Moving on from SWTOR
So, if you've logged into SWTOR this past week, you'll notice a change in the guild-master and name. I have handed Guild Leadership off to Silversword and changed the guild name to "Runs with Blasters" to more closely match the Emp-side guild, "Runs with Lightsabers".
Why the sudden change? It's not so sudden, actually. I have canceled my subscription and gone to Free-To-Play. As such, I can no longer serve as guild master. The game simply won't let me. I have been debating this for some time now. But the real nail in the coffin was discovering a Q&A on Darth Hater with the Bruce Maclean, the then Lead on Rise of the Hutt Cartel this past weekend.
In it - he goes to say that they have stopped all story development for the classes and will only concentrate on the larger world stories.
Q: Where does the development team stand with regards to individual class stories? Are these still a priority for upcoming content?
Great question. The way you choose to overcome your own personal villains is a crucial part of what defines your character, and once you’ve gotten closure on your personal story, you’re ready to be a key player in the larger conflicts that threaten the Empire and the Republic. Moving forward, we’re focusing on those stories – conflicts that decide the fate of the entire Galaxy and demand the attention of other living legends like yourself. You can still put your personal touch on these stories, and you’ll develop relationships just like before, but now the stakes are higher, and the experience can be shared with your friends.
Read the whole interview HERE.
This might sound okay at first, until you realize that EA had laid off all story development personal when they did that purge right before going Free-To-Play. Makeb made it through by being already in production when they decided to shift focus.
Don't get me wrong - I loved Makeb, the Planet of Bacon. And if we continued to see more content like that, I would be more than willing to keep my subscription. But at this point, with the whole new expansion *purely* being the ship to ship battle in a PvP setting...
Oh and a new flashpoint that you can run at any level because folks don't want to level through the story, that's boring...
Yeah, not holding my breath.
If they, perchance, do something like Mekab again, I'll happily resubscribe. Until then, I will continue to log on Fridays to be social, and occasionally run around and lob mortars and things on Mekab.
I just don't see a reason why I should pay to chat with my friends.
So grats to Silver, our new guild-master. May the Force be with you.
I have made the same determination. I’ll finish the class questlines then go free-to-play.
On the subject of the guild changing hands. Well. We don’t really have a ‘guild’ in the traditional sense. We have a green, private chat channel on Fridays. A guild is a group of folks that come together to Battle Big Things. I don’t think this is going to happen much anymore, so I’ve moved all my toons into a more active guild. I will still have our private motfm chat channel so all that will change is we talk in yellow instead of green.
As for Silver, I know bestowing guild leadership on her seemed like a fine idea. And it would have been if she’d been asked. As it is, she now can’t freely move her main into another, more active guild as I have done. She has two unfortunate choices: Call BioWare and request the guild be disbanded so she can move her toons or take up a character slot for an alt to place-hold guild leadership.
I know the underlying issues behind these changes didn’t directly affect me, and I ultimately can’t know right from wrong regarding it, I *do* know that now, and always, I stand with my wife.
Another option – is to vendor everything in the guild bank, then kick everyone from the guild. Once it is empty, the guild can simply be disbanded, no need to involve BioWare at all, and we can jump to simply using a privet chat channel.
As it is… when I posted this, and did the shuffle, to canceled my sub – I though I’d have about 24 hours of sub-time left. Then as I hit the de-subscribe button… they dinged me for another month.
Thanks, BioWare. Love you too.
I’ll mention that I actually do primarily consider the guild as a social thing. It’s nice to be able to see at a glance who’s on, what they’re doing (by inference of where they are), as well as the chat. Having a structure to gather people to Battle Big Things is an extra bonus.
Part of the problem here is that SWTOR branch of MotFM never really hit a critical mass. Getting a full, four-player party takes the bulk of the active membership, making it hard to do regularly.
I’ll admit to being part of the problem there. But… (rambling time) it seems that MMOs do not usually push my ‘system mastery’ button very hard. With the inevitable annoyances of doing a dungeon (herding cats at the least), once any ‘exploration’ motivations are exhausted, it becomes hard to maintain desire. (Even in WoW, there was a lot of prodding from Smudge to keep me going….)
The number of RPGish games I’ve actually finished is pretty small (compared to the number I’ve started). I’ve got a lot of mental distractions, and they’re not my primary gaming genre.
Frankly, I’m amazed you got all the way though Neverwinter.
And still asking me to long in to play with you. Go fig. *shrug*
Neverwinter is something of a surprise that bucks the trend.
I think it is because it is more of a game first, and everything else (a distant) second. There’s a better set of tools to grab on to and master, and that keeps me going better than story. WoW and SWTOR and Conan are all fun in their own ways, and I like exploring the stories and systems, but they don’t exert much long-term pull. When getting through the story is a long-term project, I’m exhausted by the time I arrive.
This probably related to the fact that I finished FF VIII, but not IX, despite the story being miles ahead in the latter. And that Final Fantasy Tactics is one of a very short list of RPGs I’ve gone through twice….
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking hard about all of this. Truth is, nobody’s been happy in Minions for a long time. Some of us want challenges from our gameplay, while others wish only to relax and coast. This incompatibility has only been aggravated by SWTOR’s failure to incorporate meaningful new material. Under the circumstances, guild leadership is an empty honor, and one that came as quite a shock since I was never asked or even informed it was going to happen. I discovered it when logging on to move my toons, as Mike has done, to a more active guild.
As it happens, I just don’t have the time to devote to building up and adequately managing a guild. As enjoyable as I might find that, I would end up neglecting my daughter and ruining every other aspect of my life if I tried. I’ve always known this, which is why I never have attempted to start my own guild in any of the games I’ve played. Guildmaster is a job for players who don’t have kids.
My first instinct was to transfer Silver outta there by pulling the plug on the guild. But with the Guild bank stuffed full of goodies, that would be too much like stealing from people. I have decided to make my toon Khaav’ren temporary guildmaster to give others time to claim whatever they want from the bank.
Folks have until February 7 to claim items, credits etc. Anything remaining at that point will be lost as I will be disbanding the guild.
If you want to disband the guild, I recommend that you empty the guild bank, and just vendor everything and keep the credits. Last I checked (since I did it myself) the guild bank permissions were fairly locked down, thanks to experiences in WoW with Thermidor, so emptying it will be impossible except for the Guild Leader. And Free-To-Play players have no guild bank access. I for one, would rather see it turned into credits than simply disappear.
With that said, I will be online Friday as usual. Just hanging and farming the Bakem Planet.