So, what next? Well, personally I’m still enjoying playing in warzone matches – or at least I was up to level 49. How I’ll enjoy getting banjo’d by fully geared level 50s until I can earn my own equivalent gear remains to be seen I’ve joined a cool guild after the first one I was in died of neglect, and already run some flashpoints with them and can look forward to more. I’ve got 7 more class storylines to see as well, so I don’t imagine I’ll be running out of things to do for a while. What I’m really hoping for is that Bioware will push out regular chunks of story in the same way that Turbine have done for LOTRO (only a bit more regularly than Turbine did after Moria…) – if they can keep players coming back every 2-3 months for regular installments of their class stories, or even a shared epic storyline, they’ve got a recipe for keeping a lot of subscribers for a very long time.

As for how it is performing… well, all I have is anecdotal evidence, but I can’t say the number of players I see on my server (Kellian Jarro) is going down. The lower level planets are maybe a bit less busy as people spread out, but the number I see in the Imperial Fleet seems pretty constant. My local Tesco has the game on the shelves at the #2 spot in the PC chart this week, although there’s no telling with them wether this has anything to do with actual sales figures, marketing strategy or just the whim of the shelf stacker. Richard Bartle seems to think there are a lot of people playing the game who aren’t WoW tourists and that gibes with some of what I’m seeing, which is interesting… Rift did well by picking up a lot of ex-WoW players, but SW:ToR is the first MMO in years to fish significantly outside those waters. That doesn’t mean they’re going to get ‘dwarfs WoW’ numbers (although I’ll point out that it took WoW a while to get to even its first million subs let alone their current number). It does, however mean that TOR might be a lot more resilient to GW2 and Pandaria because it has a large player base for whom this is their ‘home’ MMO rather than being tourists.

In terms of my own status in the game – Seethe the Sith Assassin has just hit level 43 and is wreaking havoc on Belsavis. Assassins are definitely late bloomers but one of those classes I’ve found a joy to play because they have such a bag of tricks. Stealth is useful, but I’ve eschewed the Deception tree which is the one most focused on stealth attacks and melee positional DPS abilities, to split my points between Darkness (mostly tanky talents but some good utility and DPS boosters) and Madness (which makes for more of a short range melee/caster hybrid style). Performs well in solo PvE, no complaints in Warzone PvP, and I feel I’ve pulled my weight in Flashpoints both with respectable DPS output and being able to take on a loose mob or two, as fights in SW:ToR Flashpoints tend to include a large number of noral/strong adds as well as the elites. Other characters on the Empire side range from a level 26 bounty hunter downwards, and I’ve barely started trying the Republic stories, so there’s plenty of stuff for me to see even if I didn’t weant to repeat any content – and I’m having enough fun as a casual-ish Warzone player that I can see my self putting a lot of time into pwning with a lightsaber and the Force.

My main grumble is grabbing groups for Flashpoints – one I’m not alone in having. I don’t want to see a WoW/Rift style cross-server LFD, as I happen to agree with the devs that it wouldn’t be good for the still nascent server communities. However, having to stand on the Fleet space station spamming or reading general chat isn’t great either. It brings back old DaoC memories of hanging around looking for a group for much of an evening, and these days I don’t HAVE much of an evening to do that. I’d actually settle for a universal LFG chat channel so people can go out and quest or PvP while looking for a group. On the other hand, all of the “we need LFD” angst does raise the question back to some of the complainers (and I’m NOT looking at Stabs this time) – weren’t you the guys saying this was a single player game and not really an MMO at all?

“I haz bin banned 4 playing ur game!” “Oh no, you haven’t!”

Well, I suppose it is still pantomime season. Tip of the hat to Stephen Reid anyway, for being far more classy about calling someone out as a liar and a troll than I would have been. This is probably why I don’t do a job that involves diresct contact with real live customers It’s also actually a backhanded compliment to Bioware that the trolls feel they have to invent issues to try and stir up the Internet Pitchfork Brigade!

The Old Republic’s first ‘proper’ content patch will set the game’s direction
It’s hard to remember, but when WoW first launched it was unclear what the endgame was going to about. It could as easily have concentrated on open world mass PvP – there was a lot of it going on, it fitted with the whole theme of Warcraft, and DAoC had shown you could build a pretty successful game around it. Once we got rolling with Molten Core, Blackwing Lair and Ahn’Qiraj it was pretty clear that this was a game all about raiding and gear progression. SWTOR is currently in the same position. There’s an upcoming patch with a bit of group and raid content, but that feels more like the odds and ends that were in development but didn’t make the cut for release. After that, though, we could either have the next tier of raid content to appease the vocal hardcore raider crowd, or it could be something more story-based – a new planet to explore, or even act 4 of the story for each class. If we get the raid, then SWTOR will indeed be WoW with lightsabers behind a veneer of more interesting levelling content (that people will skip anyway because the level cap is where the action is). I’d like to see them stick with the story approach and make it more of a game for the silent majority of players.

The Guild Wars 2 backlash will begin, and it will be terrible to behold
GW2 is going to be released, or at least in widespread beta, this year. That means that all the talk of how revolutionary the game is going to be will get exposed to the cold, hard light of reality. ArenaNet have talked their game up to an impossible degree, and their legions of Internet zealots have taken things further. They have pretty much implied that all other MMO developers are both stupid (for sticking with a holy trinity design when ANet can do a much more exciting style of gameplay) and wicked (for taking a subscription fee when ANet can provide a superior game without charging one). Since I don’t believe the entire MMO industry is a cabal of wicked, stupid comic book villains, the obvious conclusion is that the GW2 hype has overreached itself and the g will turn out to be either less revolutionary than promised, or to have flaws of its own.
That doesn’t mean it’ll be a bad game – just that it will disappoint its most rabid fans. And Hell hath no fury like a rabid fan scorned….

WoW’s post-Panda subscription drop-off will be even more precipitous than the one post-Cataclysm
Not a judgment on the Panda expansion per se, but WoW’s age is showing more and more, and there’s stronger competition on the field this year. Lots of old subscribers will come back and take a look, but I doubt many will stay for long.

Dark Age of Camelot and WAR will either go F2P or be closed down
With a successful launch of SWTOR, EA execs are going to look at Mythic’s games as being too small to keep bothering with. Better perhaps to close them and divert the resources to the successful game or to start work on the Next Big Thing. On the other hand, if Dominus carves a successful niche for an open PvP game then having the old grandaddies of the niche as F2P games could be an easy way to grab a slice of that pie. The dream outcome would be that if they can prove that there’s a market for that style of game, then Bioware Mythic’s next project may yet be DAoC2…

Well, there we go. But remember, always in motion the future is…

Contrast this with my old WoW character. Even at the level cap, and having helped defeat Ragnaros and Nefarian, he was a homeless vagabond without even a surname and forced to dig through piles of poop at the behest of goblins. At least Tremayne the lore master in LotRO had his own cottage, although in terms of followers he was limited to one skirmish soldier and a raven.

So I love the fact that SWTOR has character progression in terms of actually seeing the character progress- it’s not just a matter of doing ten times more damage and fighting mobs with ten times more hit points.

And for those on the Light Side, peace on Earth and goodwill to all men.

I hope everyone reading this has a great holiday break and may 2012 be a different year from 2011.

Anyway, I ended up creating characters on Kellian Jarro, one of the newer PvE servers that didn’t have a queue when I got to log in a little after 22:00 last night, and I’m looking forward to having a run around as Tremayne the Sith Warrior and Seethe the Inquisitor over the weekend… well, apart from when I’m at my daughter’s birthday party, anyway!

The Sith stand above and apart from the Imperials, in the same way that the Jedi are separate from the government and organisations of the Republic. The Empire has armed forces, a governing bureaucracy and a civilian economy all of which function perfectly well without direct governance from the Sith. Meanwhile the Sith attend to their own affairs – learning the secrets of the Dark Side, indulging in their favourite sport of murdering each other for advantage and pursuing their ancient vendetta with the Jedi. To be an Imperial Agent is to be part of the apparatus of most of the Imperial society that goes on its own way with the occasional bothersome interruption from their lords and masters. If the Sith and Jedi both vanished, the Empire and Republic would both exist – and would still be at war. The roots of that war go back hundreds of years to the Great Hyperspace War, and the decision of the Republic to utterly destroy the Sith civilisation after defeating it. The Empire of today are the descendants of the small, ragtag fleet of survivors that were all that escaped the destruction of their colonies (wait, I’ve heard this one before…) – anyway, the Imperials have a very justifiable grievance to settle with the Republic; they aren’t just the mindless minions of the Dark Side Sith doing battle with the Light Side Jedi.

As an Imperial, you can be in awe of the Sith who are the very apex of your culture, the living representatives of the Emperor who saved your people from disaster and rebuilt them into a force to be reckoned with; or you can regard them as a dangerous, squabbling nuisance that has to be placated while you and your fellows get on with the important work, as a sort of covert Jeeves in the service of a psychopathic, Force sensitive Bertie Wooster. Either way, as an Imperial citizen you know the truth. The Republic, for all their public moralising, aren’t any better than the Empire. They bang on about democracy and liberty, and then tried to genocide your own people. The Republic are a bunch of sanctimonious hypocrites, and their vaunted democracy is just a smokescreen for corruption and inefficiency while the Empire offers order and certainty. Now that has to be a cause worth fighting, killing, dying, and doing anything else that may be necessary for.

The first problem is that it’s very easy to portray the Sith and the Empire as stereotyped cartoon villains, because, well, that’s what they are. Most games with multiple player factions go out of their way to portray all sides as equally good or bad, at least from their own point of view. Not so the case here – this is Star Wars, where the good guys are the good guys and the bad guys wear faux Nazi costumes and speak with British accents. While Bioware are happy to throw in some moral ambiguity on the Republic quests, there’s little doubt that the Sith are evil with a capital E.V.I.L. Not just the “ain’t we cool, we wear black and have an attitude” so-called evil that appeals to rebellious adolescents, but genuine oppressive, genocidal, torturing nasty pieces of work. Given that, you could easily play a Sith as a murdering psychopath who slaughters his way across the galaxy, Force choking anyone who looks at him crosswise and needing regular shiploads of goons to replace the minions he kills himself in a fit of temper. After all, that pretty much describes Darth Vader.

But that would be boring. At the very least, I want someone in the mold of the original Inquisitor Tremayne from my old PnP Star Wars campaign: urbane, intelligent and while he may be utterly ruthless where necessary, not prone to committing dumb and self-destructive acts purely because he’s wearing a ‘hey, I’m evil!’ badge. Even better, can I take things a level beyond George Lucas’ Saturday-matinee style of morality and create a character that’s a ‘good’ Sith while still remaining true to the setting? Let’s take a look at the Sith Code – something you get explained to your Warrior Inquisitor early on, and encapsulates the Sith teachings:

Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.

I find the interesting thing is that the Sith Code doesn’t mention anger or hatred at all. The Sith Code is about PASSION. Sure, a lot of the Sith you meet are vicious, evil buggers, but that’s probably because anger and hatred and fear are the easiest strong emotions to produce on demand, when any strong emotion will call upon the dark side. I can imagine a Sith Warrior who is a berserker, who finds joy and revels in battle and the glory of struggle and victory, without necessarily being driven by hatred and cruelty. This guy is giving vent to his emotions in a way that is utterly alien to the Jedi, he’s going to seek out conflict because fighting is what he does best – but he’s not driven to crush and dominate, but rather to battle against worthy foes. Out of combat, he can be honourable and probably good company in a rambunctious, hearty way. For role models, look to Conan or any half-decent movie or book with viking characters (personal picks – The 13th Warrior for a movie, Robert Low’s series of novels about the Oathsworn for reading).

That’s the Warrior. For the more cerebral Sith Inquisitors, I offer a more enlightened view of the Sith Code. Most Sith take the first line of the code to exhort them to an endless round of murder, betrayal and internecine warfare, trying to reach the top of the hierarchy through a brutal Darwinian process that ultimately leaves you as either Emperor or dead. I think that’s a narrow reading of the Sith code. It’s not necessarily a call to endless strife. Maybe that first line would be better stated as “Tranquility is a lie, there is only passion”. The Jedi way is to seek serenity, and to act from a center of calm and balance. The Sith way is to take the raw energy of your emotions and channel them. The danger of the Sith way is that the darker emotions such as hate and fear are lot easier to call up and channel, and also that in the grip of these emotions you may let them rule you instead of you ruling them. So most Sith indulge in hatred and perform hateful acts… but that means that they haven’t achieved victory. The last set of chains are ones they have set upon themselves, by letting their anger and hatred control their actions.

Only when a Sith has the power of will to master his emotions and make them his servant has he achieved true victory, broken his chains and become truly free to do what he will. Freedom and victory don’t have to require crushing every other being in the galaxy. Once you have mastered yourself, you are truly free whatever your immediate circumstances. Even if you give your service to another – if you have done so of your own volition, that doesn’t mean that you are not free. The enlightened Sith, at the end of his journey, may stand at the right hand of the Emperor as his willing servant and ally, master of himself yet dedicating that mastery to serve a cause he believes is just and worthy. Whether other, lesser Sith who are still slaves to their own fears can believe that that is truly your position is another matter.

The thoughts above give me some hooks to hang a Sith character on, at least. I hope if anyone who reads this is planning on playing the Imperial side they find it sparks some thoughts of their own. And any Republic players who read it may realise that their opponent is not necessarily just a marauding psychotic with a red lightsaber. He might be far more dangerous than that.

You can area loot by setting the option in preferences. I had been grumbling to myself about this after being spoilt by Rift for a year, and then spotted the option. In a game where a typical combat encounter is a pack of enemies rather than a solo, it sure helps to be able to grab all the goodies with a single mouse click after the fight. The range for the AoE looting seems quite good as well, which is handy given how all the knockback effects and ranged blaster fire result in bodies scattered all over the place.

Once you’ve area looted and your backpack is filling up, you can order your companion to go sell all of your grey loot items for you. Your companion disappears for a minute and when they return you get the credits. Note to Sith Warriors – you send Vette off to the shops without keeping an eye on her at your own risk. On the other hand, she does still have that electro-shock collar fitted…

In space combat, you use missiles by holding down the right mouse button and pulling it across targets. As the cursor touches targets, you’ll see a lock on indicator around each one, up to a maximum of four. When you release the button, your ship launches a missile at each locked on target. Great for taking down a gun battery or two on enemy frigates before they start pounding on you, or for continuing to kill stuff while your shields regenerate (ship shields don’t regen while your lasers are firing). The expanded missile magazines are the #1 must have ship upgrade in my book.

You get your companions and your ship from following your class storyline. The answer to the guys asking how to get them in public chat is simple – keep following the story quests. The answer to people who whine that they’re hardcore PvPers and shouldn’t have to do PvE to get goodies is… well, it’s dependent on your choice of faction. As a Sith Inquisitor, I have a number of ways of, ahem, accepting their apology

Finally, one thing I didn’t find in beta and wish I had done. While SW:TOR doesn’t have skill forwarding (i.e. my heals targeted at an enemy go to target of target), it does have a focus target system. This means I can set a focus target as a kind of alternate target, and if I hold a key down while using an ability it goes to the focus target instead of the normal target. This is handy for a Sith Sorcerer – I can set Khem Val as my focus target and then throw Static Barrier and heals at him as needed whilst tabbing through enemies to burn down with lightning. The video that explained it to me is here