3421

I find the vehicle quests in WoW (and just vehicles generally) to be pretty awful for the most part, so it’s not something I miss in SWTOR. For me WoW’s questing sinks or swims more on the basis of zone design and quest flow (both of which peaked with LK imo) rather than individual quest quality, and even if it has more mechanical variety than TOR, it still leans overwhelmingly on killing foozles and harvesting bear asses. I actually think the Cataclysm changes to the old world made things worse at least as often as they made things better, but I’d imagine I’m in the minority on that point.

So with that in mind, I actually think TOR’s focus on story is pretty successful. While I often skip the spoken dialogue (which I do in single player RPGs too), I’m reading pretty much all of it and trying to role play my character in response to them. It’s admittedly not massively different from WoW, the response options are frequently shallow and indistinguishable, and there should be fewer response points (like 2 max per conversation), but mostly the system they’ve set up works pretty well. I’m actually following the storyline the whole way through, even for side quests. I’ve tried to force myself to follow the story in WoW at times, but on balance it’s so trite I can’t manage it for more than a zone. There are a few standout questlines in WoW (or were at least, RIP Missing Diplomat), and WoW does a pretty good job at giving you a feel for its narrative even if you aren’t reading the descriptions, but giving you an individual character with their own story and narrative, and allowing your choices to have some impact on that story, really goes a long way toward maintaining my interest.

3422

I finished up the main quest line in Skyrim on Saturday morning (just under 68 hours played) just in time for the TOR beta to begin. I played a pretty good amount of TOR and I’m happy to report that I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to getting my copy on 12/20.

I ended up going with a Jedi Knight as my class. I really want to give myself the best chance possible to meet/save Revan and take down the Emperor, so I’m hoping the JK is the class to do it. I was able to level my Jedi Knight up to 11 and chose a specialty class at level 10. You have to/get to leave the starting planet (Typhon in my case) for that and then head to Coruscant. I chose Jedi Guardian as my class. It’s a tank class, but my understanding is that it’s got good utility for solo play.

During regular missions TOR is a fairly easy game so far, which I appreciate. Upon entering a new area I would quickly learn which were the trash enemies and which were the more serious contenders. I almost never had trouble with the mobs, but there were some boss encounters that posed a challenge. There was an Elite guy in one of my solo story dungeons that I simply could not beat. He was completely optional, but I was so frustrated that I couldn’t kill him. I bet some combination of powers and stims would’ve been successful, but I used everything I had without success. Another battle I had right after getting my lightsaber took me two tries to finish. It certainly helps having a companion draw some of the aggro, but with the tougher enemies you do have to be smart about what powers you’re using and when, as well as the various auras and stances you can adopt.

Speaking of that, I’ve got almost a full bar of options at my disposal now. It took me quite a while to even start to understand and try to manage building up Focus and then unleashing it with my more powerful moves. For a lot of the time I was simply firing off powers as they became available, but I’ve tried to get a little smarter about using the regular attack to build Focus and then saving it up for more powerful special attacks. There certainly is a lot of bar/button watching as I wait for the cooldowns and watch for my chance to use my Reposte move, which activates after a successful parry.

Getting to an advanced class increases the gameplay options quite a bit. It’s very smart that they lock that stuff up until level 10 otherwise it would be very overwhelming. Not only do you get additional powers/options with the advanced class, including speccing skills across three separate trees, but you get crew skills, which are your gathering and crafting professions. It’s a lot to digest. You can also mod weapons and armor if they have mod slots to them. So far only my lightsaber has been moddable.

Speaking of crew skills, that system is awesome. You can take three skills, including two gathering/adventuring skills and one crafting skill. I took Archaeology and Treasure Hunting, which yield mats for the crafting profession I took, Artificing. That produces Force user weapons, mods and armor. What’s awesome is that you send a crew member/companion out to do the gathering independently. They disappear for three minutes and, if successful, bring back the type of mats associated with the mission you chose to send them on. You then can craft stuff with those mats. It’s awesome because your crew member can be gathering while you’re doing the regular (i.e. not boring) adventuring stuff.

I really love the conversation options and making Light/Dark decisions. Of course I go totally Light. It’s great to actually feel involved in the story, as opposed to just clicking through quest text to find out how many doodads I need to get and where I need to go to get them.

As much as I got out of playing through Level 11, I know there’s a lot more. I know you can get a ship and additional crew members. You can also give gifts to crew members and increase how much they like you based on conversation choices. This seems like it’s going to be an absolutely massive game, even if I stick mostly to the story/solo content. I’m really looking forward to the early access and hope I can get in on the 15th to have that first weekend to really dig into the game before the official launch on 12/20.

3423

I continued my Sith Inquisitor and took him to level 18 or 19 after spec’ing to Sith Sorcerer. Love the storyline, and the stuff with the Revanites, and Sith politics, and the feeling that you just can’t trust anyone as a Sith. Khem Val is pretty neat, and I found myself becoming more belligerent and bloodthirsty in conversations because that’s what Khem Val respects. The SI storyline also makes you feel like a complete badass, and yet also lets you realize that you have to constantly get stronger to take down the stronger Sith above you. They should’ve intro’d your ship with an ME2-esque sequence to make it more dramatic, but I like that it’s essentially your house/base, much like the ME/KOTOR games, and while the one space mission I tried was pretty shallow, it was a nice diversion.

I’m just worried that I’m not going to want to redo the SI stuff I’ve done in the beta when the full version releases, even though I really want to see where the story goes. OTOH, it might get me to main a Bounty Hunter instead. Overall, I’d say SWTOR completely succeeds with the story stuff, as I found myself playing mainly for the storyline, and as a Sith, also playing to eventually kill any of the quest givers.

3424

I leveled a Sith Inquisitor this weekend. I’m not sure if I was just enjoying myself more, or perhaps I was playing more efficiently because I was more familiar with the system, but leveling from 1-10 seemed to be a LOT quicker than it was leveling a Jedi Consular two weeks ago.

I also started on a Bounty Hunter with good morals. I have to say that I’ve enjoyed the light side responses so far. I feel like a good guy without all the sappiness and holier-than-thou bit that seems to cling to the light Jedi path.

3425

My favorite so far has been the Imperial Agent, played as a La Femme Nikita bad ass female. I took every opportunity to take the violent option, including two cold-blooded executions. Hell, that character even scares me! My Sith Inquisitor, OTOH, was just generic LE bad guy; not as interesting. The Republic Trooper options were kind of interesting, though, with a fair amount of room to shade things a bit gray. As I noted, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how well the story/conversation stuff actually enhances the fun of the game.

3426

Scoundrel’s at 28. Anyone of the long term betas / seriously overcommitted weekenders finished Tattooine’s Smuggler story quest? I almost died laughing and was glad I’d taken almost all the innuendo dialogue.

I really wish I could have made this game install. I tried so hard.

Oh man! That sucks horribly, sorry I wasn’t on gtalk. Folks with Monday/Mon. night off, bear in mind the beta’s still open till 11:59 CST tonight.

3427

Yeah, it was weird, just failed the install multiple times over the holiday.

3428

I’ve stopped playing for now because I really don’t want to burn through anymore of the Bounty Hunter quests. I like this game quite a bit and I am glad that I was able to get into the beta. This game is an awesome MMO with guns. I love it.

3429

I connected. Took a look around with a Bounty Hunter. Leveled up couple times. Was not impressed. I logged off.

3430

If i get this game, i will be inquisitor. Zapping people with rays from my fingers is totally my thing. And in the game

Sentinel is great with the old jedi trick “you will necer guess what i can raise from the floor”

3431

Color me surprised.

3432

Sentinel is great with the old jedi trick “you will necer guess what i can raise from the floor”

I’m actually very disappointed with jedi consular. most likely it’s the spell effect, using force to launch little stone isn’t very impressive at all.

Chain lightning from inquisitor is the same skill as the force storm thing where they funnel debris at someone, but chain lightning looks so much cooler than flying rocks.

3433

I’m thinking about making an Assassin and a Guardian, both tank spec. I put in an app for Threevil on the swtor site. Hopefully McMaster can get the game working in the next two weeks so we can be Star Wars buddies. Until I betray him and cut off his face for ignoring me that time in LoL.

PS Hurky don’t read the last part kthx.

3434

I’d say ~5-14 is more interesting than 1-5, but ultimately it’s a sub-based MMO, so kind of academic.

I had that feeling watching videos before I played - and in comparison the 10 kinds of force lightning are undoubtedly cooler looking - but when I actually played a consular I didn’t mind it in practice. They’ve said they’ll work on varying the type of object hauled out of the floor, which is well and good, but I’d just as soon prefer they work on the channelled attack. “Who throws gravel?” A dozen basketball-sized rocks would sell the concept better, although maybe it’d be more taxing on performance.

3435

If I don’t take Investigation as a gathering skill, how do I acquire new crafting recipes? Is it only by reverse engineering?

3436

For what it’s worth, I complained about not being able to see companions in op/party frames in a /bug and it was marked as Known Issue, so I assume that’s coming in the future. I really wanted to give the world boss a pull but when I saw Heroic World Boss, I thought it meant for a single group but it turns out it’s a raid encounter!

Like you, I did the Heroic 4 quests in a duo with companions. One thing that would’ve helped out a lot sooner was realizing that my tank pet (I was a Jedi Sage) had an AOE attack that was not enabled by default. This made fighting groups of mobs a lot easier. He also has an offensive stance, when you don’t need him to be a meat shield.

3437

The expansions started adding the various quests. There’s an arcade-like Joust quest in Cataclysm, for example. You literally ride a dragon and have to spear other dragon riders. You tap the spacebar to flap the dragon wings.

The majority of quests are still kill quests, though.

3438

So those of you playing, if the quest stuff was in dialog text instead of voice-acted, how much of a difference would that make? I’m curious to know how much that improves the game.

3439

I think it would make a big difference…with the voice acting, people feel compelled to listen instead of just going “okay, okay, what’s the upshot of this? Kill ten foozles? Okay, I’m gone.” I also think it’s not just the dialogue – it’s the “acting” – the story feels more real because you’re seeing these characters have actual reactions, investing their dialogue with a lot more emotion than you would see otherwise. And when it’s for almost every single quest (aside from the ones that come from the mission dispenser things), it makes a huge difference.

3440

How can you tell if a companion’s ability is “enabled” and how do you enable/disable it? I see that you can expand the companion’s ability bar and that the powers are marked with green or red boxes, presumably indicating the powers are enabled/disabled for use by the companion, but I have been unable to figure out how to change any of that stuff.