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Yes, it’s that time of the week again, friends – another podcast is upon us. This is a big show, overflowing with news related to Star Wars: The Old Republic.
The Latest TORWars Podcast
TORWars Podcast #152: The Terrors of Nuturing the SWTOR Community: Well hello there TORWarriors, and welcome to this week's episode, podcast #152! As always, this is ...
Omg, your pronunciation of “Sverige” and “Norge” lol
Was it perfect?
NAILED IT!
I am french Canadian, give me free stuff or…
:0) Very good show guys
As the 52nd state, you should at least known the name!
Random fact: Norwegians are the best non-native English speakers in the world. Probably cos’ when vikings raped and pillaged England, they also settled in, and gave them half the dictionary and most of the grammar, the rest being latin :p
I actually knew this.
You just won’t let us forget it will you, you indoeuropeans! :p
Saxons actually who came from Germany. English is listed as a Germanic language, not Norse although they do take some words from the culture from, “The Dane Law” period who were obviously, Danish. Of course Norwegians would be included in this a bit as they were subservient to Denmark for many, many centuries. On the English Isles, Norwegians can claim the conquest of Orkney as an individual accomplishment apart from the Danes.
The Normans, who were Norse in origin, conquered England but their culture was far more French by that time, and just for a fun fact, the Norse also conquered and founded the Kingdom of Sicily.
No disrespect to Norwegians, the Norse obviously have had a very long and successful history of conquest and exploration especially during the Dark Ages of Europe.
good stuff guys. it was good to hear that there will be 15 flashpoints in the game at launch with at least 4 of those being faction specific (plus they will be accessible as end-game content as well). as someone who really enjoys that kind of gameplay i was pretty pumped about that.
I agree, it’s so awesome. they only recently (in Cata) did that with WoW. Heroic deadmines (Human, Dwarf & Gnome area) & Black Fathom Deeps (Draenei & Nightelf area) hehe
I use to solo BFD when I was uber bored at level 40-60. It’s how I made money, around 5 gold pr. run hehehehe
. This is also why it took me forever to level up to 60 on my first toon.
as far as I know, in the beginning of Vanilla WoW, there was Upper Blackrock spire, which was a 10 man and then the 40 man Molten Core. I started 4-5 months after launch, so I can’t say, but when I started, that was it in game. Black Wing lair didn’t come until I had played a few months.
and Rune:
I actually believe you. As a Faroese, I speak English fluidly without (excuse me when I say this), any weird sounds at the end like some Danes do for example. And as you know, we (most of us) are related to Norwegans. btw. take no offense you Danes out there, but I feel like there is a lot of “R sound” when you speak English. Take Danish actors, even the really good ones like Mads Mikkelsen, you can hear he’s Danish or, at least not English or American. But that’s the thing with accents. The Dutch are very fluid too, I’m surprised by that actually.
but I went way off topic here. lets talk more TOR. So you get the STAP “dropped” into your bag when you reach the level to use it? I just figured you’d have it from level 1 and had to, either carry it around with you, until you could store it in your bank, until you can use it. But that’s very cool. saves bag space
Omg they ripped off Kung fu Panda, even the racial abilities, and I have been asking specifically for a monk class for years, I even would say the word monk class to my friends, I should be paid.
But seriously Kung FU panda, wtf bunch of morons hahaha. Anyways, the talent points sound interesting, they are releasing small heroic quest lines for wow, which is what SWTOR has , and MurderBall game play which is directly from Huttball.
I mean I knew they were going to steal things from SWTOR it would be stupid if they didnt, but really Kung FU Panda, they stole stuff from a PG movie.
Sorry to bust your balls but the pandas and pandaren have been in wow before kung fu panda so it is kung fu panda that ripped off wow. The pandas were part of wow when the third instalation of warcraft came out.
And yet somehow , because it’s in prior Warcraft lore, doesn’t seem to make it less idiotic.
Ive seen this a lot, about pandas being before kung fu panda, while this may be true, you would have to be blind not to see how similar the panda class from the trailer and the panda from the move look.
And there was one freaking panda in wc3. That doesnt quite make them a huge part of warcraft lore.
Ha! San Diego Comic-Con wins!
It pains me every time someone compares WoW’s proposed Pet Battle system with Pokemon.
Anyone who has ever seriously played a Pokemon game knows what I’m talking about here, it’s about depth and complexity. Just like their achievements system, which blatantly (and very poorly) copied WAR Online’s Tome of Knowledge, this system will be shallow & simple beneath the shiny coat of paint.
By comparison, Pokemon games are built around a deep, complex & engaging Battle/Collection/Raising system that is quite simply, the best of it’s kind. (If you like, replace “best” with “highest selling”)
I mean seriously, will WoW’s system require intimate knowledge of an interconnected web elements, each interacting differently with the others? Will it introduce a system for carefully min/max’ing each creatures stats, and then building a group that covers each other’s weaknesses & builds on each other’s strengths?
To compare this system to Pokemon is an insult to one of the most popular and successful franchises in gaming history, because they are only similar on the surface. Make your comparisons if you must, but at least understand how inadequate the comparison is as you do so.
- Proud Pokemon gamer since G/S/C & Ticked off fan of Mythic’s ToK.
I think you description of the wow’s achievement systems also fits well with the pokemon comparison. It is a blatant(and very poorly)done copy of that system.
You are right of course, it is obvious to any serious pokemon players that wow’s pet battle system will pale in comparison to the depth and strategy required in those games, but the comparisons are undeniably similar.
Both games catch animals with random stats in the wild.
The wild consists of different places, times, and weather conditions.
Teams battle each other with a set of limited moves.
I’m sure other comparisons can be made as well.
/end of nerdy rant
Five of the six Star Wars movies were PG.
Weren’t 5 out of the 6 U
Hi!
Good show like always
I think the recording device included in the CE will only show some video sequences of your characters past quests and/or flashpoints.
Greetings from Germany
Thanks for the kind words about the DE interview. You guys caught this listener offguard with that.
I agree the panda expansion is a joke i rather be a sith then a panda mwhahaha
Here is an idea: make a sith, then go to pandaria and slay them all! It’s a win-win all around lol
I will say that my initial reaction was pretty much like everyone elses… But, you can’t say that women in general and the Asian market place won’t eat up the panda lol… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6upuh71CZ3k
I did spend some time in the XPack starter zone at Blizzcon this year and I changed my mind. The art is great and the monk class seems like it will be a blast to play. I personally don’t mind that they are taking inspiration from other games for their challenge / scenario mode ideas. That, + raidfinder, + overhaul of talent trees should leave me with plenty of highly accessible stuff to do @ lvl 90 (unlike Cata where I pretty much just pvp and goof off in heroics).
Ah always nice to be an exception to the ‘women in general like [insert whatever here]‘ – rule.
I believe current and previous WoW gamers will argue as vehemently for and against Pandarens as they did with bloodelves, Dranei and Worgen.
You either like the notion or you don’t. Vote with your subscriptions.
Personally I am happy with Pandaria. It’s a final straw to ensure I won’t ever return to World of Warcraft.
Fair enough … There have been plenty of gaming statistics done every year and I think girl gamers make up somewhere between 40-45% of the overall gaming population. That statistic / ratio doesn’t carry over into WoW. Also, SWTOR isn’t being released initially in Asian marketplaces.
I think this XPack is aimed at those 2 demographics. I think this xpack follows the vibe a bit like the WoW holiday events that are fun, ie Brewfest. Anyways, after playing it for a bit my initial hatred was swayed.
“Personally I am happy with Pandaria. It’s a final straw to ensure I won’t ever return to World of Warcraft.”
^^I am with you on this Kristen^^. This expansion confirmed that my decision to leave 6 months ago was a good one.
I’m having problems with listening to the podcast. Its going so incredibly slow, including the download.
Anyone else got the same problem?
TLDR summary:
No auto-attack monk (SWTOR inspired)?
Pandaren double allegiance: a balance issue
MoP launch timing.
No Auto-Attack on Monks! I wonder if this is a direct SWTOR steal or “inspiration”? I haven’t heard anyone really discuss this detail as of yet. I also suspect Blizz may consider eliminating auto-attacks from all classes: if not with the launch of 5.0 then perhaps by the end of the next expansion cycle.
I think the Monk class is not so much inspiration from Jedi in SWTOR as a direct copy of the Monk class in Diablo 3. I’m not so familiar with the evolution of the Monk class in D3 but it seemed like a fill-in for the Paladin of D2 as a group buff/heal class. Monks as a class in RPGs (tabletop or otherwise) goes back much further than Blizzard’s history. I think a good case could be made for whether Blizzard chose Monk as the new class due to it naturally aping some of the Jedi aesthetic.
I was never that enthused about the Panda lore in wow.
The Pandaren in both factions make a lot of sense from a balance perspective. I think it would be extremely difficult to make that race exclusive to either side while not producing a severe faction imbalance. I think it’s the easiest way forward without having to retcon the lore again (a la spacegoats). However on a personal note I wonder if an Ogre race would have been an interesting second race choice or even on the table at some point: Panda to allies, Ogre to Horde?
Wow insider makes a few good points about the state of this new expansion. The most compelling is that it is unknown territory. Blizz is finally not addressing major loose-ends from lore (and previous games) to motivate an expansion. One could make a good argument the Pandarens are yet another loose thread, but I think much more of their backstory is unknown and in development.
It is clear Mists of Pandaria will be one of the biggest early competitors against SWTOR. It would be smart of Blizzard to launch MoP in a window 6 months after SWTOR to recapture the more nomadic MMO players who stick with a game so long as there is new easily accessed content (the low hanging fruit). I could envision a scenario where people are ping-ponging between the two games if the companies actively try to avoid launching major content against one another.
Nice podcast Jeff ,keep up the good work..It would be nice , if you could make guild, when the game comes out.I think all of us would like to have you as Guildmaster
Few interesting tidbits I learned about WoW while googling today.
1. More than 6/11M WoW players are now Chinese.
2. Their government limits them to three hours of play per day.
3. They pay six cents per hour. Of which Blizz sees about a penny.
In other words, for every American or European (or people playing within those regions) that WoW loses, they would need literally dozens of Chinese customers to take their place. Even so, WoW lost 600k players between January & June.
About 50 million Chinese play videogames in netcafès, which are social meeting places, and people even watch eachother play, which suddenly explains pandas, monks, and the China theme.
This may also help explain the desperation we’ve been seeing from WoW’s devteam, the addition of microtransactions, begging us to stay in the game with promises of a free copy of Diablo 3 for a 12 month comittment, goldsales now being legal, real money auction houses, and microtransactions, and “pay to win”.
You didn’t burst my bubble it actually is even funnier that they decided to bring something like that back after a movie had been made, and they had decided earlier it was a stupid idea.
Anyone have pics of that gold lightsaber?
Fair enough
… There have been plenty of gaming statistics done every year and I think girl gamers make up somewhere between 40-45% of the overall gaming population. That statistic / ratio doesn’t carry over into WoW. Also, SWTOR isn’t being released initially in Asian marketplaces.
I think this XPack is aimed at those 2 demographics. I think this xpack follows the vibe a bit like the WoW holiday events that are fun, ie Brewfest. Anyways, after playing it for a bit my initial hatred was swayed.
I’m going with my revelation here, cause like many gaming sites across the web, it seems to be a ton of hating on Mists of Pandaria, with little-to-no actual backing as to WHY (Go look at at least 50% of the “Most Recent” threads on MMO-Champion for example). People are hating on it, but won’t give a reason, aside from “It looks too childish and kiddy”.
So, as to my revelation:
Any die-hard gamer needs to step back, and stop analyzing games like we all do today. Don’t over-analyze the story, don’t nitpick over a feature being there or not, don’t squabble over shiny graphics.
Play the games cause they are FUN TO YOU. Who cares what, or why, other people play the game. Play it for yourself. Remember some 5, 10, 20, or more, years ago, when you played games cause they were just fun? Maybe this is cause I was an NES-kid growing up, when games couldn’t have amazing graphics, so they built everything on gameplay, challenge, and story, but even now, I can go back and play a game 20-yrs old (or more), and ENJOY it. In today’s market, most games don’t hold my interest for more than maybe a couple hours.
Yes, so Mists of Pandaria, to many people, seems like the cutesy, peace-making, colourful expansion of WoW. When they give more details (cause really, we maybe saw 1/20th of it come from Blizzcon, and those that just read the recaps on other sites and didn’t attend/order it online, missed ALOT of details), it will flesh out far more serious, and well-developed than everyone expected.
I for one, am excited for it, about as much as I am Star Wars: The Old Republic. Enough that I was willing to sign into that 1yr Contract for World of Warcraft, so I can beta test Mists of Pandaria without “chance” involved (along with the other perks, like free Diablo 3). I want to see what it is all about, in great detail. So many people gloss over the fact that: Yes, it is a peaceful world the Pandaren live in, UNTIL the Horde and Alliance arrive. Their war brings the darkness with them, cause a pure negative force is created in their world, out of conflict, and it manifests into powerful creatures of pure negative energy, known as the Sha. That doesn’t sound so light-hearted, cuddly, and friendly.
Bashing a game you haven’t played, while praising another (see: Mists of Pandaria vs TOR, for example) is opinion, which while fine, can’t be stated like fact (which many people across the web have been doing). Past expansions have been seen as the same, stating such-and-such feature will be the end of WoW (See: Draenei, Death Knights, etc.), and yet it has never done it (more like populations have grown each time). And I doubt Mists of Pandaria will either.
And frankly, All you SW:TOR fans should hope it doesn’t end WoW. WoW hasn’t had major competition in years, which is why it seems to be stagnating. Would you want the same out of Star Wars, if somehow, WoW just fell off the face of the earth, leaving a big void (and don’t say GW2 can fill it. It’s not quite the same, being F2P once you buy the box, and very PvP-centric)?
So, the TL;DR of it all: Play games cause you enjoy them for what they are, not based on popular web opinion.
“t seems to be a ton of hating on Mists of Pandaria, with little-to-no actual backing as to WHY”
I dislike the idea of MOP because;
1- I feel that I am not among the target audience for their product any longer
2- I do not agree with their nickle & Dime methods they are pushing into the system- in wow and D3.
3- I feel that Blizzard is out of touch.
I’m 27, male, and been gaming for 23 of those years. And I honestly think that MoP is aimed fine even towards me. Was excited as hell to see all the stuff they were announcing. But maybe I am a minority, I dunno. They did not go into detail on a lot of the more serious topics, aside from “Alliance and Horde are bringing their war to Pandaria, and it causes a lot of bad things, primarily in the form of the Sha, physical manifestations of negative energy”. Now, that sounds pretty dark. And we got little details on the other antagonist forces.
Explain these “nickle & dime” methods? The Diablo 3 Real-Money AH? It’s optional, use it if you like it, don’t otherwise. As for World of Warcraft, nothing that costs real money has ever given players any advantage over another. It’s not a F2P Micro-Transaction system, where spending the money can and WILL make sure you are better (well, it could in Diablo 3, but only better as far as your own skill can take you. No amount of gear will make a bad player a good one).
Not quite sure on the last one. They are aiming so many changes based on tons of player feedback, which implies they are in-touch with their audience. The Pandarean have been pretty much one of the single most requested playable races, despite everyone claiming them to be nothing but an April Fool’s Joke-turned real content, which was never the real case. Everyone also claims it is copying Kung Fu Panda, which actually existed after much of the lore was written in some of the WoW Tabletop books (as one CM posted: They share an equal number of pages to the Trolls in the Monster Manual, and the Orcs and Humans in the core book).
The only one I can maybe understand of your points is your target audience one, but I’m fuzzy on that, cause I have no clue what your gaming habits and styles are like.
I’m glad that you like the game, and support it. I wont hold it against you….
(Kicks ZeroEdgeir in the rear towards that way)
——-> http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/
/evilgrin
[...] the guys mentioned on this week’s TORWars podcast, I am indeed a Felicia Day fan. Does that mean that by default I’m a Dragon Age: Redemption [...]
I am a long time WoW player, as well as a long time follower of TOR. I feel, that you are really missing the point here. Yes, Mists is very controversial, perhaps even a bit childish (though keepin mind it is described by Blizzard as the calm before the storm…). The REAL news you should be covering from Blizzcon, however, is the WoW Annual Pass. Any current WoW subscriber who commits to a year, wil get a free Digital DL of Diablo 3 on release, an impressive looking in game mount, and guaranteed Mists of Pandaria beta. This alone will keep many subscribers who might have let their sub lapse when TOR comes out locked in till next fall.
Don’t get me wrong, I hope TOR is a HUGE success, but never count Blizzard out!
The reference to the “calm before the storm” was more to us arriving there is all. The storm will be arriving during the expansion, just a matter of events unfolding and the multitude of enemy forces reaching out of their dark holes. You got the Mantid behind their wall just starting to leak out when we arrive. There is the Sha, growing more and more powerful and the Alliance and Horde rage their war across Pandaria. The Mogu as well work to undermine their Pandarean conquerors (despite being kinda peaceful folks, it is stated that they took the island from the Mogu tens of thousands of years ago).
The calm may well be the 4.4 patch for post-Deathwing, that helps fill the storyline, which is supposed to move things along a couple years, time-wise, rather than the mere weeks-months it has previously, between expansions. Will have to wait and see.
Should have had Chewie playing chess with R2. Fancy yoga… Wookies? Yeah, I didn’t think so either. But in all seriousness. Blizzard was completely playing for the crowd with this one. Adopting a Diablo 3 esque approach to talents was the last straw for me. I found myself looking at it and looking at it wondering. “What the hell is this crap?” Not that they didn’t bother trying to explain the new method. I find all of it well the new approach they took from Cataclysm to be corp BS from Activision to be completely lame. I for one won’t miss it when WoW is finally buried a nice peaceful death. The only downside to this mentality though is once they all figure it out. They’ll jump ship to TOR. Was bound to happen eventually though.
Hard to explain something in detail that isn’t even in a beta-testable state yet.
But in all truth, they are doing what everyone has griped about before: Making your talents about CHOICE, not about cookie-cutter builds (which, given that SW:TOR uses Blizzard’s more traditional, previous talent system, will be filled rampantly with).
Right now, if you wanna play any given class’s spec, you basically go online, look up the optimal/perfect build, plug it in at level cap, and done. You might have 5-10 talent points (if yer lucky) to pick up optional things, out of the 41 total points. No choice, no flexibility, nothing. You have so many “mandatory” talents in the tree, that if you skip any of them, you are not doing your job right.
This new design, when you pick your spec for your class, you get every single passive buff and spec ability you need, without question. No more Prot Warriors without Devastate or Last Stand, no more Healers without magic cleansing (and yes, I have run into them in WoW). If something is intended to be there to do your job, you will have it.
The new talents will give you full-circle choice. Every 15 levels you get 1 of 3 abilities (some passive, some active) to pick from, each tier being based around a theme. One tier it would be control-related, another might be defensive, and another movement. They are moving away from many of them being damage-related, so that it is NOT obvious how to build your talents. And for this, I commend them. They are giving to the playerbase (well, the majority), what they wanted in their talents: CHOICE.
Everyone has complained, since Classic even, but even moreso in Cata, that there is no choice in talent selection. If you don’t take somewhere between 28-36 SPECIFIC talents, as identified by the mass theorycrafters, you are a bad player and are doing it wrong. Where is the fun in knowing a system built around “choice” is far more akin to the playerbase statement that it is only “the illusion of choice”? Blizzard is actually listening, and making a change to give us that choice, while also eliminating the need for players to worry about “optimizing their spec” for that marginal 0.5% gain cause they put 1 point somewhere else. That nit-picking behaviour isn’t needed to have fun. Let your skill prove that.
The new talents alone are going to inject tons of existing skills and passives into it, while super-charging many of them, and then giving us a whole host of new ones too. Give it time, and let them refine it a little bit. It is FAR from a finished product (even though this is the furthest along in an expansion development they’ve been at for a release announcement).
LOVED IT! This is the first podcast I’ve listened to since I’ve heard about ToR. You guys are GREAT. Made me giggle
This podcast got me even MORE excited about ToR.
Thanks very much Tamara!
Happy to have you as a listener. =)
Hey, I have to say I enjoy you chat show I went back from Podcast #45 and i very much enjoy all of them i heard so far but I have to say that WoW has failed in this last expansion. (the whole thing looks like Confu Panda the movies) I really did laugh my butt off. and I was one of the people who tested the new expansion and I have to say the
Pet-system looked like pokemon! lol!!! (turned base and had a life bar and I really do think they stole the Pokemon idea lol!
anyways, I have to say thank you for keeping me updated but I would like to requests some information over the Sith Inquisitor Currption side.
Thank you!
I like so many was like OMG panda’s? PANDAS? If one is named Po, and sounds like jack black i’m going to piss myself from laughing so hard.
However, a POV, I listen actually made me think about a very smart blizzard strategy. Do you guy’s remember Vanilla WoW? There was no “main villian.” You had ragnaros in MC, Black dragon flight, silithids in AQ, and Kelthazad in Naxxarramus. All great raids, but none of them had a connection, other than progression. BC introduced the drive to get to a SINGLE main villian. Illidan. Wrath of the Lich King, continued this with Arthas, even Ulduar had a tie in as Yogg-saron was part of the reason for arthas’s corruption. Cataclysm, ofcourse was yet again the same thing. EVERYTHING has had to tie into Deathwing.
With no Major villian in Mists of Pandaria, that leaves blizz the opportunity for WoW to focus back on the hate and war between Alliance and the Horde. As all this time they have hated one another, but have had to put their differences aside to take care of a greater danger. Now, there is no greater danger, persay. Now there is nothing holding back Garrosh Hellscream back from going full blood rage against the Allaince, and there is nothing holding Varian back from taking out his vengence.
Also, this means that Blizz can do the Vanilla raiding all over again. Give us several different raids, like in Vanilla, but not have to tie them in story wise.
First time ever with the new race of Panderans, they give you the option to pick which side you want to fight on, till now when one side got a new race, the other side got a new one as well. No need to create 2 new racials and pray that they got the gameplay balance. Instead, each side gets the same racial, and you get too choose which side to take it too.
I am by no means, a blizz fanboy. SWTOR is everything i’ve wanted from an MMORPG, and i’ve had enough of blizzard, they have pissed me off for too many years, and bored me to death with the same old grind. However, once I came over this point of view it really made me think, and I realized that while on the surface Mists of Pandaria is kiddy stuff, and lacks focus. Beneath the panda lies alot more opportunity than you think.
Blizzard has franchised Kung Fu Panda and uses pandas to boost their subscription numbers when there are new competitors coming and WoW is becoming old and stale.
If you don’t believe me, go to Activision’s website. They even have coupled pictures of Kung Fu Panda and Mists of Pandaria. Could you be any more clear of what’s going on?
Sure, there’ve been pandas in the Warcraft Universe, but it was only a joke which was never meant to be realised, and we know Blizzard wasn’t pleased with panda lore when they withdrew from using them in TBC. This is a cold business move à la Bob Kotick, nothing more. It is a fact that WoW will become a children’s game. It has candy graphics, it has pandas, it has Pokémon, it has been dumbed down significantly.
I remember a time when Blizzard was more jovial, but that’s long gone. I also remember Blizzard wanting to make good games in the past. All terrible outcomes of greediness that bloggers envisioned during Activision merge have come true. Many game industry bloggers knew Kotick’s ways, and sadly they’ve all come true.
PS: You also don’t get a free Diablo III. Activision doesn’t ever give anything for free. Diablo III is a pay-to-play game, and the more there are players, the more Activision makes money. Activision/Blizzard doesn’t care whether you buy it from a retailer or via WoW subscriptions.
I’ll say I got out of WoW because of bs and drama, but I got back in at the request of a friend that’s been wanting me to come back for a while since i left. We’re both very excited about ToR however I do have to say there are quite a lot of positive changes in WoW that makes the game a lot of fun. MoP does look neat. So I’m not gonna say WoW is bad, just it’s fun and something to do while awaiting ToR, and that hiatus put things back in perspective
and we all know a bunch of people that work there are gonna be sneaking in ToR time with all the Star Wars refrences in WoW 
My friend and I have listened to the podcast several times and we laugh our hineys off cause it’s just great!
So how’s that success going? lolol