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

[niwaar]

In that pick where is the gear score/ilvl?

Edit: err I see the gear rank on the items. Its an itemlevel of course. I just don't think you can ever get away from ilvls anymore. You can't go back to arbitrary items like XI had in a modern MMO.

But yes, equipment requires different tiers of light and dark. ie, you need to be a light tier 1 to wield certain lightsabers, and dark tier 1 to wield others. Honestly, do not understand how a smuggler or a commando can be on the light or dark side of the force but thats another thing

[Zerocool]

Next to the armor numbers, it has a rating number in parenthesis. I think that's what people were referring to. I never played WoW, so don't know all that much about gearscore though.

[Lucavi]

Gearscore was a floodgate that, once opened, could never be closed again. Gearscore has pros and cons, and while I won't go into them here (plenty of threads everywhere), the basic gist is that it eventually allowed Blizzard to tune encounters to have a minimum gearscore to enter, which allowed them to better tune instances' difficulty level (IE: they got much more challenging, even for skilled groups). While this is good, it also led to the playerbase corrupting a good thing in theory (as humans always do) by making arbitrary gearscore "minimums" for all manner of pick up raids and events. Some of them were fair, but others were insane (basically you had to have gear from 2-3 instances/raid tiers higher than what instance/raid they were actually going to run, thus all but ensuring a victory).

Obligatory "It'll be interesting to see how this game uses Gearscore" end-quote.

[Guyverarmor]

Gearscore was a floodgate that, once opened, could never be closed again. Gearscore has pros and cons, and while I won't go into them here (plenty of threads everywhere), the basic gist is that it eventually allowed Blizzard to tune encounters to have a minimum gearscore to enter, which allowed them to better tune instances' difficulty level (IE: they got much more challenging, even for skilled groups). While this is good, it also led to the playerbase corrupting a good thing in theory (as humans always do) by making arbitrary gearscore "minimums" for all manner of pick up raids and events. Some of them were fair, but others were insane (basically you had to have gear from 2-3 instances/raid tiers higher than what instance/raid they were actually going to run, thus all but ensuring a victory).

Obligatory "It'll be interesting to see how this game uses Gearscore" end-quote.

Agreed. It was good in theory and nice on paper, but got carried away.

[Zerocool]

Dev comment from "Gear Score" thread on TOR forums:

GeorgZoeller General Discussion -> Gear Score in TOR
Since all weapons and armor in SWTOR have modification slots, this rating is not reflective of the overall quality of the item, since that's up to what the user slots into the item.

Damion may elaborate more, but I think you guys are overreacting a bit

[Zerocool]

Here's some more lightsaber forms:

Shien Form
Instant Cast
Cooldown: 1.5
Enter an Offensive Lightsaber form,
Increasing all damage dealt by 6%.
All attacks which cost focus will refund
1 focus when used. In addition, taking
Damage generates 1 focus, but the effect
Cannot occur more than once over a
3 second period.

Soresu Form
Instant Cast
Lightsaber Form
Reduces all damage taken. Taking
Damage generates Focus.

Source with more skill descriptions: http://www.swtor.com/community/showt...&highlight=JKG

[Guyverarmor]

I like how they made Soresu Form. In Lore, it's a defensive stance. Nice.

[Dantrag]

Dev comment from "Gear Score" thread on TOR forums:

Why even put it in game then?

[Zerocool]

PC Gamer Imperial Agent hands-on impressions: http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/06/13/17...%80%99s-agent/

And the hands-on for Bounty Hunter: http://www.pcgamer.com/?p=48996

[vrumpt]

John Riccitiello (CEO of EA) spoke this morning and announced that they will be moving from mid-scale beta to a high-scale beta at the end of June. Release date is still dependent on how that goes. Assuming it does, i think we'll see it out by late August or early September.

EDIT: Apparently he mentioned a figure of 6 weeks for the length of it, possibly 8 if things don't go as planned. So that would be our tentative release date. Maybe a month after since i imagine they'll close the beta down when they're done. Get excite.

[Katlan]

I honestly wouldn't expect a release date in 2011. Maybe December, but I'd expect more like early 2012

[vrumpt]

I honestly wouldn't expect a release date in 2011. Maybe December, but I'd expect more like early 2012

na, i think the recent wave of beta invites over the weekend is proof that they are starting to move into the final stages of testing. Also did you ever get a chance to play the game? i'm interested to hear what your opinions are.

[Katlan]

na, i think the recent wave of beta invites over the weekend is proof that they are starting to move into the final stages of testing. Also did you ever get a chance to play the game? i'm interested to hear what your opinions are.

My friend let me, but its over 30gb's to DL and I really dont feel like DL'ing / installing something that huge just to mess around in a beta when I prolly wouldn't invest more then a few days of playtime generating an opinion. Actually, I'll test it tonight... if its a fast DL speed then I'll go for it, but if its slow then I'm not gonna bother spending 3-4 days DLing it.

As long as I'm not seriously invested in another mmo when the game comes out (w/ I don't think I will be unless it comes out after TERA and TERA turns out to be good), I'll end up trying it on release anyways. 60$ isn't that much to me.

And the intro race/class CS's my friend said were awesome are actually all the E3 CG stuff they have shown lol. I thought it was originally cool in-game rendered stuff

[Vagrant]

I honestly wouldn't expect a release date in 2011. Maybe December, but I'd expect more like early 2012

Bioware stated it's a 2011 release definitely. September/October is probably the likeliest time period for it. 2012 will be out if for no other reason than the fact they aren't going to release the game that close to the ME3 release quarter.

[Zerocool]

Dev response to beta testing announcement:

StephenReid General Discussion -> High Scale Beta at the end of June

Quote:
Originally Posted by reirae View Post
Anyone else read this and feel like it was a whole lot of words saying absolutely nothing? I mean, we heard EA's CEO say the testing is increasing. If the CEO says it then I'm really not that worried about Stephen reiterating that. Though what is not clear is that whole six weeks shenanigans. What did he mean by that? Doesn't seem like SR wants to comment on that. Or at least on his twitter he just said that it didn't relate to anything he was aware of. Maybe he should have included that in his post.

I'm behind on the total thread, but this seems as good a quote as any to respond to.

You may be surprised to know that the CEO of EA does not brief me on every word he's going to say in every conference call he makes.

Today's call was not on our radar, and was not part of a wider PR strategy to talk about the release date for The Old Republic. (We'll make a slightly bigger announcement about that.)

As the call wasn't on our radar, we didn't hear it live. We're looking at the same transcripts you guys are. Frankly, it's not a good transcript. Parts of it make no grammatical sense. In fact, everyone assumes John said 'high scale beta' in one sentence, when according to the transcript, he said 'high scale data'. That's why I take the 'six weeks' sentence with a large pinch of salt.

Yes, I am going to try and clarify what that statement meant, but I'm afraid you're not going to like the answer any more than today. Game Testing is ongoing. The number of people we're bringing into Game Testing is increasing. That's all that's going on. The 'six weeks' timeframe doesn't relate to anything that I'm aware of, and I'm aware of just about all significant dates for The Old Republic.

You can believe that I'm trying to 'cover this up' if you like, or you can accept that not every communication that comes out of EA is intended for a general audience - and that sometimes we play catch up, just like you.

StephenReid General Discussion -> High Scale Beta at the end of June
Quote:

Originally Posted by Gumstumdar View Post
Here's what he said (I've done transcript dicatation for years):

From: 20:09

"We're very confident in the title umm but we did give a range of potential ship dates. It depends really on the beta that we're now in. We're in mid-scale beta now, we've got a high scale beta at the end of June umm and umm only the foolish assume they know the outcome of beta in terms of uh umm you know whether it's a six week hit or not. Uhm we intend to make sure that this is a very successful launch and while we're very very confident umm the reason for range in guidance is to bracket around the possibilities is what we've done."

Stop: 20:40

Normally I wouldn't include all the uhs and umms but since we like to be picky as all get out, they're in there.

Probably better to be safe than sorry. What did that second 'umm' mean?

From hearing the audio myself, and I'd say that this is an accurate transcription, it's clear that John is talking about the outcome of Game Testing, and the 'six week' reference is to the potential success of the title.

As I said, the reference to six weeks has nothing to do with Game Testing, or any other moment on the calendar in particular.

Thanks for transcribing, Gumstumdar!

TL;DR We're right back where we started and have no clue when this game will come out other than sometime in 2011.

[vrumpt]

refuse to believe, we're further ahead now then we've ever been. But yeah upon looking at JR's transcript of what he said it makes no grammatical sense whatsoever. Even with those quotes discarded essentially as fluff talk, August/September is still a possibility I think. They did confirm they are expanding beta testing once again after all.

edited for coherency.

[DeathbySnoosnoo]

beta runs fairly smooth, im sure once they take out all of their info collecting crap it would run nicely, only time i get lag is in pvp warzones. I think they could pull it off by october, however i still think the character gen could use some work, honestly so many star wars alien races to choose from and theres like 7 total in this game? come on bioware....

[Foxer]

TERA's still in the Sept-Nov bullshit phase. Of course TOR is going to try and release it by Sept. Y'all just better hope it doesn't get rushed any more than it needs to, just to snatch them initial numbers.

[Alderaan]

The last thing TOR needs to worry about is TERA. Releasing a polished game is numero uno and anything short, the players will know.

[Foxer]

Oh I know. I'm not making a comparison in games, which is why I mentioned that they shouldn't rush it too much. All's I'm saying is that it can be a smart tactic to claim the fans while you can, as long as you do it right, and offer enough.

The first big scary MMO coming out is TERA, and there's nothing anyone can say to prove that to be incorrect. With GW2 right around the corner from TERA, it's only a matter of time until people start breaking away from one game for another, simply because they tried it and happened to like it.