Profile: severius
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• • Question for those who played at release (Jedi)

  • Originally posted by Stellos
    

    I did not play at release.  How was the orginal Jedi concept at the beginning of the SWG's life?  I recall that the player had to somehow unlock a jedi slot.  Is this true?  How did you unlock this slot?  I thought it was something different for every player.  After you unlocked the slot was your new character automatically a jedi like in the game now or did you have to go through much more?

    How do you differentiate between those who earned Jedi status the hard way and those who just now click and become a Jedi?

    
    At launch there was no "known" path to jedi, and there definitely were NO jedi apart from NPCs.  Now, during beta screenshots were leaked showing a "force-sensitive" bar which breifly made an appearance because of a bug in one of the beta patches..  The conjecture was was that the game kept track of every single thing you did with your character (what you killed, whether or not you tipped entertainers and doctors, what classes you did, what weapons you used, everything).  Different actions filled the FS bar while others decreased it.  On top of that there were some hidden (and some not so hidden) quests that needed to be accomplished.  Hero of Tatooine for one that wasn't really hidden, just a nightmare to complete because of bugs.  One of the hidden ones was in Mos Espa if I remember right, maybe Mos Eisley.  This started with an NPC boy that could be seen running into town.  If you talked to him in time then he would tell you how stormtroopers had killed his family but he had a very important message that had to get to someone.

    Like I said this was conjecture, I remember a friend I had made in game came into the Espa cantina while I was there getting battle fatigue healed up.  He sat across the table from me and told me how he had to reroll, I asked why, he responded "I just killed some Jawa's man, now I'll never get to unlock my slot unless I delete" lol.  People were slowly piecing it together, however.  When they announced the holocrons and the new path to jedi they did an interview.  In that interview they (Jullio Torres, Q3P0, Smedley and others) stated that they were watching the game daily, and that sooo many people were sooooo close to unlocking their slots.  They stated that they thought "today was going to be the day" but it never happened.

    While the player base was very intrigued and several thousand people were thoughtfully trying to figure out the path there wasn't much frustration.  The game world was alive and thriving at the time.  It was the producers and developers that were getting frustrated and impatient.  THE DAY that the holocron crap went live one player went out to dantooine and killed a bolle and unlocked their slot.  Shortly after that many people unlocked and then the community started fraying as people quit playing the game that they had for several months and focused solely on A) procuring holocrons and B) afk grinding professions.

    Once you unlocked your new character slot it was a jedi.  Your main still remained but your alt became the jedi.  Jedi was very restrictive.  One of the first people to unlock on my server was so excited that he ran around to where all his friends were and showed off his lightsaber and fun things like that.  This of course made him pvp enabled and he was killed.  Jedi death = permadeath.  Then SOE thought that was unfair so it was 3 deaths on your jedi and you were permadead.  Of course you just deleted that toon and started over.

    Jedi could not own any structures, there was TEF which kept jedi from running inside structures etc etc etc etc.  The easiest way to determine a vet jedi vs an NGE jedi is two fold.  1) they have an elder jedi title, 2) they can become a blue glowy.  Now, this is a little tricky because the CU made the game far more simpler and a GREAT many people unlocked their slot by doing the village quests (replacement for the hologrind) and anyone that had unlocked were granted the Elder title and blue glowy ability regardless of how much they had earned as a jedi.

  • Posted: 5/14/08 7:45 PM
    Star Wars Galaxies
• • AoC Launch Predictions (Review)

  • Originally posted by MarkusD
    

    The very idea of having to buy a box and then pay a subscription bothers me. For that reason alone I won't be playing AoC at launch. Isn't the box going to cost the price of a regular game? If the feedback from this game is really good and they reduce the price of the game to about the price of a months sub (I can handle a bit more like 5-10 bucks) then I may try this game.

     

    I have a feeling though my opinion is in the minority here. The same goes with charging for expansions ... just drives me nuts.

     

    
    It's been debated before as to what the cost of a box game is at launch.  Granted you go to the shop of your choice and pay around $50.00 US.  Many people say you actually only pay around $35.00 or so because though the first month is "free" the cost of that first month is wrapped up into the cost of the box.  With that said every mmo sees a reduction in the price of the box around 6 months or so after launch.  Sometimes sooner, sometimes a tad bit later.  I remember I picked up the Tabula Rasa Collector's edition 4 or 5 months after the game had come out for $15 or $20 heh.

    It will all depend on how well it's received.  If there is a large drop off after the first month expect incentives and price drops on boxes soon.

  • Posted: 5/13/08 9:59 PM
    Age of Conan
• • Raiding... why is that a staple of MMOs now?

  • Originally posted by mrudis
    

    Seriously.  What is so fun and rewarding about raiding that it is now considered a basic element of any new MMO?  Why is that usually the big "end-game" and why is raiding something lower-levels demand be open to them as well?  Is it because that's the only thing companies can think of for an "end-game"?

    I remember in EQ1 it just seemed to eventually happen.  I don't think it was anything originally formulated really.  Just people got so high, so fast (relatively fast... compared with what Verant thought was fast, not compared to WoW), so they created "impossible" enemies.  They turned out not to be so impossible when faced with 10 groups of 6 players each all informally linked. 

    I just thought of this reading through a bunch of unrelated posts... none of them having to do with raiding, but raiding was brought up as something that absolutely must be accomidated for.   Why is that? 

    It's all about the money plain and simple as that.

    In order for a developer to keep adding quests, zones and new/exciting encounters costs a good deal of money.  However, raids circumvent that issue.  You make a dungeon where everything is boss level, add a couple super bosses then add in a godly boss.  Ok, that with the lockout timers would add a couple weeks of life to the game for the people that have capped.  Then, you add in a randomized loot table with the really special items on a 1 or 2 drop limit per run.  That way you have 40/25 or however many people that all need/want to get the items so you just add 6-8 months of content all with one addition.

  • Posted: 5/12/08 6:28 PM
    General Discussion
• • early axcess bought from gamestop!!!

  • I think there is a bit of a miscommunication.

    Normally, when you go to gamestop/ebgames and put $5 down on a game for pre-order it is nothing more than a deposit on the game.  When you go to pick up the game on release day you are then charged the difference between retail price and the deposit.

    The early access for Age of Conan is an additional $5.  It is not included in the price of the CE or regular versions of the game.

  • Posted: 5/12/08 6:19 PM
    Age of Conan
• • Is this game worth it???

  •  

    Originally posted by Mellowguy254
    

    Hey I've been looking for a mmo to play for some time now and I wanna know if this game is gonna be the next WoW.........Im not a beta tester and id like to get the opinions of some beta testers and get there thoughts and concerns etc. ty

    
    To be completely honest that is a call only you can make.  Just like what style of jeans you wear, whether or not you wear facial hair, Coke or Pepsi, Burger King or McDonald's, it all comes down to personal taste.  I will not recommend the game to anyone I know, as it is not a game that I could recommend to myself, except as a short term placeholder for something else.

     

    Some will see AoC and believe that it is revolutionary, others though will see it as more of the same.  I would suggest reading everything you can about it, watch all the vids and if you still do not know, find someone with a buddy key that way you can play for a few days without having to invest anything but some time.  Good luck!

    edit- oh and to answer your question as to whether or not this will be the next wow, I highly, HIGHLY doubt it.  The system requirements alone will keep it from the mainstream.

  • Posted: 5/12/08 4:08 PM
    Age of Conan