Star Wars: The Old Republic

Hey everyone. Another post about an MMO, but this one isn't out yet, and rather than being based in a fantasy world with elves, orcs, dorfs, and the usual other elements found in your average MMO (not to seem like I'm trash talking fantasy MMOs, I'm just so much more excited for Star Wars: The Old Republic than any other MMO out there that, well, it's necessary to show the contrast...wow this is a really long parenthetical...anyways, back to what I was saying), Star Wars: The Old Republic is based in, obviously, the Star Wars universe.

The game is set in a time long before that shown in the Original Trilogy, when the Republic was still strong and the Sith Empire has only recently shown it's true power. As in all MMOs, the setting is highly contentious, allowing for Player vs Player content that is justified in the lore. The reason I and so many other MMO gamers are excited for this game over others, though, is because of the immense amount of work that has been put into it. The entire game...let's rewind...the ENTIRE game (at least according to advertisements, let's not get too carried away here) is voiced over. This means any character in the game that you interact with will respond in their own voice, and rather than the standard MMO quest system with two options: Accept or Decline, you will be able to choose from a variety of dialogue options, allowing your character to be good, evil, or any combination of those two options.

Another reason why this game has me so excited: it's made by Bioware, who brought the gaming community such masterpieces as Knights of the Old Republic and it's sequel (notice the similarity in titles?), Mass Effect, and Dragon Age: Origins, along with countless other games. Bioware is arguably the best company in the business at making RPGs, and they will certainly be bringing that experience to the table.

Finally, this game has huge potential in terms of who it could attract. Not only will it attract fans of MMOs and the previous RPGs made by Bioware, it also taps into the fan base of the Star Wars universe, perhaps one of the largest communities of nerds (let's be honest with ourselves here) in existence! Now I realize that every MMO that comes out is hyped up to a degree that is generally unreachable in practical terms, but I do believe that this MMO could be the "WoW killer," a term used too often by the marketing people behind just about every MMO that has come out since WoW beat out the competition.

I'm not naive enough to think that this game will live up 100% to what it's creators say about it, nor do I think that it will truly "kill" World of Warcraft, but what I do see is a game that has extraordinary potential. In fact, when I think back over all the MMOs I have played, the only one that seemed this promising pre-release was World of Warcraft. So whether you enjoy MMOs, played a KotOR game back in the day, or even just enjoyed watching the Star Wars movies, do yourself a favor and take at least a glance at the soon-to-be-released Star Wars: The Old Republic.

What do you guys think? Will SW:TOR be as great as I hype it up to be, or will it be a flop? What other MMOs are you looking forward to? I remember seeing a comment about Rift, but I'm going to be honest, other than that and SW:TOR, I haven't really been keeping up with the MMO scene.

YouTube channels worth watching, p1: Starcraft 2 commentaries

Hey everybody! I watch a lot of YouTube videos, and I figured that I might as well throw out some of my favorite YouTube personalities. Today, I'll write about some Starcraft 2 commentators, who add (as you might have guessed) their commentaries to pro Starcraft 2 games. If you want to improve your gameplay in SC2, you should certainly take a look at these channels.


    HDstarcraft
HD offers commentaries on pro-games as well as his own games on the Battle.net ladder. He's a good player (Masters league Zerg on his main account and Diamond league Terran on his secondary account), and he shows games played by the best of the best. The main race he plays is Zerg, although he comments on all types of match ups, usually 1v1s.

  HuskyStarcraft
Huskys channel is very similar to HDs, although I do prefer Husky. He comments on pro games and on his own games, just as HD does, but he posts less of his own games than HD does. Husky is funnier than HD (if you're into nerd humor), which is the reason why I prefer his channel. Huskys main race is protoss (Diamond league, I believe), and will occasionally post larger team games which are great if you like seeing epic battles.


If you guys are interested, I can post more YouTube channels that I watch as soon as later today or tomorrow, but my current plan is to post another part of "YouTube channels worth watching" every other post or so. So let me know, do you want more YouTube channels or other random content? Also, what are some of your favorite YouTube channels?

Lord of the Rings...Online?

Hey everyone. For those MMO addicts out there with nothing to play, I'd like to bring to your attention (if you didn't know already) that Lord of the Rings Online is now free! The game has a reasonably sized community full of helpful people, as well as a variety of classes that,  though they resemble standard MMO archetypes, all have their unique twists. For example, instead of the traditional healer class who uses divine power or whatever else you want to call it, LotRO has the Minstrel, who uses his music to heal and buff allies. There is also an interesting take on the standard MMO crafting system where you choose a pre-made set of three crafting abilities of various types (gathering, crafting, etc etc).

Despite being free, a trait that would often speak of a lack of quality in video games, LotRO is a very well-polished game. And hey, since it is free, it's not like you'll lose anything by giving it a try!

Minecraft

Now I know there are a lot of people talking about this game, but I enjoy it so much that I feel like I should write about it too (probably why everyone else writes about it too). Minecraft is one of the most simple and yet most complex games I've ever played, as oxymoronic as that sounds. The entire world is composed of blocks of different materials (such as stone, dirt, water, and even trees are made of blocks of wood and leaves), and is quite ugly at first, I must admit, but if you give the game a chance, you will be surprised at the breathtaking beauty of much of the randomly-generated terrain.

Where Minecraft truly excels is in the freedom it grants to the player. You can walk for hours on the surface, exploring the blocky, yet beautiful terrain, you can build a house or any other structure you could imagine, you can mine for precious minerals, you can create giant caverns, you can fight monsters, and you can even open a portal to another dimension called the Nether! There are no objectives except those you define for yourself and staying alive, which, though easy during the day, is very tough at night unless you are prepared with weapons, armor, and food to fend off the variety of monsters that come out when the sun is down. Even if you die, you will simply respawn (without any of the items you were carrying) and can continue whatever quest you feel is worthy of your time.

Minecraft is a game of paradoxes: simple, yet complex, ugly, yet beautiful, a game with no goals, but at the same time, one of the most fun games you will find. I highly suggest that everyone try it out despite it's seemingly unpolished exterior, because what you find will surprise you.

link: Minecraft.net