I haven’t been playing Star Wars: The Old Republic at all. I don’t think I’ve logged on for at least a month, time gets away from you and so I’m not sure how long it’s been exactly. I logged on very briefly to check out the legacy system but I hadn’t played properly for a couple of weeks before that. I still have a subscription to it though and I actually still think it’s a good deal, but I’m not playing – why?

What’s the fun level?
Very high, I always have a blast when playing. I love the class quests in particular and the fact that questing doesn’t seem like a grind. The companions are fun and the whole experience is very polished and, well fun. I have way too many alts, and I love jumping in and out, because the classes and the game experience is so very different depending on what class you play. Everytime I do log on and play I ask myself why haven’t I done this more? Why haven’t I been playing this game? The answer.

Community
That’s what keeps you, or me at least, logging on to a game. When I log into warcraft I have my guild to chat too and other friends as well. I can play with those friends, a standing progression raid every week and various other raids and events on other nights. I log on to swtor for fun but I log on to warcraft for fun with friends. It’s a social activity and not just a game and well, that social aspect is probably more important than the game itself.

Targets
I also have very set goals about what I want to get done in warcraft and I don’t have anything like that in swtor. Before Mists comes out I want to have every profession maxed out, and every character with those professions at level cap. I’m almost at that goal, I need 10 more points in leatherworking and 15 on my new enchanter (I already have maxed enchanting on another character), and 3 more levels on my rogue that is currently level 82. These are very set goals and having a goal makes it more likely that I’m going to play it as I’ll want to progress with those goals. I’m also an achievement nut and there isn’t really a comparable system in swtor. I love getting achievements and so I play warcraft more to get those achievements.

Time
A couple of months ago I was told, and completely rightly, that I was playing too much. Since then I’ve tried to cut down on my game time and, with only a finite amount of time available, something has to give. I have warcraft to play, and swtor, and Mists beta and all these games require a time investment. All of them are very hard to log in and out of quickly as most things take time. You need to sit down and play for a reasonable period of time to get a proper experience. This means that you have to prioritise and pick one over another as there just isn’t time to play everything.

Why do I still think it’s a good deal?
I said at the start that despite not playing the game I still think having the subscription is a good deal – why? Well I have the subscription on a three month basis and it’s highly unlikely that I’m not going to log in for three months. Also it’s about £25 for the three months, which is about £8.30 for a month, £2 a week or 30p a day. That is exceedingly cheap entertainment for a product which gets updated with new content quite often, and contained a lot more content than a normal game to begin with.

So ..
That’s why I’ve not been playing swtor and why there hasn’t been any swtor posts. It’s not that I don’t love the game, it’s just I’ve been playing more warcraft.