Livestreams, Misinformation and Tone Deafness.

     Keeping the community healthy and happy, while trying to maintain the surprise and sense of wonder with each new addition to their game is one of the major balancing acts that EA Bioware tries to do when dealing with overall fan base of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Sometimes they succeed, most of the time it seems that what they measure what success is and what is truly considered to be a success are on opposite sides of the galaxy. The fan base deserves more and better than what they are being given which are uninformative live streams, misinformation and apparent tone deafness when it comes to the major questions that players have about their beloved video game.


     For a while now since Twitch.tv has really become a major platform to get information out, the developers and the community leader at Bioware have used Twitch as way to fire off tidbits of information on the upcoming changes to the game. The issue of this situation is that the information given to the public to consume and therefore analyse is painted with the biggest, most broadest brush they can come up with. I am not sure who is responsible for allowing how much time each of these broadcasts should be, but they need to go back to the drawing board and understand that 30 minutes is not enough time to deal with all of the tomfoolery while dealing with the chat function of Twitch and get out the information that is required for people to be satisfied. Twitch is a streaming platform the average person watching shows on Twitch pay more attention than the average Television viewer. The developers have a platform where they can go on for 60 to 90 minutes and there will be thousands of viewers glued to which ever device they are watching on waiting for the precious information that they tuned in to get in the first place. Limiting the stream to 30 minutes plus a few more for overflow is just not cutting it. More time needs to be dedicated to this format if the company is serious about trying to connect and listen to its players.


     Speaking of the information that is provided in the broadcasts.....well let us just say that if it was not for the internet the amount of information that would be passed by the developers would be next to nil. The Old Republic streams just have not enough substance that players want. Trying not to beat the dead horse in the room but if Bioware is more like Blizzard in dealing with the player base and more open to the changes that are coming in the game, more and more players would give Bioware some slack. It is understandable with the developer streams, that they paint the broad strokes of what is coming to allow the player to discover what has been done in the new update. However with all of the information that is disseminated by again Blizzard who is the gold standard when it comes to dealing with their player base. Is Blizzard perfect? No. However in comparison to what Bioware has done thus far they are light years ahead of the competition. What Bioware needs to do is give concreate details about what is coming on the live stream maybe not the minute details but enough information to have people excited for the upcoming changes. Rather than having the fan base go what the hell was that.... I got NO information from that stream what so ever. This is especially bad when this past week Bioware decided to start a stream with the story team and spent pretty much the entire time talking about already known subjects rather than giving a glimpse of what is to come in the upcoming chapters to the Knights of the Fallen Empire (KotFE).

     What really needs to happen on these streams is information that the player base that can come away with feeling like they got something out of the broadcast. As it was stated it does not need to be a minute detailing of all of the changes that are happening, that is what patch notes are for. However more details than the broad strokes that are being given at the current time need to be given. One of the major issues that has been coming up that players have been very vocal about is the lack of high end operations for players that have already gone through all of the content that was presented in the first 9 chapters of KotFE. Personally the scenario was already in play after this stopping point and that was the Star Fortresses. Bioware had already developed the solo and heroic versions of the Star Fortresses, all they needed to do is to develop an operation level Star Fortress which would have been easy to work with and story wise could have been the overseer of the previous 6 Star Fortresses. They could have even invented a couple of new companions to put behind the wall of the Operations that they could acquire through the grind of the operations. This would have given the higher end players something to shoot for. This also could have given incentive those who may not have done operations in the past to attempt them for the first time and move from the single player aspect to the more traditional role of the MMO. For the story stream they need to highlight story information aspects of the upcoming chapters give a more focused idea of what is going on, rather than waxing lyrically about their favorite characters and waste the time they are allotted. The business they are in is about gaining more subscribers and bringing in more money. In order to do this they have to appeal to the customer base. This base is a well informed internet generation of content watchers. They do not have the patience or the time to deal with situations that provide no semblance of information when the stream's intent is to provide information.

     The lack of information that is being presented and the seemingly lack of concern for the questions that the player base is asking for is a cause for concern in the confidence of the player base in the developers to actually listen to what is being shouted into the void. The old standby of we cannot tell you about it yet on almost every issue or the long winded stories about something that has happened in the past and not focused on what is being asked is quickly losing their charm. It is time for the developers at Bioware to start saying something like "The first operation for KotFE is in an early alpha stage and we expect the operation to go to test servers by such and such date" This is real information that players can use. This is information that if they are going to blow by the such and such date, the developers can go "While in Alpha testing we discovered a few bugs in the system or the fight has not quite fit up to our standards so we are pushing the beta test back a couple of weeks. We will give you more information on this new date." For the longest time developers have acted like politicians and not really answer the questions they have been asked. Under the non-disclosure agreements that companies put people under it makes it hard for developers to give out real good information. However when put in front of a medium that is supposed to have feedback and access to parts of information. Information needs to be provided, otherwise there is no point in having these kind of forums especially online. These sessions where information is supposed to be given needs to have more preparation involved and have contingency plans for when the really good questions that will open the well spring of information in order to have the balance that they want. Right now Bioware is acting tone deaf and trying to drown out the high end operation players by giving gifts and and hyping things that are not even in play yet. Players are feeling like the developers do not care. They really want an update to the high end content. Not something that has already been discussed several times a couple of months back.

     Real Information... that is what the players want. Quit giving the players the run around.

Here is a companion, and you get a companion and YOU get a COMPANION!!!.

       When you talk to the normal person about a companion one of two things usually comes to mind. The first being the lovely sidekick of the Doctor in the BBC Series Doctor Who, or your mind goes out to Morena Baccarin and her portrayal of a companion in the series Firefly. Unless you talk to a gamer who has played Knights of the Old Republic or Star Wars: The Old Republic video games. There a companion takes on a whole new meaning. Non-player characters that are helpful in your quest to finish the story and have certain story situations on their own. Some of the most beloved characters in the Legends Universe for Star Wars comes from these categories. It was one of the major reasons why I really left World of Warcraft. But there comes a point where you go what are you thinking.

       Companions in SW:TOR are a very important feature within the game. They are your backup either by being the one who takes on the enemy in the role we call "Tank" keeping them at bay while your character continues to do damage or healing them so they can kill the enemies. They can be a secondary damage dealer called "DPS or Deeps" or they can be the Healer for  you while you take on the enemies head on and keep your hit points from dropping too low. In the game you can have multiple companions to run around with for the story aspect of the game but you can only have one out with you at a time. The role that you wanted to take with you depended on which companion you had at the time. In the early life of the game this was hard to work with because for those players that liked to do the game solo meant that they had to find the companion that was the healer and get him or her recruited in to your group. Some classes  did not get their healer until near the end of the main story. This can be frustrating as there were players out there who were spending a lot of credits on med-packs and other instant heal situations while others who got their healer early in the game could just roll through and make additional credits because they did not have to buy instant healing packs and spend more money on repairs because they kept dying over and over. Well with the recent expansion Knights of the Fallen Empire, SW:TOR fixed that scenario with the fact that you can choose what role (Tank, DPS, or Healer) any of your companions can be and tailor the game to what you want it to be. Which is a really great thing for new players who get attached to certain companions depending on their choices and how the story plays out for them in the game.

       It is the new expansion that I am going to focus the rest of this post on. The way that the game has treated companions and some of the issues that I have with the companions. Without spoiling too much of the story of the new expansion it is safe to say that events within the expansion lock players out of the original five major companions that are collected in the original story line. The steward droid for the ship does not count as a major companion as he does not have a real deep story line to explore. By the time you finish the current endgame story line you are introduced to two new characters that are unique to the new expansion. In the same process two characters that you have met in the previous expansion Shadows of Revan finally join up with you and become part of your crew. Depending on your class there are two new companions that are important to the main story line. If you were the Jedi Knight or the Imperial Agent these are companions that were from the original story line that have returned to help the main character regardless of class.

       It is the stopping point which is Chapter 9 of the expansion story line that gives me issues. The issues seem to play out into some sort of massive situation that I am hoping will right itself by the end of the expansion. During the grind session between the end of chapter 9 and what is coming with end of the hiatus for the holidays starting with chapter 10 there is a plethora of companions to recruit and acquire. During this time there are 6 new flashpoints which need to be attuned in certain ways in order for the companion to be added to your crew. These are all brand new companions to the game with some story aspects but nothing at this point where you feel attached to them. Also during the grind time you have the capability to start gaining companions from other classes... That is right folks you are going to be able to gather companions from other classes and other factions. Heck in the main story if you are a Republic Player you get one of the Imperial Agent's Companions and vice versa with one of the Jedi Knight's companions. This is where the crux of the issue starts to gets going. In the vein of just doing a quest and getting a companion there are three companions in which if you do a simple quest you get the companion end of story. There is one companion tied behind of the special events for the game which for the companion involved makes sense again not trying to spoil it too much but veterans of the game know what I am talking about. Then there is a companion that requires either World Boss hunting or just hunting certain things in general in order to recruit that companion. Now the last of the classic companions is tied behind a section of Player versus Player or PVP, here depending on which side you are playing on you can get one of the two companions available. You are not able to get the other one as they are loyal to the faction that the main character is from and not willing to deal with the other faction. Now if you happen to be part of the qualified subscribers or just got things done in the story you were able to recruit a person from the first cut scene when the game released. Plus you are gifted not only your factions steward droid but the opposite factions droid as well.

       At this point we are looking at twenty-one companions (6 from the main quest, 6 from the flashpoints, 3 quests, 2 steward droids, 1 World Boss Hunting, 1 PVP, 1 Event. 1 Subscriber Reward,) If you have the Cartel Companions HK-51 and Treek the Ewok that takes the amount of people to twenty-three. From what I have been able to see from this point on it seems that the players are going be able to recruit the rest of the companions from the classic group of companions. If this is the case this is going to be an insane amount of companions. Doing the math real quick you have 39 of the 40 companions because of the PVP aspect of the two companions talked about earlier. The 4 new companions from the main quest, the 6 from the flashpoints, The Subscriber rewards starting next month will go from one companion to two companions plus cartel market companions which went from 2 to 5 (the three new ones are more pets than companions I think Hunter Pets from World of Warcraft). We are talking about 54 different companions available to the player. I really hope that this does not become the case because there is a lot of waste going on with the grind of the player. At this point the player at the endgame level can send out 6 companions to do crew skill work which can take anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour or so, and they can have one companion out with them while they are actively killing things for the purpose of the grind. Leaving 47 or so companions out there sitting on their arse not doing a damn thing. Choices need to matter more in the game. I do believe that there is one choice already out there but in the first nine chapters that was the only choice to be made that dealt with one of the classic companions. I hope that from Chapter 10 on that the choices we make with the characters will have more of an impact on how to get or how not to get the rest of the companions in the game.

       What should SW:TOR do with all of these companions? I do not know how much of the stuff that is out in the MMO world is proprietary information but let us say that the world of MMO's are open game and I can take what I want from anywhere and place it into SW:TOR the first thing I would grab would be the garrison quests from World of Warcraft. In their latest expansion WoW players have a garrison where they recruit heroes and have them do missions either solo or in a group in order to get supplies for the garrison to help it grow and prosper to complete the story side of the game for WoW. I would love to see something like this implemented in SW:TOR for the reason to give the rest of the companions something to do that is not crew skills or hanging out with the main character. This would give the player a reason to go through the grind with each character and gain the benefits of the garrison and the companions therein. To me this solves the main crux of the problem. The best thing they could do is not allow players to have 50+ companions at their disposal. There needs to be some companions that just do not come back because something got them killed or a decision that was made had long term effects that were not seen until later. The developers keep teasing that but that is a post for later on. If the developers were able to separate the PVP companions from being allowed to work for the opposite faction then a lot of the other companions given at this point should have been given the same courtesy.  This also reflects my feelings on the Alliance Commanders. Since the Alliance base is zoned off for each individual player the make up of the Alliance Commanders should have been unique for each faction as well. I can understand two of the Commanders being there but the other two should have had opposite faction counterparts for the other faction.

       The last thing for this post since it is becoming very long winded, is the quality of the companions that were given to us. This deals with the new companions that come from Knights of the Fallen Empire. The main story companions I can understand, two of them are former non-player characters from the previous expansion Shadow of Revan who finally became companions after a long and anticipated wait as to when they would become companions. The two absolutely new companions are very well constructed and do very well as new players on the scene. My issue is the flashpoint companions. All of these companions are brand new and have no real backbone to a story to make me want to tote them around for a spell except for just getting a kill count achievement. In my opinion they should have been non player characters that you had previous dealings with. Either on the planet in question or some other important character that may have escaped the events of the beginning of the expansion. I have no connection to any of these other companions and the lack of a story line other than background information does not help matters. I have said it is not the quantity of  companions new to the game. Yes I still have issues with everyone getting everybody and I hope that does not become the case, but the quality of the new companions that are being presented. There are characters from as recent as the Shadow of Revan expansion that I would like to know where in the hell they are at and the people who knew them best can't and won't say anything about them. I feel the SW:TOR player base would have appreciated well known non player characters join their crew rather than some no-name from god knows where that we are supposed to care somewhat about. The developers are going on about getting back to Knights of the Old Republic style story telling, Well tell me the story give me characters that I am going to care about.  Where is Jakkaro,Torch, General Garza, General Var Suthra, One of the Organas someone....Someone we as the player base had some time working with. No names just make us feel like you did not care.

       Okay Okay I have rambled on enough.... I can make a book about how I feel about the companions and how they are being treated. So I might pick this back up next time but we shall see.

Introductions need to be made.

     Welcome to: From the Datapad of the Old Republic this is going to be a bi-weekly blog on the state of the game Star Wars: The Old Republic MMORPG, and a look back upon events from the time. This is going to be an avenue where I am able to air out my grievances with the game and provide constructive criticism for those grievances. In this format I will try to be thoughtful and intelligent in my musings and hope to not act like the typical Internet troll or outraged fan boy on decisions made by the developers of the game.


     With that being said let me take the time to introduce myself you. My name is Jeff Phillips, I am a loyal player of Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR). I have been playing the game for the past 3 years out of the 4 that this game was in existence. The reason why I am not a full on 4 year player is that at the time of launch my computer was good enough to run World of Warcraft but not powerful enough to run SWTOR, so I continued with World of Warcraft until I got my new computer and stumbled back upon SWTOR in September of 2013. Once I was able to get into the game I switched the amount of money I was spending on World of Warcraft and began to subscribe to SWTOR immediately.


     The story of the game swept me away. The time spent voice acting each and every quest line all of the dialog that was performed brought me back to being a complete fan for the Star Wars Universe. This game also brought me to the fact that one of the best Star Wars Games ever produced, Knights of the Old Republic both the original and the sequel The Sith Lords, was going to be the continuation of that story and that we would never see the third game in the series released on its own. I was content with that fact as the stories that were well crafted and well executed. SWTOR got me to care about the characters in the story even the ones that were side kicks to the story. One of the best scenes in the game is based on your feelings for a side kick character. Save one to sacrifice the many or save the many and sacrifice the one. The decision is yours. I still keep the result of the decision with me to this day. Looking back on the stories 3 years later, I have some nit picks here and there and I have made a ranking of each of the stories which is the best and which is the worst but by in large SWTOR delivers on the story aspect of the game and is the real reason why I come back for more.


     As of this writing I have completed each of the main story lines for the 8 classes in the game. This feat has given me what is now called Legendary Player status and been given the gold emblem by my name in game. It was a long journey, as I said before some of the class stories were not my favorites and I actively avoided certain classes because the way the played and the story did not really mesh with the way I wanted to play. However Bioware kept on giving incentive after incentive to push on with these story lines by making them easier to level and to breeze through the main story and get that golden symbol. The biggest one was during the lead up to the latest expansion where characters were getting 12 times the experience points for class quests, I sat through a lot of the Imperial characters and the last Republic character needed to finish that side. Now through the holiday season they gave out double the experience points, so I took the time to finish the last character class in the Sith Inquisitor.  Which I have to say surprised me. The story was actually interesting and got me going more and more into the questing the longer I was involved with the story.


     As I continue to write more and more ideas pop up in my head. However I would like some feed back from everyone as to how I should proceed with this idea. I would like to take the time to write about each of the classes one by one. Temporally wrecking the bi-weekly format for this blog so I can give my thoughts on each of the classes the good, the bad, and what needed to change.  If there is enough interest in my thoughts on the classes then over the next week or so I will write about each of the classes in my order which will start with the Republic side and end with the Imperial side.

     Thank you all for checking this out and providing me with the feedback and the courage to put something out here for my favorite game.

     You can get a hold of me through my twitter feed @MirumotoTairu and through the comments page at the end of this blog. Thanks again.