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The New Year

Sunday, January 15, 2012

I haven't been gaming that much so far.  But when I do I'm in...

Star Wars: The Old Republic

It has been wearing thin on me.  I knew it would before I even purchased it.  But I went ahead and spent money on it.

The game is decent, but there are bugs.  The worst bug is an ability delay on class attacks.  Whether it is due to lag or poor coding is unknown.  But it is incredibly annoying.

The questing is rather linear and in addition to the many cut scenes, I feel as if I'm watching a film not playing a game.  That isn't a good thing.  Many times the quest stories are enjoyable so it is easy to ignore the strait jacket quality to the game.

Companion romance.  Why?  I'm baffled by this element.  And it seriously creeps me out when this computerized thing starts to flirt with my character.  Its as if my toaster oven suddenly started to recite romantic poetry to me.  People really seem to like it as well.  Is it more enjoyable than real flirting with another human being playing the same game?  In the middle of questing, when my "companion" suddenly growls that he needs to speak with my character someplace private, it makes me want to rage.

Group quests.  They are fun.  But already I'm seeing problems.  I'm a slow leveler and I'm behind most of the people I started playing with during the holidays.  Many have even reached level cap.  Which means there are no people to help run the heroic group quests in the area.  This problem is only going to get worse, not better as the population stabilizes and the majority are at end game.  Why don't designers take this into account?  Most of these games are designed as if they believe there will be constant streams of people barreling through their world.  That isn't and never will be the case.  It isn't even the case in World of Warcraft.  So why continue to design content that will be obsolete?  Why?

Ultimately, I'm not as big a fan of Star Wars as I thought I would be.  Yes, I loved the films as a child.  However they never became an obsession for me.  So running around in the Star Wars universe has left me underwhelmed if not down right depressed.  The world is extremely dystopic and filled with one steel fortress after another.  All of them are inhabited with robot drone guards.  Invariably, my character is forever entering caves to grab an item or speak with a certain person.  The cave is always designed the same way and filled with crowds of mobs that cannot be avoided.

I'm tired, I give up.  So I will not be extending my subscription.  Maybe if things workout better financially in the future, I may go back.  But not now.