The Holocron

Until further notice (and you may assume further notice to be ‘closer to release date’) The Holocron will be on hiatus.    We hope you understand and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.  Neither Dave nor myself can reasonably envision ourselves maintaining a quality podcast for a game more than a year off  while also running other shows on the d20Radio network.  In the meantime, to get your fix of Star Wars: The Old Republic podcasting I would like to personally recommend Mos Eisley Radio for your listening enjoyment.  We’ll see you on the flip side.

Sean Dahlberg sent this out to folks this morning:

While we have not announced a specific date, we can confirm that we are targeting a spring 2011 release for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. We’ve got a lot of exciting updates and reveals planned throughout 2010, including the first-ever hands-on testing for the game. It’s not too late to sign up to be a game tester, so go to www.swtor.com/tester and sign up today. We can’t wait to share more about the game with you as we progress through the year, so make sure you stay tuned to the official website for details.

So much for this year.  And Dave is claiming he was right.  Sigh.

Courtesy of the lovely and talented Kat……

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B001O9AQT6/ref=s9_sima_gw_s0_p63_i1?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=1EEY38XM651ZF1MA9Y6A&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=467198433&pf_rd_i=468294

Dare we hope?

Good old Kotaku…

http://kotaku.com/5411174/two-remaining-old-republic-classes-revealed

Now that we know for sure, any thoughts?

So, Cryptic.  You guys took a good thing and blew it.  Bad.  Champions is the best Multiplay Online RPG around, notice I left off a key word here. 

Massively.

I don’t like to solo, yet I can’t find a soul on there and when I do have a group, we sometimes have to find a shard to all be on.  With a guild of 200 people and a max of 100 in a zone, WHAT!?! 

So, Bioware, take note.  If half of what the engine I hear is correct, you will support thousands on a server, as it should be.  Get rid of the shard concept.  As a guild leader, I already quit the game that was supposed to carry me through to TOR.  Judging by the number of guildies on last night (1), I think most of them have already thrown in the towel as well.

Blizzard, you are safe for another launch.  Cryptic, if you do shards again for Star Trek, file for bankruptcy.  You are done.

Greetings everyone.  I thought I’d go ahead and post something about this, although I am planning a podcast segment on the subject that will probably be out a week from today.

As the development of the Old Republic marches on, there still seems to be little consensus in the community as a whole regarding the fourth class on each side.  I was previously in the camp that believed we’d see a noble, but as Ben pointed out in the comments section on my “Fightin’ the Man!” segment, there is a sizable contingent that believes this will not be the case, nor will Dave and Fiddleback’s proposal come to pass.  They believe that we’ll actually see two Force-users per faction.

There are several pieces of evidence to support this:
1) We already know for a fact that both the Smuggler and the Trooper will begin on Ord Mantell.  It has also been hinted that the Sith Agent/Spy and Bounty Hunter will both begin on Nal Hutta.  Thus, it’s logical to conclude that each starting planet will feature two classes.  Considering that the other two starting planets we know about are Korriban and Tython, it isn’t a stretch to say that if two classes originate on each, they would all be Force-focused.

2) The Sith Warrior is called the Sith Warrior. It’s also not out of line to assume that this name is what it is to leave room for the Sith [Insert Something Else Here.]  In the same vein, Bioware has been tight-lipped about the actual name of the Jedi class we have seen in-game so far.

3) There is precedent in the films for two, distinct types of Force-wielders on each side.  Obviously Luke and Obi-Wan in Episode IV are two very different kinds of characters, as are Vader and Palpatine.

Personally, I am not a big fan of a four Force-user set up.  Everyone knows we’re already going to see close to (if not more than) half the player base playing the saber classes.  If half the playable classes in the game use sabers, well… it is the KotOR Era, but even given that I think the number of Jedi and Sith running around compared to everyone else is going to seem downright ridiculous.

I also feel it would dilute the experience to a large extent.  I’d much rather see Consular/Guardian/Sentinel talent trees of some kind, and allow the way you handle decisions in quests and flashpoints determine if you’re a Yoda or a Mace Windu.  I trust Bioware that they could create two separate, interesting storylines for different “styled” members of the Jedi order–but is that really worth it when you could do something else that’s completely unique?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.  Do you think we’ll have two Force users per faction?  Do you think this will have a positive or negative impact on the game?  If you were in charge of choosing the remaining two classes, what would they be?

I’d also like to mention actor_scoundrel’s post on the d20Radio forums, which really shook my faith in the noble theory.  Give it a read–he makes a strong case.

That’s it for now Gamer Nation.

Until next time,
May the Force Be With You.

-T.J.

Welcome back to a long awaited Holocron Gamer Nation!

MostlyJoe returns and then promptly heads out to Coruscant, Fiddleback gives the Grand Tour of Balmorra, and we have a nice little chat about what happens when Mummy and Daddy have to work different hours. Check all this out and more in Holcron #18, “Planetside”.

If you dig back again I stated a handful of worries about the SWTOR:

http://www.d20radio.com/theholocron/?p=350

MMOs, especially huge productions like SWTOR, have been plagued with strange problems and development snags over the years. I don’t mind being d20radio’s in-house Negative Nancy, as long as I’m constantly proven wrong, every time one of my fears is put down…the happier I get. Currently, I’m very happy, so take that as you will. Ultimately I want Bioware/EA/Lucas to succeed, so please take my negativity with a healthy grain of salt and understand where it’s coming from.

This time around I want to talk about the cost/benefits of beta cycles and the Catch 22 that a lot of developers can run into when they either put one out too early or let one run too long.

The biggest issue with too early is obviously the lack of polish and technical refinement that can hurt a launch of the title.Tabula Rasa, Auto Assault, and Hellgate London are all perfect examples of when the developer didn’t have a strong enough product before launching their beta cycle and how word of mouth can utter devastate a games chances of sustaining itself in the market. The biggest issue is the initial buy-in by the player base and then you get to worry about sustaining those numbers. Many titles can’t even get to that second phase.

I highly doubt the dev teams  wanted to make it seem their product wasn’t ready, but sometimes the a title is bruteforced through beta because a publisher is breathing down your neck to meet a holiday deadline. I sometimes wonder if Mythic would have launched Warhammer Online when they did if they didn’t have the looming prospect of WOW’s Wrath of the Lich King. Could SWTOR be facing down WOW’s Cataclysm update in much the same manner?

WOW itself suffers from something I can only call as beta burn out. It’s the weird inverse case of a beta running on too long. WoTLK, Burning Crusade, and the core MMO itself have had monstrously long beta cycles. I have heard of people who play the beta and get tired of the content long before launch…so much so they don’t bother picking up the launch title because they’ve done everything. Bioware’s phased beta sounds like a good compromise of terms of having a robust debug, but not at the cost of having people experience what is in essence the whole game pre-launch.

So, here’s to hoping I’m always wrong with my fears. And here’s to hoping that Bioware blows us away with an MMO like no other.

Btw, SWTOR site has gone down dozens of times over the last day due to an excess of users signing up for the beta. Great news actually.

I’ve posted up some more back stories for the Order of 66 guild founders.  You can find them via the drop down links at the top of the page.

With the Beta announcements, it might be time for some of you who have yet to send yours in to begin doing so.  Just saying.

Yet again, Bioware provides us news that is not news.  Back in October, A YEAR AGO!  We all signed up for forum access and guess what?  There was the little thingy there to say yes, I want to be a tester.  Miss it you did?  Shame on you!  During E3 we even had a bioware meatbag come up and say “we have 25000 people signed up for beta” and everyone said “WAIT!” only to find out he meant that if you signed up for the forum and checked the box, you were signed up for the beta.

So, Bioware, the master of new old rebaked news that makes us think that there is new news that is really just rehashed space junk, color me not sold.  I am waiting for a date, a first wave confirmation, or something a little more tangible.  Otherwise, you just put a new dress on an ugly girl and sent her to the dance hoping to get lucky.