Star Wars: The Old Republic

[rossm]

So, I guess everyone can agree its bad form to spoil class stories and will use appropriate measures then?

If not, speak up, and I can ignore your posts from now on.

Ignoring those with whom you disagree is certainly a great strategy. Once you’ve managed to pare down the posters to only the ones you agree with, I’m sure the forum will be a much better place for you.

[KevinC]

Yeah I don’t understand this either; MMO engines are hard I suppose. I mean sometimes this game chugs like Age of Conan did when I was running it on a PC 3 generations ago… But AoC had eye popping textures and models compared to swtor.

SWTOR really does have an atrocious engine. The textures look like they’re out of 2001, the detailed animation draw distance is very short, there is barely a lighting system to speak of… yet it still kinda runs like a dog.

I like SWTOR a lot more than I thought I would, but thank god I’m a Game over Graphics type of guy because the game looks like ass, considering what was spent on it. I saw WoW and SWTOR running side by side and it was sad how badly a seven year old game that can practically run on the cellphone I’m posting on trounced it.

[rei]

i love how the grass appears. Suddenly, no fading in, just a line where the grass appears as you move.

[Gordon_Cameron]

i love how the grass appears.

It’s greener in Azeroth.

badum-ching

[walTer]

They could have done what Trion did for Rift…screw lowenders and make a gorgeous looking game.

While also not being a graphics over game person, it does help. That said, I do have enough fun with SW that I tend to ignore the graphic “shortcomings” but even 2010 graphics would be nice.

[MrPerson]

SWTOR really does have an atrocious engine. The textures look like they’re out of 2001, the detailed animation draw distance is very short, there is barely a lighting system to speak of… yet it still kinda runs like a dog.

The detailed animation thing drives me up a wall, especially when a distant jedi NPC does a lightsaber flourish.

[Dejin]

i love how the grass appears. Suddenly, no fading in, just a line where the grass appears as you move.

The same thing happens in LOTRO, you’re surrounded by a very clearly visible circle of grass as you move along. It’s very annoying, and in LOTRO even with a top graphics card, I was never able to tweak the settings so that the circle was far enough out that it would not annoy me.

[KevinC]

The detailed animation thing drives me up a wall, especially when a distant jedi NPC does a lightsaber flourish.

I’m glad I’m not the only one. :)

They could have done what Trion did for Rift…screw lowenders and make a gorgeous looking game.

I don’t think it has to be a binary decision. Take WoW for an example: Very low resolution textures, very low polygon counts, yet the game looked attractive at release, at least for a good majority of people. It wasn’t all A+ material but by and large the game had an appealing presentation. Now whether or not that art style appeals is personal taste, but the bottom line is they were able to target lower-end hardware and make a game that a great deal of people found attractive to look at - and without zone lines, to boot! Quite an achievement.

My problem with SWTOR graphics isn’t just the fact that the textures aren’t high resolution or it doesn’t have various bells and whistles, it’s that the art is just… well, “workman-like” is probably the most positive way I could describe it. “Uninspired” is probably closer to the mark; it’s just flat, dull, and unappealing. Then you tie in the technical limitations (like the short animation draw distance I mentioned) and it just looks really, really shoddy. I winced every time I had to take a taxi on Coruscant not just because all the buildings were just flat, dull planes but the “background traffic” stutters and jitters along its way. It just looks really, really bad. I’d cut them some slack this was a small company doing what they could, but we’re talking about a game that had to have a budget of half a billion dollars if not more.

It’s not a huge deal to me, because I care more about if I’m having fun than eye candy, but it just kinda baffles me.

[corsair]

Having to listen to the misspelled and mispronounced “Justicar” 20 times in the last minute, it’s starting to grate, and I’m not even the one playing the game. Great that pretty much everything is spoken, but if you make a mistake, it’s gonna be a bit harder to change than if it was just text.

Yeah, I know, petty nit-pickin’…

[Nesrie]

Quick question:

My wife and I are thinking about playing but I wonder how this game handles two people grouping doing missions together? Provided we aren’t the same class, how would we do our individual story missions and still play together? Are there general guests that everyone has access to?

Two people together works awesomely well, even before you get your companions which makes it almost like a full group of four. I game with my sister all the time, and we also have a couple/few others so we can get a full group for flashpoints.

[Miramon]

Having to listen to the misspelled and mispronounced “Justicar” 20 times in the last minute, it’s starting to grate, and I’m not even the one playing the game. Great that pretty much everything is spoken, but if you make a mistake, it’s gonna be a bit harder to change than if it was just text.

Yeah, I know, petty nit-pickin’…

What, you think it should be “justiciar”???

Remember, this is the Star Wars universe where things like midiclorians are intentionally misspelled.

(pause for google)

And, hey, I see “justicar” is actually used by WoW, White Wolf, and Rift.

[Razgon]

Ignoring those with whom you disagree is certainly a great strategy. Once you’ve managed to pare down the posters to only the ones you agree with, I’m sure the forum will be a much better place for you.

Indeed - I’m so glad you approve and understand :-)

I’m curious, I’m canceling my sub before the 20th since I won’t be playing it enough to justify the games expense - How many others are thinking of doing this here?

Fun game, just not that interesting to me, besides the setting and lore which is the big draw.

[Dejin]

I’m curious, I’m canceling my sub before the 20th since I won’t be playing it enough to justify the games expense - How many others are thinking of doing this here?

Fun game, just not that interesting to me, besides the setting and lore which is the big draw.

Definitely staying on. I’m having a great time and a friend just started up a JK so I’ll probably create a JC and level up with him. I’m also still planning to run an Imperial character through sooner or later.

We’ll have to see how much I keep using my Jedi Guardian 50. I haven’t delved into the level 50 stuff enough to see how interesting I’ll find it. One thing I will say is that having the daily purchasables relatively low cost was a good move. I can pick up big improvements for both me and my companions with just a few hours of play. That’s in pretty sharp contrast with Rift where when I hit level 50 I realized I would have to run dailies for weeks and weeks to get better gear via the reputation system. That realization directly lead to my I cancelling Rift.

[MrPerson]

I expect I’ll pay for a second month, and then be done. The level 50 game doesn’t interest me.

[DKDArtagnan]

Indeed - I’m so glad you approve and understand :-)

I’m curious, I’m canceling my sub before the 20th since I won’t be playing it enough to justify the games expense - How many others are thinking of doing this here?

Fun game, just not that interesting to me, besides the setting and lore which is the big draw.

Well, I already cancelled - but now I’m reconsidering.

It’s strange…

There are many things I don’t like - but the game keeps calling me back, and when I’m not “hurrying” to level up - I find the game does work as a singleplayer experience.

It’s like a split personality MMO. Because it’s actually designed BOTH as a singleplayer game and an MMO - but I find it almost impossible to truly enjoy it as both at the same time. So, when I’m playing singleplayer - I have to ignore that, solo, I’ll never get the real shinies because they’re at endgame, and I’ll never achieve much beyond just the story. But when I play it as an MMO, it’s not quite interesting enough to stand on its own - and I kinda forget that it’s actually more enjoyable as singleplayer - and yet, not fully satisfying because it’s also an MMO where I should be out raiding/PvP’ing…

Haha, did that really make any sense?

Maybe it’s just me that can’t fully embrace this take on the genre, or maybe - just maybe - the take on the genre just doesn’t QUITE work.

[Wendelius]

Ignoring those with whom you disagree is certainly a great strategy. Once you’ve managed to pare down the posters to only the ones you agree with, I’m sure the forum will be a much better place for you.

No. Ignoring those who are happy to spoil the storyline just saves you from seeing the spoilers. It’s not about ignoring anyone who disagrees with you.

I’ve had to disable General in game to avoid spoilers too. My guild is very mindful of story class spoilers so we all get to be surprised by it.

Ninyu, my wife and I play as a duo and it works great. Both on the Empire and Republic side, you will want to both start with either force or non force users to spend the first 10 levels together. Apart from that, it works really nicely. And it means you will have a pre-made group to go through the Heroic quests on the starter planet.

As for staying, our highest level char is 17 right now (and we have alt-itis). I’ll definitely be actively playing this game for the next 3-6 months. I’m enjoying it a lot.

Wendelius

[Razgon]

Thanks Wendelius, thats exactly what I meant, but I must admit I don’t have the patience to deal with trolls and explain everything over and over to people who just doesn’t read what I write.

[Gedd]

Technically it can work out if you pick the same base class, you’ll just have to do all of the class-related story stuff twice but that could still be interesting if you decide that one of you will take the bad path and one will take the good path.

My wife and I are playing duo Inquisitors and it’s actually a blast and still works as well as if we’d picked different classes (in some ways better, in some worse). You don’t need to do every class-story bit twice, you just need to be willing to split up for any story instances. If there is a particularly troublesome mob, and there are a few elite encounters that could give someone trouble if they’re not as familiar with MMO combat, then you can always do the “do it twice” method. As a general rule though, the story instances are easy enough to solo, and you still feel like you’re playing together because you’re doing the exact same thing.

I would recommend not going with the same gender/class combo though, unless you’re role-playing twins or something. Both your characters will have the same voice, and that can be a little odd if you’re in the same room. If you’re not, or that kind of thing doesn’t bother you, then disregard.

As someone else mentioned as well, keep in mind that certain classes do their 1-10 content apart, split along force user/non-force user lines, so you might want to let that guide your decision as well.

[Murbella]

My wife and I are playing duo Inquisitors and it’s actually a blast and still works as well as if we’d picked different classes (in some ways better, in some worse). You don’t need to do every class-story bit twice, you just need to be willing to split up for any story instances. If there is a particularly troublesome mob, and there are a few elite encounters that could give someone trouble if they’re not as familiar with MMO combat, then you can always do the “do it twice” method. As a general rule though, the story instances are easy enough to solo, and you still feel like you’re playing together because you’re doing the exact same thing.

I would recommend not going with the same gender/class combo though, unless you’re role-playing twins or something. Both your characters will have the same voice, and that can be a little odd if you’re in the same room. If you’re not, or that kind of thing doesn’t bother you, then disregard.

As someone else mentioned as well, keep in mind that certain classes do their 1-10 content apart, split along force user/non-force user lines, so you might want to let that guide your decision as well.

This is exactly what i’m doing with my friend now.

She is a jedi Sage (healer) and I am a jedi shadow (tank). For class quest instances we just enter our own instance unless one of us has trouble.

It is true it is more effective to pick different base classes in order to get two class buffs, but you have to play what you want to play of course.

[AcidCat]

I’m glad I’m not the only one. :)
My problem with SWTOR graphics isn’t just the fact that the textures aren’t high resolution or it doesn’t have various bells and whistles, it’s that the art is just… well, “workman-like” is probably the most positive way I could describe it. “Uninspired” is probably closer to the mark; it’s just flat, dull, and unappealing. Then you tie in the technical limitations (like the short animation draw distance I mentioned) and it just looks really, really shoddy.

This is a good way to describe the visual presentation of the game, and for me it really dampens the experience. A good part of my enjoyment in an MMO is exploring and seeing the sights and feeling like I’m immersed in another world - in SWTOR I feel like I’ve wandered onto the set of a budget SciFi show. Gear also has a similarly uninspired and often just plain dumb look as well.

Combine this with the actual gameplay, which is just completely run of the mill, and I’m done after my free month. I have enjoyed the stories and character interactions, so I feel like I got my money’s worth with the box purchase, but that just can’t carry a $ 15 a month game for me. The world and gameplay just aren’t interesting enough.