SWTOR: Long live Punishment End Game(s)

Yeah so you thought SWTOR might have learned a thing or two right?

I mean sure EverQuest and Ultima Online were true Kings(TM) of Punishment Gaming.

World of Warcraft's entry lowered the punishment bar enough that players of the previous two game's almost felt like they weren't being punished.  Well that is until you entered the multi "tiered" endgame.

If you didn't enter that tiered endgame at the same time as every one else, and play every single night, and get enough drops... well you got cut out of it because your gear wasn't good enough.

So wait .. I don't have enough gear to be good enough to join you -- but I can't come and get more. How am I supposed to improve? And I'm paying how much a month for this?

Oh don't worry your guild has a "waiting list" if you come online and wait 5 hours if someone quits in frustration because they wiped 84 times you can come in and sub for them, but your not elligible for loot unless no one else needs it because you aren't on the main roster.

A lot of what I just described is of course how players end up reacting to a harsh game design.

Star Wars: The Old Republic seems to have opted  for this system as near as I can tell.

So firstly you have to run level 50 Heroic Mode flashpoints (dungeons).

From these you get 'Tionese Crystals" and Tionese Commendations

Build up about 113 Tionese Crystals and 72 Tionese Commendations and you can get a purple text Lightsabre.

Each Flashpoint gets you about 6 crystals and near as I can tell 1 Commendation.

There are however  "daily" and other style quests that can up your crystal commendation rate a little bit but lets be honest this system is designed to be a soul slaying grind.

Exactly how many times will I have to run the same flashpoint over, and over, and over again to get the whole set.

The item above is just 1 item in a set.

There's hands, feet, head, legs, chest, and offhand item to also grind.

Its sort of like saying "If I save up for 6 weeks I can finally get that new computer!" but in this case it wont be anything physical it will be little silly piece of clothing on your in game avatar ...

This is punishment gaming folks.  Its gaming focused on extremely delayed rewards to attempt to keep you playing for a long time.

I can't wait for the day someone figures out how to get people to play a game because its freaking fun! Sign me up for that one!