Posts Tagged ‘instance’

Rakghouls Rise Again

Your friendly neighborhood Rakghoul.

Recently announced on the SWTOR website was the fact that the Rise of the Rakghouls saga, recently revealed to players, has not been finished with by the developers yet!

Although part one has now been released and enjoyed by players across servers, a Part two (which has apparently been in the works for more than a year) is now on the way, and should find its way onto live servers in a few months.

Although the first encounter seemed to have a definitive ending, the developers have revealed that they left clues throughout the instance hinting and what can be expected when they return. This has prompted a resurgence of interest in the encounter, as players play through slowly and methodically, in search of the small items, or sounds, or hidden passages, which are promised to be somewhere within the haunted corridors.

The second Rise of the Rakghouls instance is also set to be one of the largest and longest ever yet made. It should take a phenomenal amount of coordination from The Old Republic players, and the developers say this will be worthwhile, as the rewards should be some of the best yet.

Although armour and weapons used by the majority of players are not ones looted from encounter bosses, this is set to change in the future with the developers deciding to take a more WoW-like approach to such matters. Rather than allow players to play through a raid once, they have decided to make more rare drops, so that players are encouraged to come back for seconds, thirds and tenths in order to completely kit their character/s out with the new gear. Although this tactic has proven unpopular with some players in the past, it is a tried and tested feature of the MMORPG industry, as it provides maximum content for minimal development time and expendature.

Lets hope when the RakGhouls rise again the players of SWTOR will find this latest Star Warsy threat a worthy and entertaining one.

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Rakghoul’s Rising

Not the prettiest Enemy found in SWTOR thus far.

The Latest flashpoint for Star Wars The Old Republic, Rakghoul’s Rising, recently hit selected live servers, and has proven to be one of the best ever yet made.

The mission introduces players to a host of new characters, both good and evil, as well as the Galaxies first ever Hutt Mobile.

This one technological advantage is a peculiar one, as it provides protection for the bloated beings entire body, except for the most essential part, the Head. Perhaps Galactic engineers might have a career after all if they can solve problem, but whether his opulence Is willing to part with his swish new ride remains to be seen.

With the flashpoint available to players of both factions, it has received a wealth of testing over a very short time, and any bugs present seem to have been ironed out quite early.

With updates planning to be brought in thick and heavy, it is no surprise that this is only a single flashpoint, and a dual-faction one at that. Some have predicted that we may rarely see any single-side battles again, which although disappointing, seems reasonable due to the amount of fury that would erupt from SWTOR devotees should bioware decide to give one side an update and not the other.

One possibility is that large updates may be planned, which might introduce large new explorable areas to the game, which would surely be very popular with more adventurous players.

We have yet to hear news of any PvP updates that might be coming out over the coming weeks and months, however, it is a safe bet that If SWTOR values the money of their dedicated gamers they will make these plentiful, less they lose interest and move elsewhere.

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Hutt Ball

One new announcement for SWTOR that has created a lot of controversy recently has been that of Hutt Ball, which is set up as a PvP zone on Nar Shaddaa for higher level players.

The game of Hutt Ball is something akin to American Football in outer space, a floating ball spawns in the middle of a trap-ridden field, and each team has to try to take it to the opposing team’s end zone. Although there will be helmets and armour, unlike the NFL Hutt Ball will feature Lightsabers, lasers and the force. There are evidently no rules in this particularly barbaric sport, and as such the prime tactic seems to be just blast the enemy apart then stroll casually to a touchdown.

Aside from being something of an out of place mini-game, what has also caused a stir is the fact that it will create factional in-fighting, and perhaps even encourage it. Draws for games are entirely random, so it is very likely that same faction teams will come up against each other, and be after the scalps of allies they usually rally behind on the battlefield.

On the SWTOR forums there have been a lot of complaints of this particular instance being a joke, or not a serious addition to what is meant to be a canonical star wars game, but these complaints have generally been ignored by great effect by the developers.

Beta testers that have enjoyed the instance already have come away with glowingly positive reviews, which seems to have halted the cries of many critics, however with upcoming updates on the horizon there is still plenty of room for changes in the way this particular mini-game works.

That aside, so far Hutt Ball looks like a very entertaining endeavour for any keen player, and it should give the often grinding gears within factions to one up each other.

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Eternity Vault

Recently released by the developer team at Bioware was a new theatrical video about one of the latest additions to Star Wars The Old Republic, the Eternity Vault instance.

This particular adventure will be aimed at players from the Sith Empire, and they will attempt to storm the Eternity vault in groups between four and twenty four.

The Eternity Vault is a hidden away portion of SWTOR’s own Jail planet, which was recently (within the timeline of the game that is) discovered by the Sith Empire’s scouts. Inside is said to be remnants of the Alien Civilisation that built the planet wide metropolis, and prototypes of many technologies they never got around to producing en mass.

However, seeing as it was built on a planet theoretically covered in criminals, the mysterious civilisation left it very well protected. So much so in fact, that the Vault’s defence system was easily a match for the first scouts, and activated a more serious defensive network to prevent further attacks.

Eternity Vault should be an entertaining PvE instance for high level Sith Players, and give them valuable experience and items. As has already been stated by the SWTOR developers, we will not have a return to the vanishingly small loot drops of games like WoW, with a more bountiful approach taken to all PvE encounters. This will mean players will not need to repeat raids such as Eternity Vault copious numbers of times, although it will certainly be a possibility for those keen enough.

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The Esseles Flashpoint

The main new insight into SWTOR at the most recent Comic Con was that regarding a new flashpoint, the Esseles adventure.
As one of the more challenging flashpoints, the convention gave players their first chance to test out the high level player combat which until now had not been seen by the general public.

In the Instance a small team of players must work together to protect an extremely high ranking Republic Diplomat, after his ship is boarded by a heinous Imperial party bent on destruction. Videos have shown that this will be quite an exciting adventure, somewhat similar to the ones seen in previous release videos, such as the one where our friendly smuggler saves the day.

As players learnt from the video, in large groups team work is the name of the game, which means that the grouping mechanisms of the game will be more important than perhaps anybody had imagined.

For some time now we have known of the flashpoints in Star Wars The Old Republic, but it is only recently that the true extent has been shown to players. There are now numerous encounters suitable for each range of levels, and there are many even accommodating of widely varied groups, so the days of only allowing the ideal team to pass are certainly over.

So, as another group mission is released to the players of SWTOR we have found out yet more about the undertakings of everyday players when the game is released in a few months time.

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The Battle of Alderaan

One of the most recent updates by the developers of SWTOR at Bioware was that bringing to players’ attention the Battle of Alderaan.

This is currently set up as a group mission, for parties of four players at a time, to perform something of a political intervention to dethrone the king of the usually peaceful planet. Although he currently holds the rank of king, it appears that this ex-soldier is little more than a greedy renegade, ready to take advantage of his people to further his own ends.

Players get to assault his castle and will need to fight off various waves of guards and bosses as they make their way to the throne room.

To extend this mission, I will tell you that as players draw close to the throne a large forcefield is erected around the planet’s leader in order to postpone his execution further, and players will have to make their way back through the level to deactivate the power supply for this otherwise impassable barrier.

All in all it looks like Bioware is going in a good direction with these missions. As we have known for some time, SWTOR will not entirely be a MMORPG like others such as World of Warcraft and Star Wars Galaxies. Rather, it will focus more on solo play, and working together in pairs or teams of four. This can be seen from the footage of instances released so far, as almost all seem to be completed by a group of four, encompassing one of each class on their respective sides.

Hopefully as the game nears completion Bioware will release more PvE content aimed at large groups, which would surely be popular with many players. Doing so would not only allow more cooperation, but it would mean you could take along less experienced pals, to train them up in the ways of the game (and force!).

Comparatively speaking, in the SWTOR battle for Alderaan, things go quite well!

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