You too can become invulnerable in Star Wars: The Old Republic but just getting down and grooving — with the /getdown bug — although BioWare has fixed this exploit as of the 5th of Jan 2012. Also, keep in mind that looting boxes on Ilum could lead to getting suspended (or banned) from the game.

Link, via MMO Anthropology and YouTube.

Back in the early days of MMORPGs—and those days it was 2004—the MMOs started to realize that people wanted more to do than just new content involving episodes and new villains and higher level caps. Instead, MMO companies discovered that people wanted to experience in-game what happened to them outside in the global culture. So City of Heroes added the Winter Event.

With that winter event came some unexpected bugs…currently best described in the most recent MMO Anthropology article,

By far the most amusing phenomena that rose out of the original 2004 Winter Event in City of Heroes happened to be the city-region bosses the Winter Lords. These were gigantic snowmen appearing about ten stories tall, textured as if made entirely out of snow, with icicle noses. They were leveled appropriately to the given zone they happened to be in meaning that beginning zones saw weak versions and expert zones saw extremely strong versions.

Each Winter Lord boss-spawn would take numerous heroes minutes of fighting in order to bring one down. However, it was quickly discovered that even high level heroes could take down a weak Winter Lord and receive a notable amount of experience points (experience is a metric for increasing the capabilities and advancement of characters standard to MMOs) this high amount of experience also translated to other heroes in their team. This activity is better known in the MMO community as “power leveling.”

While we’ve seen multiple other MMOs run with New Years and Christmas-themed events such as World of Warcraft and Winter’s Veil, these introductions into seasonal events are never-ending and will be staying with us for years to come.

The Winter “Level” Lord, however, has come and gone.

We fully expect new bugs and more community-based exploits to take advantage of interesting elements added by seasonal events in games; although, if they arrive in Star Wars: The Old Republic we might be seeing even more bans coming down on the heads of customers.

Link, via MMO Anthropology and YouTube.

The Star Wars: The Old Republic beta weekend has finally drawn to a close and now there’s a plethora of information spreading across the net about the game. By and large, it looks like the game is pressing the cut scenes and the storytelling very hard.

The game has been described as a “solo MMO” with powerfully excellent voice acting and a strong themepark element. In fact, much of the game feels like it pressures the player to remain solo except for the intermittent “HEROIC” quest.

Also: Lightsabers.

I have a little bit of trouble dealing with combat in adventure games, but the instant system was something that I could actually get behind. Although, most game players who are used to having more control and less-time-to-think might find it a little cumbersome. The various stances and ability decision making time certainly felt a little bit delayed each time, but it did balance nicely between mashing the same button and actually picking and choosing what I thought would work at any given moment.

The real glory of Jade Empire, however, is in the story.

It’s literally an epic tale that reminds me too much of listening in on the White Wolf: Exalted game that my roommates role play around the dinner table. Something is awry with the Celestial Bureaucracy in China, the land is parched and does not regrow, and the main character is the only one who can fix the strange malady struck into the cycle of life and death.

Something that has also caused a proliferation of undead.

Moral decisions have to be made at many junctures that drive the plot and storyline which are rather readily linear in fashion. The moral decisions are not so much stark good vs. evil decisions, either, they feel more like the different between gentle guidance and harsh castigation—the difference between the Open Palm and the Closed Fist. Both of them tend to arrive at the same place in celestial morality: what is evil is evil, good is good; but how they get there differs with great latitude, like the difference between using the strength of the enemy against him or simply pounding him into the dirt.

At the end of the day, Jade Empire really kept my attention through the story. The delicate and interesting vistas that were portrayed—and there are many—and the intricate twists and intrigue that plays through the plot. It did a very good job of peeling back the onion each time I learned more about my own past, the past of the land, and the problems accosting it.

Plus it has a sentient suit of armor that actually harasses and antagonizes your advancement, and I love those.

The twists in the plot aren’t entirely invisible either, the foreshadowing can get a little heavy handed—but only if you know what to listen for—there is so much of the story told in the dialogue that it’s difficult to tell plot from general ambiance; but that never gets in the way of actually getting there.

I would play this game again.