2 quick things...

1.) Cheap giggles:

Building a world

I spent some time playing my Scoundrel on The Old Republic over the weekend, working through the class story on Tatooine and beginning the world arc for Alderaan.

The great thing about the Smuggler class story is that it's fun.  There's humor, there's great wit...it's good.  On Tatooine, I was impressed with how they wove the player's story in with some NPC's story.  Skipping around spoilers, I can say that it was nice to see a bit of the rest of the world going through its motions and the player's story just happening to go along the same path for a little while.

Feeling like you're part of a larger reality helps immersion a lot.  You can do it with nameless NPCs just hanging around, not interacting with players directly, simply being living set pieces.  Swtor is one of the games that does this a lot.

One of my favorite examples is walking into just about any cantina on a contested world.  Immediately, you know what kind of life the locals live, without saying a word to any of them.  It's a small thing, but it's cool.

Star Trek Online has a number of NPCs in social areas that are aware of which players are nearby and what those players have accomplished, and make a point to say something about this information.  It's a nice consideration, and makes you feel recognized...as long as you don't hang around that same NPC so long that you see them do the same for a handful of other players.  Groupies.

                     

Must be willing to commit...

So, I enjoy endgame in MMOs.  It's usually pretty fun, and running group content that's entertaining is a good time.  If the group happens to be a bunch of people you enjoy spending in-game time with, that's a bonus.

Unfortunately, being successful at challenging endgame content takes time and effort.  Just like improving your skill with an instrument, there's an investment/reward element.  You seek outside help, you get critiques, you work for it.

More after the jump.

For King and Country

So, recently, I let John persuade me to pick up Star Trek Online again and level a Klingon Defense Force alt instead of a new Federation character.  I'd never tried the faction, due to a general lack of interest in the experience...but life is about trying things, so I'm giving it a shot.

The hardest part is not trying to kill all the other people I see in-game.

When you blow up Klingons for so long, you develop a natural inclination to keep doing so...it's familiar and satisfying.  I didn't know much about their society, or exactly why their AI behaved a certain way, I just knew what sound they made when they blew up.

So, this has been an interesting exercise, and it got me thinking about factions.

Motivation

So, for group content in MMOs, you have to have a clear goal.  The question always boils down to "why am I here?"

In Star Trek Online, I'm generally satisfied with a simple "to blow up the bad guys."  Not asking for much there.
With World of Warcraft, I'll settle for "it's pretty here, the fights are fun, and I can smash stuff."

With Star Wars: The Old Republic, though, you have to really motivate the experience.  When you spend so much effort on a game establishing it as a story-driven MMO, you need to have a legitimate reason for grouping up to tackle a task, and for making the call to action appealing to each player.

I spent some time yesterday in the group finder tool, just hammering out flashpoints and thinking about the content I was playing through.

You're so vain...

I used to play City of Heroes.  The character creation setup gave players a HUGE amount of control over exactly how their avatars looked.  It was practically its own game...and then you could use the characters in the real content!

I liked that.  Being able to customize how you appear in-game is a wonderful option, even if it's just fluff.  It's easy to write it off as "my current gear looks stupid as hell, and I don't want to look at it anymore," but for a lot of us, it's something more...

Give it time.

The last few months, I've been talking with gamers across a decent spectrum of interests about why they did/didn't stick with a particular game, or what they think about what's coming down the line.  Basically, most of my sample doesn't like thinking about the bigger picture or how their attitudes might change closer to release.  Settle in, this one's a lengthy entry.

Blizzard Gamers - I was fortunate enough to land a ticket for Blizzcon 2011, and attended it with great enthusiasm.  It was awesome, and I'll hold it as one of my greater geek experiences for years to come.  This was the year that Diablo III was about to be released, and they announced the upcoming expansion for World of Warcraft, Mists of Pandaria.