*****Official Star Wars: The Old Republic Thread*****

I would be gob-smacked if this game turns out to be a big hit, yeah some of the changes have improved the game but all the stuff that people were not happy with is still very much there.
 
wab said:
I would be gob-smacked if this game turns out to be a big hit, yeah some of the changes have improved the game but all the stuff that people were not happy with is still very much there.
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Bloody hell are you still here, beating the same drum. We have all heard your opinions, just move on.:rolleyes:
 
wab said:
I would be gob-smacked if this game turns out to be a big hit, yeah some of the changes have improved the game but all the stuff that people were not happy with is still very much there.
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you are seriously having a laugh? :eek:

have you played any bioware games?
 
wab said:
I would be gob-smacked if this game turns out to be a big hit, yeah some of the changes have improved the game but all the stuff that people were not happy with is still very much there.
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You tried to get people to join your guild for SWTOR yet you constantly complain about the game?

If you don't like the game then leave this thread, it isn't that difficult...

For anybody still looking to join the OcUK guild(No wab isn't part of it so don't worry about having to listen to his constant whining) the sign up here :)
 
Monkeymatt said:
You tried to get people to join your guild for SWTOR yet you constantly complain about the game?

If you don't like the game then leave this thread, it isn't that difficult...

For anybody still looking to join the OcUK guild(No wab isn't part of it so don't worry about having to listen to his constant whining) the sign up here :)
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mm I'm sorry where did I complain about the game I just think as it is right now its not very good.

as to LateX'Dog not gonna waste my time answering you as you seriously need to grow up.

Nothing that I have said is really bashing the game, all I have said is the game as it is is very repetitive and boring.

Why is it the fanois always get there nickers in a knot, if I see a thread, I either reply to it with a proper argument or ignore it, fanboi seem to be unable to do either.

Take latexdog I say most of the spells you have to be stationary he replies saying I'm a liar as you can see in the video people moving and casting.. talk about only taking what you want to see from a post.

either learn to reads and answer properly or just ignore the post.

as to Monkeymatt childish reply :rolleyes:
 
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Level 50 Jedi Sage Review

Since the test phase is ending and people are wrapping up their reviews/input for the game I thought I would throw my 2 cents into the mix. Here is my review of the game from the perspective of a lvl 50 Jedi Sage. I'll try not to include any story spoilers but the review will contain content spoilers. I will also rank the elements on the game from a personal perspective on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being unacceptably bad... 5 being average for todays mainstream MMOs... and 10 being balls to the wall awesome). Played with max settings on a mid-high machine.

The Character Creation: 4

Needs serious improvement to stand out. Some limitations are understandable given the need to make all skins align to the basic interaction patterns (facial expressions, combat moves etc) so you can't expect a Elder Scrolls type of character creator but even by current MMO standards the creator is disappointing. First impressions matter and since the character creator is the first game feature people get to experience it should make a good impression.

Keep in mind that many people will be spending hundreds of hours with their characters. Given the way character interactions work, unlike most other MMOs, we actually get to see the characters face... you don't want the player to cringe every time he starts a conversation. You want him to be able to make his character as close to his ideal as possible (regardless if that means pretty/ugly/silly).

The User Interface: 3

Standard MMO issue interface. Very underwhelming and definitely needs improvement. Standard customization options could/should include resizing, moving windows around, a better way of editing the interface (Preferences-->Interface--> 20 checkboxes is just sad).

But most importantly... player customization options. I hate to bring up the elephant in the industry but WoW and to a certain degree most "successful" MMOs offer the possibility to create and implement add-ons. By ignoring this feature you are alienating and excluding a VERY important demographic. The coders/builders can literally do your work for you. a lot of the features now integrated into WoW first appeared as player built add-ons. This had two VERY important effects: it gave the developers insight into what the community wants and needs and secondly it provided a solution to problems before they were solved by the developer... problems that might have caused the developer to lose customers... problems like raid organization, buff/debuff trackers, enemy cast bar display (none of which were standard features in WoW at release but were integrated because add-ons offering these features were popular enough to catch the developers attention... features whose lack would have made many a player possibly quit in frustration). Macros would also be a nice addition.

The most horrendous aspect of the UI has got to be the chat system... if it were its own category I would rate it a 1... it's absolutely unacceptable to have such a limited/broken/god-awful chat system in a MMO today. -2 on the UI just for that.

The Combat: 7

The combat is fun and actually pleasant to look at. Most skills have fairly unique animations and people can actually feel like a Jedi when they are fighting stuff. Can it be improved? Most certainly.

Very few skills are extremely flash... which in my opinion is a good thing since I dislike the seizure inducing Korean combat style. The Sage is your typical mage/healer and plays as such. Nuke, Nuke, proc Nuke, Nuke... nothing to write home about gameplay wise but the fact that it's a sci-fi setting and that you have a lightsaber out makes it stand out among the typical MMOs. This is however just a flavor element which will eventually wear out (around level 40). Unfortunately there is little to replace the flavor loss. The skills you gain from the talent tree are very underwhelming and few (3 in each tree) but that's a separate discussion.

I would have hoped that this reduction in "ooh shiny"ness would result in improved game performance when numerous characters are on screen at the same time but from what I hear that turned out to not be the case (according to the 20 man Tatooine skirmish report). Hopefully they can tweak this.

Bottom line: standard MMO fare with some bonus points for the change in flavor.

The Voiceover: 9

By far one of the most unique features of the game and very nicely implemented to boot. I fully expected the dialog to be 2-3 voice actors who by the middle of the game had the enthusiasm and voice range of Ben Stein. I was very surprised to find that the diversity and quality maintained a very high level up to and including lvl 50 areas and quests.

Some quests are missing their voice work but I'm guessing it's only a matter of time/patching.

A select few quests have some problematic voice work like the voice actor changing his pitch mid conversation (it's even possible they changed the voice actor altogether) or simply sounding very bored/out of it but such cases were a rarity.

The Story: 8

The voicework and story complement each other very well. For the most part it was fairly enjoyable and definitely above average for today's MMO market.

Some things ticked me off however: Each planet is extremely standardized. In each chapter you visit several planets but at the end of the day each of the planets follows the same pattern (since I don't want to spoil the story I won't go into detail here but anyone who has completed chapter 1 should know what I'm talking about...at least in the Sage play-through). By the time I visited the last planets of each chapter I already knew what to expect and was desperately hoping something awesome and unexpected would happen... that wasn't the case. A "oh ****" moment here and there would definitely make the game more memorable.

The Itemization: 7

A fairly well designed system. I never felt that my gear or the companions gear was inferior to the enemies I encountered and I never felt the need to "twink" my character. This also brings us to a problem in the game which will be discussed in the next section.

The stats are well thought out and the quest rewards had stats appropriate to my class with a variety of items to choose from based on my spec/adv class. The option to choose commendations or BoE lockboxes instead of gear made every quest reward worthwhile in some way. The addition of companion armor rewards was also a nice touch. The stat effects also scale very well with the level and enemy difficulty.

The gear looks good. However I was a bit disappointed by the gear progression. It seems that the end game gear still needs to be worked out since it looks like a throwback to the level 1-20 items and nothing like the progression shown on the website (could be that I was just unlucky and equipped ugly items).

The Economy: 4

Contrary to popular opinion I had few problems with money. This may have been due to my choice of professions: Slicer/Archeologist/Artificer. I looted ever enemy I encountered and sliced each lockbox I could find. I always had enough money to train the skills at each level (with 1-2 exceptions when I had to buy the speeder skills). This however brings us to the problems... there is literally no economy... being that it's a beta it's somewhat understandable but I was shocked to see that there were only about 100-200 auctions on the market at any given time and that the blues I put up for auction never sold. This is most likely due to the fact that the quest rewards are so consistent and numerous. Hopefully the issue will resolve itself on release when the population will be considerably larger and supply and demand really starts to play a role.

The Companions: 7

A very interesting addition to the game with a lot of potential but at the same time a lot of wasted potential.

In terms of gameplay they are a outstanding addition, complementing your character very well... to the point where a good duo can 2man 4man quests with ease. In extreme cases I could even solo some 4 mans with Quezy (50% damage reduction shield companion skill and the Sage Cooldowns/CCs)... more on this in the class review.

Companions offer some flavor and the quests you go through to get them also offer some attachment/background on their character. This however is not exploited to its max potential. Think Mass Effect here... where some of the funniest moments came from queued character dialog and ship conversations. Since it's an MMO you could have these responses displayed only for the owner to avoid spam in public areas.

Loyalty seems to play virtually no role whatsoever except for opening up a few very underwhelming character specific quests/discussions. This has the potential for a lot of improvement. I got to 10000/10000 with Nadia Grell... and 4000/10000 with Quezy Lizardface. All Nadia offered were a handful of conversation quests with no apparent benefit except for a laughable amount of exp. Quez gave me a 4 minute long quest with very underwhelming rewards. Make loyalty play a role... give us companion skills or special items that open up at certain thresholds, add to their crafting efficiency/crit (this actually seemed to be the case with Nadia, who at full loyalty crafted faster than the others did (Artificing, not her specialty)) .

The Alignment and Social Systems: 5

Alignment has a lot of potential but seems to play virtually no role whatsoever. In my experience the characters you interact with react the same way regardless of your alignment from my experience on Tython and Coruscant up to level 20. Add some flavor and diversity to conversations/quests based on alignment, add companion interactions/influences based on alignment. Have it do something beyond providing a shiny light in conversations.

PvP: 4

standard fare. So standard as a matter of fact that it gave me a feeling of Deja Voo (5). Same skill-set that's required in every other game, some interesting variations on traditional battlegrounds: +1 for flavor, +1 for some interesting/nail biting moments, -1 for taking the shortcut of level normalization, -1 for not being able to select the battleground you que for, -1 for only having level 20 PvP items. I Except the system to be vastly improved for release so that the negative aspects can be removed (bringing the score up to a 7).

Space combat: 7

interesting minigame addition. I've finished all the space combat missions and found most to be quiet enjoyable as a distraction from the hours of questing/ running around. Many are very challenging and will require ship upgrades to complete but also offer some nail-biting moments and very decent rewards.

The idea of incorporating cash/xp/quest rewards for the missions was a awesome idea. It makes grinding missions not a complete waste of time/effort and at higher levels it actually makes them viable for lvling/cash if you complete the bonus objectives consistently (gained 1/2 of lvl 40 and about 100k cash in about 1 hour).

Many seem to judge the space combat too harshly. For me it's a minigame and participating in it is completely voluntary. As such, you shouldn't expect a built in flight simulator... that's just naive and unrealistic.

The Jedi Sage Class: 7

A couple of points on the Sage. I enjoyed the class very much... it plays like most MMO mage classes when specced in Telekinetics and like most Healer classes when specced in Seer. Could heal FPs without problem even when I was specced in Telekinetics and deal damage when I was specced in Seer. This is also one of my major concerns. The talent trees are VERY underwhelming. Each one offers 3 new skills which don't change the class all that much. Most talents have minimal impact and because you are limited to 40 skill points, you don't have that much flexibility to throw around. Because you are forced to invest 5 points in each tier you actually end up being forced to take all but 4 of the Skills regardless of what choices you make. Most of the time the choices will also be very clear cut since the useless talents simply jump out at you... meaning that most people will have identical specs before the spreadsheets even hit the internet.

The skills are interesting and offer some variety and strategic options. The huge damage potential of Telekinetics coupled with the Sages inherent healing abilities and CC make it a very powerful solo class. Using Quezy (the tanking companion with a Personal Force Field Gadget) I could solo some 4 man group quests (1 boss, 2 elites, 2 strongs groups)... which was actually the most challenging/enjoyable part of the game since it required perfect timing/skill tracking.

There are other elements I'd like to discuss (FPs, instancing,mounts) but I haven't experienced or given them enough attention to warrant a review so I'll leave it at that.

Final Score: 6

Verdict: above average... even in its current beta build. With some improvements which are bound to come (if the developers have 1/2 a brain... which they seem to do) it can become a excellent and successful game. The potential is without a doubt there. Now it comes down to building on what will hopefully be a successful launch and a thriving community (read idea/money source).
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Clearly this disproves everything wab says.
 
There are plenty of reviews that go against that too though. As far as I can see it is still a mixed bag, and has been since the start. Some of the reviews are clearly just people who were always going to love/hate it - the other reviews are mixed.
 
CaptainRAVE said:
There are plenty of reviews that go against that too though. As far as I can see it is still a mixed bag, and has been since the start. Some of the reviews are clearly just people who were always going to love/hate it - the other reviews are mixed.
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While i agree with that, people like wab are clearly just trolling this post and its pathetic.
 
I wonder how much, if any, that reviewer would change his opinion if he'd leveled up something other than a JC?
Bioware so far don't seem to have the love for them that they might do certain other classes (speculation on my part, I'm not in beta or anything) and I wonder if that rubs off on the player.

I'll be making a healer first and foremost but I'm totally lost as to what class. I really like the story of the Inquisitor, but everyone and their dog will have one and so odds of getting into a flashpoint group are substantially reduced. Because of that, I'm erring more toward an IA healer on the Sith side, or Trooper healer on the Republic.
 
TBH, the fact that the story was predictable according to that review is a bit off putting. I mean, the games main draw is story, so it should be well...unpredictable, fresh.

BTW, the "kill 10 rats" style of questing? Just because 12 million odd WoW players enjoy it, does not make it amazing. Obviously this is opinion, but if you changed it, so it was something like a normal RPG, where you're not killing 10 rats, you're doing other objectives, and the rats are just in the way...objectives that further the storyline, thats far better. I guess because it's secondary quests that's less bad, but IMO, if any of that junk is in the primary quests, then :/

TBH, EvE did quests better than most MMO's IMO, I mean, I still burnt out after a while because the cycle and it doesn't really further a storyline unless you do the story arcs, but it never told you to kill only 15 ships and then go back to the NPC, and it kept the gameplay interesting with triggers that would lead to many ships warping in on you. It felt less grindy. Obviously EvE lends itself to this style. I'm carefully watching GW2 to see how well their execution is of the removal of the "kill 10 rats" style...footage seems good, but with MMO's..
 
The Baldur's gate series are some of my favourite games but I prefer the dragon age combat system to dnd. The story was better though I'll give you that.

Anybody else thinking of making this their first mmo?
 
LateX'Dog said:
While i agree with that, people like wab are clearly just trolling this post and its pathetic.
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I think the only troll here is you and your mate.

As to that review there is nothing I disagree with, and he has not said anything really that different from me, he is just a lot more positive.

As I clearly said there are people who like the game but if you took a straw poll from the the 840 forums there is a much higher negativity than positive.

If I really wanted to Bitch about the game there are tons of things I could gone to town on for one the extremely limited character creation, but I have not done any of that I just painted a broad picture.

Its people like you who can not put together a reasonable reply and like all Fanboi you cry troll troll.

I have given a fair view of my take on the game (one thats a lot of people on the 840 forums seem to agree with). If you don't like my view don't reply its pretty simple.


I certainly didn't, and won't, be pre-ordering. The Old Republic didn't even hold my interest for 2 weeks, and I've been an avid MMO player for over 8 years. I've never been so dissapointed in a game; so much potential wasted.

The new Elder Scrolls and Diablo 3 will be out around the same time so I'll be buying those instead. Yeah, neither of those is an MMO, but the same can be said for TOR which is an awesome single player game with an MMO chatbox added to attempt to justify the sub
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07.23.2011 , 11:54 AM

Didn't order... While I loved the cinematics, story arcs, voiceovers and art. The gameplay was sorely lacking and repetative

Can't justify blowing more money on another mmo launched too soon
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07.23.2011 , 06:30 PM

Nah.

Not that that's going to surprise people

It's a solid game - there are bugs and so on, but I can forgive that at this point in the beta. But the basic gameplay mechanics bored me silly. It's just not my game.

Kudos to those that liked it and pre-ordered it though.
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Not sure what it is that is missing, but I am losing interest.

It might help trying different classes, but still, the dynamics of the game will still be the same ... just running from one place to another, killing things, talking to people, just for the sake of progressing.

Yes, that is a big part of any game of this style, but I feel there is something missing that makes me want to keep on playing.

The progression itself isn't all that fascinating either as it simply means that one is at the right level in order to complete their quests.

So in essence, you aren't progressing, just keeping up with the difficulty levels. This is evident in most of the powers I am granted (Jedi Guardian) as the majority of them are the same power, but just at a different level, to keep up with the progression of the game.

I want to like the game, but I have some concerns over longevity and enjoyability.

Anyone else have similar feelings?
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See its pretty easy to cherry pick comments
 
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These problems are endemic in every mmorpg release, and that's not to ignore the issue with TOR. Clearly a new approach is needed. Those of us who've been mmorpg gamers for a while now (over 10 years here) recognise the same issues cropping up time & time again. This is mainly because the same format is used time & time again.

I'm looking forward to this game, I want the story & if the mmorpg keeps me interested great, if not no worries because I'm not expecting it to.
 
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