3041

I was able to enter my Amazon code without any problems. I don’t recall exactly what I did but I did what they told me to do and it worked.

Here’s what my email said to do:

Step 1: Go to http://www.swtor.com/preorder/code
Step 2: Click “Register your pre-order” (You will be prompted to log in or create a “Star Wars: The Old Republic” account if needed)
Step 3: Enter and Confirm your pre-order code when prompted
Step 4: Complete Registration
Step 5: You will be notified by email of your early access time at a later date

For support, please visit http://www.swtor.com/support

3042

I normally scoff at RP-type activities, but this is awesome.

3043

I honestly wondered if people were thinking that when I was playing on Korriban. They’ve vastly improved their story depiction of evil behavior from KOTOR - for example, I took a few hundred points of DS on my well-intentioned agent simply because doing otherwise was contrary to duty/good sense - but at the end of the day the whole Sith ideology is kind of incredibly dickish, and really, MMO players don’t need a reason to roleplay douchebags more than come’s naturally.

EDIT: That said, I actually got buffs more or less in proportion to guestimated class populations, meaning more SI/SW buffs than BH/IA.

3044

Well, the game’s portrayal of Sith is kind of a ruthless Darwinist/Nietzchean ethos combined with a dose of pragmatism. I know in my Sith Warrior story,
very early story choice spoilers

I got praise for sparing the attempted assassin in prison and instead forcing her to go to Sith agent training or something, because she could be useful. At the same time, I got rebuked for letting the failed Sith die with a lightsaber in his hands instead of just killing him in his cell.

3045

Yeah, time-to-rat is <3 minutes on every class. Maybe even lower.

Random things I liked:

  • buffs being automatically group buffs when you apply them to yourself while in a group
  • sending your companion to sell vendor trash
  • sending your companion on missions - felt like Final Fantasy Tactics
  • worlds are pretty.

Random thing I was meh about:

  • world design. None of it felt particularly StarWarsy; all I got was Generic Fantasy MMO. :/ My wife thought I had gone back to WoW when coming over to peer over my shoulder a time or two; once I was on Tython and another leaving Kaas City to go out into the jungle. Oh, and the whole playground aspect - all out gang war raging through the city in the BH/ImpAgent starter areas, and a peaceful market right next door.

It’s like the world-building of Bioware met up with the playground concept of post-WoW MMO and had some horrible fight with no one the winner. :/

3046

Im having all kinda problems, and ill tell you this, when I know more about there systems, then there support people that’s sad. There about a ignorant bunch.

3047

I enjoyed my time as Bounty Hunter. Not sure I’m going to try to go whole hog and raid or anything, but I definitely plan to check out at least a few of the class stories come retail release.

3048

As for the spec question, as of last build skill respecs were free and done at an NPC. Dual spec won’t be in at launch but they’re considering it. Switching to the other Advanced Class of your character’s is apparently completely out as of their last comment on it, but it’s been flipping around a lot during discussion of it the last few months.

I’ll be pleased if it stays that way.

3049

I just got accepted in this round of the beta. No obvious way to download the client–or does that come later?

3050

Download links will be emailed or at http://www.swtor.com/tester a few days before the 25th most likely.

3051

So no playing this weekend?

3052

The regular beta folks can. The next, and most likely last weekend beta won’t be until the 25th-27th.

3053

Really? I recall seeing various developer posts on how they really, really didn’t want people to accidentally make the wrong choice and then be stuck with it, so they were going to let them change once freely, but then make it increasingly prohibitive to switch.

I’m just really surprised after they made it so clear that they were worried that users would make a choice on class they didn’t like and then be stuck with it, that they went back and said no changes.

3054

So no impressions of PvP? Is that just because PvP doesn’t start until the higher levels?

3055

Perhaps they were worried that people would “bank” their one AC respec. One could easily see high level respecs being regretted, appealed, etc. Clearly some sort of “you can respec once before L20” option could work, but honestly, so could just “being careful.” Worst case scenario you’ve lost what, 8 hours of gameplay or something?

world design. None of it felt particularly StarWarsy; all I got was Generic Fantasy MMO. :/ My wife thought I had gone back to WoW when coming over to peer over my shoulder a time or two; once I was on Tython and another leaving Kaas City to go out into the jungle.

What do Star Wars woods look like?

I thought they struck a smart compromise between the various looks people were bound to want/expect, meaning nods to the movies, the animated series, KOTOR, etc. It isn’t quite like X-Wing/Tie Fighter where they can just flat out copy the original trilogy material. As it is they’ll already get stick for having over-obvious visual references to media that depicts events millennia later.

Didn’t have time, and have never really done much at really low level in MMOs.

3056

I messed around with some Warfronts (battlegrounds) or whatever they’re called. They scale you up to max level for the round, which is fun, but everything was too chaotic to have any sense of how things will actually work. In theory they could be fun (some interesting objectives, like a twist on CTF that lets you “pass” the “flag” and a solid take on Territories), but it’s all so mushy right now that I can’t pass much of any judgement.

3057

What? Forests in star wars? Oh the humanity!

Having played kotor 1/2 multiple times each and watched all of the movies, i didn’t find anything wrong with the environments. Star wars has high tech cities and landscapes, but it has many more low tech planets, such as tatooine, endor and the wookie planet. Any of these would not look that out of place in a fantasy game.

3058

There’s still some rumblings about free or cheap switches to your other AC before 20, but I could swear the last post I saw with a dev commment said it was out entirely. But I can’t find it now, so assume it’s still up in the air.

I just really don’t want to see end-game characters flopping back and forth when the ACs are really quite different from each other.

3059

It was a translated interview in (I think) German, but AC switching is definitely out now.

Nice preview, Charlatan, except you gotta stop switching Republic and Empire. ;)

The one thing I noticed about PvP was that Republic players were, on the whole, much better at playing the objective in Huttball than Imperials, who kept confusing it with a round of Team Deathmatch. Obviously there will be guilds who are really slick on both sides, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see the above dynamic in a lot of pick-up matches.

3060

Agreed.