SW:TOR

[eKo]

Been in the last 2 stress test/beta weekends of SW:TOR (Yay!) and here are my impressions.

While it doesn't break the mould (neither did WoW tbh), focusing more on story does make a huge difference to the experience. You're part of a bigger story and the fact that you can make some decisions (small as they might be) involves you more & makes your story more personal. The flipside is that so far (up to lvl 25) it's been very linear, so (same-faction) alts will go through all the same (side) quests, though the class quest driving the main story will be totally different.

They've really succeeded in transforming their single player RPG's into an MMO: the dialog options & excellent voice acting make you more involved in those quests and I didn't find myself skipping quest text & just heading to the waypoint like I do in other MMO's. There's also bonus quests that pop up while questing to kill a certain number of mobs for extra XP (they can be ignored) and some even have multiple layers which eventually leads you to kill an elite.

While the game can sometimes feel like you're playing a single player game (along others playing their single player game) there's enough incentive to group: heroic quests, flashpoints, PvP, ... Heroic quests are just group quests while Flashpoints are story-driven dungeons. Only played 3 (the first 2 Republic ones & the first Empire one), but they've all been fun and they do promote teamwork.

Haven't done any PvP, so can't comment on that.

Crafting feels really weird at first (your companion crafts & is sent out on collection missions) as it's slow (crafting an lowbie item takes a minute). But once you pick up more companions, they can craft while you're out with another companion doing quests, etc. So you won't sit in town for hours crafting instead you can do whatever while your inactive companions craft. Supplies are also available in good amounts, never had to go out of my way for mats, got more than enough just questing.

Combat is actually more like CoH than WoW really (Yes!) in that you usually fight groups of mobs and there's no autoattack. It makes combat more active &fun imo. While resource management (mana/energy/power) isn't an issue while questing as mobs die fast, in drawn out fights (heroics, flashpoints and PvP I guess) it adds a nice dynamic without feeling overly restrictive and you always have a basic attack to deal some damage & regain some mana/energy/power.

All in all SW:TOR has me really excited, the story based gameplay makes levelling a joy, so there's a lot of fun to be had on the journey to 50. Not sure how it will be end game, but there will be hard mode dungeons, raids & PvP, again nothing ground breaking. I just hope they will add new content (new planet(s) with associated quests) every few months instead of just adding new raids, but well see. Meanwhile there's enough to do & fun to be had on the way to endgame .

[Lasiien]

Sounds good, and sounds like you are really enjoying it - nice to see ! Keep us posted!

I am tempted but will probably still stay away for now

[Shi]

what are the archetype classes Eko?
i might get tempted after all
is there sth like a healer?
can it easily solo?

[eKo]

You have 4 classes: Jedi Knight/Sith Warrior, Jedi Consular/Sith Inquisitor, Smuggler/Imperial Agent & Trooper/Bounty Hunter.
At lvl 10 you then choose an Advanced Class (AC):
  Guardian/Juggernaut (tank/dps) or Sentinel/Marauder (dps) for the Jedi Knight/Sith Warrior
  Sage/Sorcerer (healer/dps) or Shadow/Assassin (tank/dps) for the Jedi Consular/Sith Inquisitor
  Scoundrel/Operative (heal/dps) or Gunslinger/Sniper (dps) for the Smuggler/Imperial Agent
  Vanguard/Powertech (tank/dps) or Commando/Mercenary (heal/dps) for the Trooper/Bounty Hunter.

The Republic & Empire classes are mirrors from each other even though the abilities might look radically different (for example a trooper shoots mortars as his AoE while a Bounty Hunter flies up with his jetpack & launches missiles). It's a bit of a bummer in a way, though I guess it makes balancing PvP easier.

All AC's get 3 talent trees, so even as a hybrid you can still spec dps and be effective (and only have a few baseline heals or tank abilities). All classes can solo, especially once you get a companion  as they are an important part of the game. I played as tank specced Vanguard & could solo fine, especially once I got my healer companion (you get 5 afaik: ranged dps/ranged tank/melee tank/healer/melee dps).

[Brigh]

Sounds good, its certainly a game I will be playing from early Jan onwards

Brigh

[Cernos]

Feckit. I wanted to hear it was crap and should be avoided

[Brigh]

Feckit. I wanted to hear it was crap and should be avoided

You can't resisit the power of the dark side Cern - you know you want to play it ;-)

[Cernos]

Yeah I wouldn't mind playing it. But I'm not going to jump in at launch, the box price is too high and I've not seen it discounted anywhere. EA are even charging extra for early access, which smacks of desperation. It's like they are trying to recoup their investment as quickly as possible because they know the game, no matter how polished it is, doesn't have the legs to run for very long on the pay monthly model. I think it will bomb in the mid to long term, not because it's rubbish, but because people are tired of the pay monthly subscription model for MMOs. SWTOR is going to be the last of its kind I think.

That said, Bioware tell a good story and I'd like to see it, it's probably worth the box price (once it drops a bit) + one or two months subs. Beyond that I can't see it holding attention. The low replayability for alts sounds like a good thing for altoholics like me

[Shi]

thx Eko for the info

I dont think ill have time to play at release, so thinking more begin January or so.
Is there a consensus over the side to pick?

Also agree with what Cern mentions, price is kinda rip off for what is basically a month of playtime.
I allready saw some online cdkey resellers offering it cheaper (45usd). So gonna stick to my distribution sources I guess

[eKo]

Don't see how the price of the box is too high, there's many single player games at that price point that are are only about 10 hours long. I've played extensively during the 2 beta weekends (didn't count, but could easely be 40 hours or more) and only got to level 25 (okay, I also tried a few alts, but most didn't get past level 10 and that's only 3-4 hours). There's a huge amount of content included and if you have 1 republic character & 1 empire character the content gets doubled as they don't share quests afaik (they might do later on, never got an empire character high enough to verify, but if they do I guess it's only from lvl 25 on or even higher).

Hard to say if it will succeed long term, it depends on what's there for end-game and whether they can keep churning out things to do at level 50 (and please no grinding dailies like in WoW, hate it with a passion and they keep introducing more). It certainly won't dethrone WoW (but which game could, except maybe Blizzard's own Project Titan?), but it doesn't have to.

As for f2p MMO's, so far I haven't played one that didn't feel overly restrictive (unfortunately even CoH is too restrictive as you can't craft, nor use the crafted enhancements which are the best ones available), which makes sense as the point is too still make money, but if I have to spend money anyway I'd rather pay a subscription and have no restrictions at all. It does allow you to really try the game and see if you like it though. So far the only MMO I know of which costs only the price of the box is Guild Wars (and Guild Wars 2). I know I sound very defensive, it's just that I think Bioware has made an excellent game and I hope they succeed .

On another note, the game was very stable and had minimal lag even though I played on a US East Coast server (some got in the general beta and I joined them). And according to EA there were over 2 million people in the beta tests. During the stress test weekend they even restarted all the servers and I had no issues logging back in, so it looks like they're going to have a very stable launch.

[Cernos]

The box price is too high because it's higher than many single player games yet there's also a monthly fee. Any single player game that only had 10 hours gameplay wouldn't get my money anyway.  SWTOR is ?44.99 preorder + monthly fee. By comparison, Deus Ex Human Reviolution cost me ?27.99 preorder and I'm still not finished, I must be about 50 hours in now (yep I'm slow, but I'm rather completionist). Deus Ex is a stunning game and there's scope for replaying it differently. Even if SWTOR is equally good, it's still overpriced by any measuring stick. That's not to say I won't play if the price drops a little in the new year though.

I do hope SWTOR does well because I don't want to see Bioware go down the tubes, they're a good studio. But as for greedy EA, bleurgh.

[Shi]

to be franc i need add, price is similar to what publishers asked and ask nowadays for big hype releases, is only i feel "changed"
used to be a huge SW fan, but less with latest movies, after years of daoc/wow i value my monies regarding potential pleasure ill get for it
with limited time i got lately to dedicate to games i feel the price very pushed, a month is not much , for me
then comes the sub model.
i am defo also for the sub model than free to play MMOs with extras available for cash, it feels weird to me and not like id like to play games, if the game is good and hooks me id pay the sub and "stand" equal chances than pay the box price and then ie in pvp get annoyed because some run 5% faster than me, just cuz they dished out 10 bucks for it, hehe
this is valid for games i'd rly get deep into, i like GW model, and i never played it with big expectations or comittment so the model in that case suits me, so well, 2 sides of the coin here

i got some friends that will play it as well, i try to get from them asap server info and communicate it here, so we end up on same server,
not sure how this works yet, are the names of servers known allready?
all i know so far, they be going for pve (no rp), my choice would be similar, dun think i wanna cope with ganking, whatever it means in SW world

Empire? Rebels?

 

[Cernos]

I may have found the ideal solution - let Santa gripe about the box price

So there's a fair chance I may be in the game some time soon after Xmas or early in the new year.

Rebel or Empire? I don't mind really, whataver has the coolest visuals! Speaking of which, can armour be dyed and is there a cosmetic outfit system so you can customise your look?

No idea what class to play, I've done almost no reading about the game. I tend to gravitate towards ranged dps (nukers or snipers) or healer hybrids than can also dps. What classes fit those roles?

[Shi]

which side has a midget race? Ewoks? ?? heheh

[Lasiien]

Theres no debate on empire vs rebels. Think about it, you're just living your life, happy and content and then these rebel assholes come blowing stuff up.....

One of my favourite movie quotes is from Clerks (1994):

Randal Graves: [talking about the second Death Star] A construction job of that magnitude would require a helluva lot more manpower than the Imperial army had to offer. I'll bet there were independent contractors working on that thing: plumbers, aluminum siders, roofers.

Dante Hicks: Not just Imperials, is what you're getting at...

Randal Graves: Exactly. In order to get it built quickly and quietly they'd hire anybody who could do the job. Do you think the average storm trooper knows how to install a toilet main? All they know is killing and white uniforms.

Dante Hicks: All right, so even if independent contractors are working on the Death Star, why are you uneasy with its destruction?

Randal Graves: All those innocent contractors hired to do a job were killed - casualties of a war they had nothing to do with.
[notices Dante's confusion]
Randal Graves: All right, look-you're a roofer, and some juicy government contract comes your way; you got the wife and kids and the two-story in suburbia - this is a government contract, which means all sorts of benefits. All of a sudden these left-wing militants blast you with lasers and wipe out everyone within a three-mile radius. You didn't ask for that. You have no personal politics. You're just trying to scrape out a living.