2011

Two ‘Free’ Levels, for Bounty Hunter and Imperial Agent #SWTOR

 

I’m not all about the race to end game (my highest character is currently level 8), but being a little higher than the quest area you’re in comes in handy for easier kills. I’ve been completing every quest I can find, and spending loads of time roaming around pointing my grenades at anything that moves. That being said, for the bounty hunter and imperial agents that start on Hutta, there is an easy way to gain two ‘free’ levels.

** Spoilers**

First you have to wander your way to the Jiguuna Spaceport. This is just to the right hand side of Nem’ro’s Palace. Take the first right, and follow the hallway down to the end. You’ll find yourself in an open space with some ships you can use for transport. Fly to the Imperial Fleet. Once you’re there you’ll see a quest just ahead of you that offers to teach you about crafting and about social points (which I still haven’t gotten into yet). The crafting quest requires you to speak to crafting trainers and you earn experience for every one you talk to. There are approximately 12 NPC to speak to in total. You don’t have to actually train with any of them, you just need to speak to them and rack up the experience points. Once you’re done and you have your levels you can fly back to Hutta and continue on your quests.

Velours, Imperial Agent #SWTOR

I’ve been taking my time in SWTOR, especially since I know nothing about the world. After visiting with the guy pictured above a few times, I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t especially like the Hutt. I suppose that’s not very surprising for a race that seems to thrive on greed and gluttony. My nick name in game is ‘the red blade’ and I think it’s fitting that my Cyborg has red hair to match. I played a Bounty Hunter for a bit yesterday but it didn’t appeal to me as much as the Imperial Agent, so I created a new one (the old one wasn’t on my account). Ah, that’s right, I’ve also got my own account already. It didn’t take long. Even if I only play for a month or two I’ll have gotten my money’s worth.

The voice acting and stories continue to suck me in. I can’t stress enough how refreshing it is to have choices that not only affect my character but affect the responses from NPC. This morning I received mail from a father who was grateful to me for allowing him to escape the planet with his son. See, when I first did the quest I killed the father in front of the kid, and I felt so bad after watching this kid burst into tears that I really wished there was some sort of rewind button. While I’ve been doing these quests I haven’t paid any attention to the little symbol that shows up indicating whether the response will give you points in light or dark. I’ve just been responding with whatever my gut told me was the ‘right’ answer for my character. In all of the quests I’ve done so far that was the only answer that I regretted giving, and wished I could have done differently. This time around I made sure not to kill the boys father. Of course it meant lying to his wife but she didn’t seem that nice anyhow.

Why would a member of the Empire care about being ‘nice?” Well. I’ve been thinking about that. It’s exactly as the introduction movie indicates. Revenge. Revenge fuels my character, Velours. She was told by her grandmother (I haven’t decided if it’s true or not) at a young age that her parents were killed by Jedi. Sure, that’s like saying a monk wiped out an entire town, but hey why would her grandmother lie to her. So Velours doesn’t see the Empire as being evil at all, and she doesn’t feel the need to be unnecessarily cruel  to those around her. It doesn’t matter if someone is ‘good’ or ‘evil’ there is always the potential for one or the other. Anyhow. Yeah. I’ve been working on a back story for her. It’s difficult but fun to create.

I’ve inched my way to level 8, and killed a bunch of thugs who were trying to figure out what I was doing in town. Always pleasant to walk into your own room and find a few undesirables rummaging around in your personal belongings. Needless to say, they didn’t stick around.

I hope everyone has been having a wonderful weekend, no matter where you have found yourself. As always, happy gaming!

So About That Game I Wasn’t Going To Play… #SWTOR

I didn’t mean to. My finger slipped! Some how I found myself typing in the user name and password to my other half’s account, and before I knew what had happened, I had created a Chiss Imperial Agent. Before today I didn’t even know what a Chiss was. In fact before today there were many things I didn’t know. Like the fact that Anakin is Darth Vader. Or that the Empire is the bad guys (technically) and the Republic is the good guys. I’ve only seen one Star Wars movie, and apparently it was “the wrong one” to watch (I think it was episode one, and the one that’s labeled episode one, not the REAL episode one). I’m working on fixing that as we speak.

All of my posts involving SWTOR (and I don’t know how many there will be, I don’t have my own account and I’m leery of purchasing a copy of the game for myself) will no doubt have many errors and come from the perspective of someone who is still learning so please have a little patience.

Anyhow.

I created a Chiss. Character creation followed the path of every other MMO out there, and I found the options a bit limiting. It felt odd to go back to a race / class restriction after going without in many games, but I assume that this is due to the ‘laws’ of Star Wars. After browsing through the class options (which I knew absolutely nothing about) I decided to just go with an Imperial Agent, which is a sniper type class (so far at least). I get to use rifles, and I throw bombs and for the first 7 levels at least I’ve taken great delight in hiding behind every little object on the ground while I pick off mobs one at a time.

The story so far is fantastic. I love having options in my responses and I love that they influence my character. I also love the voice acting. I may not know anything at all about Star Wars, but I do know about MMOs, and I know what I like and don’t like. So far, I like this.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Holiday Events In Our Games of Choice #MMORPG #EQ2 #WoW #Rift #W101 #GW

Hard to believe that today is already December 15th – where does the time go! My apologies for those who may have been trying to access MmoQuests these past few days. My host was hacked and so the site has been less-than-stable while they resolved issues. It looks like everything is a-go now, so I should be able to get back to posting here on a regular basis, so long as something shiny doesn’t come along and distract me along the way.

There are numerous holiday festivals taking place in MMOs this time of year, and I love hearing about them all. A few of my favorites happen in Guild Wars, Wizard 101, EverQuest 2, Rift, and of course World of Warcraft. That by no means lists all of the events out there though, so make sure you take a peek into your GoC (game of choice) and take part in the yearly events (if there are any, not all games have these).

Dragon Flight (my Argent Dawn alliance based guild) managed to take down a few more encounters in some Outlands raids last week. This was quite a feat for us because we’re still only three people (actually, now we’re five, but two of them are too small to participate in these raids). We’ve been doing them for appearance gear and my shaman won herself a pair of neat shoulders that have a graphic of glowing broken up molten infused rocks.

Aside from that I’ve been working on leveling both a DeathKnight and a Druid. The druid managed to grasp on to level 62 tonight, and the DK is 61. I do have a recruit a friend account, so they’ve only got a few hours played if that. While getting to ‘end game’ is not everything, I’ve taken my time and enjoyed the ride on a handful of alts and this time I just wanted to get to Cataclysm content.

In true nomadic gamer style I haven’t really settled on a ‘main’ although I tend to play my shaman more than my other characters. I also spent some time playing Plants vs. Zombie, and Skyrim. The majority of my friends are all playing SWTOR – and it’s been really hard to hold out and not just pre-order the game for myself. In fact, there is a copy in the house, belongs to my other half. He’ll be playing and I can make a character on his account and play while he’s at work to see if the story actually does suck me in as everyone says it will. A few friends have pointed out that Star Wars has very little to do with ‘space’ and has far more to do with fantasy and magic, which is a big point in its favor (for me at least). I even sat down to try to watch the Star Wars movies today, so who knows, give it some time and perhaps that will be my GoC.

In sadder news, Beckett MOG shut its doors today. For those who don’t know I’ve been writing MMO related articles for them for a number of years now, as well as moderating their forums and writing news articles for the web site. They just weren’t pulling in enough money (or so I assume) and in this age of digital media, it’s not a big surprise. I hope that everyone who is now searching for new work (I’m looking at you, Jason) finds the job of their dreams, and I personally am incredibly thankful for the experience I’ve gained while working there.

As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

 

So Very Excited About A Game I Won’t Be Playing #SWTOR

 

I have to admit, I’m feeling pretty left out. See, a lot of my good gaming friends are playing SW:TOR as we speak, reserving their character names and making their claim to servers and guilds while I sit here writing this blog post, looking at my usual ‘GoC’ (game of choice) wondering “Why didn’t I pre-order?!” and then remembering that I really just don’t enjoy science fiction, and I don’t know anything at all about Star Wars (or Star Trek). It has taken ALL of my willpower not to give in and blow $60 on a game that I know from the get-go doesn’t interest me, because guess what, my friends are fantastic at sharing their excitement for all things shiny and new. I think the fact that they’re making me so excited about a game that I know doesn’t actually interest me at its core is amazing.

So as I browse through my twitter stream, my RSS, and my G+ feed, I hope you all have an amazing time and keep that excitement spilling over to us non-players! I really hope the game has an incredibly long life span, and I hope the guilds that I see forming up last longer than the ones that I saw in Rift (no offense to Rift, great game, but didn’t have the staying power we all wished was there). I’m looking forward to reading numerous blog posts about the early access, and I hope the official launch on the 20th goes as smooth as everyone wants it to. Just because I’m not playing it, doesn’t mean I want it to fail! Keep the excitement coming, folks!

As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!