Star Wars: The Old Republic

MrPerson · 2012-01-09T11:21:52.000Z

Mark Asher:

Yeah, WoW just feels crisp and right. When I hit a key I get a response. I know what’s going on all the time.

Yeah, abilities just not firing in SWTOR is frustrating. I have to spend some of my attention while healing ensuring that my heal actually went off, which distracts from my understanding of what’s happening around me. It’s especially bad when you try to fire off two abilities in a row, where the first gates the second, especially if a channel is involved. Basically, things aren’t really done when they’re “done.”

Chris_Johnson · 2012-01-09T11:22:19.000Z

MarchHare:

I think this is mostly correct, but I’d add one important caveat: SWTOR blows WoW out of the water from a post-launch server stability perspective.

Yes, I think a lot of people are forgetting how many problems WoW had when it was released. It was a fun game when it worked, but initially there were all sorts of problems with servers, etc. I think Rift was the first post-WoW game to set a new standard on release day stability. SWTOR has issues, but I can log into my server the entire time I want to play, including during pre-launch. That wasn’t the case with WoW.

I will concede that the game mechanics in WoW are better at the moment, but they’ve had quite a while to refine these.

Teiman · 2012-01-09T11:30:37.000Z

SOCIAL COMMENTARY

I have edited this thread, and replaced every mention of WoW with “Jesus”. So this threads looks like a congregation of crazy christians.

Here.

DKDArtagnan · 2012-01-09T11:36:15.000Z

Teiman

That was another cute anti-WoW post, to be sure, but aren’t you kinda overlooking the fact that a lot of people are criticising WoW?

I don’t think you’d find that to be the case with the “crazy christians and Jesus” scenario :)

Chuck_Jordan · 2012-01-09T15:12:30.000Z

rei:

You know what SWTOR needs? Raphael Sbarge. Hah.

Seconded. While I was playing Kotor I’d write variations of “Mr. Carth Onasi” all over my notebook and plan what our first date would be like and decide what I’d do for a living if he didn’t want to move in with me and I had to move to space.

Uh. I mean, it’d be really dumb if somebody did that.

Sean_Tudor · 2012-01-09T15:35:34.000Z

DKDArtagnan:

Essentially, it’s not as addictive as WoW - because it’s just not as good as WoW was upon release - and it’s WAY too familiar to catch my fancy on that level.

Being addictive should not be an indicator of a good game though. I use the Zynga library of “games” as a perfect example. I believe SWTOR has qualities that make it a far better “game” than WoW (notice I did not say MMO).

As a vanilla release WoW player the launch and gameplay functions of SWTOR are far better. It took quite a while before WoW improved. Server instabilities and bugs plagued WoW at launch and were a real pain for people trying to play the game. EA/Bioware handled the staged release of SWTOR extremely well and for the most part the game is very stable.

If people are burned out on MMO’s then they shouldn’t touch SWTOR. Or at least treat it like the next KOTOR instalment and then cancel after a month.

inkai · 2012-01-09T15:47:32.000Z

Sean Tudor:

As a vanilla release WoW player the launch and gameplay functions of SWTOR are far better. It took quite a while before WoW improved. Server instabilities and bugs plagued WoW at launch and were a real pain for people trying to play the game. EA/Bioware handled the staged release of SWTOR extremely well and for the most part the game is very stable.

People said that about Rift aswell but has also dropped quite a bit after the first few months.

I don’t know the actual figures but I think it’s going to be the same here, even though I really like the game now, who knows in a month.

Sean_Tudor · 2012-01-09T15:48:17.000Z

I notice a couple of people mention combat action delays in SWTOR? Are you referring to the initial start of combat when there is a slight delay or timing between combat actions? I know there is a setting you can change that refers to combat delay. I need to do more research into this.

MarchHare · 2012-01-09T15:53:18.000Z

Sean Tudor:

I notice a couple of people mention combat action delays in SWTOR? Are you referring to the initial start of combat when there is a slight delay or timing between combat actions? I know there is a setting you can change that refers to combat delay. I need to do more research into this.

I’ve had a few issues where my abilities just don’t fire. I see a cast bar, the animation plays, but the target doesn’t take damage and the ability doesn’t go on cooldown. It’s super annoying and has resulted in my death more than one close fight.

Sean_Tudor · 2012-01-09T15:54:14.000Z

Teiman:

SOCIAL COMMENTARY

I think you are becoming the Syncaine of Qt3. ;)

Hardcore Casual – 20 Dec 11

SW:TOR – How is the end-game?

Random thought: What if the end-game in SW:TOR is awesome? Most people right now are talking about the leveling experience in SW. The pace, the voice, the story, the mechanics, etc. And rightfully …

Dawn_Falcon · 2012-01-09T15:59:00.000Z

Sean Tudor:

I notice a couple of people mention combat action delays in SWTOR? Are you referring to the initial start of combat when there is a slight delay or timing between combat actions?

No, not the ability queuing. There are not only a couple of bugs with responsiveness, but a nasty issue with abilities delaying for animations…

Sean_Tudor · 2012-01-09T16:24:14.000Z

Dawn Falcon:

No, not the ability queuing. There are not only a couple of bugs with responsiveness, but a nasty issue with abilities delaying for animations…

Hmm interesting. Sounds like the problem Age Of Conan had until they added a fix into that game.

rei · 2012-01-09T16:38:47.000Z

rei:

What really bothers me in SWTOR combat is you stand there still swinging at a still-animating mob but not being able to press additional buttons for subsequent attacks because the server has already flagged as dead due to attacks done to it by your companion. A second or two later, it goes inactive as a target once it dies.

This is the most egregious example.

does anyone else get this? it can’t be just my connection. i am <100 ms latency.

Black_Isis · 2012-01-09T16:48:35.000Z

Nope, I get that too.

MrPerson · 2012-01-09T16:49:50.000Z

It’s not just you rei. The combat engine is a clusterfuck, and that’s one of the particular issues.

Brian_Rucker · 2012-01-09T16:50:10.000Z

Never seen this. Worst problem for me is certain attacks won’t trigger properly unless I’m -just- the right distance away from a target (Blackblast with the shotgun for a smuggler). It’ll look like I should be able to hit the guy from behind but the game will give me an error message. So I’m left taking a couple steps back, or to one side or another, before trying again.

Dejin · 2012-01-09T17:07:04.000Z

inkai:

People said that about Rift aswell but has also dropped quite a bit after the first few months.

I don’t know the actual figures but I think it’s going to be the same here, even though I really like the game now, who knows in a month.

No idea what the drop-off will be, I expect it will be large. But I expect that from any MMO. I think it’s normal that a lot of players will check it out, play for a while and then move on.

As far as Rift goes though, I think SWTOR has a lot going for it that Rift didn’t. Rift was very generic. Plus it was fantasy, and a lot of us are rather burned out by the genre. The character classes and the characters were all very generic, although I did quite enjoy the Rifts themselves and particularly loved the region-wide Invasions.

SWTOR is Star Wars, which I think a lot of us still have fond memories of in spite of the prequels. The storylines are great, even if they are tied into rather bland questing objectives. I really like the character classes, that may be my Star Wars fanboy coming through, or it may be because the storylines give the character classes flavor that goes beyond the game mechanics. All the classes I’ve played, play very differently, and have a style that works well with the setting and source material (here is one area where Rift’s quadruple spec’ing and the flexibility of the classes might have hurt it – I didn’t up have any real desire to play through again as a different class, since I could largely respec my current character to act as a completely different character class).

When I hit 50 in Rift, I got bored and unsubscribed. Sooner or later, I intended to go back and try the other faction, but I still haven’t done it 9 months later. I wasn’t invested enough in the story or my character to go back and re-up when they added more content. With SWTOR I’ve hit cap, but I really like and am attached to my character. I want to see where Bioware takes the story. I’m also very interested in rolling up some alts on both the Republic and Empire sides.

Rift was very well done, but for me it just wasn’t as interesting as SWTOR. Rift was a game I played through (and enjoyed). SWTOR is more a universe I want to stay in. Overall SWTOR just provides a much richer and more emotionally involving experience. The characters and stories are just much more alive than with Rift.

Mike_Cathcart · 2012-01-09T17:34:20.000Z

rei:

does anyone else get this? it can’t be just my connection. i am <100 ms latency.

If you can believe it, it was even worse in beta. But yeah, it’s not just you. The stories are the real draw for this game, pretty much everything else about it you kinda have to tolerate.

Nesrie · 2012-01-09T23:36:44.000Z

I get in the low mid 90s myself. The odd thing is, I remember having an issue maybe twice during the beta, and it was short-lived. Now, the crashing to desktop, crashing to menu and the latecy is pretty bad fairly frequently.

Balasarius · 2012-01-10T05:05:12.000Z

Rasputin:

I think this is the first time I’ve ever read or heard anyone call Cataclysm “The good WoW.”

The content and end-game “progression” may be questionable, but I think the gameplay mechanics are the best they’ve ever been. Which would be expected after working at it for 7+ years.