Honor's Code

  The press embargo lifted on Old Republic today. This isn’t the NDA. That is still in effect. The press embargo is on professional gaming sites like Massively, IGN, etc. The lifting of the embargo basically means they can now post articles from their time in beta. Basically what BioWare is doing is giving the press a head start so they can get their articles out. Likely the next step is the lifting of the NDA, and then a deluge of blogs, Facebook, and twitter posts from people who have been in beta. You lucky dogs, I hate you all, well, not really. But my jealousy makes me powerful. I find the timing of the lifting of the embargo interesting. The sort of thing that makes you go “hmmm”.  You see Friday is the start of the Blizzcon which is Blizzard’s big annual convention. By lifting the embargo the day before, BioWare has ensured a flood of new information on the Old Republic to compete with any big reveals coming out of Blizzcon. I wonder how much conversation on the show f...

(Disclaimer: game is still in beta, subject to change, blah, blah, blah) The character creation process in SWTOR is a series of cascading decisions that renders you with a character that is hopefully sufficiently custom. Last time, we talked about the base or story class. Today, I want to talk about taking your character to next level, literally. At level 10, you get to pick your advanced class (AC). While at first glance, this may seem reminiscent of the specialization choice from World of Warcraft, I think you will find that the AC is much closer to what most MMOs call a class. Generally, a specialization in World of Warcraft limits you to one trinity role. Feral Druids, I see your paws up in the air, I know, now put them down. In SWTOR, each Advanced Class has one or two trinity roles it can spec into.  Let's look at the Republic Advanced classes. Jedi Knights choose between the Guardian AC (Tank/DPS) and the Sentinel AC (DPS). Jedi Consolers choose between the Sage AC (Hea...

I'm going to delay what I was going to post today until Monday, because  today I want to talk about the passing of Steve Jobs. You can read my thoughts over on my Writer’s blog .

(Disclaimer: game is still in beta, subject to change, blah, blah, blah) The character creation process in SWTOR is a series of cascading decisions that renders you with a character that is hopefully sufficiently custom. When most people think about creating a character in an RPG, the question of race and role/class is usually foremost. While SWTOR has all three components, the way it breaks down might not be readily apparent to those who haven’t read deeply on the game yet. This first choice is your story class. There are 8 possibilities, 4 per faction. On the Republic side, your choices are Jedi Knight, Jedi Consoler, Smuggler and Trooper. On the Sith side, the choices are Sith Warrior, Sith Inquisitor, Imperial Agent and Bounty Hunter. This choice determines the you class story which guides you throughout the entire game in a series of 3 chapters. Each chapter is longer than the original KOTOR, if you played that.  Unlike other MMOs the majority of the game is made up of clas...

I talked to my raid team leader last night, and it’s apparent that our raid team is no longer viable. Our raid leader is going to take some time and decides what he wants to do. I’m doing the same. Wich did a fantastic job of running our raid team, but he couldn’t keep guys interested in the game. We simply took too many loses, too quickly to recover. The question now what do I do. I seem to be at a crossroads. I still enjoy raiding and haven't even seen the last two bosses in Firelands. The first problem is I really have no desire to continue raiding on my Hunter. I switched from tanking on my Paladin Tank to DPS as a Hunter for Cataclysm. I've done okay but it's clear to me I'm struggling as a DPS. For some reason the Hunter rotation just didn’t click with me. I don’t know why. I was fighting to stay out of the 5 hole when we ran two tanks and struggled to stay out of 6 hole when we ran one. I tried switched from SV to Marks with the idea being a higher ceiling wou...