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

[Necronus]

Being that you didn't put the crafting and space combat systems into your grading of the Gameplay I'd say that pushes the average even lower. I agree with the Graphics, I don't really care for the style but whatever they're not /bad/ per se. Sound same.

I'm curious as to what Classes you played that you would give Story an A+, because anything sith related was just a gigantic pile of mediocre. Including VA.

Admittedly I did not play any Republic classes, and I've even heard the story was better for those.

And as I said earlier, at least the jedi consular story is complete ass. I dunno where people are getting that it's an "awesome" story. Maybe they're the same people who thought DA2 was a thrilling tale?

I played Jedi Consular and Bounty Hunter.

As for the story, I guess my impressions of the system itself overblew the impression I gave of the story itself. It's not that the stories are anything epic (at least not at my level, honestly I expect smaller tasks as a padawan and I expect the meaty stuff later) but its just I dunno, the whole package of the choices, the VAs, and a decent starting story that makes it an A+.

I mean, as a FFXI player mainly, we've had some stories that many people here have loved, like CoP, but I can't understate the difference the dialogue system has. Even if CoP is a better and more epic story, your character does all this shit but we're always integrated into cutscenes as A) A silent person standing there while the mains talk, B) Someone who DOES get interacted with, but only get to see your character "/nod" and you need to pretend what you say. In addition, though we get dialog choices, sometimes they loop until forced to the correct choice or they simply have no effect on the story and move on.

Since the second guy I quoted based on Consular and I played that class 3/4ths of my time I'll just say what's wrong with it? Yes you're an Anakin-esque force prodigy, but you're still not Qui-Gon Jin or Yoda or anything. While I honestly felt like it was a tad rushed, being sent to such important tasks (who sends the Padawan to retrieve such an important relic?) I attributed that more to the fact that you really needed to be at the Jedi point by level 10. The only way to slow down the advancement would be to slow down the EXP. Let's face it, even though I'm glad this game didn't become a "Everyone is a Jedi and no one plays other classes" scenario, people still want their Lightsabers NAO!. In addition, besides the rushed Padawan -> Jedi advancement, the first enemy is appropriate for a padawan storyline wise and I'm curious to see where the story with the first fallen jedi goes. It's interesting.


Bounty Hunter on the other hand, I didn't get far into the class line, but the side quests are REALLY appropriate and you don't start out like Anakin (or Boba Fett I should say), you're a nobody and need to get famous like any starting hunter. Every mission provides paths to murder in cold blood, extort, or simply lie and follow a more light side path. I played an honorable bounty hunter who would just lie and tell his clients I killed the target and collect their money anyway, but plenty of people murdered that one kids father and many brought the other dude's head to his wife to intimidate her.

So no I didn't see any prize winning novels, but the stories were fine and the sytem they're implemented in is immersive.

Edit: Oh I did crafting and gathering to level 30's. Nothing major, but I often sent my NPC out to do it while in a Flashpoint. Since NPC's take a party spot and I three manned, only one person would have their NPC, so I just had mine craft while I put holes in bad guys. Didn't get to starships, no.

Edit 2: And overall I give the game a B. I'm teetering on the fence and I'm resisting the urge to get it in Dec. I really don't need a new MMO and don't want to quit current ones BUT the changes and improvements, if any, in the next few months will really shape my opinion. You have my attention BioWare, ball is now in your court.

[Lazaruz]

Everyone in my guild in the beta group says the Sith story was so much better than Jedi. I have no desire to play Sith so no clue myself.

YOU are going to try sith at least once before GW2 comes out.

[Alderaan]

YOU are going to try sith at least once before GW2 comes out.

You know better than that. I refuse to play Empire.

[Elvis]

If this game is more enjoyable than Aion, I'll be hooked. Aion was a shitfest that only got shittier and I kept playing it til' last week + all my friends having quit + Server merges and switch + cash-shop replacing actual content + PVP turning into zerg on zerg, etc. etc.

[Ohemgee]

Wasn't Aion a disaster from the beginning?

[Alderaan]

Aion was fine at the beginning, besides the game discouraging PVP with the stupid AP loss for getting killed, then people started quitting and the server balance went right out the window.

STOP making 2 faction MMO's damnit. Yet another aspect that GW2 has gotten right.

[Ohemgee]

There seems to be a dichotomy of MMOs that should be discussed since we ain't got shit to do but hate on SWTOR. Maybe we can build a BG FAQ off this

There are games like WoW:

-Hotbar gameplay where you stand and mash 1 2 3, pre-determined enemy data that works off of pre-determined mechanics (It fuckin works)
-Structured (tiered) dungeons/raids with structured loot
-Faction system where one race/idealogy is against another (which brings up PvP servers and structures the entire PvP system around)
-Arguably you can jump, which sounds retarded but a lot of fucking people notice this shit
-Questing system that everyone knows (gather, kill x mobs, go to this npc in case you were in a coma for the past 10 years)
-Please add more to this section

And games that are not like WoW:

-Epic gameplay that everyone agrees that the WoW hotbar shit is obsolete (FFXI, GW2, TERA, EQ, every other game that is not WoW based)
-Weird and questionable loot (FFXI, EQ, not sure how GW2 handles raid loot, TERA?)
-No faction / PvP is not based on what race you choose - (No PvP servers, PvP is a separate but equal [lol] part of the game experience)
-Gameplay dictates fun. There's a lot of strategy involved with FFXI and an evolution of combat. Fuck jumping
-Questing is not limited to what WoW predetermines, but encompasses a lot more story and higher reward because you have to sit through a lot of cutscenes for shit (FFXI fo life son) [side note: you see a lot of solo RPGs do this gather, kill x mobs shit, its kind of fucking stupid]
-Add more to bitch at each other


Again, there's nothing wrong with liking something structured. What was said above does sound Anti-WoW model, and there are a lot of people who still prefer this model over adaptive gameplay/questing (which is the biggest difference between each other). I don't mind as long as I feel involved with what I'm doing, which can be dictated at release. But again, don't hold your breath if GW2 is the same way since you're expecting too much.

[EternityEnd]

FFXI has epic gameplay? I must have missed that part of the game—which is strange, considering I played it for many years.

If you honestly think that FFXI's gameplay (which consists of, for some jobs, almost nothing but build-TP-use-WS) is more engaging than WoW's, or any other hotkey MMO's . . . then I don't even know how to respond. Sure, FFXI's difficulty may have been artificially greater, since enemies hit hard, but there was nothing engaging about its combat.

Additionally, if you're saying that SWTOR fits your first set of traits precisely, without taking any from the second set, which you imply to be superior, then I would say that you contradict yourself. Yes, its questing objectives are similar to WoW's (or more precisely, Everquest's), but it also contains more cutscenes and story depth than FFXI could have ever hoped to include.

[Kuishen]

FFXI has epic gameplay? I must have missed that part of the game—which is strange, considering I played it for many years.

If you honestly think that FFXI's gameplay (which consists of, for some jobs, almost nothing but build-TP-use-WS) is more engaging than WoW's, or any other hotkey MMO's . . . then I don't even know how to respond. Sure, FFXI's difficulty may have been artificially greater, since enemies hit hard, but there was nothing engaging about its combat.

I kind of disagree. I have way more fun killing shit in FFXI than I ever did in WoW.

[Necronus]

FFXI has epic gameplay? I must have missed that part of the game—which is strange, considering I played it for many years.

If you honestly think that FFXI's gameplay (which consists of, for some jobs, almost nothing but build-TP-use-WS) is more engaging than WoW's, or any other hotkey MMO's . . . then I don't even know how to respond. Sure, FFXI's difficulty may have been artificially greater, since enemies hit hard, but there was nothing engaging about its combat.

Additionally, if you're saying that SWTOR fits your first set of traits precisely, without taking any from the second set, which you imply to be superior, then I would say that you contradict yourself. Yes, its questing objectives are similar to WoW's (or more precisely, Everquest's), but it also contains more cutscenes and story depth than FFXI could have ever hoped to include.

Also, not necessarily taking either side but depends on what you or he means by epic.

A) Time - Artificial or not and even throwing out the AV and PW debacles, the first half of FFXI's existence involved long multi-hour fights against single mobs that took coordination and planning. Prior to them becoming fodder, mobs like Kirin, Vrtra, and Tiamat were all very epic.

B) Grouping - Dynamis was designed for 64 people and early on when new, needed a hell of a lot more people due to lesser gear and abilities and purely unknown strategies. Pretty epic I'd say.

[Ohemgee]

FFXI's gameplay was a lot more engaging and interesting than anything any WoW clone has ever produced.

Just because you do something for 5-7 years with the same game engine doesn't mean that engine is sub par to other MMO engines.


And I would welcome any contradictions to my theory about WoW clones. I haven't beta tested SWTOR (you fags haven't trusted me with your account </3), but anyone in this thread is aware of my overall anticipation for this release. I'm welcoming to the idea that the questing feels completely different to the WoW model. I'm welcomed to the fact that the gameplay (though bases itself off of Hotkey combat) is as engaging and immersive enough that it differentiates itself from WoW clones. Its the simple fact that you're taking down a Sith Lord boss from the eternity vault over some random boss that you have no history on from that one dungeon in Rift (fucking rift).

Overall, no matter what shit storm this game has produced, whether Kuishen likes or dislikes (nobody gives a fuck at this point), people will play this game and enjoy it because its Star Wars. I never played WoW, but I'm overly familiar with its gameplay, and I know I'll enjoy this game for some time because I don't have high expecations (star wars nostalgia lasts 20+ years)

Overall, FFXI is probably still has the most superior poorly executed MMO in history, everyone should take aspects from it and learn (since most of this fan base is coming from FFXI i'd hope). In reality, we have nothing to do from December to March when Mass Effect 3 / GW2 comes out.

[Agito]

Boss fights in WoW were more difficult than boss fights in FFXI, even AV after it was fixed to be killable. There was absolutely nothing difficult about anything in FFXI, the only thing that made it hard was if you had one or more of the many shitty players with shitty gear that plagued the game in your group.

[Ezek]

The only fun part of FFXI's combat system was carrying around different sets of gear to abuse gear swapping for WS's and skills (and other random stuff like HP cure cheat, Sublimation, Convert, etc). I've played both games to fairly high end and I really don't know what to say if someone honestly thinks that stuff like ground kings (lol), sky, sea, salvage, etc are more difficult than say, vanilla Naxx, Sunwell, pre-nerf Ulduar, etc. The hardest part about FFXI was finding people that weren't completely bumfuck retarded in regards to knowledge of gear and common sense. Hell, you could even write an XML file for Spellcast that automatically did all the gear swapping for you and people still somehow failed.

But yeah, TOR doesn't seem as bad as some people try to make it out to be. It's obviously nothing revolutionary, but if it holds my interest over for 3 months then I figure it's worth my money. I plan on playing GW2 and TERA as well so we'll see how things turn out.

Sent from my XPERIA X10 using Tapatalk

[Lonely]

The only fun part of FFXI's combat system was carrying around different sets of gear

FFXI in a nutshell, the game would have died out 4 years ago if it wasn't for the name.

[Necronus]

FFXI in a nutshell, the game would have died out 4 years ago if it wasn't for the name.

I've always attributed it to the brand and the job class system. Inventory woes aside, no other game put 20 jobs into one character.

[Zerocool]

Yeah I don't know if it's the actual combat of FFXI was more interesting as much as it is the animations. The animations were a lot more fluid and "realistic" looking so it really added to the immersion of combat. As for endgame I never got that high in WoW so I can't comment on it's endgame. But from videos I've seen and playing other WoW clones everyone dungeon was a trash grind to a boss, rinse and repeat. Granted, FFXI endgame didn't start to get really good until after ToAU with things like Salvage and Einherjar. Either way though, it still got implemented eventually.

[Viq]

What I loved about FFXI's combat was that I could treat it more like an evolving spreadsheet than a game. I loved when people were still figuring out how things worked, and optimizing gear and things. I loved how the difference between someone who actually knew how to build and use gear sets was massive compared to someone who didn't. WoW basically tells you which stats to pick, and most of the time the only difference in the meters was who had better gear/stronger class at the time. That's why I could play FFXI for over 5 years, and lasted all of 6 months before cancelling my WoW account.

There was also something enjoyable that I can't think of a way to describe very well about FFXI's combat. There's no question that it was a much slower pace than games like Rift or WoW, but that's kind of what I like about it. For me, since I played primarily BRD and RDM for a number of years, I enjoyed being able to survey battles and watch them unfold. Even if there wasn't anything difficult about pre-zerg Kirin (or post-zerg Kirin) I still really enjoyed watching the fight progress over 30 minutes. That kind of thing is more fun for me than staring at the floor to make sure I'm not standing in anything with one eye, and watching my GCD tick down with the other. Certainly I won't be in the majority of gamers with this opinion, but that's just how I enjoyed the game before real life demanded more time.

[Alderaan]

The TP system was and is absolutely horrible. The class/subclass system was amazing.

[volcanicweather]

To me there were 3 things about XI which really made it unique:

1) The leveling curve - I know a lot of people hated sitting around trying to find a group but like it or not this was a huge factor as to why the game had such a devout following. Instead of just leveling on your own doing mundane quests you were forced to come out of your isolation with your character and play with others. I feel this brought out more of the good in people than bad. You wanted to do well in parties not only to be successful short-term, but also because people would remember you and choose you over other players when forming another party (this was especially true at NA launch with all the "JP Only" discrimination). The leveling process was a huge factor as to why the XI community was so strong and continues on even though many have quit the game years ago.

2) Only having 1 character - Certain characters grew to iconic status in XI and while this happens in other MMOs I think in XI thanks to the job system it elevated the concept to a whole new level. What you leveled for main and sub jobs not only affected how you could play the game but it also affected what kind of loot you would get in the future. Instead of having an alt for each job with a different name everything was centralized into a single character which I think helped people become more attached to their characters and more involved in what they were doing than the traditional MMO alt-fest. If you had only RDM leveled and got a Ridill for example you wouldn't say "what a waste", you'd say "time to get level up WAR" and you'd be back into the leveling process.

3) The "always on" nature of the game - Because XI was an international game stuff was always happening and the servers were always filled with players - with current MMOs I have played I really miss this. With regional servers it seems as if unless you log-in during peak times it can be difficult to find a group to get things done or it may feel as if you are playing a single player game. Especially when XI launched in Europe, you could really feel the servers had a truly global presence and there was always something happening. Sure there were still peak times (i.e. weekends) but when the game was at its best if there was something reasonable you wanted to do you could do it and you didn't have to worry so much about what time of day it is.

Back on the topic of TOR though, if this game is going the way of yet another WoW clone I think I'm going to pass. Still on the beta list (haven't received an invite) so if I get one I'll try it out, but otherwise I'll wait for Guild Wars 2 or might even give TERA a shot to see if I like the combat.

[Ohemgee]

Having to pay $1 more a month for another player slot? fucking.