-styled enemies on my atari 2600. It’s like Missile Command or Defender, or that old arcade sit-in Star Wars game, only the spaceships actually look like spaceships and the missiles aren’t just distorted lines!

I do all of my daily space ship missions most every day, and have an absolute blast. Many people complain that the ship flies on rails, but I’m just here to blow stuff up so that’s fine by me. My biggest complaint here is once I enter the mission I might as well have left the game. You can’t see the chat anymore, so it’s easy to miss messages that come in while you’re playing. But it’s fun, and a great way to make some quickie chump change. I also get gear for my companions; a run through my daily missions will net me enough commendations to buy a blue level 50 lockbox that will provide pretty decent stuff for the sidekicks.

UI

I hate the UI. I abhor the UI. I loathe and despise the UI. Seriously folks, I don’t think there’s any way to do justice to just how bad the Star Wars UI really is. It sucked in beta, and it still sucks. There’s no way to resize it, no way to move windows around, the windows you can have open are limited to 2 (in some cases, to 1!), you don’t get nearly enough hotbars, and it clips with itself!

The Galactic Trade Network (SWTOR’s auction house) is particularly onerous. It’s one of the windows that won’t allow other windows to open. And many of the things you’ll be looking for the most, like mods and enhancements for armor and weapons, and crafting schematics, don’t have an item compare. So if you’re crafting and looking for new recipes, you’ll either have to write down every one that you have and manually compare, have an eidetic memory, or suffer through a very lengthy process of opening the GTN window, closing it down so you can look at your crafting window, then opening the GTN again. The same goes with item modification; you can’t see what you’ve already got without closing down the GTN window and opening up your item window. There’s also no way to search the GTN for specific armor slots. Just want a belt? Sorry, you have to look at every chest, glove, helmet, wrist and leg piece as well.

Just bad, bad, bad design. I know, I know, they’ve promised modification in future patches, but until that magical unspecified day, the UI sucks so badly there’s just nothing more to really say about it.

CRAFTING

On the positive side, you can craft without having to actually craft. I wonder if the BioWare crafting motto was if you can’t make it fun, then make it painless? You send your crew members out to do your crafting, so once you get more than one of them, it’s easy to play the game and get your crafting done in the background. Heck, you can even craft while offline!

But that’s the only positive thing I have to say about SWTOR’s crafting. Which saddens me, because I generally love crafting.

There are three types of crew skills: crafting, missions, and gathering. Crafting makes things. All you need are the materials and the recipe. Then you send out your companion and wait. When using a mission skill, you pay a start up fee, then your minion goes out and collects rare materials. Gathering skills are exactly as they sound, they allow you to collect nodes throughout the world as you adventure, although you can also pay to send your companions out as though they’re mission skills. Two of them also allow you to harvest from the bodies of enemies that you kill.

It’s a great premise. You can craft and gather materials while doing other things, and even offline. Bioware wanted a system that rewarded crafters for the amount of time they sink into their crafts, and they by and large succeeded. In order to get the very best crafting recipes, crafters have to spend a fortune in both time and money creating items and deconstructing them, hoping for that magical success that will teach them an improved recipe.

It fails in execution, however, as very few of the crafts have any actual end game value. I will admit that this is very heavily debated by the playerbase, however. There are people who make millions selling crafted gear. I, however, see no benefit to it. During the leveling phase of the game, I level so quickly that it’s pointless for me to make anything for myself as I’ll be leveled beyond it by the time I make it. And on the same coin, I level so quickly I can’t be bothered to buy things crafted by other people. At the endgame – it’s easier to just use the commendations I get from dailies and drops from instances instead of craft. There is money to be made with crafting as not everyone is content with ‘good enough for now’, so long as you’re willing to sink vast quantities of time and money deconstructing hundreds of items to get the recipes you need.

Every time I make a new alt, I tell myself, ok this time I’m going to make what I need in advance, so I’ll have it. But thus far, each time, I just couldn’t be bothered to take the time collecting the rare materials needed for the gear that’s any good. At no point do I ever feel like I need gear upgrades beyond what I can pick up in instances and questing. Crafting is also a giant money sink, even beyond the normal.

If you want to have the very best gear at all times, or don’t mind putting in heavy hours evaluating the market and player trends in order to make money, then crafting might be for you. Normally, this is me. I love playing the market, and amassing a fortune in the games I play. In Star Wars, however, the ‘click and wait’ system makes me want to crawl into a hole and die.

CONCLUSION

Remember what I said in my beta preview? That opinion hasn’t changed much: ultimately, I am having fun playing Star Wars and will continue playing it for a while. It’s got a few more months of fun left, possibly more if they continue to add content and patch. Massive multiplayer content is where BioWare has largely dropped the ball, so if you’re looking for a standard BioWare single player game, with the added bonus of being able to play it with friends, then you’ll probably enjoy this game. Taken casually, this game is pretty solid.

If you’re a focused player, who likes to excel at what you do; whether it’s PvP, crafting, or raiding, you may want to give this game a pass, or at least wait another 6 months. BioWare is in its infancy in regards to MMOs, and I suspect it’s going to take a while before they learn enough to satisfy the hardcore crowds. I’m having fun playing it like a LAN game, but I’m already casting my eyes toward my next game. After 6 alts, there’s very little left for me to do.

Last week I finally hit the level cap in Star Wars: The Old Republic, but didn’t have a chance to get to Illum until this weekend and holy crap does it suck.  Now if you’re already level 50 and have traveled to Illum, you probably already know what I’m about to say, but if you’re not, seriously take you time leveling, you don’t want to be on Illum.

To start, Illum the “PvP planet” isn’t even dedicated to PvP, half of it is PvE, which blew me away when I got there and I had to spend the next few hours completing more story missions. Yay!? =\

When I finished off those missions I finally made it to the other side of the planet where I was greeted with on-screen notification messages of players who were near certain control points. It seemed like there were a lot of notifications coming up, so I started to get excited that I was in for some good PvP action, however as I neared my first control point, I saw no one. I proceed to another point, controlled by the Republic (Im Empire) and again saw no one, so I figured I’d try to take it over.

To take over a control point, you have to destroy the enemy vehicles in the area, which by the way don’t attack you so after about a min, by myself, I took over the point. I though, ok, that was boring, what next? Finally a Republic player found me as I was leaving the control point and decisively thrashed me.  While I don’t like dying, at least it was something.

I continued to travel around from control point to control point for about 30 mins, seeing a few players here and there and getting my ass kicked a few more times until I finally found where everyone was. It seems about 100 players were lined up standing infront of a narrow bridge staring at each other. I hung out for about an hour getting some kills and valor points, however the lag was too much and I finally logged out in frustration.

Visting Illum has now fully convinced me no one working at BioWare has every played a PvP MMORPG. By far SWTOR has the worst PvP system I’ve every played and makes games like WoW look like the grand-master of PvP.

First, control points, which provide faction valor buffs, are almost meaningless. They’re so easy to take over, that if you do and leave, literally within a few mins you’ll lose it, which leaves the players with an empty feeling of accomplishment. Why bother when you’re just going to lose it 2 mins later?

Aside from those 5 control points, there’s absolutely nothing else on Illum, which is why players just sit there across from each other picking off overly aggressive players from time to time. The valor gained is also tiny compared to what you get in a warzone. In the hour I was there I probably gained 1000 valor points at most, which is pathetic considering I could have probably gain 4000 in the same amount of time had I joined warzones. However collecting points is not my main priority as I’ve grown to hate instanced PvP matches, so I’ll still take Illum over warzones.

Illum is a disaster when it come to PvP and if you do not agree, you are completely blinded by your love for Star Wars and BioWare. I’m sorry this is no an opinion, it is fact and unarguable.

BioWare has stated that in the month of February it will be releasing updates aimed to improve PvP, but at this point I’m convinced that improvements will not work. Illum needs to be completely scrapped, shutdown and remade from scratch if they want to have any decent PvP system at all.  Having completed the story and absolutely hating Illum, I’m left with nothing to do except Flashpoints and Operations.  I’ve yet to do any ops, so I guess that’s next for me.

In a word, simplicity. There’s something to be said about a game where the characters have only five abilities, one being passive, yet still provide layers of complexity and strategy.

The reason League of Legends is able to accomplish this is through their skill trees, rune system and item store, which allow players to completely customize each character without adding additional abilities. While players can spend hours tweaking their stats, when they get into the actual game it becomes very simple.

When comparing it to my character in Star Wars: The Old Republic, I have two hot bars filled with 24 abilities, then an additional two side bars with another 18 or so abilities, buffs, items and skills. I can’t remember the last time I played a MMORPG  where I had so many abilities as SWTOR. Full disclosure the only other two MMORPGs I played to the level cap were LoTRO and Warhammer Online, neither of which, from what I remember, came anywhere near SWTOR.

However I have played dozens of other MMO games to mid level and I can’t recall  filling up my hotbars by mid game in any of them. In comparison I had filled my two bottom bars and nearly another full side bar before I hit level 25. Then let’s not forget a fifth hotbar for companions.

However there’s a certain complexity that is expected when playing a MMORPG, much more than a MOBA game like League of Legends, but when is enough enough? Do we really need 40 abilities and items to select from while in combat?  Seems like overkill to me and while I don’t expect or even want a MMORPG with only 5 abilities, it wouldn’t hurt for MMO developers to take a look at what RiotGames is doing with League of Legends and perhaps simplify some things.

What do you think? Are MMO games going to far with the amount of skills and abilities players have access to or do you enjoy the complexity of it?

Game Update 1.1 not only brought a new Flashpoint into Star Was: The Old Republic, it also allowed Bioware to respond to player concerns regarding PvP by placing level 50 characters into their own bracket for warzones.

For the most part the bolster system did a good job of levelling the playing field in warzones however it did not account for the expertise stat found on level 50 PvP gear. Higher level players already had access to a complete skill tree and set of abilities, it may have been a mistake to give them a gear advantage (even if only a slight advantage).

As a mid-level character, getting face rolled by full teams of 50′s in all PvP gear was  getting frustrating enough never mind being a fresh level 10 character hoping to try PvP out only to get obliterated. The barrier to entry was increasing with each new level 50 queuing for warzones and it was starting to get slightly out of hand.

On the other hand the inclusion of level 50 brackets has caused problems for some level 50 players on low population servers, leaving them with potentially lengthy queue times just to get into a match against anyone. As far as I can tell from chatting with a few people, the gear gap issue is also still an issue for fresh level 50s going up against better equipped characters. The RNG system behind loot bags probably is not helping this situation either with some players failing to receive a token for PvP gear despite purchasing a LOT of bags.

What’s your opinion?

Are you enjoying the lack of level 50 characters in your warzones? Or do you miss the challenge of taking on a vastly superior opposing force?

Let us know in the comments.

The first time I played the original Realtime Worlds beta of All Points Bulletin I never really got past the first few tutorial missions due to a faulty graphics card. After spending some time with the free-to-play revival of this game, I’m starting to think I may have missed out on a fun experience.

Taking place in the fictional city of San Paro, APB pits criminals vs enforcers in a virtual game of cops & robbers. Featuring no classes, levels or stats, your skill with a gun will largely dictate your success, or failure in this game.

I say there are no classes but that’s not entirely true. Players can purchase equipment and character modifications that grant various buffs in the form of extra health, quicker health regen, ammo regeneration for team mates, and various other goodies I’ve not yet had the chance to play with. This enables players to specialise in various areas, perhaps equipping modifications beneficial to a sniper, or a close quarter shotgun wielder in effect creating your own custom class similar to the perks/specialisation features of modern FPS shooter titles.

Character customisation features some of the most varied options and choices you will likely ever see in an MMO, and will probably suck up a large amount of time when creating your first character. I was able to knock up a hockey masked enforcer tribute to Casey Jones fairly easily. Another childhood fantasy achieved if only in video game form.

After picking a faction and creating a character, players are transported to a tutorial area where your first ‘contact’ will provide a few basic solo missions. As an enforcer I was dispatched to remove some graffiti from a wall and some other basic tasks before given the choice of entering one of three ‘action’ districts, or the ‘social’ district.

Action districts are instanced areas containing up to 100 players where missions or open world activities (such as witnessing crimes or committing them) can be completed. Grouping is handled automatically upon entering an action district, or you can manually join a group or even run missions on your own, although I highly recommend grouping. Sure you can complete things on your own, but there is a lot of fun to be had jumping into a vehicle with some friends and hanging out the windows showering your enemies with automatic fire!

Before long you will find yourself dispatched against enemy players to assault or defend locations, pick up and deliver evidence, raid criminal hideouts, and other various missions. For each successful mission you gain prestige and improved standing with local contacts unlocking clothing, weaponry, and vehicles. Prestige affects the number and threat level of the enemy players you will be matched against which I found to be an interesting way of matching players together.

If you don’t feel like taking part in combat, the social district is a PvP free area containing all the tools required for the huge level of customisation available in APB. Players can alter clothing, give vehicles a new lick of paint, or even change the physical look of their character such as hairstyle, body features etc. Player auctions can also be accessed here and there is a large selection of gear and weaponry to choose from.

So far despite a few niggling issues I’m having a lot of fun with APB. It’s refreshing to play an MMO (of sorts) that relies more on player skill than gear level to progress.

Stay tuned for my full APB Reloaded review.

In the real world we all use a single currency system, ok, maybe two for some of the EU countries that still accept their old currency, but for most of us there’s only one. If you travel to another country you’ll have to exchange your money for whatever currency that country uses, but you remain in a one currency system.

When MMORPGs first started showing up in the gaming world, they followed basically the same logic, one basic currency that players can use to buy and sell their items to other players or vendors. However over the last decade, this system has ballooned into a complicated multi-currency system where it seems everything you do provides you with another type of currency. Call it what you like, tokens, commendations, points, it’s all basically the same.

Today MMORPGs are more about collecting tokens than they are about role-playing or even just playing. They have become a sort of achievement list for players to brag that they played 1000 PvP matches and now have enough tokens to get that awesome weapon everyone wants. To me that’s not a reason to play a MMO.

An overload in currency systems was the reason I quit LotRO some years ago and I have no doubt they’ve crammed even more collecting systems into the game since. However it’s not just a few games that are at fault, nearly every game today follows the same multi-currency system, including RIFT and SWTOR.

The issue has become so bad today that the simple removal of a token makes entire portions of a game pointless and irrelevant. Developers use these token systems to etice players to participate in activities they normally wouldn’t want to. For instance if you want more people playing mini-game X, simply create some epic gear and a token system specifically for that activity.  Boom, you’ll have people flocking to that mini-game in order to obtain those items, but the questions is, should they?

As a developer wouldn’t you want players to participate in certain activities because they’re fun and not because they get rewarded every time they do? If players are avoiding some areas of the game maybe those activities should be removed or reworked until players will actually want to participate.

I personally believe all MMORPGs should stick to a single currency system and allow mini-games or game features to fail if they’re not fun. If mini-game X is boring and I can get the same rewards elsewhere, I will.  That should give developers incentive to make mini-game X better, but instead they take the forceful route and create high rated gear and hide it behind a secondary currency.

Last week BioWare released a video of Game Director James Ohlen talking about some upcoming changes to Star Wars: The Old Republic, one of which was the Legacy System.

Up until now, we knew that the the Legacy system would create a sort of family tree for your main and alt characters and they would gain some sort of benefits. I for one assumed the benefits would be non-combat such as cosmetic gear, titles, mounts or something along those lines, however in the video James clearly states that all characters will gain new abilities and powers.

Being someone that has never played an alt character and who doesn’t plan to, this Legacy System completely gimps players who choose to stick with a single character. The Legacy System almost forces players to start over with an alt in order to remain competitive with other players.

Since SWTOR is all about story and is the game’s main focus, it’s no wonder BioWare would put in place a system that puts a huge incentive for players to start over. However for those of us who are not alt-players, this system makes it pointless to continue playing as we would do so with a permanently gimped character.

What BioWare is trying to do is add replay value to a genre that quite frankly doesn’t need it. Incentivising players to start over should be the last thing any MMORPG should do as the game itself should be engaging enough for players to continue logging in even after completely the story. However when you create a game that has the same old game mechanics and endgame as every MMORPG of the last decade, getting players to start-over is probably the only way to keep your subscribers.

What is currently taking place on the planet of Illum is an absolute slaughter and travesty. Republic forces, vastly out numbered by Imperials, are being decimated with little to no hope of making any type of stand. With no hope of survival, Republic players are staying clear of Illum, turning it over to Imperials who now sit and wait for those unfortunate Republic players, unaware of the situation, to enter.

That’s the current state of the game for Star Wars: The Old Republic on the PvP world of Illum after the release of Patch 1.1. While the patch brought with it a new flashpoint and operation, more importantly it brought much needed changes to PvP.

Up until now Illum has been a merry-go-round where players, for the most part, would stay clear of each other in order to trade off objectives and farm rewards as quickly as possible. Patch 1.1 however introduced some incentives for players to actually kill each other, except BioWare forgot that Imperial players vaaaastly outnumber Republic players on nearly every server. So instead of a merry-go-round, we have a one sided slaughter where Imperial players are camping Republic respawn areas and hunting down new players when their location is revealed through the new Illum notification system.

But it doesn’t stop there. Imperial players are also farming NPC turrets, which respawn almost instantly, allowing them to rack up HUGE amounts of valor. WTF BioWare!?  PvP rewards for killing NPCs? (UPDATE: Seems this was reported falsely by players, turrets and NPCs do not provide valor)

I’m all for giving players incentives to kill each other and I’m still waiting for some in open PvP zones, but this seems like such a rookie mistake. Hasn’t anyone at BioWare played a PvP MMORPG before?  How about some safe zones or added incentive for the factions that’s outnumber to help bolster their numbers. Or maybe just a faction player cap and definitely no Valor for killing NPCs, that’s just plain idiotic.

If you’re interested in checking out the slaughter, below you can find a video that was recently uploaded by a Republic player.

UPDATE: BioWare has responded by adding a population cap to Illum and are working on correcting the issue where enemy players are able to enter the opposing faction’s safe zone without being killed.

Star Wars: The Old Republic servers are now live with the first major content update; Rise of the Rakghouls. This update brings some welcome changes – anti-aliasing is finally available! – as well as some that just make me scratch my head and wonder what BioWare is thinking. Georg Zoeller stated that,

“The design intent for the game is that your choice of crafting profession should not become a requirement or ‘gating’ mechanism for participating in competitive content (PvP) and high end endgame challenges.”

Some raiding guilds had started requiring Biochem on their raiders, so they were nerfing biochem to prevent this. But I’m left wondering how sticking a requirement that people who use high end biochem stims and medpacks actually have to have biochem to use them is going to fix this problem. Doesn’t that just make it more likely guilds will require biochem? Wouldn’t it be better to just make other crafting skills worthwhile at the end game raiding level?

Commentary aside, Rise of the Rakghouls does introduce some content that looks pretty interesting. Four new bosses have been added to Karagga’s Palace, and there’s a new flashpoint: Kaon Under Siege. Now if BioWare would only introduce UI scaling and customization…

Read the official full patch notes, sans my pithy commentary, here.