Hyperspace Beacon: Bucket list
Once we start Star Wars: The Old Republic, we will not be able to stop. After only playing the game twice, I have a hard time going back to other games because -- among other things -- voice-over dialogue is far superior to walls of text any day. Then, of course, we can't forget character choices. We will be able to tell the quest-giver what we think of fetching that item for him at the shop when he could just as easily get it himself if he decided to walk 10 feet to the building next to him. That leads me to the point of this article.
Despite all the incredible things we will be able to do in SWTOR, certain others will be missed once the game launches. Particular staples of MMO games, in general, will never be seen again. As someone who is placing his MMO future in TOR, I suggest creating a bucket list. Let's face it: When The Old Republic releases, we cannot look back to other MMOs. They will be dead to us. After the cut, I have complied a list of 10 items that we will never see again once we start playing TOR. Count them down with me.
At E3 this year, Daniel Erickson explained to Gamespot why the design team chose vehicle mounts over animal mounts: "We felt that, given a choice between the two, being on a vehicle felt more like Star Wars." I would suggest that for your last ride on an animal mount you pick up Lord of the Rings Online. If you have played it, you know that the majority of mounts there are different types of horses. However, the best type by far has to be the goat mount. I suggest taking your goat and riding from Dol Guldur to Thorin's Gate. After that, the only mount you will possess will be a speeder. No more leisurely rides through the countryside -- it's all zooming past the landscape at blazing speeds.
Who doesn't look forward to the silence of the MMO space? After all, how else are we supposed to visit with our online friends if we have to listen to the game, right? Friendly Ventrilo conversation ends when TOR starts. Each one of the quest-givers you encounter in The Old Republic will talk to you, and it's more than important that you listen to every word each says or you cannot complete your quest. Everyone on your once-noisy Ventrilo server will have to have his own channel because your jabber will distract him from hearing what Vette has to say. My suggestion for this bucket list item is to delete all other channels on your Vent server a month before release. Release all the gabbiness then because you will soon realize that Satele Shan has more important things to say than any of your guild members.
We all take sitting in chairs for granted in real life, probably because we sit at a desk for the majority of our game time. However, we know from AskAJedi's interview with Producer Cory Butler that sitting in a chair is not going to be an option for us at launch. As people who enjoy sitting, we have to take a stand -- strike that, we have to sit down in protest! Or at very least, we have to get all our MMO-sitting out of the way before we jump into The Old Republic. I suggest Star Wars Galaxies. Sure, there are a lot of other Star Wars-related things you can do in Galaxies, but I think sitting has to be a highlight. Log into Galaxies for a day and drop by a cantina, pull up a chair, and re-enact the infamous Han-shot-first scene. When you've finished in that cantina, move on to the next one until you've sat in every cantina in the galaxy!
During his livestream form E3, Mr. Erickson explained to us that there would not be any more kill-10-rats quest. Automagically, a quest will appear when you are in a specific area granting you experience if you are able to kill a specific number of creatures or NPCs that happen to be in that area. Sure, this covers kill-10-rats for SWTOR, but it's not the same as actually receiving the quest from an NPC asking you to go kill 10 whatevers, going back to him, and then having him ask you to go kill 10 other things. I suggest logging into, well, any other MMO, making a new character, then running the first couple of quests. I believe the challenge will be seeing how many MMO you can get through before you want to bang your head against the keyboard.
As I mentioned before, every NPC will speak to you. Therefore, walls of text will be a thing of the past. Who's not going to miss those? Again, to get your fix of text walls, I suggest Lord of the Rings Online. It's not the only game with walls of text, but LotRO's walls of text are in antiquated English, thus making the walls of text more fun to scale.
I will probably not miss swimming in MMOs. However, the armor and other gear you wear in The Old Republic will weigh you down too much for you to swim. However, I understand that there aren't many bodies of water that you would want to swim in anyway. For this bucket list item, I suggest RIFT. Granted, I have not played much RIFT, but the water quests were extra annoying fun in that game. Dive in before they are totally gone in TOR.
This has to be one of the biggest things you're going to miss. Really, who doesn't like to run into battle with brightly colored, mismatched armor? Nothing strikes more fear into your enemies than a wild circus act prancing toward them. James Ohlen explained during one of the ComicCon Q&A sessions that your armor will adjust to the colors of your chestplate. However, getting your clown-armor fix is getting harder to do with so many games having an appearance tab or cosmetic system now. For that, you will need to venture to World of Warcraft, which after all this time still does not have a way to truly get your armor to match up.
Early on, TOR fans were told that no holiday events would break the fourth wall. What are holidays going to be like without bunny ears on Easter or Cupid wings on Valentine's Day? No game did holiday events worse better than Star Wars Galaxies. Unfortunately, only one holiday remains until that game shuts down. To complete this bucket list item, you will have to catch the Galactic Moon Festival and trick-or-treat your way to a nice set of demon wings.
It makes complete sense to pull out an instrument in the heat of battle and strum a few bars! I for one am going to miss that! Right now, though, you can create a Minstrel in LotRO and a Bard in RIFT! Then strum until your fingers bleed...
Dear god, how are we going to live without Elves?! I may have to take a couple of those with me to TOR!
If you didn't notice, the whole list was tongue-in-cheek. I hope you had fun reading it. What are the things you're going to miss or not miss when you play The Old Republic?
The Hyperspace Beacon by Larry Everett is your weekly guide to the vast galaxy of Star Wars: The Old Republic, currently in production by BioWare. If you have comments or suggestions for the column, send a transmission to larry@massively.com. Now strap yourself in, kid -- we gotta make the jump to hyperspace!
