4801

Funny - I was just thinking about you. You should love this game - it has so much in common with Mass Effect its almost silly.

4802

Bioware hates us Austrians. :( :( :(

4803

I played quite a bit this weekend, trying to make the most of my “free” month.

It’s growing on me, actually.

I still think it’s dreadfully uninspired in several ways, and I’d love a more unique take on the genre from a developer with this kind of clout.

But, still, the story is presented well enough in Bioware fashion - and it makes the levelling process less grindy. The quests themselves are still extremely grindy - but having a story behind them helps more than I would have thought.

What surprised me, however, was my fondness for the Jedi Sentinel class. After learning more about the mechanics and abilities - I think I’ve found one that I’ll stick with. It has enough toys to keep me going - and though I find combat in PvP rather slow and clunky - much like WAR - I really like some of the things they’ve done in terms of the top-layer.

Something that WoW PvP never did right was implementing ways to excel or stand out in PvP - rather than it being merely about killing or taking objectives. They’ve taken it a step further - with ways to contribute that I think are much more suited for the various playstyles people find for themselves. So, you get extra for doing what you’re good at - and I really like that. I guess they took this from WAR - seeing as how they have many of the same developers on the team.

Also, there’s the mysterious “World PvP” to look forward to. If I were to believe Bioware - it’s “to die for” - but I’ll take that with a grain of salt. It seems rather uninspired and pointless based on what little beta feedback I’ve found dealing with it.

But it makes me hopeful that they seem to emphasise it when speaking about endgame activities - and even if it’s not particularly good at this time, there’s the hope that they will continue to develop it. It’s certainly my hope that they won’t go fully WoW for this aspect.

Also, they’re apparently working on “something significant” for space combat at this time, and they’re keeping it a secret until now. One shouldn’t be too optimistic, naturally, but I really really hope they’re going for the “Jump to Lightspeed” kind of addition. Something like that done well, would REALLY make me see the point of endgame play.

4804

Yeah, I’m actually finding space combat a lot more fun that I thought it would be. It reminds me a bit of Rogue Squadron I used to play back in the day, for some reason, which I loved to bits.

Now of course, I’m concerned I’ll be lvl 50 before they add all the new and wonderful things that are going to come, but oh well… Come april and I’m on to the next shiny MMO ;-)

4805

Hehe, well, it seems my most-wanted MMO might not make it to US/EU for at least a year, so…

Normally, I’m a one-character kind of guy - but for SWtOR, I can see myself having 2-3 characters going. The story is not bad at all, even if it’s not a miracle. Also, there are plenty of classes that interest me - which is a VERY rare thing for my part. Usually, I’m lucky if I can find even one that truly suits my playstyle.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the kind of time I’d want for this game - but the upside is that I won’t exhaust content the first couple of months. When I finally get to 50 with decent gear, they should be about ready with something new.

But, I’m really quite surprised at how much fun I’m having. I’d have thought I was too jaded for another MMO in this style, but there’s enough there to keep me going for a while it seems :)

I picked the English RP-PvP server (Lord Calypho), which seems to have been a good choice. It hasn’t had bad queues yet (worst has been ~20-25 mins during primetime). I know some people playing on it, but I don’t know if they’re Republic or Empire. They’re the sort of people that will be 50 when I’m in my low 20s - so I’ll likely not join up until much later. But I tried the beginner flashpoint with a PuG yesterday - and it was very fun.

Good times.

4806

We’re on the same server then, actually…

I’m primarily Republic on this server though…and I cant for the life of me remember how I spell my characters name…Zaragor or somesuch.

4807

Hmm, I think I saw that name yesterday or the day before? :)

I actually really like that they’re - so far - staying away from cross-server technology, because as is, names really mean something.

Anyway, my Jedi Sentinel is called “Casus”…

4808

Aye, I do tend to talk in General once in a while.

I’ll add you if I get on tonight :-)

4809

Sounds good :)

I’m not sure how much time I’ll have to play this week - but I will definitely try to get online a few hours there and there, after work.

Could be fun to tackle a few flashpoints… I’m only at a pitiful level 16 ATM - though :)

4810

I enjoy exploring the parts of the map that have not players or quest. My first planet had some of these. It feels like exploring, and I get part of the peace that I get playing Skyrim.

Quest, players, mailbox, etc… the populated areas of the planets looks like busy malls.

I like the crafting. I always wanted to be a crafter, but on better games I got “abducted” by the hack and slash gameplay, I feel is something on my TODO list. And in SWTOR I can craft and be almost completelly independent.

I have stationed my tropper on the jedy temple, next to the training grounds that use robots. The biggers robots don’t disband inmediatelly and can be salvaged, to get parts and raise stats. Wen a padawah is training with the robots, I have my eyes on then, and I heal then wen are about to get killed by the robot. I try to no be too intrusive, as some people may dislike too or any intromisions, so sometimes I heal hidden behind some trees.

Basically, I have turned SWTOR in “Jedi’s Temple Janitor”-simulator.

4811

Early Impressions, having taken a BH to 20 and an IA to 18:

Technical: Rock solid. Zero lag, zero crashes. I have one occasional bug that prevents me from seeing chat in some ops groups (instanced PvP). The queues are bad enough that they caused me to abandon my original server, but I understand why Bio is doing that. Most MMO’s can’t issue a major patch without breaking things. This seems like quite an accomplishment.

Graphics: Meh. The game doesn’t look bad on my beefy rig or my laptop, but even at the highest settings, the game looks no better than LoTRO. It’s state of the art for 2005. The low-res textures are the biggest culprit. Bio clearly went for performance over quality. I hear rumours that a high-res texture pack may be patched in, but I’ve not seen anything official.

Classes: Most of them are interesting. I generally pick one and stick, but everyone will be rolling alts in this game. While they haven’t quite gone with Blizzard’s “make everything overpowered and awesome,” every single class gets some “omigosh” tricks and cool stuff to do. There’s a fair bit of complexity here, too. These are not dummied-down mechanics.

Combat/ Animations: Smooth and fast. Combat looks and plays pretty well. It’s not as fast and furious as a well-done console game, but there’s none of the ‘stiffness’ you often see in MMO combat.

Leveling: The storyline has been interesting on both classes so far. These are KOTOR games, and the focus on storytelling backed by good voice acting is everything the previews promised. There are also plenty of sidequests, and you gain a ton of exp in PvP. Leveling is, if anything, too quick. I’ve almost outleveled the second planet (Balmorra) before getting there.

Dungeons: This includes heroic quests and instanced dungeons, all meant for groups. They’re excellent so far. Nicely done stories, good cutscenes and fight mechanics similar to what we have seen elsewhere (e.g., “don’t stand in fire,” control adds or burn the boss - all the classics). Despite the lack of an automatic dungeon group creator, it has been very easy to put teams together (though I am playing a tank and a healer). Companions can sub in to some extent.

Solo Play: Every class can solo well. The companion system is brilliant in this respect. These are the exact opposite of Skyrim’s boring, ineffective allies. This is more like an old-school RPG, where you design characters partly around which NPC’s you will group with.

PvP: It’s well done so far. I have not seen world PvP, but all three battlegrounds I have seen are a lot of fun. One of them is “Huttball,” which is basically football with blasters. That’s especially clever, as you can end up playing against folks on your own faction (good, as most PvP servers appear to skew heavily in favor of empire population).

Community: I’ve only tried two servers so far (Jung Ma and Ven Zallow, the two east-coast RP-PvP servers), but it has ranged from good to excellent. General chat is generally bearable. My /ignore list remains blank (and I am quick on that trigger). I’m especially happy with Ven Zallow, where I’ll be staying.

UI: Ugh. It’s functional, but barely. Worse, it’s almost completely uncustomizable. Most windows can’t be moved or resized. There are no macros at all. This is the single biggest weakness of the current release, and it’s a significant one. One-size-fits-all is not the current state of the art in MMO UI’s.

They’re years behind WoW in volume of content and features. Heck, they’re years behind LoTRO in this respect. The core game is great, however. I’ll definitely keep playing until endgame, then hope they can add content quickly enough to keep things interesting.

Great freaking start, anyway :)

4812

I really like that they’ve made exploration feel worthwhile, even if it’s just for the holocrons.

That said, there’s something “off” about the atmosphere in the game. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Visually, I think it looks pretty good - but there’s something about the atmosphere… Sterile/dry?

It’s almost like the worlds are… dead, even if there are lots of people running around. I don’t know if it’s the music not playing enough, the ambient wildlife not being prevalent enough, the lack of day/night cycle, the weather not changing, the NPCs hardly moving, or whatever.

I get the same feeling in PvP, which is even more strange. I mean, we have 16 guys running around hacking/shooting at each other - but still… It’s just not alive enough… Alderaan, for instance, looks good and I really like the Warzone design - but it’s like we’re running around in some kind of painting. Everything is so static, DESPITE the guns firing on the huge ships.

Know what I mean?

4813

laughs That’s awesome, Teiman.

I’m on Lord Adraas and it’s looking like a good RP scene in the making. Good mature folks for the most part and there’s already public RP breaking out here and there with several IC RP channels and many more OOC ones established.

Once I switched from Consular to Smuggler I enjoyed the game itself much more. Story is important as are the dialogue responses for entertaining me here. Even the gameplay, unimaginative as it basically is, has cool animations that make it feel viscerally fun (sorry Tom, I used the word).

I am simply never going to get tired of kicking people in the bumblies and then pistol whipping them into a deep, dark, sleep. Some smugglers complain about Corso Rigg’s harpoon gun, and end up toggling it off, because it pulls enemies into melee range and often neutralizes the cover we depend on. For me it’s just an excuse to break out those awesome attacks. Besides Corso usually keeps the aggro of anyone he reels in so it’s not a problem except for AoE stuff.

Grenades, rolling into cover, varied sound and visual effects for different kinds of blaster shots…it’s all good, baby.

And the story is much more entertaining as are the NPCs I’ve run across.

4814

I tried the PvP warzones yesterday with my lvl 11 Trooper. It was the one with the anti aircraft guns and you had to shoot down your opponents ship (tickets).

Are these things not scaled? I was in a game with many opponents that I couldn’t damage. I would target them and continuously get you can’t damage this opponent. Their levels were in the 30s and 40s. The game seemed like it would be fun, three different control points, points for assault and defense, but I would die almost instantly and most of the enemies were untouchable.

4815

There are no brackets for PvP. Everyone is bolstered to 50. You definitely get more powerful as you get more abilities, but it’s still fun right from 10.

4816

AFAIK, it uses a “bolster” system which boosts all low-level players to a similar level of hitpoints/stats as the highest level players in the Warzone.

Meaning, you won’t have access to higher level skills/abilities - and I assume gear won’t scale either. But the skills you do have will perform similarly to those of the high level players - and you will have a similar amount of hitpoints.

Supposedly, they do this all the way to level 50 and there are no brackets. I know there are lots of people clamoring for brackets, but I really, really hate the WoW-system of having to exchange gear every few levels. It makes the whole loot-whoring appeal meaningless.

I actually really like the system, because it means everyone on the same server will get to meet each other from an early stage (community building), the queues will be much shorter, and the gear upgrades won’t seem quite as temporary as they don’t come in a shitton of sub-brackets.

That said, I’d probably have preferred a level 1-49 bracket and one for level 50s. I expect the gear disparity to be huge between 50s and everyone below in a few months.

4817

In my first pvp game, my team win and i did the more damage and more kills. I was level 10. So the boostering seems to work.

4818

I will be getting this but not till Thursday probably on be 5 eu players on from qt3 but I’m happy to play on any eu server.

4819

I’m a level 22 Trooper now, and I have to say I’m loving this game.

I’ve now healed 3 instances and a few heroic quests and something I love is that I’m always busy. Not necessarily with healing, mind you, but just resource management on whether I can spare a few bullets to put into the enemy instead of firing off a heal. Many of our tanks are still learning (and some aren’t even tank specced so healing them is REALLY a race) but once we get a pack of mobs down to one or two, I’m blasting away like a DPS. So much fun for me.

The UI still sucks for healing, though. I’ve gotten used to using the F keys to select party members, but that’s still a bit of a barrier since the scheme is reversed from what my mind expects it to be. Basically your party is shown in a list on the left, and the F keys select in order from the bottom to the top, rather than top to bottom like how you read, so I can mis-select and overheal while someone goes down.

EXTRA SUPER BONUS AWESOME: When you fight a boss or sub-boss in a heroic, the Star Wars theme starts playing and really pumps you up.

4820

Damn this forum and it telling me not to post twice when I’m only posting once, then checking the thread to see if it posted anyway and it not showing my post until now, when it’s in here THREE TIMES.