Operation Victory

Okay, this is actually a very awesome picture created just for promotional purposes. BioWare, more of these would be absolutely lovely.

If you've been keeping any sort of eye on the gaming world, you should have heard of "eSports". These are internet tournaments which focus on a vast myriad of games, League of Legends and StarCraft II being among the most prominent.

Star Wars: The Old Republic has stayed away from any such events until now; BioWare have revealed that they are, by partnering with ESL, hosting the very first official SWTOR tournament: "Operation Victory". This particular venture will require players to complete both Operations in 8-man Story Mode within Shadow of Revan, and the fastest completion time for both will denote the winners. Prizes will be cash and exclusive in-game items, although specifics are as-of-yet unknown.

Obviously, some queries and questions have arisen. Mainly: this is a solely PvE-orientated tournament, so will the PvPers eventually get one as well?

I would like to think so, to be honest. Seeing "exclusive in-game items" really made me think that this was the PvE equivalent to Ranked PvP - although, as Season 4 is the first Season to actually yield truly unique cosmetics in terms of design and no Ranked Season has ever rewarded cash prizes, you could argue that this comparison isn't truly fair to begin with. Additionally, this tournament obviously panders to the PvE servers. Yes, PvP servers may have their hardcore raiding guilds, but servers like the Harbinger for the US and the Red Eclipse for Europe will easily be the strongest contenders for this tournament. Therefore, a similar PvP tournament pandering more to the PvP servers seems incredibly likely to me.

I'm sure that BioWare will be looking at this tournament's results with great interest. Not only because they can gauge just how successful the players of the game have the capacity to be - although quality of gear will play a phenomenal role in that unless the second heat involves Hard Mode - but they can also predict the success of similar future tournaments.

Will they be as big as other games' tournaments? I sincerely doubt it. That said, it is interesting to see their branching out in this way, and I await the results - and what else may come - with piqued curiosity.

How do you guys feel about this? Dissatisfied? Apathetic? Enthused? Or none of the preceding?

 

EDIT: Since this announcement last Monday, BioWare have only just one week later announced that they are, in fact, cancelling the event, due to the bugs surrounding the Coratanni encounter, among other things. Curiously, one of the things they highlighted in a follow-up post was that there is apparently a disparity between the amount of players in Temple of Sacrifice compared to those clearing Ravagers. That Underlurker fight is clearly more harmful than it seems...

Return of the Gree

So the Gree are finally back again, bringing with them another chance to down Xenoanalyst II, miss out on the highly-coveted Red Sphere, and dodge, dip, dive, duck, and dodge around flagged combatants in that one obligatory-PvP area.

This time, though, there are two "new" aspects to the event, outside of its now being level 60. Firstly - if you didn't have enough before this week - the Helix Components you earn this week can be put towards the Cyan Sphere, which was recently placed onto the Gree vendor instead of just the Life Day vendor. Of course, this is presupposing that you have enough Snow-covered Parcels from the Life Day event as well.

Secondly, this event's return means that, finally, every single Conquest Event has been seen at least once. Whilst you will see people who have conquered every single planet by this point, you would have never seen anyone who has completed every single Conquest Event, and it's thanks solely to this Event's attendance record.

It's good to see the Gree return after approximately seven months. We can only hope that its next period of absence, after this iteration of the event ends this week, won't be as long.

My Tatooine Homestead

Strongholds have been out for well over half a year at this point. Despite this, I haven't really taken the time to show off my own particular Stronghold. With news of another Stronghold on the way, I think it's high time that I showed off what I have done for my Tatooine homestead.

You can click on each image to get a better look if you so desire.

Ravagers and Temple of Sacrifice: A Belated Review

Although both of the new Operations have been out for over two months now, I myself have seen very little of them. Indeed, I only saw Ravagers before the turn of the year - completing it on the same day - and didn't enter Temple until halfway through January of this year, fully completing it first only just two weeks ago.

How do these Operations hold up compared to the various alternative raids which the game has presented to us over the last three years?

General Site Changes

Since this blog was launched, everything has been pretty much text, text, and more text. Whilst simplicity is good, there is a fine line between simple and boring, and if you sought to escape the text-heavy blog posts by reading the Information and particularly the Legacy pages, you would not find any solace whatsoever.

As of today, the Legacy page has been redesigned. Rather than lump everything in together - such as details of my characters and particular achievements completed - I have finally split the two apart. Not only that, but the "Characters" page has far more detail than the old one ever did; as well as the inevitable blocks of writing, you will now find images spread throughout in my attempt to make it that little bit less of an eyesore. The Accomplishments page is still as boring as ever, although I can't think of how better to spruce it up at the moment.

Also new is the site's header. I didn't aim for anything particularly over-the-top, but it's there.

Nothing else to say; just a simple update as to the appearance of the blog.