The Old Republic

The more I check up on this game the more I realize I can't wait to freaking play it!

1) I've got a ton of local friends that are going to be playing it, and that's always fun (until they stop playing, but being that this is Star Wars and Bioware it's extremely unlikely to happen this time around).
2) It's going to be way larger than I originally expected it would, due to space travel and space combat. (freaking sweet!) This of course opens up multiple worlds.
3) There's no way they aren't going to have special tutorial levels for each starting class, given the diversity of each class from one another in Star Wars lore. (and, even though it's taking a page from WoW, it's taking a good page in keeping each class feeling fresh and different at the start of the game)
4) Nothing new here, but the class advancements/specializations look awesome and are a great way of further diversifying player roles.
5) Did I mention there was space combat? WOOOOOOO
6) Companions, seems like an interesting concept. Similiar to what FFXI did though these companions actually interact with you.. usually comically if that is there persona. Plus they interact with your own personal story, or so I am lead to believe. Again, interesting concept. Can't wait to see how it works out.
7) I love that I'll be able to change my lightsaber or blaster colors. (One can only hope black and white will be available color crystals)
8) The "karma" system, or whatever it's being called. Another interesting concept. You can choose to be not so good a Jedi, or perhaps not so evil a Sith. But where's the fun in being a good Sith, muahahahaha. I also wonder what perhaps changes to your character will be made by utilizing this system. An evil or good aura depending on your faction and standing in the spectrum? Maybe your eyes glow, or other types of physical altercations to your toon? Or would it simply be a tool to judge what npcs offer you certain quests?

The only thing I have not seen yet is character creation. I hope it is not completely generic and that there is perhaps a largely varied amount of races to choose from, given there are soooooooooo many races in the Star Wars universe.
 
Don't get to excited about the space combat, it's a tube shooter (think original Star Fox on SNES). If you like the sounds of that cool, but it leaves something to be desired for me, it leaves no option for PVP, and very little option for Co-op. I'm hoping that it's just something they made real quick to appease the people who were screaming "MUST HAVE SPACE COMBAT NOWZ" and they plan on putting more time and resources towards something more MMO like after launch (so long as the game does well and brings in the money needed to develop new systems of course).

Otherwise, I too and super duper psyched up for this game. I will be playing a "good" sith sorcerer shooting lighting out of my hands at anything I deem worthy of a zap.
 
I am still so psyched for this game. I wish it was out NOW.

I will be honest. I never really got into the KotOR games, mainly because I never have and never will own an Xbox. But I have experienced them to some degree, since though I never had an Xbox, I have a really good friend that does and I've watched him play both KotOR games... not all the way through, but enough to get what they are like. The end result being that I am sure I would have enjoyed playing though those games as much as my friend did. And TOR is basically a multiplayer mmo style version of KotOR. I love everything I've seen and read up on the game.

I've seen people praise and bitch and moan over the gameplay style. To me it looks exactly what I would expect a Star Wars mmo to look like. If it looks a little like WoW combat (which some people have accused it of being) then so what, it IS an mmo afterall.

I love the lore, which feeds off of the KotOR games (duh) as well as known Star Wars lore. I am really really really really looking forward to playing this game. I already know what I am going to play first, a sith warrior and eventually a Sith Juggernaut in a tanking role. All of my friends are going to be on the Empire's side and I am looking forward to a very fun time.

The thing is.. I just can't wait for this game. In the meantime I'm stuck playing Counter-Strike: Source and Champions Online and both get old after a while. *sigh* I just can't wait any longer. Once this and Guild Wars 2 come out, I'm sure to be glued to my monitor during all the free time I have. I cannot wait!
 
Looking forward to this but until they bring out the pricing of the subs I wont pre order. Anyone know what the servers are going to be like, multi region or locked?
 
Pricing of the subs? The game is free to play, with a microtransaction system that will likely be used frequently and provide the most (all) income. These systems typically offer unique items and helpful items that are only available through the microtransaction system or "store" this is how they will (and believe me, they will) make all of their money.

Unless something has changed, which I am not aware of, TOR was never going to be a monthly subscription game. Though I can see them perhaps doing a monthly sub for people and giving them some kind of bonuses for being subscribers, but still I was not aware they were doing anything like that though I suppose I could be wrong.
 
Ecks said:
Pricing of the subs? The game is free to play, with a microtransaction system that will likely be used frequently and provide the most (all) income. These systems typically offer unique items and helpful items that are only available through the microtransaction system or "store" this is how they will (and believe me, they will) make all of their money.

Unless something has changed, which I am not aware of, TOR was never going to be a monthly subscription game. Though I can see them perhaps doing a monthly sub for people and giving them some kind of bonuses for being subscribers, but still I was not aware they were doing anything like that though I suppose I could be wrong.
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Where are you getting this from? The Devs have said from the beginning that the pricing model with be monthly with prices comparable to current models.
 
Where am I getting it from? Well I can't give you any direct source but this was the talk when the game was first being developed. They may have changed it, but for the longest time it was thought TOR was going to be free to play and use a microtransaction system. Hmm.. Infact I remember watching a dev video that said this. If I can locate said video again I'll gladly post it. (Albeit this was last year sometime)
 
From what I have heard they said it would be a monthly sub but have yet to announce price.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=392364

Second post on that page.

Will I need to pay a monthly subscription in order to play Star Wars: The Old Republic?

Yes, a monthly subscription is required to play Star Wars: The Old Republic. Exact pricing will be revealed at a later date.
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I shall be an adventurous rouge name Hung So-low :D
 
Hmm.. Everything I had heard until this point had pointed at micro-transaction sales. *shrug* I am a little disappointed it's pay to play considering I thought it was going to be similar to Guild Wars 2, but I suppose that probably won't keep me from enjoying the game. Though unless the game has staying power and truly is as fun and great as I hope it will be, I may be hard pressed to keep paying a monthly fee. If all of my friends decide to quit playing I might find little more reason (unless I just truly enjoy the game, as what happened with FFXI back in the day) to continue playing.

Where as if it were free to play there's no real pressure when you stop and take a break, because it's not like you're paying monthly for the game. You can always go back to it whenever you want without the hassle of resubscribing/unsubscribing. That's one of the biggest reasons I'm looking forward to Guild Wars 2 (aside from the fact that it looks like an amazing mmo). TOR was equally appealing to me -because- I was under the impression that it would have a similar F2P/Micro-transaction system that GW2 was going to have (and that both look like amazing games). *shrug* I suppose we'll all just have to wait and see. Though I have a small damper on my take on TOR now. :/ Oh well, game still looks fun.
 
The game seems interesting :P story-wise and whatnot it seems like it'll finally put single player kinda story fun in a mmo which is nice. Gameplay-wise it literally is a WoW clone with a Star Wars skin. Hah. oh well.
 
Elemmire said:
Gameplay-wise it literally is a WoW clone with a Star Wars skin. Hah. oh well.
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I never really understand this, no matter who says it. What exactly does it clone from WoW? Or rather, what is it that WoW has that isn't modern MMO structure? Where do you draw the line on gameplay that is required for a functional MMO and what is unique to WoW?

It's like saying Starcraft is a Command and Conquer clone with a space skin simply because it uses the same RTS style. Using modern game elements is one thing. Calling it a clone just doesn't feel quite right.
 
.....

I am so sick of people comparing every MMO's gameplay to WoW. WoW was not the first MMO, neither would it be as big as it is if it hadn't been backed by Blizzard and using the lore of their most popular RTS series. That aside yes The Old Republic looks like an MMO *shock* oh wait, that's because it -IS- one. No surprises there.

But unlike WoW and kind of every other MMO out there at the moment, it seems like it will be immensely story driven (like an rpg, more specifically a Bioware rpg) and the instances seem like they play out like an awesome multiplayer version of KotOR. It seems like there's going to be a ton of instanced zones like this, off the bat (with of course more in the works for the future). Now I haven't actually seen too much of the open world gameplay and in that respect what I have seen looks like your typical MMO, only Star Wars.. which suprise (okay not really suprised), is exactly what TOR is.

Back to WoW, sort of. WoW could be easily said to be a clone of a number of the MMO's that came before it. Easily. Blizzard did what every new MMO developer does, take what works and put your own spin on it and perhaps come up with something new in the process. It also helps they made the game incredibly easy to play, by comparison to their competition at the time.
 
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Blizzard not only copied its predecessors and competition shamelessly in developing WoW, they continued the trend after its release. Almost all of the "exciting new!" features of WoW? Field-tested in someone else's less successful MMO.
 
Ecks said:
and the instances seem like they play out like an awesome multiplayer version of KotOR.
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I was thinking the same thing. Not only that, it looks like they did it right. They seemed to have taken the best parts of their KotOR franchise and put them into the instances. Just the Flashpoints they did show had a very KotOR feeling and that makes me very happy.
 
Oh come now, don't deny it. At least some other MMOs are trying something different in presentation even. It's so bland to see the same style of hot key MMOs and, sure, while WoW didn't create it, they did actually create tons of features not seen before in MMOs that every MMO since has been copying. If you can't see how ToR is copying WoW's features then you're blinding yourself. I don't care how much you hate WoW and love Star Wars or Bioware, but look at it yourself. There's a LOT that's similar and things that were created by WoW.

Does that mean it'll be bad? Nope. But will it be anything special? Doubtful. Only to those who are fanboys of Star Wars or at least KotoR prolly will say it's revolutionary. Far as I've seen and read and such doesn't show anything special.
 
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Well someone drank their Haterade this morning...
 
I think the more they show of this game the more terrible it looks :\
 
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/shrug, I'm not sure that it's a game I'm going to play, but from what I've seen so far, it looks relatively solid, and well-thought-out.

Graphically speaking, it's frankly unimpressive. Which is the point. Make a game that's too technically sophisticated, with awe-inspiring and realistic graphics, and you're typically locking a significant fraction of the gaming community out of your game. WoW hasn't been substantially graphically updated because Blizzard is incapable, but rather because they've chosen not to. They've done some minor tweaks as the game has aged, smoothed out some animations, but for the most part you can run it on relatively weak machines. Intentionally.

The implication is that it has more to offer in terms of single-player content. One would hope so, at least, otherwise it will have relatively little to set it apart from the general MMORPG market. Fully-voiced is a nifty feature, but not enough to sell the game if there's not substantial content to back it up. There appears to be, and there's definitely a market for a game of that nature where you have more to do solo than is offered in WoW, but we won't actually know for sure until its release.

Interface-wise, it's standard MMO formula, which so far hasn't been substantially deviated from in about 6-7 years. There's little to complain about, little to praise, but it gets the job done, is fairly easy to understand, and is pretty much instantly familiar to the player, which has a value all its own. In fact, it's relatively difficult to deviate from that model without alienating a large percentage of your potential player-base. The model works largely because it's extremely accessible; sure, you can make an MMO action RPG, where things like twitch reflex matter, and simplify and/or streamline your control system to be something more familiar to a console or FPS gamer. But in so doing, you're limiting your potential player-base to the people who like games of that nature, rather than the broader market of people to whom the core concept of MMORPG appeals.

The killer question for TOR is going to be the same killer question that has, frankly, killed most of the games that have attempted to follow WoW: Is there enough to do to hold interest while still being entertaining? You can make the leveling process drag on endlessly, and people will leave your game. You can make the leveling process quick and painless, but then have nothing to do at level cap, and people will leave your game. The trick is in finding the right balance for pacing, and making sure you launch with enough content that, by the time you've got your next content expansion ready to go, the average player has either just wrapped up the previous content, or at the very least made significant progress. Sidegrade content is acceptable at nearly any stage of this process, of course, since it's not genuine progression.

Launching a buggy, broken game is another matter entirely, and I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that Bioware (and EA) have more sense than Squeenix did on that one. EA has been burned on multiple aspects of MMO launches before, and hopefully has absorbed and transmitted some of that knowledge to the guys at Bioware.... Hopefully.
 
Elemmire said:
...they did actually create tons of features not seen before in MMOs that every MMO since has been copying.

...things that were created by WoW.
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Such as....?

Elemmire said:
Only to those who are fanboys of Star Wars or at least KotoR prolly will say it's revolutionary.
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lolfanboyexcuse
 
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