Star Wars: Battlefront Wish-list

There’s finally a really promising Star Wars title coming now that Electronic Arts have the license. The first and announced title is Star Wars: Battlefront which is created by none other than DICE themselves, the creators of Battlefield series. And that, of course, means I have insanely high expectations since Battlefield 3 was great and Battlefield 4 looks phenomenal.

Here are some things that I want to see from the Battlefront:

• First-person perspective
• Epic singleplayer co-op campaign
• Minimum of 32 player multiplayer component with different game modes (CTF, Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch & more)
• Vehicle warfare with X-Wings and other trademark Star Wars vehicles
• Some sort of “wave defense” mode as well with minimum four friends
• Better graphics than BF4

What’s on your wish-list for Star Wars: Battlefront?

I can’t wait to shoot down enemies on Hoth. Or to become a true Stormtrooper on the battlefront.

Disney’s Star Wars plans

Disney has revealed their plans for their Star Wars movies and it is looking fantastic from a fans perspective. We will be getting a new movie annually. Fuark yes.

• There will be a new trilogy starting with Episode VII and that debut’s Disney’s movies in 2015 with Episode VIII coming in 2017 and Episode IX 2019.
• For 2016 there will be a spin-off movie and they will alternate bi-annually with the new trilogy.
• Han Solo spin-off considered, a young Han Solo with amazing escapes and battles with smuggling and whatnot.
• Yoda spin-off, not much details about when or how.

So that’s some pretty juicy information and if the movies are well-made, I have no problems with an annual release of Star Wars movies, in fact, I welcome it. I mean, they can’t be worse than the prequel trilogy, right?

I’d love to see the Return of the Sith and that they scratch the Rule of Two, but that’s just me. I love the Sith.

LucasArts gets shut down

Disney who bought Star Wars and LucasArts and all related things has now decided to shut down LucasArts and cancel all their projects, among them were Star Wars 1313. This has caused some shockingly negative response from gamers. Is this justified?

If we take a look at what Disney does good it’s making money. They are releasing quality animated movies again and basically run the world. They have smart people there. No doubt. LucasArts on the other hand, what have they done in the past year? Not much. In fact, they have released a few mediocre games at best. The last good product to come out of LucasArts was in 2008, that’s five years ago.

Star Wars 1313 did look very promising. It did. I am not even going to lie. But since Disney shut that down it must have meant it wasn’t nearly as finished as LucasArts claimed it was. They know how to run their company and it was clearly the right decision to make. Keep a company that wasn’t smart enough to fully capitalize on the  Star Wars brand must mean one thing: they’re dumb.

So I understand the decision to shut them down. Regardless of how much I looked forward to Star Wars 1313. It makes sense from a financial point of view. Hopefully Disney will now turn it around and release quality Star Wars games more frequently than Lucas did.

1313 was one of the two games that will not be released now. TWO games only. Relax, people.

Most anticipated movie?

I often get asked what my most anticipated movies is, and that’s a tough question.

Right now, I’d say that, overall, my most anticipated movie is Star Wars: Episode VII. There’s no other universe that has fascinated me as much and I cannot wait to see them revive it and hopefully make it much better. But that’s not until like 2014 or maybe even later.

For this year? Even tougher to determine. But it’s probably Star Trek: Into Darkness. Yeah, it’s no secret that sci-fi fascinates me. 😛 But I am also very much looking forward to Man of Steel and Pain & Gain. This year will be phenomenal in terms of movies coming out and that’s always pleasant to know.

How about you my readers? What are your most anticipated motion pictures?

I am even reading the prequel comic book series to build up the movie.

Disney buys Lucasfilm/arts

Disney has bought all the rights for Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchise and have massive plans for Star Wars. Already in 2015 we will be getting the much anticipated Star Wars: Episode 7, something that I have waited for over a decade.  And the plan is to release a new Star Wars flick bi-annually.

I couldn’t be happier with this news as I am a huge Star Wars fan, as you probably noticed. And George Lucas really fucked the original trilogy good and has been on a consistent downturn with the franchise for decades. With the great job Disney has done with Marvel I am sure that Star Wars will be much better off this way instead of the hands of an egoistic maniac that was Lucas.

I hope to see that the upcoming movies follow the lore and storyline of the books as there are many of them and that they are filled with expensive effects and cool gadgets. The budget has never been bigger and I have insane expectations. Probably too high, but I don’t care, I am hyyyyyped! This is my favorite franchise after all.

What are your thoughts and expectations on this?

The Old Republic fell too soon

Star Wars: The Old Republic was a game I very much looked forward enjoying for a long period of time. Back when it launched in December last year, I had already participated in several beta events and truly enjoyed and pre-ordered it to get the early access.

When December finally came, I launched a successful guild that managed to clear out both the operations that was offered and we did daily PvP events and had a blast. We had 15 people online at all times and it felt like an amazing community and I was living my dream of existing in the Star Wars universe. However, four months later in March players got tired once their game cards expired and didn’t renew.

The Old Republic started to feel like the empty Republic. The PvP queue was no longer instant, there was no urge to do any operations or flashpoints as we had the best gear available from those and the only thing left was to do a few daily missions and PvP. Come another month it became deserted. The Republic Fleet had around 10 players during prime hours and it was apparent that the game was officially dead. Many servers followed a similar pattern as mine and BioWare panicked. They even gave away 30 days of free game time, but it didn’t do anything.

People complained that the game was “too long” and sometimes that flashpoints were too difficult and long as well. It took 150 hours to reach max level if you were good, about 200 hours if you are new and don’t travel across the galaxy efficiently. People didn’t like that. They said it “took too long” and that they couldn’t level up so called “alts” because it’d take too long. People had officially gotten used to the World of Warcraft standard that had spoiled them with free epics and fast leveling. So what did Star Wars do? They made the game easier, started giving away PvP gear for free practically, and that was when I left.

The game had lost its personality, much like World of Warcraft had after the first expansion pack. BioWare also changed my class (Vanguard) dramatically in a way that made the gameplay no longer fun for me. I bought a total of four months of game time for that game and received a little over 60 days for free from BioWare, making it a total six months with The Old Republic. When my time expired in June, I had already quit playing a few weeks before when all the changes came for the worse. When they removed Ilum. When they changed the class. When they made thing easier and quicker.

Still I feel that BioWare went the wrong direction with The Old Republic. Instead of making it easier and changing the classes too much, they should have made it free-to-play in the summer rather than now coming November. The move came too late. It should have been done earlier when they saw the signs of dropping subscribers, they could have saved it I believe. The game was great in my eyes. Sure, it had a lot of flaws and lacked some features that were added later on, but it was too late. And yes, now compared to GW2 the game looks extremely ugly and lifeless, but still, I feel that The Old Republic should have had at least a one-year run of success but the players simply didn’t have the patience and I don’t know where the blame lies. Is it with BioWare for not making it more like WoW? Was it really “too long and difficult”?

What are your thoughts on The Old Republic? Did you enjoy it? Or did you feel its end came at the just right time?

I might revisit the The Old Republic in November when it goes free-to-play.

Guild Wars 2: Review-in-Progress

After spending more than thirty hours with Guild Wars 2 I felt it was time to share some expressions on the blog and explain my absence from the real world.

To get it out of the way and explain rather quickly: Guild Wars 2 does some stuff world class and some things complete shit tier that are incomprehensibly bad. So I’ll divide this first part of the review into good and bad. Pretty simple huh?

Good

• Amazing scenery: this game has beautiful scenery and environment everywhere. It’s a joy to explore Tyria and look at its beautiful details and get immersed in the world. No other MMO has had this much depth of detail and entanglement. Star Wars looks extremely “gray and dull” to put it simply compared to GW2. I am, of course, playing at the resolution of 1920×1080 at all settings maxed out with maximum AA etc to achieve these effects.
• Vistas: this kind of belongs in with the previous point, but I felt it deserved its own praise. Exploring this cleverly hidden vistas is a blast. It requires some fun jumping skills and thinking to complete them and it is well worth the tries. You also feel proud after completing most of them, and they offer a nice variation from the monotone killing you have to do.
• Perfect music: when I say perfect, I mean perfect. The soundtrack in GW2 is unprecedented. I immediately lowered the master volume of the game and maxed out the music volume. It’s simply stunning and sweet joy to my ears – every single zone so far and I should know, I am level 30 currently and have yet to hear something that isn’t divine.
• Fast combat: the combat is fast and fun. You can run and cast spells at the same time which is a blast as Elementalist and other previous casters that had to stand still to cast their attacks. Also the possibility of dodging attacks is a great depth adder. Although I would have liked to see it go even deeper.
• Difficult and long dungeons: the dungeons in GW2 are tougher and last longer than some of WoW and SWTORs current raid. (Depending on difficulty settings, of course)

Bad

• Worthless level scaling: I am always under the level I am supposed to be even though I follow the zones. One level too little in this games is too much for melee professions, especially in story quests. It’s really pathetic that in a zone that says 25-35 I can’t level at level 29 because I’ve done all I can and the next event is too difficult so I have to go and grind somewhere else, yes, grind. Something that ArenaNet said wouldn’t be in the game.
• Downed state in PvP: downed state in PvP is annoying as fuck. You kill someone and go for the finish because they are down they interrupt it and someone else gets the final blow because of it. I know this happens to 99% of the players. “So what, you still get the points for it!” So fucking what? It’s the satisfaction of that killing blow that matters and it’s gone now. Very, very annoying in PvP to have this feature and it completely ruins the flow.
• Overflow the game: always in overflow and not on the actual server. I prefer phasing instead as it’s easier to talk with your mates on which phase level you are and that’s it. Questing here has been very hard to do with friends because of this.
• Tons of basic features missing: no duels, no inspection, no face-to-face trading, guild features broken not working, WvWvW queues for hours and broken stat displays, the list goes on and on.

So there you have my first hours with the game. Sylvari Warrior. There’s a lot of things that are good with GW2, I’ll give it that. But there are even more things that suck and are very damaged in my eyes. I hope they’ll fix them or I don’t foresee myself playing this game hardcore at all. Right now it’s only a stress relief for me to relax and disappear and just explore a beautiful world and the way things are going I don’t foresee that ever changing.

Should you pick up GW2 tomorrow when it launches? It’s tough to say. If you didn’t like the game during the stress test and weekend events, not much has changed and you won’t like it now. If you are expecting it to be a classical MMO, you are wrong and will be very disappointed. GW2 is completely different – maybe even too different for most. It will take time getting used to and you cannot expect standards that are in most MMO:s to be here such as dungeon finder. Some of these things are understandable, some are unacceptable. Overall, I’d say this game thus far is idling between a 6-7/10 for me. And in all honesty, I had more fun leveling up in Star Wars: The Old Republic than I am having in GW2. It just feels too slow and dull and the removing the “kill 10 rats” quest is just a lie. Now it’s kill an undetermined amount of Centaurs, spiders, and/or farm this and that and protect this transport or farm field.

There are definite ups and downs with Guild Wars 2.

Mists of Pandaria Launching 1 Month After GW2

Blizzard are clever. They were waiting for ArenaNet to announce the release date of Guild Wars 2 and then slated their latest expansion for World of Warcraft to launch precisely a month after. Genius.

Why is it genius? Because they know that hundreds of thousands of players will be disappointed with Guild Wars 2. It’s simply too different and too new for most players. They are not used to those mechanics as they have been playing World of Warcraft and Star Wars for the past years.  So how will Blizzard salvage them? By releasing Mists of Pandaria one month after GW2 – when players are fed up with it and want a new fix.

I know Mists of Pandaria will be successful in terms of sales. All Blizzard games are so, undeserving lately, but they are financial successes. Can’t deny that. I know a lot of players going back to WoW because of this as all other games simply die off very fast but WoW still remains. Look at Tera. Look at Rift. Look at Star Wars. Look at Diablo III. Look at, yeah you get the point. I think the failure of all the other MMO’s will strengthen WoW this expansion as people will know it will be popular for a long time and that makes it a safe investment for them.

Thoughts on this? Will you be buying GW2 or Pandaria? Or both?

There is at least one more expansion coming after Mists of Pandaria. Will the World of Warcraft ever die?

The Old Republic Goes Free-to-Play

TORtanic has finally sunk. It was inevitable, I blogged about the dropping activity on my server numerous and the fact that I have not renewed my subscription and officially quit the game around May this year. EA yesterday confirmed officially that Star Wars: The Old Republic will become free to play for all users up to level 50 and then there will be microtransactions and whatnot to make profit in form of the traditional F2P mechanics. Wow.

I predicted the game to go F2P around December this year after seeing how many subscribers opted out in March this year. At first I thought December 2013, as all servers were full and  activity was fantastic. I really enjoyed my time with the game and I do not regret it one bit. It provided tons of fun PvP matches, operations, flashpoints, ganks, and amazing storylines.

But despite this it had flaws, and people stopped playing. Subscribers are way below 1 million now (officially confirmed by EA) and keep dropping like there’s no tomorrow. The Old Republic never became the WoW killer it was intended to be. Not even close. The $300 million budget along with % going to Lucasarts is killing EA right now and something had to be done. They released great content with patches 1.3 and the coming 1.4. They really did everything they could from a logical point of view, but the players didn’t come back. So there was only one thing left to do: make the game free.

The game will drop from $59.99 to $14.99 in August with a month free subscription to entice new players. They will still keep the subscription model and paying customers will be “premium users” with everything unlocked from start. New players and free riders will have to either pay microtransactions or farm for cartel coins to be able to participate in operations and warzones and explore deeper content past level 50. It seems fair to me and the way to go given the situation the game is in.

This news angered a lot of current subscribers that are still loyal to this sinking ship and will most likely cause them to leave. Although I am certain that EA will report over 2-3 million active users once the game goes free in November. In fact, I will come back to see how the game has evolved at that time as returning customers get tons of free cartel coins and whatnot. I will however, not buy a subscription but return as a free-to-play customer. And I certainly don’t plan on buying cartel coins. I just want to see how the game has changed and whether or not it is alive again.

I don’t think anyone could have foreseen this game going free so soon. The reason is obviously the development costs and licensing fees. Otherwise the game is still “strong” in comparison to other MMO:s such as RIFT and Tera Online. But those games cost a fraction to maintain and develop compared to Star Wars.

Thoughts on this? Do you still play The Old Republic? Will you start playing it in November now that it is free? Or do you hate microtransactioning MMORPG:s with their “pay to win” attitudes?

I will always remember you, The Old Republic. Till we meet again.

 

Star Wars Fan?

I am a huge Star Wars fan. I think it’s fair to say that I am way above average when it comes to being a Star Wars fan. I’ve pretty much done everything you can to be classified for that title. Books, games, movies, television show, and so on. A lot of things.

These are the Star Wars medias that I have experienced fully:

• Star Wars: The Old Republic (Game)
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Game)
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II (Game)
• Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace (Game)
• Star Wars: Episode I: Pod Racing (Game)
• Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (Game)
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars (TV Show)
• Star Wars: Episodes 1-6 (Movies)
• Star Wars: Darth Bane Trilogy (Books)
• Star Wars: The Thrawn Trilogy (Books)
• Star Wars: Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader (Book)
• Star Wars: Red Harvest (Book)
• Star Wars: The Old Republic: Revan (Book)
• Star Wars: Darth Plagueis (Book)
• Star Wars: The Old Republic: Deceived (Book)

So that accounts to 6 video games, 1 television series, 6 movies and 11 books and still counting. I have over four books waiting in the Star Wars universe and expecting more to be released over the coming years.

How big of a Star Wars fan are you?

My favorite universe that I cannot get enough of.