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

Some of you might be interested in reading this. It is a summary from one of the play testers and I more or less agree with most of it tbh. Even though it is in beta stages, I suspect a lot of this will stay the same.

As I'm going to be away for the weekend, I figured this would be a good time to scribble down my impressions so far.

I'm going to come right out and say it - while I've played all kinds of different MMOs over the years, I tend to prefer sandbox games. Or at least games with a huge amount of customization and complexity. With that in mind, I know I'm not exactly the target audience here. However, the task is to respond as if the game were launched, so let's give this a shot.

Remember: these are all my responses. It's ok if you don't agree.

Overall: What TOR does well, it does very well. The rest of the stuff is either average or seriously sub-par.

The storytelling is, for the most part, outstanding. The writing is usually in the strong side, the smuggler can make you chuckle and the bounty hunter has machismo down. There's a few weird plot points and cliches, but hey - I'm playing in a stylized space opera, so those fit nicely.

Style wise, the game is pretty solid. Not all of it's to my taste, but it's got to look star warsy. The cartoony element works well with the game design. The worlds I've seen so far are beautiful. the armor looks like serious, used armor. The clothing looks like something someone might actually wear.

I would LOVE to see a system that would let me recolor my clothes/armor. Seriously. Running around in bounty armor is fine, but when the colors are burgandy, teal and yellow I feel like I destroy the set so that I never have to look at it again.

I really, really dislike the character creation process. The UI feels unresponsive, the options available to me make me feel hampered and it takes me too long to make something I'd even consider passable. Could we get "cyborg" as an accessory option rather than a race? Could we remove the races being specific to professions? The sliders are fiddly, too few of the options feel like they make any kind of reasonable difference and the vast majority of the time the only reason I know who someone is is because of their name plate.

The companion system's a nice touch. Being able to set them to do things while you run missions is neat. Getting rid of that wouldn't be the end of the world, but it's neat.

The crafting system could do with some serious love. I LOVE deep, involved crafting in MMOs. I don't love this system. After making a bunch of belts, I was able to make a different kind of belt. Made a few of those and then got another belt to make. I was hoping I'd at least be able to pick the colors on the belts, but no luck. After a while I got bored with the whole thing and decided to just use loot and pretend there was no crafting.

the item modification system looks cool, but I'll be honest, after a few attempts I found that everything I could modify with was inferior to what was in there. So I decided to leave that alone.

Ships: Very cool, love the design and realization. I'm puzzled where people eat, shower and all that, but whatever. I'd love the ability to make some decoration choices, use the chairs etc, but fair enough. I'm not a huge fan of the galaxy map, but after a couple of minutes I got used to it.

Space combat... meh. It's fun, but it feels like the kind of game I might play on my phone or on newgrounds. the rewards I've seen are a title and some things to make space easier. Frankly, if this was removed from the game I'm not sure I'd feel there was anything worthwhile lost.

Grouping and multiplayer mechanics work well. The times I've run with someone else we managed to work with each other's strengths. I would LOVE to see what my group mate's saying in his class quests.

Combat. A mixed bag. The animations and effects are gorgeous. The mechanics themselves feel kind of dated. Tab and press a couple of buttons gets a little dull, but it's functional. The cover system ranges from fun to irritating and back.

Leveling up is just frustrating. I just can't get on board with "run back to the hub and see the trainer and then run back". Those times when I do and then find I don't have the money to level are the kind of things that make me log out and play something else for a while.

I took a look at the auction system then switched it off. I haven't yet found a need for it.

I am starting to get very frustrated with the amount of running around I have to do. Taxi points feel very far away, especially when I'm doing a quest that requires that I run half way across the map, back to where I started then back out again. Speeders at lower levels would be AWESOME. I've yet to come to terms with being allowed a ship before I'm allowed a speeder.

Speaking of which - maps need a lot more information on them. Where the vendors are, trainers are and so on should all be on city maps. I managed to get to level 17 on my first character before stumbling on an NPC that could have taught my crew skills 7 levels ago.

TLDR version: It's a polished game, but I'm not sure it's MY polished game. There are too many things that frustrate me too much to get on board the fanboy train, and honestly I'm shifting from "I'll see how it goes" to "I don't think I can pay to be this frustrated". I'm enjoying the stories, but as an MMO I think I might be better served elsewhere.

I'll keep playing for the month - give it a chance, give honest feedback and so on. As it stands though, I'm going to have to pass on this when it comes out.
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Thanks for that CaptainRave.

Why oh Why oh Why do so many "modern" MMOs fail to include someway to dye your armour/clothing. Drives me nuts, not only does it avoid "clown" outfits, it also adds a way for people to individualize themselves so that even if they are wearing the same outfit as someone else, at least it looks different because its dyed in their chosen colours.
 
Am I the only one who thinks that the devs spent far much more time designing the Imperial armour/ships etc. than they spent on the republic versions? Does this biased trend continue ingame(Question for the beta testers)? Or is it just the way they have shown everything on the website?

I mean look at this: http://www.swtor.com/info/holonet/starships
All the Republic ships look rubbish compared to their Imperial opposites, the smuggler ship is the only republic one that looks even a tiny bit good and even that is out done by the Imperial agent.

Fury(Sith) > Defender(Jedi)
D5 Mantis(BH) > BT-7 Thunderclap(Trooper)
X-70B Phantom(Agent) > X5 Freighter(Smuggler)
 
Monkeymatt said:
Am I the only one who thinks that the devs spent far much more time designing the Imperial armour/ships etc. than they spent on the republic versions? Does this biased trend continue ingame(Question for the beta testers)? Or is it just the way they have shown everything on the website?

I mean look at this: http://www.swtor.com/info/holonet/starships
All the Republic ships look rubbish compared to their Imperial opposites, the smuggler ship is the only republic one that looks even a tiny bit good and even that is out done by the Imperial agent.

Fury(Sith) > Defender(Jedi)
D5 Mantis(BH) > BT-7 Thunderclap(Trooper)
X-70B Phantom(Agent) > X5 Freighter(Smuggler)
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I don't think so.
 
LateX'Dog said:
Would be awesome if someone could copy and paste some patch notes. ;)
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im sorry if this isn't allowed so delete if need be but here you go


SWTOR - Early June Patch Notes


Highlights

The User Interface has been reskinned, updated, and improved!
Act 2 content has been polished, updated, and improved!
Act 3 is now available for play.
The new Nar Shaddaa Warzone has been added! In this Warzone, face off against the opposing team for Galactic glory in a deadly sport. Players on each team struggle to claim the ball from the center of the arena and must work together to run and pass the ball to the opposing team’s scoring zone. Dodge dangerous traps and be on your guard - this is a full-contact sport!
Speeders have been more fully implemented! New speeders are available, as well as a speeder selection tab. Players can train Speeder Piloting (Rank 1) at level 25.
All classes and their abilities have been adjusted and rebalanced.
Crew Skills have been overhauled and improved significantly.
Players can now form multi-party (raid) groups to take on tough challenges (like the World Bosses)!
Items, item mods, and loot tables have been updated and improved across the game.
Overall game performance has been improved!


Full patch notes are here

http://betacake.blogspot.com/2011/06/star-wars-old-republic-patch-notes.html#more
 
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Master_X said:
Are screenshots not allowed? I would love to see some if the beta testers could post some :D
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they wont as there lose there place. My friend is on the beta For 30 days.
He has video and allot of pics but wont show them till his 30 days is up. so he don't get kicked off during that period. .
 
ty77 said:
they wont as there lose there place. My friend is on the beta For 30 days.
He has video and allot of pics but wont show them till his 30 days is up. so he don't get kicked off during that period. .
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I thought as much, i remember they did the same thing for Galaxies, when beta had ended it was media overload!
 
Master_X said:
I thought as much, i remember they did the same thing for Galaxies, when beta had ended it was media overload!
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yeah he has footage of the new warzone ect. But keeping hold of it i think for another 20 days he has left something like that. As his time ends then.
And he wont be bothered if he don't get back on as he seems to think it wont be long till we see the retail version.
As the last invites are about just playing the game than bug testing he was told.
 
Another review from a tester:

So, I've made it half way, (at least level wise), Its been a fun trip so far with a few bumps in the road. But i would like to take a few moments to post my Trooper half way review.

The Trooper:

Tanking:
I picked the trooper because i love tanking in most MMO's I play, its a fun aspect for me and i love learning new fights and the mechanics of bosses ect. So naturally when i heard the words ranged and tank in the same sentence i said umm ***? So i went with the Vanguard aka Specialist.I said to me self, how can you have a tank who is naturally in someones face beating them by the normal definition of most MMo's, be at range? Well, you can't from the one flash point that i have encountered so far and all of the group questing ect..., if something is a ranged mob, which shoots with blasters, it will generally stay at range, which is fine but then what you get is me standing there shooting the Mob and him shooting back and in that situation i am a ranged tank. However when you get a melee mob, it's not stupid it wants to of course coming running at me. Now the sticky grenade and the explosive grenade will *normally* stop most non-elite mobs, however the elite mobs (either the silver tag or gold tab ) don't really seem to care that there's a grenade on their chest or that they were supposed to get knocked back from the explosion. So with melee mobs what end up happening is i end up standing face too face with them and shooting them. There is no dead zone for Troopers and i don't think there needs to be one, however it takes away from the immersion that I'm standing there face to face with someone and there hitting me with a sword and I'm shooting them in the face. I don't have (at this level) any sort of slow effect that i can put on a melee mob where i could sort of kite them like i had imagined doing. I really expected the trooper to be soft of a tank/ranged mix, where maybe i couldn't take the boss on face to face like a melee tank could but instead i had slows and such where i could kite the boss around, sadly this is not the case. Maybe the devs an give me a "stomp on their foot" ability that slows the mob or something, but i don't feel like i can kite very well i need a slowing effect and not just a stun effect.

The Story!:
The Trooper story is absolutely amazing up to this point, i wont give out any spoilers, but I'm loving the quest line, personally i hate General Garza and i love ****ing her off and doing the right thing and not what she orders me to do. My companions are great, as a tank i end up not really using M1 4x (though his voice overs make me laugh) or Jorgan, I mainly stick to using Dorne as shes my heal bot and she actually seems to be one of the most complex characters yet in terms of back story. I cant realy go into much detail with out giving away aspects of the story so ill keep this section brief, A++++++ trooper story nothing needs to be changed.

Aesthetics:
So up until getting to Tatooine and the later part of Nar Shaddaa, i really felt like i was wearing a t shirt that had some armor printed on it like a graphic tshirt, almost like those tuxedo t shirts. The armor made me feel like i wasn't really a trooper and i honestly didn't think i looked like one much. Finally on Nar Shaddaa i got a pair of pants that had bulky looking leg armor and a helm, which looked absolutely ridiculous, but i loved it because i got to get rid of the stupid speeder helm, and i was finally looking like a trooper. Once on tatooine i got another new helm that looks more like a helm from the clone wars trooper and some updated looking chest armor.

Additional Misc Stuff:
So i don't like being stuck being a tank 24/7 i would really like the ability to have a dual spec where i can change over to a commando and doing dps.

There is an extreme lack of need for tanks up to lvl 25, The first flash point doesn't really require a tank or a healer, 4 dps can do it fine. This makes me feel useless and like i picked a tanking class which there's no need for tanks, and now I'm running around doing less dps then a commando for what maybe so i can be useful at 50? There needs to be atleast 1 if not 2 flash points added between lvl 10 and lvl 25 i would be fine with one at about lvl 15-18 and another at lvl 25 would do quite well also. Possibly putting one on Taris and Tatooine (republic). i know this is a TALL almost unreasonable request at this point because it requires you to come up with all of the voice overs, all of the environment, all of the story and do it 4x over because you need 2 for each side, unless you can come up with a faction neutral one. But then again I'm a customer and I'm supposed to make unreasonable requests and demands.

Markers! In the +2 and +4 group quests (and the flash point) i have been unable to mark any targets, i dont have the ability to put a star or a 1 2 3 ect.. over the head of anything... please add this asap, i don't think this is unreasonable and hopefully its easy to do.

Target of target, sometimes i cant tell which mobs i have and i don't, i need to see target of target.

Way points/Marks on the map. I'm going to go out on a ledge here and say that in Aion and in Rift, in a group you can make a way-point on a map so that the other group members can see it. In Aion you can actually link that in chat so that you don't even need to be in group with the person. So lets say for a minute noob player 1 is lost and says can someone tell me where the trainer is? someone can actually click their map and link it in chat like you would a piece of armor or something in let say wow. this add that way-point to the persons map. This is extremely helpful! and i would love to see it in the game since this game is so massive!

There is a list of about 100 other things I'd like to see added to the game but I'm trying to keep this Trooper/Tank oriented.
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and another one on why it doesn't feel like an MMO:
Ok, I just did my daily survey, and I figured I'd post my "feelings" here, to see what the rest of you think.

For reference, my chars are; 30 Sorcerer, 16 Powertech

WTB: Freedom

The one thing an MMO, to me, really needs is the feeling of freedom. By that I mean that you have an open world in front of you, free to do whatever you want with. Maybe that is killing mobs. Maybe it's traveling around exploring stuff. Maybe it's fishing for some super-rare mount that only drops every full moon. The point is; in an MMO, I just want to exist. I don't want a script. I don't necessarily want a purpose. I don't want a world created with one thing in mind.

SWTOR doesn't give me that. Every planet I've seen so far, takes my by the hand and leads me through the story. And yes, the story is amazing. But there's no freedom. I can't explore areas, because there's mobs everywhere, and even gray mobs will dismount me and put me into (yet another) trash pack.

Not to mention, the planets are really small. I know we've been told that they are huge, and maybe there is some function math that allows them to claim that, but let's compare Tatooine in SWTOR to Tatooine in SWG. The first, it has two cities, and some outside areas that are all used in some way for questing. Look at SWG; it feels like a planet. You have numerous cities spread around it. You have miles and miles of open land between each city.

I use Tatooine as an example since that is a planet larger number of people have started getting to. So, fellow TOR'ers, explain to me; what could I possibly do on Tatooine other than story / character progression?

Because I don't see a single thing that planet is useful for beyond that. And that, my friends, isn't an MMO to me.

As I've said before, I am still amazed at how great this game is. I just don't see what there is to do in this game, other than your character's story.
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Markers! In the +2 and +4 group quests (and the flash point) i have been unable to mark any targets, i dont have the ability to put a star or a 1 2 3 ect.. over the head of anything... please add this asap, i don't think this is unreasonable and hopefully its easy to do.
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A surprise thats not in yet, quite an important staple of any MMO really imo. Something that they will add maybe.

Not to mention, the planets are really small. I know we've been told that they are huge, and maybe there is some function math that allows them to claim that, but let's compare Tatooine in SWTOR to Tatooine in SWG. The first, it has two cities, and some outside areas that are all used in some way for questing. Look at SWG; it feels like a planet. You have numerous cities spread around it. You have miles and miles of open land between each city.
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That part doesnt surprise me tbh, I suspect that anyone who is expecting another SWG will be disappointed, I wonder how small "really small" is. We've seen before how short lived the excitement over small MMO worlds is. Perhaps this one is down to the expectations of the player though, if the player is expecting a quite linear, small world then theres no problem.

I just don't see what there is to do in this game, other than your character's story.
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That one is a fairly worrying sentence though, its not going to turn out to be another Champions Online/Star Trek Online type of thing is it, where theres not much of a world other than the story and you're never given the feeling of having a choice of many things to do?

Not the most promising selection of quotes there CaptainRave, does kind of come across as something that a person might play through once to see the story and then knock it on the head as theres no more reason to pay a monthly sub.

Not really a big fan of this whole companions thing, I would rather the emphasis be on other players and the social side of things rather than the I'll just do X with this AI npc pet of mine instead of bothering to talk to anyone. Though thats just a personal preference.
 
CaptainRAVE said:
Another review from a tester:



and another one on why it doesn't feel like an MMO:
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Awesome write up :)
Has he any thoughts on PVP?
When i ask my friend he just says he loves it but he is a star wars nerd so if it sucked he would say the same lol

There is a quote some where i cant seem to find it that says how big Tatooine is i did find this.
it's bigger then the whole DE:Origins and only numbers I could find is 1,001,449 sq km, the size of Ferelden so it should be somewhere in this range
 
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Tombstone said:
Not the most promising selection of quotes there CaptainRave, does kind of come across as something that a person might play through once to see the story and then knock it on the head as theres no more reason to pay a monthly sub.
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Potentially there are 8 very good storylines, so a good bit of scope with regards to alt characters. I am interested to see what the endgame is.
 
Tombstone said:
That one is a fairly worrying sentence though, its not going to turn out to be another Champions Online/Star Trek Online type of thing is it, where theres not much of a world other than the story and you're never given the feeling of having a choice of many things to
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To be honest that's all I'm expecting of it. I'm treating it as the next kotor game, playing it through as Jefi then tossing it on the back of the shelf. Will wait till free trial comes out and price comes down and I will rattle it off in a week.

Have a feeling it will be fast levelling as well.
 
Monkeymatt said:
I'm not so sure, apparently there is around 200 hours worth of gameplay per character.

So even if you rush through it will still probs take several days of continuous playing.
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There is certainly great potential for people who like alt characters - 8 characters with very interesting stories.

I still wish this had been a single player KOTOR 3. I just don't get what the MMO features really add to it.

Will probably pick it up on release, but doubt I will sub for very long, if at all.

Still, over 3 weeks of play more :) - will probably role a few more characters to see what they are like.
 
CaptainRAVE said:
I still wish this had been a single player KOTOR 3. I just don't get what the MMO features really add to it.
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It adds a massive, massive, MASSIVE amount of extra money they will make over releasing an rpg and we all know what computer execs love more than... Well anything is money :p

Agree though, would much prefer kotor 3.
 
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