1801

Just watched CynicalBrits 25 minute Hyper WTF SWTOR.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebUMuuS1AZs&feature=player_embedded#!

Impressions:

  • Autoloot everything around you would be nice to have.
  • Looting stuff seems to take forever…
  • No Quest-text in tooltip (I.e. “Droids 3/10 on the tooltip”) to help with Questing…
  • Spacey UI takes up too much of the screen. Feels like the first EQ skins that.
  • What purpose does the little “radar” have (Where enemy target appears), the animation?
  • No Fading on chat? (probably configurable)
  • Bonus missions for killing stuff is nice
  • Codex unlocks are nice, although didn’t notice anything in the video.
  • Combat seems average, I wish there was a sense of actually “hitting” stuff instead of having your weapons just go through anything you hit (i.e. have things have a mass)
  • The first quest took about 3 hours to pick up, with lots of chat options – I wonder what result the chat trees have, or is there just one “correct” path that all the others will lead you through. Perhaps something for a RP Character, always picking the bottom option.
  • I did not see any chat, just a lot of status updates in the top left corner.
  • SWTOR is definitively not a “fastest to endgame” rush MMO based on all the cutscenes and quests that take a while to pickup. Unless you can ‘esc’ out of everything and autoaccept it.
  • No reputation gain on kills or quests, so perhaps we avoid that grind or it just means that endgame gear gets even more timeconsuming than in WOW to aquire.
  • Lots of trash drops that only serve to take up inventory space before you vendor them
  • Noticed you could expand your inventory for 5000 credits… Start with 40 slots. At level 2 the player had 23 credits.
  • First skill cost half of all the credits they player had gained so far.
  • Experience gains on exploration
  • 10 minutes to level 2 in demo mode.
  • Didn’t see how the codex looked, but I miss the TOME from Warhammer regardless.

Hmmm…

1802

Jedi Council my ass. A bunch of corrupted old men. Training new jedi to collect the money from selling skills.

I am going sith!. Maybe the sith are a bunch of assasins, but you know are comming, you are not lied to with this fake… cult.

1803

Already put my best man on the job.

He was playing a Sith character in the demo, these were Sith trainers…

(couldn’t find a decent “foot in mouth” image, so best next thing…)

1804

Fear not. I was roleplaying. But I suppose the jedi part will mirror it, in the name of “balance” spits.

I like the part where the sith has to build “rage” to use skills. I know is not original, and is probably class specific, but is strangelly appropiate for a sith.

1805

At PAX Bioware announced Beta Test Weekends starting this upcoming weekend, though I haven’t heard any actual details other than that. So perhaps more people will have a chance to give the game a spin.

Also, as mentioned above, I’m in the beta… just rubbing it in! No, actually, I wanted to say if anyone was interested in forming a guild PM me and we can try to make it work.

1806

Last week they apparently snuck crew skills onto the site: http://www.swtor.com/info/systems/crew-skills

Breakdown: you can have 3 skills, one of which can be a crafting skill, or you can fill them with any number of gathering and/or mission skills.

1807

In an interview with one of the Bioware community folks, it was mentioned that their goal for the beta weekends is to get everyone who signed up a chance to play the game, so if you haven’t signed up yet and are interested, might want to get to it.

1808

I wonder how this “beta weekend” business will work. A 30g download is kind of a big undertaking for 2 days of access, and I’d need a fair amount of lead time to try sucking that particular basketball through my ISP’s curly-straw.

1809

I noticed that at least on Amazon, if you preorder you are entitled to play the game before everyone else or some such wording…is that an auto invite to the beta, does anyone know?

/still waiting for my invite

1810

Nah, that’s a seperate, non-beta early access thing in a to-be-determined pre-launch period. Beta characters won’t carry over, early access ones will. It’s widely understood to be an attempt to avoid launch issues.

1811

From the way I understood it.

You buy the game pre-order.
You get a code
You visit SWTOR site
You enter the Code
You get it linked or overwriting your Origin account details with the ones from SWTOR.
You are now number XXXX in LINE for the pre-launch, meaning, you’re unlikely to get a head start if you register it now, considering how many others are already in line ahead of you.

1812

Actually, they’ve repeatedly said that everybody who pre-orders will get in for a head start period. How much of a difference it’ll make, no one knows.

1813

Everybody who pre-orders is much thanked for their money, and please enjoy your prompt rear-end reaming. SUCKERS!

1814

awww - you didn’t get to pre-order I take it? ;-)

1815

I think pre-orders may now be on The Foxstab List along with digital game distribution and consoles.

1816

He apparently doesn’t take into account that pre-ordering through Amazon doesn’t cost you a cent until it ships. But reason will not stop his hate.

1817

So it ships and it’s a dead-end tard like STO.
Now what?
Or, are you perhaps suggesting I exploit such a loophole to get a head start and then cancel my pre-order prior to the shipping of retail, dear sir? As I’ll have you know that I’m above such heinous, most scrupulous, chicanery.

Bottom line is, I don’t have much hope in this game delivering on par with anything than a moderate/adequate experience. Problem is, the expectations are on the scale of EPIC.
And if you factor how much EA has essentially paid for this product when they purchased Elevation Partners…yeah.

1818

No, your statement was that all people who pre-ordered are thanked for their money, when they haven’t gotten a dime from folks like me. I pointed out that this is incorrect.

And you’re certainly entitled to your opinion, and I’m certainly dubious about the end-game, but those in the beta are giving it good word of mouth and they have some high expectations as well.

1819

my roommate got in the beta event for this weekend, he is prepare to be disappointed.

1820

“Managing expectations” = good thing
“Preparing to be disappointed” = sour miserable person