Star Wars: The Old Republic Random Question/Discussion thread - F2P

[ringthree]

I would love to live in a perfect world where my 200th hour into something is as magical an experience as my first hour. Sadly, its not possible, with anything. Using it as an argument for why something isn't worth playing isn't fair to the product. I distinctly remember my first 20 levels of FFXI. It was a great experience. Was it the same experience as when I leveled my second job to 20, or 8th? Not at all. Saying story is going to ruin the replay value is wrong. Its not going to be any different than questing in any other MMO. Its the same experience a second time. The fact that Mass Effect was story driven didn't prevent me or anybody else from playing through it multiple times, its not gonna be any different here.

Too many of the arguments used against TOR apply to every other MMO out there. haters gonna hate, but SWTOR is a great game and its pretty obvious there was a ton of work put into this, far more than I've seen from Blizzard and WoW in its entire existence.

Getting real tired of people picking out MMOs like its a business investment or something. Its a goddamn video game, treat it like one.

You are pretty defensive here. I don't really know why.

I think a lot of the review of leveling in SW (or any other game for that matter) are pretty much irrelevant to the overall enjoyment of the game. Thus why I asked about end-game. 200 hours of play time is awesome, but honestly that is not really appealing in an MMO (it's Bioware that is touting that 200 hour of game play).

My point is that it could be a great game for 200 hours, but that doesn't make it worth of spending the time on as an MMO. Tons of single-player games have tons of great content and have received a lot of work too. That doesn't mean that the bulk of the time you play an MMO will be enjoyable. And thus why I asked about end-game content (again).

I don't think it really makes your argument very credible when you say things like "haters gonna hate" and then deride Blizzard and WoW. Why complain about people picking out other MMO's, and when you do just that on the previous line?

So, I will ask again, has there been any testing of end-game content? What is the game like at level cap?

[Guyverarmor]

Zetanio I am already in a guild with some other friends... if you cannot find one though, I'm sure we can get you in

[ringthree]

At this point devoting more time to WoW just isn't going to be worth it. The game is on it's last legs and Blizzard has pulled most of it's assets off the game. I played pretty heavily for 5 years out of the 7 it's been out and even if it's the "best" MMO out there still it's just getting stale, not to mention none of my friends/guild play it anymore. Everyone went to RIFT, played for like a month, but never went back to WoW - we have just been in a holding pattern.

Making an expansion out of your April Fools joke from 2005 means you have jumped the shark.

I am getting the impression that the arguments for SW are more couched in terms of comparison to WoW, even if it wasn't even brought up, but if you ask a question about SW with an explanation as to what you are looking for in the game, then it's all "haters gonna hate".

[jmc]

Dunno how or why..... but the game is no longer playable on my desktop even on low settings.

First day, I was getting around 50-60 fps on high. ..... now I'm lucky to push 10. No idea what happened

[Guyverarmor]

People are probably jumping on at the last second to play before weekend testing shuts out.

[jmc]

People are probably jumping on at the last second to play before weekend testing shuts out.

Don't think that was it.....played at 3 am, and again at 6 am est.

Framerate loss was even in random instances, that I ran through fine before...... brothers laptop had no problem running the game (as we were running the instance together)

[vrumpt]

So, I will ask again, has there been any testing of end-game content? What is the game like at level cap?

Not 100% sure on how much the end game content testing extended into the public closed beta portion. Also i don't know the complete end game experience, but among what i don't know there will be flashpoints, raid operations and a planet devoted to end game and world pvp.

And i'm only defensive because i need to be. Theres way too much blind stupid hate for SWTOR, why there is i'll never understand. I can understand if the game isn't your cup of tea, but that doesn't make it a bad game by any means.

[ringthree]

Not 100% sure on how much the end game content testing extended into the public closed beta portion. Also i don't know the complete end game experience, but among what i don't know there will be flashpoints, raid operations and a planet devoted to end game and world pvp.

And i'm only defensive because i need to be. Theres way too much blind stupid hate for SWTOR, why there is i'll never understand. I can understand if the game isn't your cup of tea, but that doesn't make it a bad game by any means.

Well, it might be a very good leveling game, but if end-game content isn't well balance then it could just be the next rift. I honestly don't understand why they aren't (or any other game company for that matter) beta testing end-game content. While I suppose there are story elements there they don't want to give away, it seems like they are already giving away the main thrust of the story by letting people level through the storyline. I will seriously consider SW after the relevant part of the game has been explored.

You have to understand why someone that has played MMO's for years would be much more concerned with end-game over the leveling experience. Anytime someone lauds the virtues of the leveling experience without a discussion of game play and end game content, I just roll my eyes. Those people aren't MMO players and don't really provide a good basis for forming an opinion. I am just concerned that Bioware are focus on it in the promotional material too, and not discussing end-game content.

If you wanted to criticize almost all MMO developers, their focus on creating a world is on the leveling experience when the game is in development. I think we have come to the point where the world should be created around end-game content, and start the players there. Someone should try it, but it might be too "hardcore" for your average casual and thus might not be the money-maker necessary to get the massive initial investment needed to make a modern MMO. A man can dream.

[Trichocyst]

I spent most of the day playing it and started to really enjoy myself when I was getting to make dark side decisions on my Sith warrior. That really made me feel like KOTOR which I really loved. Otherwise the game isn't exactly re-inventing the wheel, but I wasn't expecting it to. I think it's a lot of fun so far and pretty engaging, but at least half of the people I mention it to feel the need to tear it down. Not a lot of middle ground on opinion on the game, but I'm going to be there day one and hope for the best. I don't think it will be a really hardcore game by any stretch, but definitely something I can enjoy for a while.

[vrumpt]

Well, it might be a very good leveling game, but if end-game content isn't well balance then it could just be the next rift. I honestly don't understand why they aren't (or any other game company for that matter) beta testing end-game content. While I suppose there are story elements there they don't want to give away, it seems like they are already giving away the main thrust of the story by letting people level through the storyline. I will seriously consider SW after the relevant part of the game has been explored.

My issue with solely worrying about end game content is why even play the game at all then? If you can't even enjoy the game for what it is without worrying what the end game content is going to be then why bother even playing it at all. Why even have a leveling game if all people worry about is the end game content. At that point you may as well scrap levels all together and just add multiplayer dungeons and raids with an item progression system. Clearly there doesn't need to be any world attached to it or context attatched to these places since all people will eventually demand is a teleport system from a lobby of some sort. EA is already doing this with the PvP part with Warhammer: Wrath of Heroes, maybe eventually they'll do it to the PvE side too /sarcasm.

If you only really put devotion into the end game portion then what you have is nothing but a bunch of people rushing through all the boring stuff to get the main game at the end. This problem has made people forget that you are allowed to have an enjoyable leveling game. Not only that but when you have people thinking like this then you get to the people who steamroll the leveling part and are sit complaining about how awful the game is because they had the mentality that better fit the MMO genre of 10 years ago. While the end game certainly shouldn't be skipped, no doubt players need something to do at level cap, i disagree with a mentality of end game being the only part of the game that matters.

[Odesseiron]

Well I finally got off Korriban and into the first Flashpoint. Game has me sold. Why all the hate? Shit is cash, yo. Will be buying. Judging a game off a beta isn't fair. Unless you're FFXIV of course. We all knew how that would turn out. It's obvious with certain things they haven't implemented them yet. Such as Black Talon cutscenes not having lip syncing. I'm sure that is just not in this build. Loving it so far though.

I am also more interested in the story after 10 minutes of playing vs not caring about the story in WoW after years.

[AidenCarby]

So, I'm lookin to rock out on a good mmo until the glory of pso2 is released, slappin down each and everyone of these bitch ass niggas. Not really looking to read all these walls of text, but in a nutshell do the non fanboy beta testers see promise is this game? Some of the features has me giddy and everytime I think about lightsabers I have an instant boner. An even fisted review would be cool, what's good? what's not? Is it like rift where the devs claim to listen to the public, but really don't?

TLDR: Worth buying on release or is it gonna not be as awesome a month into it?

[Alderaan]

It has promise from what i've seen leveling wise. Whether there's enough to do after all the VO's and questing is done is a mystery and where all my fear comes from. The fact that i'm not looking for another raiding centric game is also a concern of mine.

[Zerocool]

Not too worried about end game to be honest. I never really went into it thinking it would be a long term game for me. Mainly just something to play until other stuff starts coming out. If you go into it thinking long term instead of just playing it for what it is, I can see how it could be disappointing if you're coming from a game like WoW that has years of content vs a brand new game. It's fun to level up in, and even though the combat is the standard hotkey style it's still pretty fun. I can see myself playing through multiple class stories, which I don't normally make alts in MMOs.

[niwaar]

I spent most of the day playing it and started to really enjoy myself when I was getting to make dark side decisions on my Sith warrior. That really made me feel like KOTOR which I really loved. Otherwise the game isn't exactly re-inventing the wheel, but I wasn't expecting it to. I think it's a lot of fun so far and pretty engaging, but at least half of the people I mention it to feel the need to tear it down. Not a lot of middle ground on opinion on the game, but I'm going to be there day one and hope for the best. I don't think it will be a really hardcore game by any stretch, but definitely something I can enjoy for a while.

I honestly will not be there day one. After getting to test this game (on a friend's account) as far back as the first closed alpha where they actually paid you to test. (Yes, my friend got a 25$ best buy gift card from EA for testing the game for 10 hours.) I can honestly, say the game has improved quite a bit. The story is there, but it gets less and less engaging as time goes on. That's just the fact of MMOs. Story while questing just simply gets "old" after a while. They can try and reinvigorate the leveling process all they want, but honestly its only going to work for so long. The problem with their methodology is that when it gets boring you can not skip it. Quests and missions with Light/Dark choices can't skip that portion of the v/o work. The game is ok. Its not reinventing the wheel by any means. If you look at GW2 footage, there is not much different in the mission/story v/o'd cinematic work (except gw2 seems to do it in a much simplified way.) Other games have done quest cutscenes before, we all know this. The only difference here is choice "matters" to some extent as it is important to your character's growth.

Not really looking to read all these walls of text, but in a nutshell do the non fanboy beta testers see promise is this game? Some of the features has me giddy and everytime I think about lightsabers I have an instant boner. An even fisted review would be cool, what's good? what's not? Is it like rift where the devs claim to listen to the public, but really don't?

TLDR: Worth buying on release or is it gonna not be as awesome a month into it?

A TLDR Game Review...

Good single player experience. The game is KOTOR/ME2/Dragon Age like in many aspects. If you did not like those games, SWTOR is simply not going to be for you.

Leveling up is not an overly extensive process. Combat can feel sluggish at times, especially while wielding a lightsaber(or fake light saber as you do in the starting areas.) It becomes more fluid as you gain further abilities, but animations can be kind of "funky" at times.

The Companion/Crafting system is a huge risk. It does provide a much easier method of "soloing" and feeling like you are not completely alone. However, it does come with its own issues. Most of which may just be in our heads, but we will just have to see what we feel like after 50 levels and some endgame.

PvP is run kind of like it was in Guild Wars or to some degree Warhammer. You are "sidekicked" up to max level statistically, but do not have access to higher level abilities. The PvP maps are nothing really new. There is the Arathi Basin (Alderaan) map, and the Attack/Defend map, and the fairly unique Huttball map. The later being my favorite as it is faction independent and a lot more interesting than the traditional-ness of the other maps.

Endgame... Well we do not know. There is PvP, and with that comes PvP gear and "ranks". There are dungeons and we have seen a single story driven raid, but have little information how these aspect of the game will play out.

Is it like rift where the devs claim to listen to the public, but really don't?

Well that is really hard to answer. I would not just throw Trion under the bus here. We could lump NCsoft, Square-Enix and even Blizzard into that pile. It's their game. They are going to listen to us through filters and do what they want, whether it is best for the community, the game, both or neither. Right now, I would have to come out and say, I have not been impressed with the developers/cms interaction with the community. We will just have to wait and see if this improves when the game goes live or if it remains relatively neutral.

In the end, SWTOR is a "wait til January" title for me. Like someone said before, its a 200hour gaming experience, but its not necessarily an MMO.

[Trichocyst]

A big reason I'll be there day one is that a friend bought me a pre-order. Ha.

[Ezek]

Well, I played up to level 16 and had a blast. With my current situation, I really can't do hardcore raiding and whatnot anymore so if TOR gives me around a month of entertainment then I'll consider it a good purchase.

[Alderaan]

If you're currently playing and enjoying an MMO, then TOR is meh.

I tend to see most people that are without an MMO enjoying it so far.

[ringthree]

Not too worried about end game to be honest. I never really went into it thinking it would be a long term game for me. Mainly just something to play until other stuff starts coming out. If you go into it thinking long term instead of just playing it for what it is, I can see how it could be disappointing if you're coming from a game like WoW that has years of content vs a brand new game. It's fun to level up in, and even though the combat is the standard hotkey style it's still pretty fun. I can see myself playing through multiple class stories, which I don't normally make alts in MMOs.

Actually, I don't really believe that WoW has "years" of content. It has the current patch, and maybe the previous tier if you are even a casual raider. If you are looking for a leveling experience and don't plan on taking the game very far, then it looks like it should be a great game, but it is an MMO and MMO's live and die on end-game content. FFXI (though some people didn't like it) had end-game the that was relevant for years because you could level new jobs on the same character and so you needed gear even from older content. None of the "modern" MMO's offers this kind or level of end-game content.

[niwaar]

[QUOTE=ringthree;4888931...MMO's live and die on end-game content. FFXI (though some people didn't like it) had end-game the that was relevant for years because you could level new jobs on the same character and so you needed gear even from older content. None of the "modern" MMO's offers this kind or level of end-game content.[/QUOTE]

An aspect of XI that a lot of people saw as a real problem when the game was "current" and the same one that many people (myself included) believe is the downfall of the current crop of MMOs. Xi had many facets of an end-game and it only grew as time went by. Everything stayed relevant because of the nature of the style of end-game. Players has multiple paths to improve themselves. Leveling a new job, merits and gear. In most modern MMOs you only have a single way to progress... gear.

Even when you take out the multiple pathways for progression, XI's end-game had multiple paths for progression in and of itself. WoW, Rift, and the other theme park mmos have but 2, Dungeons and Raids. There are no world bosses that mean anything. No Triggered monsters, no farming of triggers. No Hierarchy based raid bosses. Nor are there PvE "mini-missions/dungeons" or "BCNMs".

SWTOR will have Raids. More than likely it will have "heroic/expert/difficult" level dungeons based on the level up dungeons. It will have one thing that WoW and Rift do not have and that XI did and Guild Wars2 will have, mission based progression. People desperately want something to do in MMOs. We can only hope that with SWTOR and GW2 re-starting this trend, that we will see other games include this method of end-game.