The Old Republic

[Raesvelg]

I think I'll actually get to play more than 3 hours in the upcoming beta weekend... assuming that it's this weekend. Next weekend is another case of "Raes is in class/working/writing papers/contemplating suicide".

 

[Ecks]

It is this weekend, apparently I get access to the servers tomorrow (Friday) at 10:00 AM CST. Which is fucking awesome.

I only hope that my time is not limited to just Friday until midnight. That would suck ass. So far I've read nothing that states this other than someone's post on the forums, which wasn't an official post. So... hopefully it is false.

Tomorrow's plans: Get off work at 6:00AM CST, Arrive home @ around 6:20ish, Take my ass to bed, Wake the F*ck up at either 11AM or Noon, Start SWToR, fit hanging out with Brother who leaves that night somewhere in there, have some T-Day Leftovers at Mom's, More SWToR.

F*ck Yeah.

 

[Ecks]

Holy shitballs.

This game is fucking perfect. Even with the initial craptastic fuckfest that was the start of the Friday Beta Stress test.

This is what happened to me. Woke up shortly after 11am CST (servers were up at 10). Log into the launcher, poof I had to install yet another update that took a little while but wasn't too bad. About 15-30 minutes later, I press play. Watch the cool cinematic movie. Short loading screen. and now at Server Selection screen. I get giddy and excited and look at the massive list of servers thinking I'm almost there. All of the servers are FULL, except one that displays a HEAVY status. My eyes do this O_O. I immediately click the Heavy pop server because it was a PvE server and then click 'Select'.

Error. Fuck.. Click the 'ok' on the error box and then try to get into the server again. Error. Tried again. Error. Fuuuuuuck! So I do the next best thing and close the launcher. Log back in and there's the loading screen again, the one before the Server screen. Wait 5 minutes and it's still on the loading screen. Hmm.. This didn't happen last time. Wait another 5 minutes, still on loading screen but the loading icon down at the bottom right has been moving the whole time. Alt+F4.

Log back in. Same thing. Stuck at loading screen. For shits and giggles I leave it on and do some other tasks. 30 minutes later, no change. Alt+F4, Relog. Same thing. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.

Take a breath, Alt+F4. Play some Counter-Strike:Source for a few hours.

Decide it's been long enough and log back into SWToR. This time it works! (it was about 2pm at this point). Server Selection screen now shows ever server as FULL and lists the one I was going to join as a 10h+ que. Find a new, nonque server and to my amazement it goes right to the Character Creation screen. I am happy.

I fooled around with pre-making my lauch characters by writing down the numbers to the different features once I found a complete set I liked. I made 3 different characters. A Sith Pureblood (male), a Zabrak (male) and a Twi'lek (female). All could be made with the Sith Inquisitor class, and the Zabrak and Sith Pureblood are also available for Sith Warrior (what I will play first at launch, once I determine which I want most for my Juggernaut's look). I made the Twi'lek last and new I was going to try Sith Inquisitor for the beta so began playing and have been loving the hell out of it ever since.

Initially I was going to play Sith Warrior as my first character, then it was a toss up between Bounty Hunter or Sith Inquisitor for a second, and my fourth was going to be the Imperial Agent. Yet after playing the SI story during the beta.. I think I will be playing it second for certain. And I'll still go with the Sorcerer advance class too.

There was a point today were I was able to solo some groups (with the help of my companion) that were intended for a party (of 2-4) to tackle. And believe me.. I had my fair share of dying in the process, but the fact that I was able to do that at all without instantly getting raped was fun.

The storylines in this game.. just wow. I knew they were going to be good, but I didn't realize I'd enjoy them as much as I have. Even the common quests that are shared are semi-interlaced with the other class stories to where the same area can be used in class storys for all 4 classes but still feel fresh everytime because you're doing completely different things for each class. You will have some similar quests that all classes can do, but once you get back to your storyline quests they are all different than the next players (unless that player is the same class).

They introduced new servers on Saturday to alleviate the congestion problems and server queue issues and I had no problems at all getting into the game, save some relatively small queue times on Saturday morning.

I managed to get up to lvl 18 during the 2 1/2 days I played the beta. Which is really fast progress, unless you compare it to WoW. Managed to get my spaceship by the end of it and go to the 3rd planet.
Some people have complained about the lack of night/day cycles, but after playing the game I really didn't even notice it. Each planet has it's own atmosphere and it's fitting.

I really love the way weapons and armor can be modified in this game, it's different and yet still simple. Companions are super useful, watching Khem Val make comments during conversation dialogue was awesome. In some instances there were special dialogue options. The music is just as phenomenal as I expected it to be.

And the preorder color crystal.. is freaking awesome. It's perfect for lightsabers. It's like having your own black lightsaber, yet instead of the saber having a white glow, the glow is yellow/golden. It' soooo cool.

My life is going down the crapper come December 15th.

 

[Thelona]

also playing Swtor beta, and yeah this game is amazing, the quests/cutscenes have completely changed what I thought was possible with MMO questing/storyline.

The dialogue options and the good/evil aspects and the fully voiced cutscenes for every quest. awesome. so far all the quests have been incredibly enthralling, the conflicts really pull you in. very much looking forward to the release of this mmo.

 

[Ecks]

Pic time!

I'll leave you with the only 6 screenshots I have that I just took Monday afternoon. Sadly the screenshots do not do the game enough justice, but here they are anyway.

Close up of my female Twi'lek Sith Inquisitor/Sorcerer.

Close up of her with Darkside corruption, aka. Glowy Sith eyes. (level 1, all I could reach during the beta).

Posing with the HUD displayed, lightsaber out.

Running with lightsaber out, because everything is better with a lightsaber.

Scenery Pic of Balmorra, 3rd planet you have access to.

Kicking Rebel Scum ass!

 

[Pasquale]

I played a little bit of the beta this weekend. It was alright, but I don't think I'm going to get it. I think I'm finally over MMOs.

 

[Ecks]

You might be then.

This game was everything and more to me. I can't remember the last time (okay I can, when FFXI first came out) I had so much fun and amazement while playing an MMO. Gameplay is very similar, if not identical to WoW which is not so bad. WoW despite it's flaws is a game that plays easily and fluidly, and was the first MMO (save a few parts of the FFXI stories) that my one little character felt like it was important to the in-game world. SWToR does this on an even grander scale, from the get go, even while you're doing sidequests, even while you are just running along a part of any given planet you are on and the scenery changes. I felt fully immersed in The Old Republic universe while doing the quests, and as a Star Wars fan it was an amazing experience. I actually felt like I was playing my character in the Star Wars universe in my own movie, which I think is what BioWare's goal is.

Is this the WoW killer? It very well could be if the legions of Star Wars fans (and by the looks of the Stress test, they have) flock to it and support it's continued growth. Because as a fan, this may very well be the greatest Star Wars game to ever be released.

People that aren't so into Star Wars and were just WoW kiddies, probably won't realize what is so great about this game. And that's a darn shame. At most they will just see it as a Sci-Fi version of WoW (although arguably far superior graphically, even with the stylized art style). So I hate it for you if you are one of those people that feel that way, because you just don't understand that this is Star Wars. It's similarities to WoW end with the gameplay, everything else is merely Star Wars. And if you don't know why Star Wars is so awesome you grew up in the wrong generation. Sorry, but that's just how I feel.

There were a few minor things I noticed over my weekend of beta play that could use fixing. The infamous orange dot. Dunno why it is even there, hiding ever behind the chatbox's preset location. I ended up putting my chatbox back up in the top corner just so I wouldn't see that one orange pixel anymore. It was a global phenomena because well.. quite frankly it was being turned into a meme in the general chat at peak parts of the day. Then one other minor thing. Twice during storyline scenes involving a lightsaber hilt being shown, the hilts were HUUUUUUGE, damn near half the length of what the actual lightsabers+hilts look like ingame. It is my understanding that in early builds of the game the lightsaber hilts were rather large and bulky, almost cartoonish looking so to me the only thing I could guess is that they forgot to change the hilt models for these quest scenes. They look so out of place when the person holding them doesn't have large enough hands to actually grasp the diameter of the hilt.

That is all for now. I need to take my butt to bed.

 

[Raesvelg]

I hated that fucking orange dot. Seriously, I've had issues with pixel flares on old monitors before, and that thing drove me right up the wall trying to figure out why it was there and whether or not it was limited to TOR lol.

 

[Thelona]

my only major complaint is the lackluster race choices, I want a rodian or trandoshan. Actually considering rolling as a human in this mmo =(

 

[Dancingweapon]

I've not heard anything but complaints about this game? But you guys seem the complete opposite to what my friends have been saying. Maybe I will check it out then.

 

[Ecks]

Oh yeah. I'm gonna be hooked on this mmo for the better part of 2012 if not longer.

About race choice, yeah, things are somewhat limited, though not quite as badly as I first thought. After playing the beta I am not displeased with the race choices. Sure there are a few more races I would like to see, and perhaps they are already in the game but unavailable at first. It's not been verified yet whether the legacy system does anything other than let players have a surname that's bound to their characters. But perhaps finishing your first character's storyline quests will in turn unlock more race choices. Like I said, this isn't verified but merely speculation.

Either way, I know what race I'm planning on playing for each of my Empire classes, unless a new race catches my eye:

1st: Sith Pureblood - Sith Warrior. 2nd: Zabrak - Bounty Hunter. 3rd: Twi'lek - Sith Inquisitor. 4th: Chiss - Imperial Agent.

The only way I'm changing that is if a new race is opened up. I don't plan on playing a human unless maybe on one of my Republic characters, after I've played all the Empire storylines. Cyborgs are kind of a useless "race" because it's just a human with some facial robotic options/enhancements.

I would like to see Togruta as a racial option personally, as well as other like Rodian and Trandoshan (though I wouldn't play either of the last two, too ugly). Cathars would be interesting to see, plus would appease all those damn furries out there.

Many of the other initial non-playable races are already in the game as evident when you see them as quest npcs. So there isn't really that much of a reason as to why they couldn't become playable racial options.

Apparently Twi'lek do not wear hoods in the game because of their lekku getting in the way. Twi'lek who have hood gear that displays a hood up on normal humanoid characters, display the hood as down instead. Though I think full helmets and masks do cover the head completely. (not sure the logic on that, nor can I prove it since my Beta character didn't get high enough to get that kind of equipment.

What I'm getting at here is that other races with similar head issues can simply follow the same example and shouldn't really be an issue.

 

[Alereth]

Eh....the game just isn't anything impressive to me. It's not bad at all. Not by any means. But it's nothing really new or innovative. I love the voiced over cutscenes and the storyline is everything you could hope for from Bioware, but I don't find it monumentally gamebreaking to the MMO world.

I'll gladly play it, seeing as I suffered through SWG before I knew what a good MMO was, but I don't think it will pull me completely away from XI/XIV.

 

[Ecks]

Really? Wow. That you're even still playing either of those game is amazing, kind of. Maybe one day I'll give XIV another chance, but probably not til 2013. Though I'm quite done with XI and have been since '08.

As for SWToR. Sure it's not bringing a whole lot new to the table but they do take old concepts and improve upon them. After experiencing the 'Crew Skills' and barely scratching the surface at that, I found that this system is a pretty unique way of using the companions and providing a slightly different take on crafting from what we are used to seeing in MMOs. I can only imagine how much more beneficial it is to have a full roster of companions when crafting compared to the 2 I had at the end of my beta experience.

Then there are the dialogue choices. In reality you are not going to be altering your storyline too drastically however the multitude of different options to choose from at least makes it feel like you have a sense of control over the outcome of the situatioin. Not to mention they can be quite interesting depending on what you choose. Will you ask questions and find out more information, or are you going to be brash and have your mind made up and tell those fools to just shut up and get to the point? Most of the time from what I saw both of these types of choices were available and quite frankly I found it fun to play around with. I have to say, it's fun to be a bad guy and it's fun to enjoy it.

I highly enjoy the fully voiced quests. I feel it draws you in more, well, at least it does to me. It makes my character, even though I was playing a female during the beta, feel like it's really my character. Not to mention that in general they did a really fantastic job with the voice work. I haven't heard all of the voices for the game, but I felt like the voice for my Twi'lek Female Sith Inquisitor fit perfectly. It actually reminded me a lot of my character from Jedi Outcast: Jedi Academy, where I also used a red skinned twi'lek female. Great game btw, for those who might not have played it.

The music in the game, as I've already said, is done brilliantly. Queueing at the right times in the right areas at the right moments with the right music. It all sounds highly authentic (referring to the new musical scores that BioWare had created specifically for this game). And then of course you have the original musical scores placed in the appropriate areas that make sense for the player to hear them. So goooooood.

And then you have the simple fact that there are Jedi and Sith and Lightsabers which is just about an insta-win in my book.

This game has been finished for more than year now, BioWare has been super polishing it up ever since. (Closed Beta testing was preformed over a year ago)

I cannot wait! 12 days left. Enduring the wait.

 

[Ecks]

*sigh* Well, for those of you who might have been interested in joining me and my friend's guild in SWToR, Alpha Legion, there has been a change in our server selection choice. I am not happy about it, but apparently we are now going to roll on a PvP server, instead of a PvE server.

As of yet, server assignment hasn't been revealed. I will update when I know more.

The leader of our guild insists that it won't be some pvp gankfest, and that pvp will mainly be done in battlegrounds/warzones and Huttball. I hope he's right.

 

[Raesvelg]

Well, given that the server types seem pretty much analogous to the ones used in WAR, you'd still be able to get plenty of PVP in on a PVE server, without the irritation of roving gank parties.

Though at least you won't have to worry about getting ganked in your starting areas or capital planets. Still, I doubt I'd be willing to put up with the irritation; grief tactics in general have never appealed to me.

 

[Myrid]

Eh SWTOR is an okay mmo, nothing groundbreaking though. I've been in closed beta the past few months. I suppose if you wanted a brand new game to jump into it wouldn't be bad. It's just... not that special. And the UI is horrible.

Of course, I'm a UI nut. The only reason I was able to deal with FFXI's UI is because it was the first PC mmo I played, and I did it with a ps2 controller and windower. Nowadays not being able to customize sizes/positions of windows and bars is like a slap in the face. And no mouseover heal macros, not even a target-of-target display? I don't know how you're going to juggle 40+ different abilities, all with a purpose, in the 40's and up either. I'm not a clicker. Ugh...

Unless all that changed in the very last beta, when I was too busy with Skyrim... but the way things were going I'll probably wait a few more months for a pricedrop before picking the retail game up, then play it for a month, maybe two. Like I did with XIV.

Bioware kind of lost my faith with DA2, and this just furthers that for me. They don't automatically equal mind-blown amazing anymore.

 

[Thelona]

the pain of getting killed by a roving gank party is offset well by being IN a roving gank party. XD I'm looking forward to ganking some jedi's.

And as to the UI problems, I'll put up with that, I don't see how everyone's saying "theres nothing special/groundbreaking about this MMO, I've never seen another MMO with this much storyline, dialogue, along with dialogue choices and a storyline that changes based upon those choices you make, as if in a single player rpg. Im a storyline nut, so even in the beta i got sucked into it, and it seemed like a very deep and compelling world so far.

 

[Ecks]

As far as the UI goes, I am sure they will give it a little more freedom at some point. There are things that need to be movable and resizable. Things like your party member list, the active quest area, as well as the action bars and mini map. I am sure that at some point we will have the ability to move and resize these things, it's just not there yet. Personally I prefer my chatbox to be in the left bottom corner, but due to the fact that the group icons are located down there putting a chatbox there covers them up. That's a bit of an annoyance, so I'll be keeping the chat box in that upper corner for now.

I also agree with Thelona as far as the storyline goes. That was something I enjoyed immensely while I played the beta. This is the first MMO ever where I have actually said to myself, "I think I would actually like to play every single class in this game." That is only because all 8 classes have a different story. Sure, there are intertwining quests area and storylines on both factions for all classes, but your reason for doing them is different and you have different objectives to complete for each class. That keeps it refreshing and different, unlike nearly every other mmo out there. Where when you make a new character you have to drudge through the same 100billion quests you did on the last character to level your character up.

 

[Thelona]

This is the first MMO ever where I have actually said to myself, "I think I would actually like to play every single class in this game." That is only because all 8 classes have a different story. Sure, there are intertwining quests area and storylines on both factions for all classes, but your reason for doing them is different and you have different objectives to complete for each class. That keeps it refreshing and different, unlike nearly every other mmo out there. Where when you make a new character you have to drudge through the same 100billion quests you did on the last character to level your character up.

this is big for me, i also see myself making one of every class, i played a bit of bounty hunter and the quests and some of the dialogue choices were so flatout evil that i felt compelled to to play a jedi for awhile just to get my karma right XD

you can be a jedi fighting to protect the innocent, all the way to a merciless cut-throat who shoots a dad in the face right in front of his kid for a buck. (that part actually happens >_>)

 

[Myrid]

this is big for me, i also see myself making one of every class, i played a bit of bounty hunter and the quests and some of the dialogue choices were so flatout evil that i felt compelled to to play a jedi for awhile just to get my karma right XD

you can be a jedi fighting to protect the innocent, all the way to a merciless cut-throat who shoots a dad in the face right in front of his kid for a buck. (that part actually happens >_>)

While that's true, I guess the problem I had with the storyline is it's still very linear. Regardless of whether you shoot the guy and return his son to the wife, or let them go and lie to the wife... or even if you let them go and tell the wife the truth... that won't have any effect on later story at all. Same is true for the class quests. Once you finish Quest A, everyone goes to Quest B, regardless if they were good or evil in Quest A. There's almost no branching based on your decisions once the quest is over... only lightside/darkside points. Which, by the way, can be farmed quite easily at higher levels by repeating flashpoints.

Granted while the quest is happening you can make different decisions, yeah. But it's more like.. picking between killing 10 rats and killing 10 rat-killers when it boils down to it.

The unique class quests will also only be about 10-20% of what you do if you're a completionist as well. There's more stacked up at the beginning of the game, but as you get deeper they're more spaced out. And in everything that you'll repeat (on your given side) sure a BH can say "I'm in it for the money" and the SI can say "I love causing destruction" but they'll still end up doing the same thing with the same choices.

Or maybe I just got sick of doing Taris and Dromund Kaas so many times over again during beta and already burned out. I dunno.