The Moat Around World of Warcraft And How Bioware’s SWTOR Gets Around It

Posted by FelizB on Jan 5, 2012 in Blog, Current Games, Featured, Rift, Star Wars: The Old Republic, World of Warcraft | 0 comments

Investor Warren Buffet has coined the term economic moat as an almost insurmountable advantage of one company over another company in the same industry. Typical names that come up in this discussion are Coca-Cola and Wal-Mart. Any new company that wants to compete with these two is looking at a very long time with minimal income before they will be able to come even close.

Does this mean World of Warcraft has a moat? You bet. Just look at all the features it offers and how many of them new games like Rift or Star Wars had implemented at their release date. Here’s an incomplete list:

• Dungeon Finder
• Raid Finder
• Extendable User Interface
• Accomplishments
• Guild Perks
• Plethora of Pets
• Flying Mounts
• WOW Armory
• Class Balance
• Economic Balance
• In Game Events

Of course, at first, this list doesn’t look to bad, but these features have to be implemented, tested and rolled out and balanced. How hard will it be to implement a cross server dungeon and raid finder for SWTOR? It’s my gut feeling, not backed up by many facts that they’ll have a harder time to do that than Rift.

While playing Star Wars, of course I notice issues where I can clearly say, that Bioware will have to either take some lessons from Blizzard or learn them the hard way. For instance I am not sure, if the economy around the Galactic Trade Market will ever become viable. The auction interface is certainly not up to it. The bigger problem there will be the underlying supply and demand of raw materials and finished goods. I can see for instance that there’s far more metal for armor and arms available than there are crystals for synthweaving and artificing. It is open where it will find a balance, but I question if the Bioware designers have put much thought into the subject. But that is part of the moat I described.

Having said that, Bioware might not need to conquer the moat, simply by building their own castle. Bioware’s loyal customers are RPG fans who’ve kept their distance to MMORPGs. But the way it looks, with Bioware’s story driven approach and a lot of voice acting, that barrier is torn down. The ingame chat has certainly seen its amount of WOW comparisons, but they’ve actually died down relatively fast. Thus, Bioware isn’t taking away much of WOW’s market share. Bioware is expanding the market. Something everybody in the industry will be grateful for.

Objectivist Gamer

Posted by FelizB on Jan 5, 2012 in Blog, Current Games, Star Wars: The Old Republic, World of Warcraft | 0 comments

While playing last night, somebody mentioned in chat the usual “SWTOR plays like WOW” and of course started a small storm. What was different this time, it wasn’t just a troll, but a gaming writer who was reviewing the game. Which of course gives the discussion an entirely new dimension.

I can certainly see where the opinion comes from: There are many aspects which are very similar, for instance the user interface and the skill tree. But that is a good thing. Every MMO player wants to be able to type /who, or find the social menu bound to the O key, as well as configurable hotkey bars. But there are enough differences aside from the voice dialogues which make SWTOR stand out over WOW.

In any case, I didn’t want to start a lengthy rant, but wanted to point to a site of a professional game reviewer and to his work. Most of his reviews cover the general gaming area and much less MMOs. That, by itself is an interesting fact, since obviously SWTOR pulls in Bioware’s RPG fanbase with their familiar story driven games, just like WOW brought Blizzards RTS crowd into the MMO mixture.

I am looking forward to his review and his viewpoint.

SWTOR Overview to Sith Sorcerer and Jedi Sage Guides

Posted by FelizB on Jan 3, 2012 in Guides, Star Wars: The Old Republic | 0 comments

The Sith Sorcerer and the Jedi Sage, although using light sabers are primarily casting classes. Both classes are able to heal and to deal burst damage through their Lightning or Telekinesis trees or using the Madness and Balance trees to deal periodic damage.

Here are a few guides I came across when researching the Sith Sorcerer and the Jedi Sage advanced classes. The SWTOR main forum hosts these guides for the Sith Sorcerer and the Jedi Sage. Both guides are nearly identical, having only translated the Sith and Jedi abilities and vocabulary. In the long run it’s probably easier to read the guide for the side you choose, since you’ll be much more familiar with the skill names.

The guides themselves contain an introduction of the class, details about the three skill trees, builds for various scenarios, more information about the companions, about equipment and crew skills.

Another set of great guides (PvE only) comes from sithwarrior.com, which wants to be the prime theory crafting site for SWTOR. There’s the Sith Sorcerer Healing Compendium, which of course is valid for Jedi Sage’s as well. Both, the Madness/Balance Sorcerer DPS Compendium and the Sith Sorcerer/Jedi Sage Lightning/Telekinetics Compendium follow SithWarrior’s standard format with ability descriptions, builds, how to play the build and how to gear.

This table lists the builds discussed in all guides. Builds named SW xxx are from sithwarrior.com , all others from swtor.com

PvE Healer	Standard 32/7/2 Offensive Leveling 30/9/2 SW Healer 31/7/2	Standard 32/7/2 Offensive Leveling 30/9/2 SW Healer 31/7/2
PvP Healer	PvP Standard 32/7/2	PvP Standard 32/7/2
PvE Telekinesis / Lightning	Standard 3/31/7 SW 3/31/7	Standard 3/31/7 SW 3/31/7
PvP Telekinesis / Lightning	PvP Standard 3/31/5 +2	PvP Standard 3/31/5 +2
PvP Balance / Madness	Sever Force 3/7/31 Hybrid Telekinesis 0/13/28 SW Sever Force 0/7/31 SW Telekinetic Wave 0/13/28 SW Telekinesis Effusion 0/17/24	Creeping Terror 3/7/31 Hybrid Lightning 0/13/28 SW Creeping Terror 3/7/31 SW Chain Lightning 0/13/28 SW Lightning Effusion 0/17/24
PvP Balance / Madness	PvP Sever Force 3/7/31	PvP Creeping Terror 3/7/31

SWTOR Sending Out Progression Guides For Advanced Classes

Posted by FelizB on Jan 1, 2012 in Guides, News, Star Wars: The Old Republic | 0 comments

Star Wars: The Old Republic has started sending out progression guides by email to players who’ve reached level 10 for their class. The guides introduce the advanced classes to the players and give some insight into their capabilities. Since many players actually missed choosing their advanced class, the guide explains how to pick it while at the fleet’s docks.

Furthermore, there’s a short section about Flashpoints and some more information about your brand new ingame companion is given. A quick rundown of the players crew skill options is provided and the guide closes with a description of the Warzones.

Here is a list of the progression guides:

Jedi Knight	Sith Warrior
Jedi Consular	Sith Inquisitor
Smuggler	Imperial Agent
Trooper	Bounty Hunter

SWTOR Classes for the Undecided, Part 3

Posted by FelizB on Dec 29, 2011 in Blog, Guides, Star Wars: The Old Republic | 0 comments

Imperial Agent / Smuggler

Once my Jedi sentinel turned 19, I felt like it was time for a change. I brought a smuggler to level 12 on a different, highly populated server. I also had been playing an imperial agent in beta, but only to level 10. The smuggler story line was kind of dull, having to chase down my lost star ship and the companion was some geek, who gave his weapons names. The imperial agent background sounded more fun. Constant paranoia, a trigger happy, anarchic and ruthless bounty hunter as a companion and the option to throw a couple of monkey wrenches into the imperial secret service wheels certainly has more potential.

Playing a smuggler/agent comes easier to me. They usually take cover and start shooting. Throw some explosives here or there and stab, if the opposition gets to close. Damage output is paced by your energy levels, which slowly dwindle and once they are gone, you have only a few basic options and a recharge with a 2 minute recast timer. You have a few more options for crowd control, some dots and a snare. Perfect. Seriously.

Smugglers and imperial agents are damage classes. The advanced classes of smuggler/ scoundrel and imperial agent/ operative can be specced as healers or as melee/ midrange damage dealers. Gunslingers and snipers are the other options for advanced classes who deal damage from a distance, and nothing but damage. Although I like melee, healing is not my thing and the outlook of building a sniper/ tank duo with Kaliyo outweights my preference for melee. One more thing I like about the Empire side: I can play a Chiss. Blue in the face and no need for beards or tattoos.

One annoyance comes with the IA fun: The UI preference settings are buggy. By default, the UI switches between a standard and a cover bar for the main hotkeys. But I never could get used to that on WOW, nor will I opt for it here. You can switch it off using preferences, but it does not save your settings. It resets to the default every time an instance is reset. That happens after you die, when you leave a flashpoint or when you just switch instances to join your fellow group members. I’ve gotten myself killed right after a reset, where I just couldn’t make sense of my hotbar. I’ve bugged this already and might end up posting it on the SWTOR forums as well.

Likes: Cover, Kaliyo, Explosives, Laze Target, Imperial Star Ship, Chiss

Dislikes: Heal, UI bugs

SWTOR With 215 Servers on Day 17

Posted by FelizB on Dec 29, 2011 in News, Star Wars: The Old Republic | 0 comments

Star Wars The Old Republic has slowly adjusted the number of their servers to now 215 Here is the distribution: