3001

Game sucks I hate it~

3002

I only had a chance to play during the last beta weekend and I went into it expecting to be totally underwhelmed. As it turned out, that beta weekend taste turned me into a SW:ToR fanboy. Really looking forward to release.

3003

Oh, huh.

Well, as I said in my small update, I rather enjoyed it for the novelty, but the novelty wore off much faster than expected. The only thing that saves it is the actiony melee combat for Jedi and Sith, and the Sith story in particular is cool because for whatever reason being a Sith just fits the world. You go along with this bad guy who has random errands here and there, and generally kill a lot of stuff for no apparent reason. It works.

Everything else doesn’t. They’re poorly designed playgrounds intended to give your character a 10x10 character development area where things happen, and everywhere else is business as usual. On top of that, ranged combat is astonishingly boring and on top of THAT, the “conversation trees” frequently aren’t - the option you choose has no effect whatsoever.

I’ll be back when it’s F2P to finish the Sith story. That’s it. :P

3004

I guess dropping the NDA is good news. The most encouraging thing I’ve seen is that the game has improved dramatically from when I tested it back in June.

It is going to be a solid game at launch. I only hope that they increase the level of customization and completely overhaul the space mini game. Space is absolutely dreadful.

3005

That sucks. Real reason I was looking forward to this.

OK, answer me this: is it WoW with wookies?

3006

Marcin,

Can you elaborate on why you think the ranged combat is boring? I was debating between playing either a Smuggler or Jedi Knight, and was leaning heavily towards Smuggler because a) I spent ~5 years in WoW playing a melee dps class and wanted to try something new and b) who doesn’t want to be Han Solo? If the melee combat is much more interesting than ranged, though, I may reconsider…

3007

I guess because it messes with your expectations. It’s very actiony-seeming, with goons popping in and out of cover, varying range on you, and there’s always 3-4 of them to play with - BUT, all you can do is stand there and hit 1-3 and watch the laser blast animation curve hilariously (often through walls if you move while shooting) towards the bad guys or yourself. It’s just not “active” combat at all. You knock down one with the grenade/wristrocket and … then you just keep shooting. At 5 my BH got a rocket punch which meant that I had to close to use it and … then stand there like a moron shooting point blank and waiting for his health bar to go away.

My BH only made it to 5 (the punch was actually the last straw, it just fit so badly), but I’m pretty certain at 5 my Sith Inquisitor had 2 melee attacks, 2 stuns and an AoE knockdown - and being in melee meant constantly having to juggle those between the 3-4 opponents. Kudos to SWTOR on letting you fight so many at a time - but it just doesn’t work with ranged.

The usual YMMV, IMO, etc apply of course.

3008

FWIW, I loved smuggler combat, especially in the Scoundrel path. Scoundrel was less about hiding behind cover and more about mixing it up in a bar brawl. It was a mixture of pistols, punches, kicks to the groin and the occasional shotgun blast to the face.

As to the WoW question, it is of that type, but I’ve played more SWG and LOTRO than I have WoW so i don’t compare everything to WoW by default. I think it’s really a matter of what you look for in an mmo. Why you play and your feelings on Star Wars/KOTOR will go along way toward deciding whether the game is for you.

3009

A co-worker of mine utterly lost his shit when he got the rocket punch. Think I heard the phrase “jetpack shoryuken” about two dozen times over the next week.

3010

Wrote this elsewhere so that friends that weren’t in the beta could hear my thoughts on it:

So the SWTOR NDA has been lifted, so here are my impressions from last weekend’s (11/11 - 11/13) beta:

  1. It plays like KOTOR + multiplayer.
  2. Alternately, it’s like WoW smashed with Mass Effect and reskinned with Star Wars.
  3. The all-voice-acted dialogue adds quite a bit to the immersion.
  4. I definitely want to play more of it.

Thoughts on the character classes (Note: the Republic / Empire classes are essentially the same, just different names and appearances):

  1. Sith Warrior (equivalent to Jedi Knight) - leveled this the highest (level 8 or 9); jump into combat (literally - they have an early skill that makes them leap from far away and attack an enemy) and go all choppity-chop with the melee. Multiple stances with different stat effects (I’m assuming, I only got the one “balanced” stance), all melee-based skills (strong single enemy attack, AoE melee attack, stun attack, crowd-clearing attack, etc.), IIRC eventually you get to Force Choke fools. First companion I got was a Twi’lek Smuggler type; decent enough ranged support. Story: pretty interesting, dealing with learning the “true meaning of Sith” and how to wield your power, dealing with rivals in an appropriately Sithy fashion, dealing with Sithy politics and power struggles. Overall: Fun, if a bit straightforward, skill-wise. I enjoyed where the story was going.

  2. Sith Inquisitor (equivalent to Jedi Consular) - spent the second most amount of time with this class; Force Lightning, all the time, every time. FL to stun, FL for crowd control, FL to root, FL for DoT, this class probably brushes its teeth with FL. Not as tough as Sith Warrior, but I think it has more style - its self-heal consists of pacing back and forth, seething with rage. I didn’t progress far enough to get a companion, but I saw some others with it - some big scary yoked-up brute that probably makes for a good tank. Story: pretty great, actually. They really hammer home the class structure of the Sith Empire, the evil glee in things like torture, and just the burning anger the society fosters. I really should’ve played this more than I did in the beta, because I was really hoping I’d get a chance to kill some of the quest-givers eventually, and I’m pretty sure that was going to happen. Overall: This might be my main character in the full game.

  3. Bounty Hunter (equivalent to Republic Trooper) - versatile shootyness; shoot stuff with blaster, shoot stuff with missiles, shoot stuff with fire, laugh. Had a lot of fun blowing stuff up with AoE wrist missiles, and the heavy armor is pretty cool looking. First companion is the hacker, err “slicer” chick, Mako, who’s like the cute girl sidekick in many single-player games. Story: a lot more room to play around with Star Wars morality as a BH, as it’s not as straightforwardly “degrees of evilness” as the Sith. You can play it as an amoral merc, an honorable person in a tough profession, or variants inbetween. Good morality choices in the missions, as well, as you deal with Hutts, Smugglers, other Bounty Hunters, and native rebels. Overall: I’ll probably make this my primary alt character.

  4. Imperial Agent (equivalent to Smuggler) - didn’t spend much time here, but split time trying this class out and the Republic “Smuggler” class, which plays similarly. Weird class, in that most of your skills can’t be used until you enter cover. Which means, in the middle of a firefight, you can’t do anything aside from the basic attack until you press the “cover” button and select one of the highlighted zones you see that shows where you can take cover. Once you do, you’re crouched down behind a barricade/wall/fallen tree/big rock or whatever, and you can do stuff like focus fire, chuck grenades, and other stuff that I didn’t really get to see because I didn’t spend much time with this class. Overall: could be interesting, in that its combat mechanics are different, but that could also make it annoying.

Summary: Yes, SWTOR is more of the same when it comes to MMOs, but it’s very polished, and the emphasis on voice-acting and story really make an impact if you’re into that - especially if you’re a fan of Bioware RPGs in general. I’d recommend it to fans of Star Wars, fans of Bioware RPGs, and fans of WoW or the like that want a change of scenery. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone that’s burned out on the standard MMORPG genre.

3011

Quick summary before i go out.

Melee Combat is awesome twitchy fun-ness

Ranged combat is Deadly dull, every ranged char feels the same, and simply wasn’t fun.
Customisation is poor, everyone does, and likely will look the same.

The space sections are fucking appalling, i wish they would scrap them as an idea that hasnt worked. I dread them.

The dark side stories like Marcin said are awesome, i love them, and also as he dead the goody goody story’s are very dull, and yes, the conversation options rarely mean anything at all, they don’t influence anything really except your chars good/bad scale. And as a double whammy, if you are playing a Light side char the voice overs just mean the dull story goes on and on and on, you will tire of it fast.

Graphics are crisp, and polished, although very dated now.

Love the system of mod’ing your equipment to keep them up to date, you can mod a level 10 item to make it a level 40 item etc. Love this concept!

Sadly the main issue for me was i got tired of it too soon, it is very similar to WoW, and if your burnt out there, this will get old fast.

3012

Some question about talents (or whatever the equivalent is called in TOR):

  1. Can you re-spec? If so, what is the penalty (if any)?
  2. Do WoW-style dual-specs exist? If so, can you have one spec in each of the two advanced classes (e.g. Gunslinger and Scoundrel for Smuggler) or are you locked into an advanced class permanently once you choose one?
3013

The devs have talked about offering both a respec and dual spec, but I don’t think either is in game yet.

3014

Oh, the animation on it is lovely and the sound effect is punchy as hell. It just doesn’t do anything to enhance combat. :/

You know what might work? If the GCD on ranged was cut down by 50%. And the rocket punch had a say, build-up where you needed to score 5 ranged hits - but then it would do 90% damage or some such, basically a finisher to save for the 4th guy that crept up on you, or something. I think things CAN be done with the engine and the abilities to make ranged more exciting/interesting, but as it stands it is dull, dull, dull.

3015

Hmm… The more I read about this game… and especially after visiting the official forums, I am getting more and more sure that I’ll probably only play through the first month and then unsubscribe.

At least I’m re-adjusting my expectations.

3016

I think it depends on your build. The two classes I played the most were Smuggler and BH. In both cases I found it easier, and more fun, to fight at close range. Both classes have a melee component to them and the rocket punch is great for taking out trash mobs or quickly getting into close quarter combat.

3017

The game managed to make me care about doing these mmo quests, that is a massive achievement in my view. For the first time in a MMO I played longer than I should have not to level or increase a stat or find more loot, but because I wanted to see what happened (fyi: I played as an imperial operative character).

3018

This is really the strength of the game. I was always surprised when I leveled up in the beta because I was so focused on what happens next as opposed to watching the exp bar in anticipation of my next new skill.

3019

Honest question: Did you play DDO?

3020

I played in the most recent weekend beta and wound up with a 13 IS, 11 JS, 11 Scoundrel, 9 SS and 8 RT, all of which got through their homeworld stories, and a 3 SW that I was just trying out. This is in and of itself an endorsement of the game and/or a horrifying indictment of my life priorities.

I did not have the sense that ranged was boring, nor did I have weirdly curvy projectiles, and that included firefights where the angles were changing very rapidly because I and/or the target were running. Similarly I didn’t have any of the non-LOS damage issues (bullets flying around corners etc) that I’m used to with MMOs. It’s hotkey based ranged gameplay, sometimes with the requirement that you be in cover for cover classes or stand still to channel an ability. Hotkey shooting is always going to be less visceral than ARPG shooting, but coming in with that expectation I was quite pleased with how it turned out. The cover-shooters play differently from the RT/BH, who have more freedom to run around with guns-blazing if they want to be Action Man.

I thought the story integration worked well and made it play, immersion-wise, more like a CRPG than a MMORPG. Coming in with the expectation of WoW-meets-KOTOR I was pleased at the KOTOR:WoW ratio. Bioware CRPGs are all about sandwiching story and gameplay segments in a way that flows. There’s more freedom in a CRPG to have more branching conversation paths and encounter variations, but the formula still works with slightly less branched/recursive conversations and more bear-ass-oriented intervening gameplay segments.

It’s certainly worthwhile to “escape out of” conversations to replicate the old “going back and figuring out the conversation tree” gameplay of ME/DA. You’re fairly free to do that up until the last moment, including in more “cutscene like” encounters where you enter an office and a conversation starts automatically.

I’m looking forward to the beta on the 24th; I optimisically parked all of my characters in cantinas on the off chance that there’d be more beta access before they got wiped.