Having recently celebrated Star Wars Day, and getting caught up in the recent barrage of updates and rumors on Star Wars Episode 7, we’re bringing you a new column focused on one of the biggest sci-fi franchise. We all had to start somewhere, and our resident Star Wars fan-boy Wedgeantilles began his MMOG experience with Star Wars: The Old Republic. He’ll be giving an outsider’s look on what it’s like to play your first MMOG, along with providing game play insight and helping those of you not as familiar with the platform to not feel so intimidated or alone in vastness of the galaxy that makes up SWTOR. Enjoy.
It’s been quite some time since I’ve been able to post. My apologies, Gamergate really slowed me down seeing as how my pro Slave-girl Leia stance was seen as misogynistic, and the phony feminists at Gawker.com decided to delete my original article all about the best topless cantinas in TOR.
I’ve decided to press on regardless. You are in for a real treat today because I’m going to vent. You won’t see much of this but I was bored of the endless praise I’ve had for this game so far, and I won’t feel like a true MMO gamer until I take some high-horsed cynical stance and trash what I love just a little bit. Get ready for a little old fashioned fanboy bitching.
My first gripe comes courtesy of the worlds themselves. Why create planets that mean nothing to the fans, and didn’t exist in the Star Wars universe until this game? Taris is a great example of the shoe-horning done to just push more Star-Warsy shit in my face. I’d rather have the game devs give me places that already exist in the EU like Adumar or Thyferra and go from there. Do I digress? No.
Next up is the Rakghoul Plague. If we wanted Zombie Star Wars, we would have asked for it. Giving us a disease that turns victims into the blood thirsty creatures that bit them is really nothing new, trust me. I OD’d on this crap with Marvel Zombies, Walking Dead, and everything else for the past few years, why wouldn’t you go for it too? Actually on second thought, zombie Star Wars might rule. Spoiler alert: R2 survives.
Now for gameplay related garbage. Being that I am a first timer with the MMO platform, there are those of you who are many years ahead of me, so hang in there while I voice all the shit you are sick of.
- The repetitive nature of quests. Why does every mission have to be the same “go here and get this” or “get to this area and kill this dick” cookie cutter nonsense? You are operating in the most vast and freeing setting-a galaxy at war with no true direction or law, surely we can do more than run around and collect trinkets and medicine for characters we’ll never see again.
- I can’t look at these great graphics without thinking of the CG blue screen abominations that are the Prequels. I have a headache now…and I’m angry.
- Lack of a real story or character motivation. As someone who chose the smuggler class, once I got my ship back, there was no real motivation for me, as the character, to continue in the story. Sure I will keep playing because I’m interested in seeing how the universe can expand, but if I was the smuggler in question, I would have taken my ship and peaced out to somewhere with less overhead and wider profit margins. We are expected to continue forward in the game just…because.
- I’m still angry from #2.
- Tatooine sucks. I know ‘cuz I been there. Subterranean housing, domed spaceports and moisture farming equipment litter the landscape in a way that almost insults my imagination. If TOR is supposed to be taking place 2000+ years before Luke blows up the first Death Star then how in the world is all the tech the same?! Wouldn’t there be some industrial disparity at that point? No? Okay, then I will go on believing that nothing was different that far back in the timeline.
You think I’m a worthless Noob, sure, but am I that far off the mark? I would say no, seeing as how I am writing this article and you are reading it. Need some lidocane for that burn?
Stay tuned for the next installment in the on-going column from Wedgeantilles.