Posted By Nobunaga about 9 months ago
Raiding is Hard
Hot off the presses from Gamescom, 8 insidious citizens of the Empire strode forward into the depths of The Eternity Vault, Star Wars: The Old Republic’s first raid-instance or “Operation”. The outcome was hard fought, but in the end, a game demo live infront of an audience can only end one way…
So yes… they died. And check out the young lady Sithizen… and her seven minions. I kid I kid, it was great seeing gameplay footage of the first raid and seeing that the current difficulty level is high enough that people won’t just waltz over them. They were most likely equipped with the best gear possible, told what to expect and even had some practiced their strategy before going in… and they still got demolished in a few seconds. Sure, experienced raiders will shrug at their deaths but if anything can be gleamed from this video it’s one important thing.
Their raid sizes are going to be 8 players, and 16 players. Which I think, sounds just about Prime…
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After a highly successful launch and almost first month in service, the time for the
The Disciples of Hatred and it’s Roleplayers Contingent take on some PvP in the Star Wars: The Old Republic Beta
Announcing the first gathering of the Disciples of Hatred during the Beta Weekend Stress Test! …and of course that silly Jedi Consular progression video too.
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At the Star Wars Guild Summit there was a video shown to the attendees that detailed the upcoming 1.2 Mega-Patch. Finally, after much waiting, comes the actual clear and HD version of that video…
Last week saw EA and BioWare’s investors receiving a few updates on their many investments.
After a highly successful launch and almost first month in service, the time for the
The Disciples of Hatred and it’s Roleplayers Contingent take on some PvP in the Star Wars: The Old Republic Beta
Announcing the first gathering of the Disciples of Hatred during the Beta Weekend Stress Test! …and of course that silly Jedi Consular progression video too.
Your questions FINALLY answered! What are the best aspects of the game? Why this MMO than any other? Do we get to kill Jar Jar? All this and more in ToR Q&A #1!
Angry Joe shares his SWTOR Beta Gameplay impressions as he creates his Sith Lord, engages in combat as a warrior and partakes in joyful prisoner torture!
MMO Grinder Sidequest is a quick look at MMOs I wouldn’t normally review, be it through limited trial accounts, or Closed Beta games. First up, it’s the oft requested Star Wars The Old Republic.
Angry Joe shares his SWTOR Beta Gameplay impressions as he creates his Sith Lord, engages in combat as a warrior and partakes in joyful prisoner torture!
Pledge your Allegiance to either Darth Joe and the Sith Empire or Spoony Wan and
Last week saw EA and BioWare’s investors receiving a few updates on their many investments.
The Disciples of Hatred and it’s Roleplayers Contingent take on some PvP in the Star Wars: The Old Republic Beta
Announcing the first gathering of the Disciples of Hatred during the Beta Weekend Stress Test! …and of course that silly Jedi Consular progression video too.
Your questions FINALLY answered! What are the best aspects of the game? Why this MMO than any other? Do we get to kill Jar Jar? All this and more in ToR Q&A #1!
Angry Joe shares his SWTOR Beta Gameplay impressions as he creates his Sith Lord, engages in combat as a warrior and partakes in joyful prisoner torture!
Much like the Jedi, you were deceived. I was in the beta test all along! MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
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Back from the Con, and it’s time for more Star Wars goodness! Bring on the trailers!
A pinball winter wonderland , the return of the Ludum Dare, and the beauty of The Desolate Hope are just some of what awaits you in this week’s edition of your best source (that’s our story and we’re sticking to it) for free gaming on the net.
Ah raiding has come so far in the past 10 years. I remember back in my early days on EQ 1, raids would have 70+ people and last for hours. It was such a thrill having an army of people working to drop a god, dragon, or some other horror from dimensions beyond.
Then EQ shrunk it down to 50, WoW took it to 40, then 25, then, then 10.
Now we have SWTOR and DCUO calling 8 people a “raid” when we have hundreds of times, if not even more, people actively playing MMOs. This dissapoints me. I keep saying I want to see MMO innovation that actually focuses on that MASSIVELY part and SWOTR goes with “raids” that are even smaller than WoWs? Why even bother with it anymore? Just make all the normal content single player and let all the 4-5man group content be the raids, that’s the direction they’re heading anyway.
Oh, and before anyone says “Well its to cater to the casuals.” BULL. When your primary raid force is only 8-16 people, your guild/clan/etc doesn’t take on many back up members. If 1 key person of a small raid doesn’t show, they’re screwed because the numbers are so small going a man down is crippling and there’s rarely any surplus or second string members to go. Even if they do have other members, they’re usually in their own raids since the odds of them going along with the “A-team” is almost zero.
It also forces minmaxing to the point it is detrimental. When 1 person can make up 20% (or more) of a raid’s DPS, a minor deviations from the ideal can spell disaster or make them undesirable. Rate that against a raid where there’s 40+ people doing dps and each person only accounts for 2-3%, not being at peak doesn’t have quite as drastic a result. That also goes back to my point about being able to miss a person or two and still get by since the impact is less severe.
Yes, I know, I’m some old fogey that likes things the way they were back in 2000 when “hardcore raider” meant you’d start raiding around 10am on Saturday and you’d stop around 3am Monday morning. I wave my cane and say “It was better back then” but while the time demand was unreasonable to say the least, the actual experience was far more epic and satisfying without cutscenes and big environmental effects. No complex gimmicks, no forced vehicle fights, no fancy tactics, just you and 71 of your best friends whacking Quarm in the kneecaps until it fell over.
I know the felling, I miss the good old days of raiding Molten Core in WoW with 39 other people.
Yeah about massiveness.
Guild Wars 1 was kicked out of MMO club and had to make a new club to be caled CORPG. And yet the standard party size there is 8. On in a couple of missions it’s 16 (missions like Vizunah Square and Unwaking Waters). Hmmm…
Why did this boss fight remind me of PUGing Flame Leviatan when Ulduar originaly came out, lol.
So…yeah. I was going to PvP anyway, I really hope PvP is big in this game.
There is, and its spearheaded by the Mythic side of Bioware Mythic, so there’s an extremely good chance that the battlegrounds/world PVP will be straight up aces.
PvP in WAR left me cold (I miss my pre 1.10 WoW Alterac Valley). In open wold PvP the rarely i have seen in lower to mid brackets any good PvP, sine most ot the time at leas one side had too small numbers to do anything useful.
That is to say I hope it’s better SWTOR.
its not, so dont get your hopes up. this game seriously is the biggest let-down of the year.
That raid was a SHAM. Go back to the part where the civilization destroyer droid comes in and look how they form up. That was so purely fake that it’s almost got me to the part of loathing.
Dost I detect a hint of resentment towards your former employer?
It’s more resentment from the instance raider that I used to be. It was a good demonstration of how the class/specialization combos work, but it leaves the question up in the air if that fight, the first in the instance, is even complete or not. If it isn’t, why show it at all? Why not do a short demo of a flashpoint dungeon like the Imperial equivalent to the Esseless dungeon?
Yea i agree. It was obviously a set-up. They where meant to die at that point, for the purpose of showing of the operation. But yea it still seems like operations wont be easy to overcome.