SWTOR releasing a new patch

Star Wars: The Old Republic has announced another update to their MMO. The next patch will fix a few bugs, but will also allow you to move your character to 'a healthier server'. Bioware hasn't announced how that will work or what kind of restrictions you might have when moving your character (or what will happen if you want to move your character back).

For those higher level subscribers who are getting a bit bored with the game, I'm sorry to report that there is no additional content – flashpoints or otherwise – being added to the game at this time. The patch will, however, add some more interesting things into the legacy system for your character, including some sort of bonus depending on what you’d like to be doing with your avatar.

Even with moderately good news like this, it would be awful to overlook the layoffs at the Bioware offices (based in Austin) yesterday. An unknown number of employees were laid off, and per Bioware that is just how things tend to go after the release of a major game. The full force that developed it is no longer needed since the work load is less after release.

Still, a bunch of people lost their jobs yesterday after working with the rest of the development team to make one of the most popular MMOs on the market today. These are sad times. I hope that they all find employment soon, and that the disruption in job having doesn’t negatively impact their lives. Best of luck to each of them.

GW2's lack of endgame: good or bad thing?

Guild Wars 2 has built their MMO to be unlike anything else on the market. In fact, I’d say that it’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Its lack of endgame, World v World combat system, instanced PvP and myriad of other unique facets make it easily the most appealing game scheduled to come out in 2012.

This past weekend, GW2 had its first beta for holders of pre-ordered copies of the game. To say it went well would be an understatement. Although it did have a few hiccups (but what beta doesn’t?), those were quickly smoothed out with patches. Gamers who had their hands on the game for the first time this weekend are seriously impressed.

But a small faction of gamers are concerned about GW2’s lack of endgame. Specifically, GW2 is built to avoid the raiding endgame that most MMOs are centered around – and they are worried that the game won’t be as fun at high levels and that the game is leaving a source of entertainment completely untapped.

But honestly, GW2’s complete disregard for sticking to the traditional format is refreshing. If I wanted an endgame centric experience, I’d go play WoW with the rest of the raiding fanatics.

I think the fact that Guild Wars 2 is tossing the endgame will get them a slew of dedicated gamers. Playing will be about the whole experience instead of just leveling quickly to get to the endgame activities. World v World will also keep players plenty busy (and from what I saw of the beta, it will be way more fun than raiding anyways).

So my vote: lack of endgame, in the case of Guild Wars 2, will be a very good thing.