Sw:tor

[AsheMan]

So the release date is December 20, 2011, just in time for the Christmas season. I'll be buying it or ask for it as a present. Unfortunately, I always visit family over the holidays and won't be able to spend that time diving into SWTOR.

In general, SWTOR seems like it's going to be a fairly standard MMO in terms of combat, quests, and gear. The graphics are better than most other MMOs. The full voice acting is superior when compared to any other MMO. The dialogue wheel is interesting, but I'm unsure if your choices really effect the game.

I haven't seen much regarding space combat, but it sounds like it will be fairly linear like a Starfox mission (if any of you played that game).

Each side only has four classes, and I think they went the route of Warhammer Online and the opposing faction's classes somewhat mirror each other to try and keep a balance in PVP. Hopefully it's done better than what Warhammer offered.

My biggest worry about SWTOR is that it will be so similar to other MMOs, that I'll devour the content within a month or two and get bored of the game. We'll see.

I'm expecting massive initial sales, possibly record breaking, and then followed by a steady decline as people max out and quit. Hopefully I'm wrong. I'd love nothing more than an MMO to reinvigorate my feelings towards the genre. It's been way too long since I've played an MMO that felt like it could be my home for a substantial amount of time.

[Fozzik]

If anyone would be interested in contributing to the site... by keeping up on the SW:TOR news and posting it to our news page, let me know. :)

[tdewey10]

My biggest worry about SWTOR is that it will be so similar to other MMOs, that I'll devour the content within a month or two and get bored of the game. We'll see.

Yep. In the end the SW fans will be the ones that remain - there just doesn't seem to be a ton of 'game' there for folks who like exploring. Fortunately for Bioware/LA there are a lot SW fans.

I'll buy it and play it - but I don't see it lasting more than two months on my comp (time to maxlevel).

[mmorpeegee]

I'm not even planning on trying it, but I'll be interested to hear what you guys say about it.

[mmorpeegee]

Hmm I might have to change my tune... I have heard some really good things about this. I basically had about 0 to 1% interest in this game but after talking to some guy earlier who is in beta, it got me pretty excited. He said that it is very story driven and all the quests are full voiced... He said it gives such a great feel like you are playing a gigantic RPG rather than a bunch of 'skip the txt' MMO quests. And he said there are dark and light choices that affect the game.

But most importantly of all (to me at least), he said the combat is great. He said there is no autoattack and that it's really interactive and fun.

I guess I shouldn't have ignored it after all. Although it's much nicer hearing breaking news that a new MMO is awesome, rather than following one closely for years and then finding out it's a piece of crap :P

[perfect]

...He said it gives such a great feel like you are playing a gigantic RPG rather than a bunch of 'skip the txt' MMO quests. And he said there are dark and light choices that affect the game....

This is about it's only saving grace. Would have been a much better single player game.

[AsheMan]

This is about it's only saving grace. Would have been a much better single player game.

But single player games rarely charge monthly subscriptions. :(

[Fozzik]

But single player games rarely charge monthly subscriptions. :(

That's probably the thing that most concerns me about the game. It really seems like BioWare just made a good single-player game, then added in a shoddy copy of their wow formula interpretation so they could keep people around and grinding and charge them a monthly fee.

The fact that they seem to often use the single-player RPG elements to "fix" (read: band-aids) issues with the MMORPG elements makes me think they went about this all the wrong way from the outset.

"We just copied the same crappy crafting right over in a simplified, extra-grindy form...but don't worry! You can have your companions do it for you!"

That sort of thing just seems like lazy or idiotic design. My sense is that the same old stale WoW-formula MMORPG lumps and warts are going to poke through before too long, and players are going to find it drags down the RPG experience to the point where it's not worth the subscription fee for more than a month or two.

Real social play seems even more repressed than is typical for a WoW-formula MMO in this design...this too will lead to less retention. The players who stick around long-term will probably do so for the same reason that most pre-ordered the game... It's Star Wars. Some people will take a lot of BS in order to be part of a beloved franchise. Personally, people making crappy products out of franchises I like just makes me want to give them my money even less. Transformers is one of my favorite franchises of all time...and I didn't see the most recent movie at all (and don't plan to).

[mmorpeegee]

That is silly because their monthly fee isn't even going to make them much money if people don't stick around. Even though I had a lot of fun in Rift, I only played for one month... So it wasn't even a subscription, I just bought the game and got a month included and that's it. So they didn't make very much money off me, or my friends. AoC was the same, so was WoW in fact. I think with Vanguard I probably paid for about 3 months so that at least achieved something, but not much.

So they may as well just make a single player game because they aren't going to make any more money off me unless they can keep me playing for many months. The only one to do that so far has been EQ and that was about 10 years ago.

[akinggold]

Hello,the new world.

[perfect]

So strange. They want you uninstall the Beta client so that you can install the Live client when you get it.

Every Beta I've done has patched the Beta Client to the Live Client upon launch. Why are they being obtuse?

[AsheMan]

So strange. They want you uninstall the Beta client so that you can install the Live client when you get it.

Every Beta I've done has patched the Beta Client to the Live Client upon launch. Why are they being obtuse?

The beta made us download the 30gb file several times during the various stages of testing. It doesn't surprise me that they want us to do it again.

[perfect]

The beta made us download the 30gb file several times during the various stages of testing. It doesn't surprise me that they want us to do it again.

That makes sense as they move from test subject to test subject.

It makes no sense not to patch the Beta to a Live version. Also also wik, that means everyone who has a Digital Download will be clogging the tubes trying to download it for the Headstart.

[AsheMan]

There was an update on the SWTOR forums and it said if you played in the beta AFTER Nov. 25th then you can keep the client and just update to the new one. If you're like me and only played in previous betas then you need to uninstall and get the new client.

[perfect]

There was an update on the SWTOR forums and it said if you played in the beta AFTER Nov. 25th then you can keep the client and just update to the new one. If you're like me and only played in previous betas then you need to uninstall and get the new client.

Thanks, AsheMan.

[perfect]

So, here we are a week away from Head Start and no information about when Head Start will...start? I'd like to know if I'm in the five, four, three, two, or one day HS wave so that I can plan my sic...vacation time appropriately.

[dabble]

I'm really excited to play now. Downloaded it last night, but... I have to wait until the 25th ;) I'm actually excited about Christmas Day for the first time in years. Want to bring back some Christmas magic? Try doing this one year.

[mmorpeegee]

How are you guys liking this so far? I've seen a few really positive reviews!

[Fozzik]

I've been playing since launch, both solo and duo'ing with my wife. I know the game considerably better now than I did during my short time in beta, but I would say my opinion hasn't changed (check out my blog for my long beta review). It's a decent single-player RPG with a badly implemented WoW clone attached.

It's an enjoyable experience as a solo player, and probably worth the price of the box and a few months' sub price to work your way through a few of the class story lines. The worlds, sounds, and graphics are well done overall, and quite immersive with many little touches that really make it Star Wars.

The negative elements are many... The amount of bugs continues to surprise me, considering the budget, manpower, and safe-route design, but I haven't run into any game-breaking issues. I'm also somewhat shocked at many of the elements that were borrowed from WoW's formula years ago...without the improvements that Blizzard has made in those in-between years.

Zone design and quest hubs are very poorly laid out, forcing a TON of running back and forth, and sometimes causing one to completely miss some quests until it's too late, even in starting areas. The zones start to get really large as you move up to the higher level worlds...so the amount of travel (even using the "fast" taxi routes) gets to be quite annoying. There's literally no way to play without going back and forth constantly.

There appears to be no phasing at all...so even the biggest world-altering changes you supposedly make in your story are gone after a quick respawn or stepping out of each mini-instance. I absolutely hate spending hours liberating a factory, culminating in a big climax against a boss...and then having to fight my way back out against the same trash I supposedly whiped out. Oh yeah, I guess I can just port back to base and pretend. =/

Skills are a pain, because you're forced to run back to a trainer every single level to train each new ability and each new rank of your old abilities. Gear is very complicated with mods and augments, even from an early level, and there are a ton of stats to try and figure out without much clear indication of what they do or why. Just to give a bit of an idea...you can get gear as rewards from quests, you can get commendation points to get gear and mods, you can get grouping points to get gear and mods, you can get light side or dark side points to get gear and mods, plus you can get gear from companions crafting. I'm probably leaving something out (PvP points for gear and mods?). But after all that, you still have decide whether it's better to take the upgrade when a new piece of gear arrives, or stick with what you have and augment it. Also needing to outfit your companions means an even greater level of complexity and things to keep track of, and the UI is pretty poor in this department - not intuitive - and sometimes makes things worse.

Combat and class mechanics are in general very mediocre, and sometimes bad. They chose to go the route of the global cooldown, and then they also chose to go with tons of skills with longer cooldowns. At level 25 I have more than thirty abilities on bars cluttering my screen. This is made worse by the fact that basically all mobs are linked in groups of 3, 4, or 5, and special or elite mobs are EVERYWHERE.

I find myself forced in most fights to basically hit every skill, regardless of order...and if a fight lasts too long you're in big trouble... mashing your basic attack and waiting for cooldowns. I very often find the combat to be less responsive than other games...I sometimes find myself mashing buttons two or three times before a skill activates (likely due to individual or global cooldowns, plus stuns and other things that make it even more awkward).

So encounters tend to last long enough where you run out of buttons to push...and most classes have a pretty limited amount of AoE. Instead of any kind of tactics (other than a few basic combinations of certain skills which play off of each other), combat is a jerky, halting experience where you are watching your UI much more than I would like and where combat is often decided by whether you remember to hit ALL of your buttons (in no particular order). Maybe that's some folks' cup of tea...but not mine.

Duo'ing (or grouping outside of the designated instances / areas) is just a flat out pain in the ass. It would take too many words to explain...but it's a mish-mosh of tons of barriers. Basically, you'll need to play the same class and stay right at the same point in the story if you want to play together, and you are still forced to split up and solo on a very regular basis. If you step out of the story track and just go kill some mobs or do the daily group quests....you will likely outlevel your current point in the story and have to deal with trivial content to catch things up.

[mmorpeegee]

Thanks for all the info! Sounds like one to miss from my POV. Although I think my Star Wars fanatic friends should probably give it a shot. I probably would do as well if I had nothing else to play, but VG is serving me well for now, and hopefully GW2 soon!

[Fozzik]

One little element that I didn't mention that is new to me and nicely immersive...quest mobs send you mail a while after you finish their part of the story, giving you updates and sometimes little extra rewards. Very cool.

[Fozzik]

I think I jinxed myself by saying I hadn't experienced any gamebreaking bugs. My wife and I had an extremely frustrating experience last night...and I'm guessing that a couple more nights like that will have both of us canceling our subscriptions before they even start.

The first issue was definitely a very frustrating bug. The second was just piss poor design by BioWare.

My wife and I were working on a Heroic (2+ person) instance. The quest for the instance had objectives to kill five bosses. We spend about 45 minutes clearing trash and killing the bosses, including killing the final boss which was very tough and required several tries to defeat. As we were leaving the instance, I noticed that I hadn't received credit for killing one of the lesser bosses.

My wife's quest tracker showed that she had completed all objectives and could turn the quest in. My quest tracker showed one boss left to kill. We had been together the entire time, and the boss in question was one that I killed myself (my wife died during the fight and I tanked the boss the last few seconds and was standing right in front of it when it fell). For some reason...no credit.

Now at this point I probably should have petitioned a GM. The boss was gone from the instance (because I KILLED HIM), so there was no way we could kill him again to complete my quest. Being the idiot that I am, I thought that maybe resetting the instance would respawn the boss, but keep our quest objectives the same... we reset the instance...it did respawn everything...but it also reset both of our quest objectives. ARGH! 45 minutes of not overly fun game play down the drain.

So, rather than do everything over again, we decide to make the ridiculously long run back to turn in some other quests, sell our loot, and get new skills. When we reached the NPC for our central storyline class quest, my wife completed the quest without realizing that her inventory was full. A message popped up telling her to clear some space in her inventory to accept the reward...but the follow-on quest also popped up at the same time. She accepted the follow on quest without thinking.

OOPS! After clearing some space in her inventory, she realized that accepting the follow-on quest left her no way at all to get the reward for the previous quest. She thought that maybe if she abandoned the follow-on quest, the NPC would reset and she'd be able to get the reward. Nope. After abandoning the follow-on quest and existing the instance, she's now locked out of the personal instance and has no central storyline quest at all. SO...she can't continue the main story of the game until she petitions a GM and is allowed to re-enter the instance and accept the follow on quest.

Now obviously some of this was our own dumb fault for not contacting a GM right away when we had issues, and not recognizing the correct thing to do in every situation...but it doesn't make the issues any less frustrating, and it doesn't change the fact that there are some very glaring issues with the design if you can miss out on rewards and lock yourself out of your own personal storyline simply because your inventory was full.

How hard would it have been to use in-game mail? If your inventory was full when you complete a quest, it shouldn't provide the follow-on until you get the reward...and it should give you the option of either clearing some space in your inventory, or having the reward mailed to you. Am I a game design genius? No...it should be common sense.

[mmorpeegee]

That sucks. It's interesting how game after game, year after year, company after company, they all have to design the exact same systems....

I remember this happening in AoC beta and eventually they added an overflow so if you got a quest reward when your inventory was full, it went to a little button next to your map or something, and you just claimed it later. I've seen similar issues in other games too.

Not only does SWTOR sound a bit buggy in some ways (not giving you the reward when you should have), but it's funny (not really) that all these games have to go through the same things and us players have to suffer the same things if they didn't get it right. It makes me wish that there will come a time when companies buy and sell more of their technologies and stop trying to take it all on themselves. I remember various companies courted Sigil Games Online when they saw their character creation system, and there was some talk that they might sell it for use in other games. And of course there are things like SpeedTree which are used often in gaming. I also read recently that the entire engine made for Rift, is for sale/license to other companies. I think that is really great and would be great for gaming! Rift had its faults, but none of them were in the engine. The game was rock solid, everything worked and looked good and felt good. The only issue I had was lack of content and it being too easy.

But just imagine if some company comes along and instead of spending countless millions designing and making a whole new engine, they just buy a previous engine for a few million and then spend the rest of their budget making tons of great content. I can dream.

[AsheMan]

Fozz, that sucks.

I played for a few days of headstart and the first day of release, but then I went home for the holidays. I've been back since Thursday and haven't had any desire to play SWTOR at all. I actually fired it up last night, completed one mission, and logged off. It just feels like I'm doing the typical MMO routine and I've only played a few days, doh!

[perfect]

...hopefully GW2 soon!

SW:TOR is a great game to hold you over until GW2 comes out.

[dabble]

I've got to say that I'm really enjoying SWTOR. Got my horribly evil Sith Sorc up to 20 in the last couple of days. Space combat is pants though.

[perfect]

...Space combat is pants though.

I don't know what this means.

I really like the space combat, though I wish there were about a bazillion more different missions.

[Fozzik]

pants = sucks hard, bad, horrible, that sort of thing

I'm enjoying the game overall, as well...but I know I'm not going to stick with it...so my wife and I can enjoy it in a very shallow way and just overlook a lot of the frustrations / design choices that would probably be game killers if we were planning to stay long-term.

I did my first crew skills last night (crafting / gather by proxy). And I made my trooper's laser blue! fun stuff.

I'm pretty sure it's the most amazing time / money sink I've ever seen in an MMORPG, though. Companions are definitely a neat mechanic all around...but it doesn't cover up the monstrous grind very effectively for me.

Can you imagine doing crafting in WoW if every time you gathered anything, it cost 20 gold and took 3 minutes? Then, every time you did even a basic single combine, it took 60 seconds? 0_o I would stab my eyes out if I had to do it for any length of time.

[perfect]

...I'm pretty sure it's the most amazing time / money sink I've ever seen in an MMORPG, though. Companions are definitely a neat mechanic all around...but it doesn't cover up the monstrous grind very effectively for me.

Can you imagine doing crafting in WoW if every time you gathered anything, it cost 20 gold and took 3 minutes? Then, every time you did even a basic single combine, it took 60 seconds? 0_o I would stab my eyes out if I had to do it for any length of time.

Once you get your ship and your second companion, the time issue becomes transparent. You just send your second through fifth companions out to gather or make stuff while you continue to level in the field with your preferred combat companion.

The money issue does not go away. I'm torn on this. I'm a *huge* believer in massive money sinks in game but this seems a little excessive.

[mmorpeegee]

Wow it's amazing that space combat is in an MMO :D I just looked it up on youtube. It looks kinda like a game I used to play as a kid called Rebel Assault, one of the first CD-Rom games I think. I can imagine it would become a grind though if there aren't many missions.

Nice step towards a varied MMO future though! I imagine some day we will be questing on the planet and then take off in our own ship and fly in to space and have full on battles like that Xwing game series. *Drool* Hope I'm still alive when that finally happens :P

[perfect]

...fly in to space and have full on battles like that Xwing game series. *Drool* Hope I'm still alive when that finally happens :P

SW:G had fully controllable space combat, I believe.

Also, please, PLEASE let there be a company with some balls to make X-Wing vs TIE Fighter 2012.

[mmorpeegee]

SW:G had fully controllable space combat, I believe.No way! I can't believe how much I missed out on by not playing that game :(


Also, please, PLEASE let there be a company with some balls to make X-Wing vs TIE Fighter 2012.

Yeah really, Xwing Vs Tie Fighter was the pinnacle I guess. I know of some stuff but nothing like that. Apparently some independent team of fans made a new Wing Commander gaming using the Freespace engine or something like that. I tried it a couple of years ago and it seemed pretty amateurish, but it might have ended up good, who knows.

Also, the "X" series of games is good. I own Terran Conflict, and sometime in the next few months is going to be a big new game from them called "X: Rebirth" which looks like it will be the best and most accessible in the series. It is one of these trade, build space stations etc.. kind of games, but there is plenty of scope for playing as a pure combat pilot too, I think.

I am pretty excited about Rebirth actually, although I would prefer an Xwing Vs TieFigher too.

[perfect]

No way! I can't believe how much I missed out on by not playing that game....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Galaxies:_Jump_to_Lightspeed

Space combat in Galaxies is similar to ground combat. Players must aim at their targets (often needing to "lead" their target in compensation for the target's movement) and click a button on the mouse or joystick to fire. Success in space combat is largely dependent on player skill, but not quite to the same extent as seen in previous Star Wars space-simulator games.

[dabble]

In the final few months in SWG you could approach, land and attack surface targets on any of the planets with your ship.

[AsheMan]

Also, please, PLEASE let there be a company with some balls to make X-Wing vs TIE Fighter 2012.

Why the &^%# did BioWare NOT do X-Wing style space combat?

[dabble]

Why the &^%# did BioWare NOT do X-Wing style space combat?

Ran out of time. I've read that Space combat is one of the first things they will be updating.

[Fozzik]

Ran out of time. I've read that Space combat is one of the first things they will be updating.

I think they should probably fix the bugs...and stop creating new ones with their patches...before they work on systems like space combat. But hey...maybe I expect too much. Simple things can be the most annoying.

[dabble]

I think they should probably fix the bugs...and stop creating new ones with their patches...before they work on systems like space combat. But hey...maybe I expect too much. Simple things can be the most annoying.


Well that's a given. In all fairness I think they are doing a good job of addressing the bugs and squashing them.

[Fozzik]

Mileage will definitely vary, I'm sure...but my wife and I are feeling like we're noticing MORE bugs with each patch, rather than less. They are patching quite often...and the bug reports I've sent in did get acknowledged, at least...so hopefully things will start to improve for us.

We're finding some very weird balance and pacing issues with duo'ing compared to soloing...and our last play session we entered a new area and had something like 11 new quests to pick up. Both of us were saying, "holy crap... ANOTHER ONE?!" The task grind / quest hub design definitely seems to be taking hold as we get higher in level. Even with the story and the cool voice acting and characters, the sheer volume of stupid "kill 10, collect 5, click on 30" tasks really gets tedious.

[mmorpeegee]

BioWare's Star Wars epic is the best new MMO in years.

Quests are standard "kill and fetch"; imbalanced PvP matches; occasional bugs and unresponsive abilities.

All that and yet it's still the best in years. Sure says a lot about mmo's!

[Fozzik]

All that and yet it's still the best in years. Sure says a lot about mmo's!

Or maybe it says something about Gamespy. hehe

[mmorpeegee]

Lol that too :P

[dabble]

Bored now... Next!

[Fozzik]

Agreed. I'm having a very hard time bringing myself to log in. Not too much of a surprise, but still sad. I got myself sucked into a really good book, and haven't been back in game in like a week.

[mmorpeegee]

=(