3061

I have not played enough to have a opinion.

  • My oportunity to play the game, was at the same time than Skyrim… one of the best open world rpgs ever made.
  • I am burned of Wow-like mmos.

I expected a average mmo, with the typical grind, but nope. I extracted absolutelly no joy from killing mobs. I have see all the mechanics of the game done better elsewhere. FPS-y mmo mechanics where much better on Tabula Rasa. The world feel too busy and unconsecuential/random.

Graphics where much better than expected. The eyes have some light that put a lot of life on then. Still don’t buy the Clone Wars aestethics. Looks more Team Fortress 2-ish than KOTOR. I am positivelly impressed by graphics.

I dislike the game.

3062

After mostly positive impressions, here’s a couple of not so positive things:

  • You get a lot of abilities. A lot. They’ve been giving us level 40 premade characters and basically begging people to test high level content. I logged in to the level 40 server and tried to set up my guy. By the time I was done, I had all 4 quickbars full of abilities - so that’s more than 40 abilities my guy had. And I had almost no idea what I was supposed to do with them all. Granted, part of that disconnect was because you’re dumped in a level 40 character, but even so, it feels like you get too many abilities

  • High level content. I’m betting it hasn’t been tested that extensively. Yes, people have leveled characters to 50, but there’s not a lot of level 50 activity (from what I read). Nobody played the level 40 server last build (and they’ve opened another one for the current build, which was just deployed on November 17). The November 17 build is the first one (I think) where Operations (Raids) have been available. So they’re definitely still working on endgame content (which is not unusual but it’s going to come down to how fast they can get the endgame content pushed out).

  • Certain obvious bugs have been in the game for a while. You can’t search for specific items on the auction house. Since I’ve been playing, I’ve never been able to search the auction house (word was that search was removed because it had a negative impact on performance but that it would be back some day). Last build, items that expired in the auction house would remain but have a negative “time left” amount displayed. You could purchase those items (multiple times, even) but you’d never receive them. In addition in-game mail was broken for many characters. So some characters had a broken auction house, others had broken mail, and others had both broken. This sort of destroyed the ability to do a lot of my crafting since I often supplement my gathering with auction house hunting.

  • Above level 30, the armor buff tank companions get doesn’t work (or maybe the bug is that it doesn’t work ever, but it doesn’t matter until you’re above level 30). People widely report that above level 30 your tanking companion dies a lot… like every other pull.

  • The way the crafting mission skills are implemented, when you send a companion on a mission, you’re presented with 4 or 5 that are approximately at your current level. For example, say you’re creating a purple weapon that requires a rare metal only available from Underworld Trading. Usually you send your companion on an Underworld Trading mission where the reward is a metal in the hopes you’ll get what you want as a reward. But since the missions you’re offered are tied to your crafting level you can’t send your crew off to fetch a lower level rare item - you have to purchase it off the auction house. The though is that BioWare is trying to keep markets open for lower level crafters but IMHO that’s never ended well.

Nothing back breaking, but a number of annoyances and issues they need to fix.

3063

The funny thing is, of course, that pretty much all of this stuff is stuff that every MMO seems to get wrong out of the gate. Rift had almost exactly the same sorts of auction house/crafting/economy issues at launch, and while they were ultimately addressed, more or less, you have to wonder why it is that games keep coming out with the same basic issues.

3064

I’ll echo this, at it’s not necessarily just high-level. I haven’t gotten farther than level 18, but even at 18, on my Sith Warrior/Juggernaut, I feel like I have a few too many abilities to try to deal with. It’s not surprising, this stuff is kind of hard to get right out of the gate, especially when you’re trying to cater to different styles of players.

Certain obvious bugs have been in the game for a while. You can’t search for specific items on the auction house.

Is this still the case? The patch notes for the latest build say you can search now, but you might need to select a category/subcategory first. I would just log on to check, but they pulled all the auction houses except for those at the Fleet hub and the major city.

But since the missions you’re offered are tied to your crafting level you can’t send your crew off to fetch a lower level rare item - you have to purchase it off the auction house.

I noticed there’s a dropdown on the mission window now that allows you to pick the level of the mission set. I’m assuming that addresses this issue?

3065

A lot of different abilities would be cool if there were a lot of non-combat situations where different sets were needed. If it’s 25 different kinds of attacks and defenses, that’s probably too many abilities.

I’ve had five bars filled in WoW and I end up using the same 6-8 things 95% of the time.

3066

Gedd, they may have fixed those issues in the current build. I’m still downloading it, so since you’ve downloaded it, go check!

One issue I have with the plethora of abilities is that you can’t have more than 4 quickbars on screen at once. Yes, they have the old shift+number key to “page” through the main action bar, but I have sworn off that feature since I tried to set up quickbars like that in Dark Age of Camelot and I just ended up getting killed a lot because my quickbar was showing the wrong page.

That reminds me of another feature that’s pretty lacking: the UI. It’s pretty primitive, and it’s not terribly customizable.

3067

I think a pretty convincing argument for part of the success of WoW - PART - is addons.

(I’m talking 7 million rather than 10)

When people go from the customisable UI of WoW to other MMO’s, they bounce. Healing in particular is a chore in most other MMO UI’s.

3068

So if I was invited to last weekend’s beta does that mean that I am automatically in the upcoming one as well or do I have to wait till launch to get my jedi on again?

3069

Everyone who was signed up prior to 11/11 should be getting in the upcoming weekend beta. You should have received an email though.

3070

It really feels like a step back in time to go to an mmo with a almost totally non customizable UI. But from all the other step backs (no x-realm, etc) I suppose it just goes with the territory.

And from what I’ve seen – especially one where the artists have gone crazy with the superglue.

I suppose, for a singleplayer game, most people for some reason are not really expecting to be able to change the UI, and that is probably what Bioware has opted for. In shades of blue, with animations that serve no function.

3071

Character naming question: will surnames become available at higher levels?

3072

Good timing on asking this question. The answer was unknown until this week. From James Ohlen (care of DarthHater and the SWTOR DevTracker):

This build has our first iteration of the Legacy System! At its core the Legacy system is about allowing players to create a family tree of characters. Family is pretty important to the Star Wars universe, with the Skywalker family having one of the most interesting dynamics in movie history. This version is just the foundational components that we will use to build upon in the future. Here are the features of this iteration:

Once your character has completed their Chapter 1 storyline, they will be able to choose a Legacy Last Name. This Legacy Last Name must be unique and is shared across all characters, on all servers - so choose carefully!

Once you have unlocked your Legacy, any and all characters on that server will now contribute to that player's Legacy Experience Points. Much like normal experience points, when you reach certain Legacy thresholds, you will increase your Legacy Level.

We already have plans for how we will expand the functionality of the Legacy System in one of our major post-ship patches. This will include being able to shape your Legacy’s family tree, and give you a reward for all those Legacy Levels.

Addendum: update from Jason Townsend, James Ohlen was mistaken and legacy is per-server, not cross-server.

3073

I like a lot of abilities, and as you say, getting a 40 pre-made is not at all like earning a level 40 and having a chance to become familiar with abilities.

I’m always sad when I level up and there are no new abilities. For me, no new abilities => game goes stale. In this particular case, I think because SWTOR is going for a lot of flexibility on playstyles within a class more abilities makes more sense. If you only provide players with a small number of abilities, that’s going to pigeonhole them a lot more into only being able to play pre-defined roles.

3074

At the moment they’ve got surnames tied to first part of their legacy system, just unveiled. When you finish the first third of a storyline you set up a server-wide, cross faction “legacy” for your characters that can be displayed as a surname, a seperate tag, or not at all.

There’s a certain amount of consternation on the part of people who’d rather not have surnames bolted to the legacy system or be limited to one surname per server (optional on each character.)

On the other hand apparently they’re getting sitting in chairs to work.

3075

AIUI it’s not server-wide it’s cross-server. See James Ohlen quote in my previous post.

3076

Does anyone know if it’s only going to be one weekend? Because I can’t play on Thanksgiving weekend, but it would be awesome if I could get in the week after (Dec 3-4).

3077

There was contradictory info and the clarification was that James Ohlen was mistaken and it’s server-wide.

My understanding is it’s the last beta weekend. Bummer.

3078

Ah, well that’s probably good. The thought of making a name that was completely unique across all severs … I can imagine how obscure the names would get after a while.

3079

Not sure how I feel about this surname thing. So, if I wanted to play a pair of siblings with a buddy, I can’t now, because we’ll have to have different surnames? I’m not saying I’m outraged, but I can see the RP community, especially in an RP-friendly game like this, being a little honked off.

3080

My memory is a little fuzzy on the topic, but I think they plan to put in UI customization post-release. It’s either that or macros (or both).