Star Wars: The Old Republic

[Teiman]

Engine:

• Tech: decent enough. Is not bad, but 2012 hardware can deliver longer distance visions. Is fair enough for different hardware.

• Artwork: decent enough. Yes, is not high res but cartoony, and the worst areas are ugly (ugly like a WoW area), but some of the best areas are incredible amazing. The whole game is damaged by mmorpg cliches that make it feel generic.

• Sound: normal, I suppose.

• Level design: normal, not all that interesting, with some areas very interesting, like Tantoine.

• Stability: good. It don’t seems to be crashhappy. The only problem (very minor) is that changing settings disable the whole screen a few seconds (with a static image).

[JFrazer]

TOR, graphics wise, suffers the same problem that EQ2 did for me. Everything feels so…muted. All my armor is black, grey and brown for the most part. When I do get something with color it looks like it was washed in hot water and dried in the sun. This also leads to a feeling of “sameness” for me when it comes to the equipment. You may have a piece of armor that is shaped differently, but it uses the same drab color scheme to the point where it’s hard to tell the difference between sets.

The planets, for the most part, follow this color scheme as well. Apparently gun-metal grey paint was on sale when the Empire was building cities. Balmorra’s wilderness just feels dark, Tatooine is a washed out desert (as expected), etc.

Alderan was just shocking when I finally got to it. Green trees, blue sky, open areas, snow covered peaks in the distance. All I could think was “why the hell isn’t the rest of the game this vibrant”? It’s apparent the engine can handle color, I’m just curious why they chose not to use it.

[MichaelD]

One nice thing about the engine is that it plays well on my Macbook Air.

Amor design is disappointing, especially crafted force-wearer armor on the Republic side. An occasional nice piece followed by several levels of bland filler. The whole orange armor deal seems to throw a dagger into the heart if armor crafting, too. It reeks of a very late decision (which it was, coming in during the last month of the beta cycle) that doesn’t take the original objectives of major game systems into account, resulting in a situation where it’s more rewarding to ignore most armor and weapon crafting and just harvest materials for sale. That is sad.

[MarchHare]

All my armor is black, grey and brown for the most part. When I do get something with color it looks like it was washed in hot water and dried in the sun. This also leads to a feeling of “sameness” for me when it comes to the equipment. You may have a piece of armor that is shaped differently, but it uses the same drab color scheme to the point where it’s hard to tell the difference between sets.

The opposite of this, though, is the ridiculously mismatched clown suits that were common in WoW. IIRC, Blizzard attempted to fix this by using a more neutral gear colour palette in WotLK (black, grey, etc.), and people made similar complaints about “sameness” to your post above.

I’m honestly not sure what the solution is to make gear look both distinctive and interesting but not gaudy and mismatched. Maybe the different moddable orange sets are the solution; you could give each set a very distinct look but allow players the ability to modify the stats as they level up.

[MrPerson]

I’m honestly not sure what the solution is to make gear look both distinctive and interesting but not gaudy and mismatched. Maybe the different moddable orange sets are the solution; you could give each set a very distinct look but allow players the ability to modify the stats as they level up.

The solution is an appearance tab…

[JFrazer]

The whole orange armor deal seems to throw a dagger into the heart if armor crafting, too. It reeks of a very late decision (which it was, coming in during the last month of the beta cycle) that doesn’t take the original objectives of major game systems into account, resulting in a situation where it’s more rewarding to ignore most armor and weapon crafting and just harvest materials for sale. That is sad.

Exactly. With the orange equipment system, you end up with Cybertech being the most important armor crew skill.

Armstech and Artificing are in better shape. Armstech makes non-force weapons but it also makes the barrels for improving orange weapons. Artificing makes the improvements for force wielders as well as enhancements for all oranges.

Armortech and Synthweaving should have been modified to follow the same system. Allow them to craft armor, but also have them craft “armoring” pieces for orange equipment. Armortech making cunning/aim armoring and Synthweaving making strength/willpower armoring.

That would leave Cybertech with the “mods” slot, which is universal for all orange equipment, along with ship mods and ear pieces.

Had they gone that route, all the crew skills would have been a bit more balanced, in my opinion.

[rossm]

Exactly. With the orange equipment system, you end up with Cybertech being the most important armor crew skill.

Armstech and Artificing are in better shape. Armstech makes non-force weapons but it also makes the barrels for improving orange weapons. Artificing makes the improvements for force wielders as well as enhancements for all oranges.

Armortech and Synthweaving should have been modified to follow the same system. Allow them to craft armor, but also have them craft “armoring” pieces for orange equipment. Armortech making cunning/aim armoring and Synthweaving making strength/willpower armoring.

That would leave Cybertech with the “mods” slot, which is universal for all orange equipment, along with ship mods and ear pieces.

Had they gone that route, all the crew skills would have been a bit more balanced, in my opinion.

Orange gear with green mods in it is not superior to a green piece of the same level. They’re just as good (somebody will correct me if I’m wrong). Synthweaving can craft a level 37 pair of gloves, just like cybertech and craft level 37 armoring and mod to put in orange gloves, resulting in the same benefit (except the cybertech wearing orange now has to find an enhancement mod). The benefit to cybertech is merely enabling people to control their appearance with orange gear while retaining the same stats. The benefit to synthweaving is that you only have to make one item and you can crit for augment slots which is better than anything else.

If armoring was made by synthweaving and armormech instead of cybertech, the things cybertech could make would be very thin, and a cybertech would have to work even harder to maintain their gear when compared to a synth/armormech.

[Aceris]

Orange gear with green mods in it is not superior to a green piece of the same level. They’re just as good (somebody will correct me if I’m wrong). Synthweaving can craft a level 37 pair of gloves, just like cybertech and craft level 37 armoring and mod to put in orange gloves, resulting in the same benefit (except the cybertech wearing orange now has to find an enhancement mod). The benefit to cybertech is merely enabling people to control their appearance with orange gear while retaining the same stats. The benefit to synthweaving is that you only have to make one item and you can crit for augment slots which is better than anything else.

If armoring was made by synthweaving and armormech instead of cybertech, the things cybertech could make would be very thin, and a cybertech would have to work even harder to maintain their gear when compared to a synth/armormech.

Yes, but if you want blue gear (and you do) you can research a single blue armouring, and use it in all your armour slots, and sell it to both variants of your class, rather than having to research 6 different slots, and possibly only have it useable by one variant of your class.

[MrPerson]

The major difference while leveling is it’s much easier to keep a set of orange gear reasonably up to date, as the components you need are always available at an appropriate level, and you can upgrade bit by bit as needed.

[Dejin]

Exactly. With the orange equipment system, you end up with Cybertech being the most important armor crew skill.

Armstech and Artificing are in better shape. Armstech makes non-force weapons but it also makes the barrels for improving orange weapons. Artificing makes the improvements for force wielders as well as enhancements for all oranges.

Armortech and Synthweaving should have been modified to follow the same system. Allow them to craft armor, but also have them craft “armoring” pieces for orange equipment. Armortech making cunning/aim armoring and Synthweaving making strength/willpower armoring.

That would leave Cybertech with the “mods” slot, which is universal for all orange equipment, along with ship mods and ear pieces.

Had they gone that route, all the crew skills would have been a bit more balanced, in my opinion.

Completely agree. They should have had Armortech and Synthweaving make the Armour component for Orange Armour. That would have made for a much better system.

[Dejin]

First update is coming next week. Looks like it’s just group content – a new Flashpoint and a greatly expanded Operation. Next update is coming in March including a new planet. Rock, Paper, Shotgun has a big interview. Here’s some key information on updates:

With our first update we have a flashpoint, Rise of the Rakghouls, which is in the vein of the story-heavy flashpoints that you’ve seen in SWTOR. We also are expanding Karagga’s Palace, the second operation you can play through. It only had one boss on release. It’s going to have five bosses. Karagga’s Palace is very much based off of Jabba The Hutt’s, there’s a rancour in it, and over very cool things. We also have a lot of bug fixes and modifications. One thing we’re very conscious about is we need to get rid of anything detracting from player experiences. It’s a massive game, so we’re going to have problems, and we’re getting them fixed.

We then have a second update coming in March, and that’s going to be a much bigger update, another flashpoint – part two of Rise of the Rakghouls – and we’re going to have a whole new planet, with a brand new operation and warzone. We’re going to have the second part of the Legacy system, which is the real meat of it. We’re going to have guild banks, PVP ranking systems, and a lot of smaller additions and bug fixes. And we’re already working on the third update. The story’s already written out and being recorded for the fourth, fifth… and I can’t say how many updates we have, but we have a lot. Just to give you an idea of how far we’re planning ahead, we’ve already got voiceover being recorded for content you won’t see for a year or more. We’re really making sure we deliver new content. We also want to make sure that the Star Wars galaxy feels alive, so we’re working on an event system, which we’ll be giving more details about in the new future.

[Mark_Asher]

Interesting, and I’m glad to see they are going to add content fairly quickly.

So a flashpoint is like an instanced dungeon in WoW? Or is it something else? What’s an “operation?”

And they are adding a planet? How big are the planets? How do they compare to an area in WoW.

[Dejin]

So a flashpoint is like an instanced dungeon in WoW? Or is it something else? What’s an “operation?”

Yes. A Flashpoint is a dungeon for 4 players. There are hard versions available at level 50. An Operation is has eight and sixteen player versions.

And they are adding a planet? How big are the planets? How do they compare to an area in WoW.

I can’t compare to WOW, but I would say most planets are a fair bit bigger than a LOTRO region, I haven’t played LOTRO lately and these estimates could be way, way off, but I’d say maybe 2x or even 3x bigger. Or if you’ve played Rift again maybe 2x or 3x bigger than their regions, at least for the larger planets. Some of the planets including the starter planets aren’t that big, but some of the are quite large.

[Mike_Cathcart]

In WoW terms flashpoint = instance, operation = raid.

[Gedd]

Interesting, and I’m glad to see they are going to add content fairly quickly.

I would not necessarily gauge Bioware’s future content update frequency based on them releasing both a flashpoint and an operation so soon. More than likely these were both in development for launch and just weren’t finished in time.

[Dejin]

I would not necessarily gauge Bioware’s future content update frequency based on them releasing both a flashpoint and an operation so soon. More than likely these were both in development for launch and just weren’t finished in time.

I don’t think so. At least the Flashpoint story-wise seems to be post conclusion of the main storyline. It’s possible the raid is unfinished work, especially given that it’s an extension of an existing raid.

I’d imagine that they’ve got quite a few items in the pipeline at various stages of development which they are planning to trickle out over the next year or two. I don’t think this work can be viewed as simply stuff that “wasn’t finished in time.” Rather it’s work that was always planned to be slowly released after the initial release to demonstrate to customers that the game is worth a monthly fee. In the RPS interview James Ohlen alludes to voice recording ongoing for 5th and 6th game updates. I think this is just good MMO business practice.

[rei]

Yes. A Flashpoint is a dungeon for 4 players. There are hard versions available at level 50. An Operation is has eight and sixteen player versions.

I can’t compare to WOW, but I would say most planets are a fair bit bigger than a LOTRO region, I haven’t played LOTRO lately and these estimates could be way, way off, but I’d say maybe 2x or even 3x bigger. Or if you’ve played Rift again maybe 2x or 3x bigger than their regions, at least for the larger planets. Some of the planets including the starter planets aren’t that big, but some of the are quite large.

There are alternate leveling areas for level ranges though, something that seems to be missing in SWTOR.

I can safely say I’ve completed all the class-non-specific missions for the planets for my faction. There’s nothing else to see or do besides the class line.

[MrPerson]

Evidence from other MMOs backs Gedd. The first update or so reflects on how much work wasn’t quite finished before launch, or work by teams that weren’t the “long pole” for release and haven’t yet been moved off, rather than their intended pace of updates.

[Gedd]

I’m sure they’ve got other Flashpoints planned for the future, and in various states of development (the voice recording ydejin mentions requires it), but to think we’re going to get a new flashpoint (let alone operation) every major (.x) patch is somewhat unlikely.

Of course WoW typically released a good bit of content (raid, instance, and/or battleground) with almost every major patch, so maybe it’s not that far-fetched. What remains to be seen is how quickly Bioware’s going to roll out patches of that magnitude. The changes in 1.1 are nowhere near the mammoth major patches WoW releases.

[Mike_Cathcart]

I just want to say that I’m having a hard time getting excited about anything described as “part two of Rise of the Rakghouls.” I would really have been fine skipping parts one through a billion of Rise of the Rakghouls, Return of the Rakghouls, Night of the Living Rakghouls and Rakghouls Take Manhattan.