So my time in SWTOR was a bust.  I did not pay for a subscription after my 30 days of free play time expired.

Incidentally I was given promotional time in RIFT.  Which I used to create new defiant based characters on a new server.  Not long after it was announced that the server for my original characters was being downgraded to a trial server.  So all my original characters had to be moved elsewhere.  I liked my original server.  It made me sad to see it disappear.  After that event, I lost the will to keep playing RIFT.

Another game I dabble in, Wizard 101, expanded to a new area called Zafaria.  It was interesting but it didn't catch my imagination as the previous areas.  Also Wizard 101 is in a strange state, it has attracted a great many raiding gamers.  So now the game is tuned to grinding for gear in numerous raid level instances.  They have changed their gear for mitigation stats and class boosts but with barely any morale on them.  The NPCs have been given boosts in damage and health.  All of this is not really that terrible.  But considering that the game began as a hobby for young children in grammar school and junior high, the high level raid type atmosphere at end game is extremely unnecessary.  KingsIsle was in a great position to experiment with different end game experiences because their main audience was not yet used to the WOW mmorpg end game paradigms.  Did they? NOPE.  They just tacked on raids and gear grind.  Thanks KingsIsle.  Now, like other mmorpgs, Wizard 101 end game story instances are only available for the 5 to 20% of the playing audience.

I'm not even going to get into the inflation on items in the company store.  There are many threads about that in the KingsIsle forums, and none of them have been addressed.  And it looks as if they never will be addressed.

This leads me to LOTRO.  This is where I went after I left SWTOR and I've long since given up on WOW.  I liked the expansion last fall called "Rise of Isengard".  It had interesting stories and well done phased content.  However there were a great many bugs in instanced areas.  Plus I was deeply disappointed that Turbine did not commission new music from composer Chance Thomas (I'm hoping this will rectified in the upcoming expansion this fall).

But as like all mmorpgs, I've hit the raid or lie fallow paradigm.  And the more I see this gated tactic in games the more I ask WHY?  WHY? WHY?  Why spend a great amount of monetary resources on end game stories, instances, items etc that only 5 to 20% of your paying audience will see?  WHY FUCKING WHY?  It doesn't make any sense and it is the very example of insanity.  You know what happens with this gated shit?  Every night, in any given MMORPG, are spammers looking for those last few players to fill out a raid.  PST! PST! PST!  And the people willing to go on these runs are denied because they are not geared for the encounter.  Because you have to run the instance to get gear for the instance.

I'm so sick of this, it is getting to the point where I don't want to play these games anymore.  And I'm sure a great many psychologists would encourage me to give up the gaming hobby.  Yet I go on.  Something has to give one of these days.  I suppose.  Or maybe a group of developers will get it and design a game that is inclusive to all players and doesn't use the gated tactic.  Or maybe not.  Most likely not.

The New Year

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.