Ed-Park
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Hyperspace Beacon: Will free-to-play save SWTOR?
Last week, I discussed the reasons I still play a game that literally a million people have quit playing. I believe a huge part of that discussion stemmed from my expectations of the game. I truly believe that many people expected Star Wars: The Old Republic to be the answer to all MMO problems and Wookiees. Of course, no game could ever live up to that dream. I attempted to curb some of those expectations in a few of my articles, but some community desires were just beyond the scope of BioWare's plans for SWTOR. This led to disappointment and a lot of unreal prospects for the game. On that note, I'd like to take a look at the free-to-play plans for our Star Wars MMO. Many players hope that F2P will finally launch SWTOR in the right direction. Others believe that if SWTOR had launched F2P, we wouldn't have seen the mass exodus that we saw in March. (Of course, there are also those who claim that F2P is just the next step toward fail and that the game will shut down in less than a year.) Personally, I'm a fan, so I'm hopeful. However, I take that hope with the realization that this could definitely be the beginning of the end for SWTOR. Ultimately, the potential for success hinges on the disparity between what the players want and what BioWare delivers. Will F2P save SWTOR?
Hyperspace Beacon: PvP with Taugrim
Many of you reading this have asked about PvP in Star Wars: The Old Republic. And while I may know game mechanics and have a good understanding of how PvP works, I am by no means an expert at that style of gameplay. Lucky for you (and me), I work with one of the best PvPers at Gamebreaker. On top of that, he's been playing TOR beta for a couple of weeks now and already has some incredible insight into the game's PvP scene. Let me introduce to you Ed Park aka Taugrim. Ed joined the Gamebreaker team as an expert on Trion's RIFT, and he has been doing video guides for PvP for about seven years. Ed has a habit of proving people wrong in his videos, which is one of the main reasons I like turning to him for PvP advice. He told me about the melee cleric in RIFT and how many people said the playstyle wasn't viable in PvP. Consequently, he released videos showing (with incredible commentary, I might add) how he successfully plays that class in PvP. But we didn't come here to talk about RIFT -- we came to talk about SWTOR. After the break, catch my interview with Taugrim in bite-sized chunks. Enjoy!
