Coffin Comics

Uhg… Khem… How I hate thee…

Sure, he’s a big lunk and yeah, he’s got a little sass, but for the most part, he’s the worst companion in the sorcerer’s army.  Aside from the never speaking Basic, (which is one thing that annoys me with the SW series, that the alien languages are gibberish, but that’s another story) Khem is sooooo huge that he’s always in your way.  To make matters worse, for whatever reason, he tends to path from directly behind you, meaning that whenever you walk up to something or someone to interact with, he walks up behind you thus blocking your way.  That usually results in you clicking on him instead, which comes to the pa-toot of this joke, that he always gives you some sass about eating your face or killing you in your sleep.  Pretty nice friend huh?  Still, when the time came, I ended up keeping the guy… lesser of 2 evils (those past ch1 or 2 will know what I mean).

Anyways, I really enjoy the companion development in this game.  I guess that’s a bit of a BioWare specialty, but you don’t really see the same depth in other similar games.  Sure, I suppose they could really push it further, especially with more individualized tailoring based on choices.  But none the less, I really like how they put it all together.  I’m hoping that with one of the “story patches” they’re promising for this year, we will get a lot more side quests and explore the interpersonal relationships between all the companions and your character.

Which all I guess begs the question, to what extent of relationship building do you want from your games?  Let’s narrow that down to just MMOs for the purposes of argument, but for me, I can see it going a few different ways.  On the one hand, you’d expect that having vast interpersonal connections with NPCs that are tailored to you and your progression would be very desirable.  This is what I would want!  BUT (that was a big but), it comes at a cost.  See, there’s only so many programmers to go around.  Time and money are resources that are not easily increased, thus they must be taken into consideration when going into any project.  The more connections, the more quests, the more choices you make with the NPCs, the more programming time is required and the less time that goes to other areas.  It’s a balance I’d suspect.  However, the other side of that is stripping any kind of tailored relationships leaves the player with the feeling that the game is pre-scripted and not a tale of your own journey.  While this seems fairly undesirable, it does free up a lot of programming resources to other fun things.  So I guess it comes down to personal choice.  I’d bet there’s a balance here somewhere, since either extreme doesn’t seem very practical… but what say you?

Happy May The 4th Be With You!!!!

One of things that is absolutely paramount to the continuity and awesomeness of the Star Wars series is the lightsaber.  Without a doubt!  However, in game form, certain concessions must be made to accommodate the MMO setting.  That is, of course, gear and progression.  MMOs do well with having better gear from leveling, questing, crafting, and raiding.  This gives an unending cycle of acquisition and replacement, and that’s actually a good thing!  It gives a lot of purpose to play the games.  But one major thing is missing in the SWTOR game, that’s distinguishability.  Totally a word.  What I mean is this; in many other similar games, the weapons and gear are obvious.  They are big and glowing and have things floating around them… so you can tell when something is an upgrade.  Visually, it looks more powerful.  With the lightsaber, all you have is the hilt and the blade, which have limited visible differences.  The hilts (am I using that right?) are way too small to really be noticed and the blades, well, they’re lightsabers.  I guess there is some distinction with color intensity, variety of colors, and different colored cores, especially with limited availability with certain combos, but at some point, there will be an end to the combinations.  Well… unless they make my rainbowed sword of justice…

So how do we go about fixing this?  Or does it even need to be fixed?  I’m loving the remoddable gear and sporting a certain look, so maybe… just maybe, this whole thing is a non-issue.  BUT, to play Sith’s Advocate for a second, let’s brainstorm some ideas.  One thing I really like about the sith assassin types is there little electric blades.  Not sure what that is, but visually it’s stunning!  Now, I’m thinking of an “enchanted” kind of look.  Think of a fiery or an icy enchant!  An enchant of undeath!  These are wowcraft references, but you get my point.  I think exterior glows, little zaps, fire, snowies, floating things, etc… all ideas for blade additions.  (obviously wouldn’t be actual enchants you add, but just visual enhancements to the leet gear drops)  Another idea would be “activation effects”.  What’s cooler than a lightsaber and striking a pose?  Firing one up!  It’s that sound, the slow draw of the blade, the glow… these things add up to be quite an intimidating weapon.  So, additional effects might help to give better visual ques as to the strength and power of the gear level.  For instance, stronger/louder/more crackled draw sounds can really beef up the effect.  Even stuff like a large flash of light or lightning or sparks on draw would be an amazing plus.  Oh!  How about effects in addition to the assassin lightningy thing like overcharged glows OR big uncontrollable flamed blades!  Like the energy’s all out of control!

Well… those are some ideas anyways.  What do you guys think?