See Now, SWTOR, That Wasn’t So Hard Was It?

Get it while its sorta warm.  Sorry, I’ve been running all morning.   Kids + Friday before Halloween = multiple “Fall Parties” in school.

Bonus points for anyone who can tell me what of that information wasn’t up to quality level last Friday.  Or if you think it was delayed a week for some other reason.

Don’t let my droll attitude fool you by the way.  Imperial Agent, as I’ve mentioned previously is far and away the most awesome class in my mind, and I am *very* excited that the information is finally out.   Especially since – by my calculations, this keeps us on schedule for a Spring Release.  And that is my biggest excitement.

Unlike what some have said on the forums though…I’m not a big fan of the ship.

Okay, scratch that, I just noticed the Phantom has a bar.  A bar.  A freaking wet bar.  I’m in.

Alcohol. The Empire Has It. The Jedi Don't.

Use of Weapons

Hat tip to Ysharros for putting out a recommendation for Iain Banks Culture novels.  Recently I came across Use of Weapons in a used bookstore, and recognized Banks name and the setting from her descriptions.  And so for $2, I decided to try it out.  And I was not disappointed.

The structure of the novel is at times frustrating, but it does build to a nice climactic ending.  The ending itself was perhaps the only disappointing part of the whole book.  Sometimes its possible to overbuild expectations with a lack of information, resulting in something thats a cross between several horrific tropes.  Don’t click any of those if you don’t want any hinted at spoilers.

But the characterization itself, the playground that Banks gives you to play in (ie the setting), and his wonderful way of slipping societal truth telling and satire into otherwise unrelated avenues are joyous.

As a plus, in SWTOR, far and away the most intriguing class to me is the Imperial Agent.  And arguably *the* main character of this book, Cheranadine Zakalwe, is pretty much all that the IA is described as being and more.  He even has a stunningly awesome background to go with it.

With that out of the way, I’m trying to decide what next to tackle on my reading list – if anything, with the rapid approach of NaNoWriMo.  No, I’m not soliciting more suggestions, though I’ll take them anyway.  Off the top of my head I have eight books in my queue currently, more than enough.

ETA: Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks this is a sweet matchup with the Imperial Agent!  Senior Writer and Managing Editor Alexander Freed dropped a line in the thread on the forums to let me know he agreed.  Check it out (6th post down).  Before you go “woopty doo” keep in mind how rare it is for devs to post in the SWTOR forums.

Another Friday, Another SWTOR Fluff Update

ETA: Scroll down to the bottom to see what a Dev had to say on the forums about the complaints like mine.

Can there be any doubt at this point that the game will be delayed from its Spring release date, despite quotes from GDC (that I’m too tired this morning to track down)?

Another Friday has come, and SWTOR releases official updates/information every Friday.  As of August/September, things had picked up considerably – good, solid game information came regularly interspersed with fluff updates like Fan Fridays.  This was fitting and normal if a Spring launch was to be achieved.   But the wheels came off that bus last month.  Since the release of the Smuggler advanced class information, we have received *no* game related information.  That’s right, three, count them, three weeks have gone by without any significant updates from the Developers about the game. 

Despite the fact that we are only about four months from what would typically be the Open Beta for a major release.  It makes you wonder if they really don’t have anything to share or they are just willfully stubborn about letting information out.  Let’s imagine the conversation in the weekly meeting about what to release on Friday (the humor I’m going for comes across clearer if you picture the people below as random Office characters or perhaps the cast of a Mel Brooks film):

Boss:  Alright, settle down people.  Lets talk next about what we are releasing for our Friday update.   Community people, whats the word on the street:

CSR: Well, people are getting restless.  Its been a month since our last class information release, and people are wagering heavily on what class will be next.  Others are curious about the Legacy system, or want to know more details about crafting.  And there’s always the PvP crowd wanting to know about things in the game for them.

Boss:  Well, we have alot to choose from!  We’re only five months from launch, we have five classes left – Can we drop info on…Bounty Hunter?  I mean all we have to do is show them a few pictures of the ship, the concept art from the primary companion, and give a little information on the sub classes.  We don’t have to give them detailed trees yet like we did with the Smuggler.  We can do that right?

Dev: No.

Boss: Trooper?  Imperial Agent?

Devs:  No.

Boss: …Okay, well how about a Timeline update?

CSR: Um, we just did that last week boss, we’re working on the next one, but…

Boss:  …Okay, no problem.  Webcomics?

CSR: Done with both of them already.

Boss: Oh.  Uh…ooh, locations.  Give them a planet!

Random Dev:  We pulled that out two weeks ago sir.

Boss:  Holy Toasted Vader people.  We’ve got to give them *something!*

CSR: Fan Friday?

Boss: …

CSR:  No, it’ll be great, I can pull some fan art again, and we can have [Artist] show off some of his concept art…

Artist:  Hell no.

CSR: …or he could draw a new one from…an in game screenshot.  Screenshot – nothing has to be moving or working for that right?

Dev:  We could probably do that.  And we have all this leftover lore that we haven’t hit them with yet from that junkload of writers we hired.  I could part with…say 8 paragraphs I guess.

Boss:  Great, so its all settled then.  They can’t complain right?  I mean they are getting *two* updates.  That outta hold them for another week.

Seriously though, the bottom line is simple – a lack of actual game updates creates a fear of a pushback, or worse, a Vanguard style flameout that will be crushing to anyone who has devoted a decent amount of time to following this game.  Why is it that nothing is done to address this fear?

ETA: One of the official BW peeps dropped into the complaint thread forming about the update and the lack of crunch information.  He said:

As we’ve always said, when things are at a quality level where we are ready to reveal them, we will. We never want to promise something that we aren’t ready to commit to.

This of course, quieted no fears, and in fact, instilled a host of new ones.  Does this mean that Bioware does not have five of the eight classes, three of the six ships, around 75% of the companion characters, the PvP systems, crafting, and around 75% of the planets at quality level?   If so, Fall 2011 here we come…

Restless

That about sums up my evenings this past week.  I returned home late Saturday night, pretty much went straight to bed given how many hours I had been driving and how zoned out I was (“highway hypnosis” is a term I recall from long ago).  Sunday, I took in my missed episode of Boardwalk Empire, followed by the new epsiode (both good).  Monday, and Tuesday though, I had some time.  I’ve been meandering my way through Star Trek Online, clawing my way to the long desired Nebula and Akira.  I made it through another level, so only two more to go.  I realized some of my slow going is that I haven’t spent nearly as many bridge officer points as I need to, and I haven’t upgraded my ships weaponry since I got it some 8 levels ago.

Anyone else here a little restless? Little holodeck action time maybe?

But mainly I’m just not with it.  Its not the games themselves mind you.  Its anticipation of what’s just over the horizon and out of reach.  I spend a good bit of time each day reading through whatever scraps of information I can come up with about Rift and SWTOR.  Which is admittedly very little.  SWTOR in particular is being stingy, for a game only a few months from launch and having been in closed Beta for awhile now.   Its starting to give some signs that it may be pushed back.  For my two cents, if there is not a class update this weekend a pushback is all but certain.

Rift isn’t out of Alpha yet, so I don’t expect as much from them, and yet they seem to deliver updates more consistently, which I think is probably good.  Some may argue that its not good since information can change that early in a development cycle, but they are putting out mostly lore and backstory and world related updates.  That stuff does not usually change and still generates good interest.  Compare that with SWTOR, which has still not finished dribbling out their backstory (a backstory, I might add, that ignores some 200+ years of history as if nothing at all happened therein), at a time when they should be promoting other things.  The biggest complaint though, by those much more heavily invested than me, is that the developers are nowhere to be found.  There were a handful of posts this week – the first tim the devs have spoken in the forums in perhaps three months.

For whatever reason Guild Wars 2 isn’t on my radar much.   No particular reason.

But those games all come next year at the earliest.  And even if SWTOR launches on time, there’s a long way to go.   So for now?  Well, I’m sure writing a novel in November will keep me mildly busy.  And we’ll see what my third tour of duty in EVE Online will bring with it…

Good Things, Small Packages

I am home from vacation, yay!   A few things that need addressing before we get full swing into the posting week:

1)  I came home to good news too, I was one of the winners of The Ancient Gaming Noob’s EVE Screenshot Contest.  I’ll be honest, I pretty much submitted a variety of shots that covered as many categories as possible – but I had no idea that there was a “most orange” category.   Not that that makes the win any less fun.  I am due to re-up my account this week, and the extra 10 million will come in quite handy!

2) As some of you may have seen, I got a very special email this week.  I’m still awaiting some confirmation that was, in fact, the real deal, but at this point  I don’t really have any reason to suspect otherwise.  I am impressed, and I have to take back my PR relations failure assessment.  If Trion is trolling the game blogging community looking for feedback and checking things out, and keeping open lines of communication – well, thats a huge PR win.

3) I have decided to engage in NaNoWriMo this year.  I’ve been wanting to do it for awhile now, but after sitting in on the intimate Q&A sessions with some of world class authors at LibertyCon this year – I just have to do it.   I have to do it not to be published or be a full time author – but so I can look at myself in the mirror and say “I wrote a full length novel.”   Which is something I grew up believing I could never accomplish.  If anyone else wants to jump in this year - I’m happy to support you in whatever way possible!

4) I’m sticking by my guns – Cataclysm will be the highwater mark for WoW.  It will be all downhill after this.  Nothing lasts forever, even the 800 pound gorilla.

Just to Toot My Horn A Little

Back in May, I took a stab at what I thought the advancd classes would pan out as in Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but in late August, Bioware revealed the advanced class niches.

And I was 16 for 16.

Rifts Casts “Public Relations Failure;” Achieves Critical Success

ETA:  It should be noted that, unless I’m being punk’d, I got a personal letter of apology from Trion yesterday.  I’m on the road travelling today, but intend a full update post on this for the weekend.  For now…I have to say, I’m very impressed with that gesture and this post needs to be tempered with that knowledge as you read it.  ~ HZ

Its no secret that I have followed Rift: Planes of Telara with a  great deal of interest.   In part because of the class system, in part because of the dedication to a dynmic world and content, and in part because of the pedigree of the visionary who was originally behind it.

So when I saw an email in my account today that said: “Rift: Planes of Telara Beta Upgrade” I about fell out of my chair.  I hadn’t seen much of anything lately on Rift, and certainly didn’t know that Beta was coming!  I must be on the first wave of invites, how sweet is that!

Turns out, as I check the website, not so sweet.  Because there is no Rift Beta yet.  There are not even any established dates for when they might get to Beta.  I look in my inbox again.  Yep, says right there “Rift: Planes of Telara Beta Upgrade.”  Son of a …..

Look Trion, people get excited about Betas.  We love ‘em.  Hell, we’ll sometimes, if the game is good enough, even pay *you* for the opportunity to be in them.  You do not send out emails indicating that our accounts have been upgraded for Beta, when you have done no such thing.  So at least now I know I will be in the Beta when it does happen right?  Because I’ve been upgraded, right?

No, I was upgraded with a code that gives me a chance at being selected for Beta.  Not a guarentee.  A chance.  Um…isn’t that what I got when I signed up to be in your Beta pool?  This gives you a better chance, they say.  A bettere chance than what?  Because you just upgraded *everyone’s* account with the same better chance code – which means we now all have….

Oh forget it.

STO Protip: Ship Layouts

I finally looped back into Earthdock last night after finishing up all the missions I could down “south.”  My next leg of assignments carries me to a different front in the battle.  Which is slightly frustrating.  One would think that finishing up a front would coincide with a bump in rank, in this case, that I would hit commander and be transferred in the storyline to a new front complete with a new ship.  Alas, real life and STO are not that serendipitous (no idea if I spelled that correctly – or even if it’s a real word). 

I took advantage of the time in Earthdock to sell off the big items (I tend to scrap small cheap items to the replicator to save room while out and about, but hang on to the big items until I can get a better return for them in a station) and do some skill management.  I also dropped by the Shipyard and Ship Requisition rooms and I learned a few things.

One is that I can indeed get the Excelsior once I hit commander, which means the same should be true of the Nebula as well, once it releases.  There are also “retrofit” kits available for both if you wish to continue the ship once you hit endgame.  So I’ll be leveling with a hope and expectation of of it releasing in time for me to choose it as my free upgrade ship.  I will probably by an Akira as well.  Over the final two tiers in the game, the only other ship I want is the Research Science Vessel, so I’m good on ship slots I think.

Hey, welcome to Ten Forward. Maximum Occupancy: 500. Crew Size: 100.

Anyway, the real reason of this post was to address my concerns about ship interiors – turns out, you can vary them at least a little bit.  When I went into ship Customization to look at maybe changing the colors on the Lafayette, I took a look at bridges too.  I like the small bridge I have now – fitting considering the size and crew of ship I have, but I wanted to see what options there were.  And behold  – if you click on the Bridges tab in the Ship Customization interface, there is a new tab along the top of the LCARS window that opens, entitled “Layouts.”  You can change the layout between Small, Medium, and Large for 1,000 energy credits, the same cost for changing the colors of your bridge.  Mine was set to Medium, so I switched it to Small.

The result is that the mile long hallway disappears but the rooms stay the same.  I found this a little disappointing, that I still have quarters large enough to host half the crew in a party, and that the crew lounge looks like the lobby of the MGM Grand…but at least it looks like its all packed into the about half the hull, leaving a reasonable amount of room for engineering, assuming the saucer holds the rest of the crew quarters (logistically an odd layout, but doable nonetheless).

I’m tempted to spend two grand more myself – just to see what the large layout looks like.  But I don’t have any alts, so maybe thats a good way to see it without having to really pay for it, eh?

Another Step Closer…

I spent a little time playing STO again last night as my brother worked on a paper, my parents recuperated from helping with the kids all weekend and my wife crashed out to catch up on her sleep.   It didn’t go as smoothly as before, or at least it didn’t feel like it, perhaps because I played the same amount of time and only managed one level.

I was abouth halfway through the second mission when I started getting odd flashbacks.  I finally realized that I was remembering the mission from my days in the Beta.  I remembed not liking it, and it being overly difficult and slow.   And behold – nothing had changed.  Still it was good experience and it was good for a nice screenshot.

The Lafayette joins an ad hoc fleet including a Typhoon-class battleship, a cruiser, and a pair of escorts.

I’m going to have to give in and do an RP/IC post with STO at some point.  Its a game that practically begs you to RP, much like LotRO, and while I normally do that on my time, I may have to post some up here.  I forgot to check last night if any of my out-of-game acquaintences were in game – but then I don’t necessarily have all their contact information either!  If you are one of those players of STO, let me know how (and more importantly perhaps – when) I can best catch up to you.

I keep hoping for some word on the Nebula class by the way.  Its been a favorite of mine since it first appeared in ST:TNG.  The Akira is nice and all, but really I was going to get it because I am not a big fan of that Tier science vessel.  Getting the Nebula instead would certainly streamline my skill points spending.   ETA:  Upon further research, it appears that the Nebula is actually one of the top tier refit ships.  So…so much for that idea. 

I still have no idea how to do the Diplomacy missions, which I have a hunch I will enjoy alot.  I have a feeling it has to do with a few of the quests I have in my log to pick up so and so or talk to so and so.  But most of those require me stopping in at a Starbase or Earth, and I’m still clearing out some missions amidst the stars.  Home can wait.

Updates

As you may or may not have noticed, I have  been updating on Tuesdays and Saturdays recently.  It was not a planned pattern, but one that emerged naturally.  So its not set in stone, but it is a pattern nonetheless.  Save for this past Saturday.  My wife volunteered to be a leader for my daughters Brownie Camperee (sp?) experience, and I found myself without a lot of time to sit down and ruminate or even to play.  And that because my parents and brother are in town both to help with the weekend and enjoy part of the kids fall break from school.

Which also means that I spend my evenings in live gaming sessions rather than online ones.  Unfortunately though, we haven’t really had any gaming sessions other than shooting the breeze about various topics, including PnP RPG’s and the SWTOR beta information.

Hence, little to write about.  And I can’t even fluff with screenshots.   Sadness.