Now that hurdle has been passed, however, the game faces a larger one – longevity. Does the game have what it takes to last? I think so, and here’s why.

There’s A Story

This point is simultaneously the most shocking and most predictable – shocking because MMOs generally don’t have a good story, but predictable because this is a Bioware game, and that’s what the studio is known for.

All MMOs have a story, of course. The problem is that it’s generally not interesting. Each character in your typical MMO goes through the same story events, and the outcome is the same no matter what you do. Players catch on to this quickly, and stop caring. Questing becomes a grind.

With SW:TOR, it’s different. You have choices, and sometimes they’re difficult. What you choose not only impacts your collection of light or dark side points, but also can change plot points further down the road. There are still some boring side-quests, but the main quests are interesting and well written.

Better yet, every single class has its own story, and all the dialogue is voice-acted. Some players will probably re-roll constantly just to see the outcome of each separate tale.

Your Computer Can Play It

I won’t lie. SW:TOR is not a pretty game. It has a style that feels very Star Wars, but the graphics are technically quite simple. Polygon counts are low, texture resolutions are low, and even at its highest settings it looks like a game from several years ago.

That’s a bummer. Fortunately for Bioware and Electronic Arts, it doesn’t matter. People might check out a game for its graphics, but they don’t stay for them.  And for a game like this, which is supposed to draw a dedicated audience, it’s more important to make sure that potential fans can play the game.

If you have a system with a discrete video card that was built within the last three years, you can probably play this game at medium to high detail. If it was built in the last five years, you can probably play at least on low. In the long run this will be to the game’s advantage.

Crafting Doesn’t Suck

Crafting is one of those things that are supposed to keep players engaged in the end-game, but rarely succeeds in doing so. Why? Because crafting isn’t fun. And why isn’t crafting fun? Because you have to stop doing everything else.

SW:TOR solves this problem with companions. Players gain their first companion at an early level, and will gain more over time. One companion can be deployed with the player to help in combat, but the rest stay back at the ship. Using an interface window, they can be tasked with all matter of crafting missions, building your overall crafting skill while you continue to quest, PvP, or trade on the auction house.

I’ll admit this is a cynical solution. Bioware recognized that sitting around and crafting isn’t fun, so rather than finding a way to make it fun, they simply made sure that players don’t have to sit around to do it. Still, it’s effective and opens up a new line of progression that many players simply don’t have the patience to pursue in other games.

There’s A Lot Of Things To Do

It’s a good thing that you don’t have to sit around in your ship to craft, because there are plenty of other fun things to do in the game.

I’ve already gone over the story and its related questing, which can keep players occupied for hundreds of hours. Beyond that, there’s PvP, which is a lot of fun and can be entered by level 10.

Unlike most MMOs, this game does not involve PvP brackets. Instead, low-level players are simply given comparable stats (but not comparable skills) to higher-level players.  The result of this is that you can enjoy the arenas at any time without feeling insignificant. And since there is a large pool of players trying to enter an arena, you spend less time waiting.

There’s also raiding, of course, which is still a bit up in the air (not enough people have played it yet) but looks promising. And then there are the space combat missions, fun Starfox-like diversions that let players get their pew-pew on. The space combat quests are daily, and the rewards great.

It’s Star Wars!

Yep. It’s Star Wars.

That’s an important point. Not only because it brings in a lot of players at first, but also because it makes the game easy to remember. From this point on the game is “that Star Wars MMO,” which means that people looking for some sci-fi multiplayer action are likely to check it out.

World of Warcraft has recently been grasping at straws with its racial choices, choosing Pandas for its latest expansion. It’s hard to see Star Wars ever being in a similar situation. There’s the Wookies, the Rodian, the Bothans, the Mon Calamari – the list goes on and on.

Each new expansion will provide the chance to continue individual characters stories, as well – something Bioware already has experience doing with its Mass Effect and Dragon Age games.

Conclusion

Bioware has crafted another hit, and in typical style, have succeeded in a way that’s different from what many thought necessary. Rather than revamping MMO combat (a common complaint among old-school MMO players), Bioware has kept the combat familiar and molded everything else to its own preferences.  The result is a game that I think people will be enjoying for many, many years to come.

You may be worried if your computer is ready for it. Thankfully, the system specifications are mild, so you may not need to upgrade your PC – but there are other steps you may need to take to prepare your PC.

Clean Up Your Hard Drive – Or Buy A Solid State Drive

MMOs typically are not hard on your processor or video card, and will run on most hardware made within the last five years. Storage capacity can sometimes be a problem however, because of the massive size of these games. World of Warcraft now weighs in at over 20GB, so it would not be unusual if Star Wars: The Old Republic was of a similar size.

Upgrading your hard drive is one possibility, but as we recently reported, hard drive prices have risen significantly because of flooding in Thailand. This means your best bet is to clean up your current drive. Obviously, you can do that by deleting old files that you don’t need. You can also usually save several gigabytes by turning off hibernate, emptying your recycle bin, and deleting temporary files.

Another, much more expensive choice is to buy a solid state drive, as production of the memory chips they use is not impacted by the flooding. A 64GB Crucial M4 can now be had for about $110, and will nicely fit both your operating system and SW: TOR. Besides the space for the game, you will also receive a nice decrease in load times.

Buy A Second Monitor

Playing an MMO is about knowledge as much as it is skill. If you don’t know the best skills, the best character builds, and the best items, even an excellent player will be behind the curve.

Finding this information in the game usually isn’t possible, however. It wouldn’t be very sporting for the game to tell you the best way to play it.  There are many websites that solve this, but alt-tabbing out of the game is an annoyance. Hence, the second monitor.

It’s possible to buy a 20 inch monitor for under $100, which isn’t bad. But if you’re really on a budget, you can pick up a monitor at a second-hand shop for about $20 or $30.

Beef Up Your Network Connection

Network connectivity is another important part of playing a MMO. A moment of lag at the wrong time, or a disconnection, can seriously disrupt the gaming experience of both you and your group.

Purchasing a faster connection from your ISP will obviously help, but you may still run into problems if you connect over wireless, particularly the older 802.11g standard. Upgrading to 802.11n will be reduce or eliminate signal issues and periods of lag because of the standard’s higher bandwidth and better range. However, both your computer and your router need to support 802.11 in order to use it.

Another alternative is powerline networking. This technology makes it possible to connect your PC directly to your router via Ethernet by piggy-backing on your existing electrical wires in your apartment or home. It provides high bandwidth and, more importantly, an extremely reliable connection that won’t suffer from the lag peaks and occasional disconnects that can make wireless a poor choice for gamers.

Conclusion

Hyped up for SW:TOR? Feel free to share your own tips on how to prepare for the game in the comments. It won’t be long until the release, so now is the time to get ready, or put a few gaming-related items on your wishlist. Who knows – Santa might just be a Star Wars fan as well.

Image Credit: Andreas.com

And so begins one of the pinnacles of my childhood – Luke Skywalker fighting the evil Darth Vader.   I can still remember playing Star Wars games in the school playground where we would take turns playing the Jedi Knight. We would get the pleasure of beating the hell out of the poor soul who had ended up getting the part of the hapless stormtrooper, chasing him around the playground while he shouted “right, it’s my turn to be Luke Skywalker now!“”

Nowadays, you can still play Star Wars but, as with everything else these days, it has moved itself online.   Here are some online Star Wars games you could play (and I don’t mean the drinking game).   OK granted, they are not as good as the paid PC games but if you have a spare 5 minutes to kill, these freebies are good enough to satisfy your Star Wars fix.

Star Wars Lightsaber Simulator

Well, this isn’t really a game as such.   All you can do here is swing a lightsaber about which does get boring after a while.   But if you want to practise your Jedi moves before moving onto an actual real game, this is a good one to start off with.  Just choose your lightsaber from the bottom, click your mouse to activate it and then use the mouse to swing back and forth.  Can you feel the Force yet?

Lightsaber Training

This basic game (but still quite fun and addictive) involves killing droids with your lightsaber by deflecting the lasers (which they are shooting at you) back at them with the lightsaber.   It is actually not that easy to do and you lose points if the laser hits you instead. And yes, I got my butt whooped.  By a droid.   I’ll never live it down in the bars of Mos Eisley.

Jedi Versus Jedi – Blades Of Light

This one has a bit more to it and the graphics are MUCH better.   Hosted by Hasbro who make the Star Wars toys, you have to choose which Jedi you are going to be and then begin fighting the other one.   Pressing A & D on your keyboard gives you the fighting moves while pressing the space bar releases the Force (if you have enough that is)

I predictably got my ass well and truly kicked. Can you do better?

Clone Wars

This one involves you aiming your mens guns (who are in fixed positions) so that, when the time runs out, they will then fire and hit your opponent’s men, wiping them out.   Each side has three men and the first one to wipe out the other side wins.   I actually won at this one!   Maybe I am not such a write-off after all at this gaming lark.

Gunship Over Florrum

Another offering from the Star Wars website.   This one has you in control of a gunship and you have to use your left mouse button to fire at the enemy which are flying your way shooting at you.   Use the spacebar to drop bombs too if you have any.

The Star Wars site also offers other free online games called Sharpshooter and LiveFire.

There’s a lot of stupid pointless games online as well (including one I found where you have to fire at Imperial Tie-Fighters but they don’t tell you where the fire button is – you have to find it yourself!).   If you want a decent free game, the Star Wars website is the best place to go but as we’ve seen, there are a few other sites if you keep looking.

Which sites do you go to when you want to play Star Wars for free?   Let us know in the comments.

That’s why everyday computer users tend to avoid Terminal. People say that tinkering with the Terminal is not for the faint hearted. Because something could – and possibly would – go wrong.

But actually, there are fun things that we can do using the Terminal’s command line. Here are few of the simple ones.

1. Play the Old (Classics) Games

Mac OS X comes with GNU Emacs, part of GNU operating system, which can be accessed via Terminal. There are some old, classic games hidden there. They are far from beautiful if you compare them with all the graphically-intense ones that we have today. But to fill in some spare times, these ‘uglies’ will do just fine.

To access them, type in (or better yet, copy and paste) this command into the Terminal to access the GNU Emacs:

emacs

Click Enter, then continue with the key combination of “Esc + x”. Type in one of these game’s names to start playing:

5×5
blackbox
dunnet
gomoku
hanoi
landmark
mpuz
pong
snake
solitaire
tetris

I know some of them well (the last four on the list) while other names did not exist in my dictionary until just now. I tried to play them all but without any information or how-to’s, it’s a tough effort to carry out.

If you want to quit the game, use the key combination “Ctrl + x” followed by “Ctrl + c”

2. Watch the text-based episode of StarWars IV

I used to think that George Lucas skipped his early Math classes since he started the Star Wars sagas with number IV. Yet, I’m always a big fan of Luke and Leia.

If you feel like being nostalgic (and have plenty of free time to spare), why don’t you connect to the net, open the terminal and type in:

telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

That’s how far a REAL fan will go. (And if you are lucky enough to have IPv6, you’ll get more scenes and – drum roll, please – color!)

3. Talking Terminal

Still have so much time to spare but no one to spare the time with? You could have the terminal talking to keep you company.

Just type in:

say {Fill in your text here}

Fill in any text in the area provided above and Terminal will speak it out for you.

4. Meet the Doctor

After going as far as letting the talking Terminal accompany you during your lonely hours, you feel worried about your mental health and thinking about going to a mental therapist.

Well, look no further. Emacs also hides a virtual psychologist. To consult it with your problems, follow the above steps on number 1, but instead of typing in the name of the game, you type “doctor” (sans quote).

I guarantee that you would need a real psychotherapist after consulting with this one.

As a final note, I think I should mention that I tried these fun things on my Mac. But since everything described here is merely command lines, these commands should also work fine on Linux machines.

Do you know any other fun but simple things that you can do with the Terminal? Or can you help with some of the unknown games above? Share your knowledge using the comments section below.