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.

Is the traditional MMORPG on the way out?

In the olden days, I had to walk to school – barefoot, in the snow, uphill both ways. Ok, so I didn’t…but I did have to walk (or ride my mount) to get to my instances in MMOs instead of insta-travelling there.

MMORPG games are now favoring one-click entrances into instances and raids. You can literally get there from your menu – no walking, no attacking NPCs on the way, no real work involved. Times are changing, and not for the better.

Honestly, if you don’t want to work that hard on progressing your character and getting cool armor, why are you playing an MMO to begin with? Especially now that you can play an FPS (first person shooter) that will also do some (though not as much) character progression. Some games even let you do a little customization (like in Team Fortress 2, you can customize the hat you wear).

Additionally, PvP is becoming more and more like FPS games. In a modern MMORPG, you queue up in a waiting room of sorts, and then are put into a PvP situation with a limited number of opponents. Again, why not just play an FPS if you want to battle a limited number of bad guys at a time?

In the olden times, MMO battlegrounds weren’t restricted to a small number of players. You used to be able to go out and fight on a battlefield swarming with opponents; it was both overwhelming and ridiculously fun. All of that is gone now, favoring this new insta-zoned PvP. Maybe it’s time for someone to make a ‘new’ genre – something to fill the void the traditional MMORPG has left.

Diablo III shipping WITHOUT PvP??

Less than a week ago, Blizzard – the makers of the highly anticipated Diablo III – announced that its new online RPG  would not be shipping with the PVP (player vs player) game and systems gamers were expecting to have at release. The announcement came from the Diablo III blog itself and was met with nearly 1100 comments on this decision.

Blizzard stated that the PVP Arena system was not living up to their standards, and that pushing back the release date would be punishing everyone who has been (not so) patiently waiting for the solo and co-op content for so long. Those pieces of the game are nearing completion.

PvP has not been cut out of the game entirely, much to the relief of gamers everywhere. The makers of the game intend to release a patch with the PvP system as soon as they feel it is worthy of release.

Diablo III creators are hoping that you’ll spend your time (while you wait on PvP to eventually release) leveling and learning, so that you might be ‘better prepared’ for battle when the patch does release.

The patch is slated to have some cool features: PvP-centric achievements, a system to create evenly matched games quickly, and a progression system to reward you for your destruction of other teams.

Hopefully the multiplayer experience they are creating is worth the wait. They’re going to have a lot of ancy Diablo fans impatiently checking for patches in the meantime.