This week we are looking at what we’ve been playing recently. There’s lots we play, read and watch that doesn’t need a full show and so we’ve gone through a few of the the things that we’ve been up to.
The studio only fell down a little bit during the recording, so ignore any strange noises.
8 comments
Apsalar
January 25, 2012 at 5:00 am (UTC 0)
My husband is a huge Star Wars fan so is very interested in SWOTR but it is not available in Australia yet (I know there are ways around this, but….). Checking on the forums we discovered that Australia will hopefully be getting a local server around April – not a renamed US server, not an Asia-Pacific server, our very own server.
This has given SWOTR a nice little boost in our eyes (if it happens), just a pity most of the Australian market is already playing on US servers and will be reluctant to come back here.
Tim
January 25, 2012 at 10:14 am (UTC 0)
That certianly is a nice touch, yes. I do prefer localised servers, not because I’m a snobbish imperial limey or pom (I am both of those!), but because pingtimes do matter in these things.
Curious, I’ve just done some pinging to various worldwide news websites, and it all illustrates the point:
news.com.au – avg ping: 351ms
bbc.co.uk – avg ping: 35ms
latimes.com – avg ping: 150ms
nypost.com – avg ping: 90ms
japantimes.co.jp – avg ping: 230ms
Hardly scientific and theres porbably better maps and tools online for that kind of thing, but in any game that has interruption style reaction-based mechanics, or PvP, these 100ms delays all to noticably add up.
Very nice to have an *actual* local server, rather than just another one in the Californian datacetre that merely has “[EU]” or “[AU]” in it’s name!
alf
January 25, 2012 at 3:35 pm (UTC 0)
I’m keenly aware of the “fanboy” trap as I type this but I feel I must disagree with John’s assessment of ToR not being an MMO.
My guess is that he played it as a solo player and found that there were very few barriers to playing in that way and figured this meant there wasn’t enough multiplayer content. However, my experience has been an entirely multiplayer one.
I’m someone who played WoW for a very long time and have a guild of good friends who casually but concentratedly tackled the end-game content there. It was time to move so my whole guild has come over to the dark side. A friend and I have levelled as a duo team through every single quest in the game from level one to fifty. We were even able to participate in each others’ class story quests. Every planet has group quests that really do require multiple players to tackle and there’s always a current instanced “dungeon” to do at any given level.
Now, if it left John cold then I certainly wouldn’t presume to say that he’s wrong to feel that – there’s, of course, a valid reason that perhaps the game could be doing more to remedy. However, it did sound like there were assumptions made going into the game that did a lot to colour the experience.
If you do go back John I would heartily recommend that you start a character with a friend and level entirely together. I found it an incredibly fun and rewarding experience and one that I’ve never been able to experience in all the other MMOs I’ve played.
Keep up the good work chaps. I was overjoyed when “how to murder time” popped up in the old Van Hemlock feed ^_^
Jon Shute
January 26, 2012 at 1:55 pm (UTC 0)
I agree you probably can go out and force yourself to just play with other people, but the game pushes you towards single player all the time and puts the responsibility on the player to make it a multiplayer game. Unless you have a support group around you it seems to really encourage you not to try grouping and I wonder how many new players are just getting the initial social quest, deciding that they can’t figure out how to group and then ignoring it from then on? By all accounts it’s attracted a lot of brand new players who are new to MMOs and they really aren’t going to know any better.
A static group really would be fun in the game though, I agree. Four mates and no soloing would really flesh out the experience, but not as an MMO. Instead it would just be a multiplayer co-op RPG. That’s where I’m coming from (more so the more I think about it) when I say it doesn’t feel like an MMO.
alf
January 29, 2012 at 6:30 pm (UTC 0)
Yeah I understand what you’re saying but if you had been forced to group would the complaint not be that the game keeps presenting you with road-blocks that prevent you from playing the way you want to?
Using WoW as the universal point of comparison for level-based MMOs I think that ToR does a lot more to urge people to group without making the game impossible to play without other people. In WoW I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I had 11 max level characters all of which I power-levelled solo because it was the most efficient (and honestly most fun, as grouping was a hassle when levelling in WoW). ToR has several quests on each planet that require groups to complete but not so much that those wishing to avoid PuGs will struggle to continue.
BioWare is probably quite aware that they’ll be getting people that are new to MMOs and lots of people who enjoyed the KotOR series and want to play more of the same. I think that easing off too much pressure to group is likely quite purposeful. I think it’s a decent balance between the two types on content and I’ve enjoyed the points where the types on content cross.
Akely
January 25, 2012 at 7:28 pm (UTC 0)
Fun to hear the old format back. Not that there is any essential difference btween the old and the new. Just two guys talking about stuff that interest them.
I can see Tims argument that Sandbox games can get hard due to the fact that there is no goal. On has to set ones own goal, and it is really easy to either run out of ideas or set unrealistic goals. Just farting around only last a while if there is not little small things that you can latch on to. Skyrim is pretty good at this. Eve very bad.
Dr Toerag
January 26, 2012 at 2:14 pm (UTC 0)
Ping times certainly matter, especially when they are terrible.
Playing Guild Wars on Tuesday and the little red light told me my ping was 113,110ms. At which point I gave up. The ISS may have faster response times
.
Volstag
January 27, 2012 at 3:31 pm (UTC 0)
Yeah! I love the “What we’ve been playing” shows!
-V