Star Wars: The Old Republic

[Esoteric]

I only played a couple of hours of this - pretty fun, but I don't really want to ruin much of the story once I start playing it in December.

Plus, Skyrim came out means that I didn't really have time to play

[Coys1882]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

Not likely.

Remember the scene in Se7en when the fat dude is being forced to eat himself to death with a gun to his head? That's what I think of whenever you post about MMOs. Why do you play this genre, if judging by your posts, you absolutely hate them?

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by Coys1882

Remember the scene in Se7en when the fat dude is being forced to eat himself to death with a gun to his head? That's what I think of whenever you post about MMOs. Why do you play this genre, if judging by your posts, you absolutely hate them?

I don't hate them. I hate the way they're going. But they're good fun if you can find the time/group of people/right game.

WoW was that game for a long time. It's not anymore so I stopped and haven't played since February after friends asking me to play Cata. WoWwLS will be that game for me for atleast three months. Depending where it is at after that time, maybe I stay.

[Regorium]

Got the beta up and running for only a couple hours on sunday, but I'm pretty hooked.

The only thing that bothers me is that in true Bioware fashion, they really don't understand what makes a person "good" and what makes a person "evil". The alignment choices for a lot of the quests, rather than being good or evil, seem like they're either "naive" and "ass for no reason".

Some of the choices actually revolted me (both light and dark), and I'm pretty sure I'll end up being neutral unless I force myself to do stupid things.

[CaptainCrunch]

Go with the evil choices, its the only way that you can save your . . . friends.

[CaptainCrunch]

Just as a nerd aside, the third book of the Old Republic novels is set to be released tommorrw.

Old Republic: Reven explains what happened to him after the first KOTR when you took the light side ending and went off to deal with a threat outside of the GFFA.

After that the next big novel release that I'm looking forward to is the Plageous book in Jan.

[nik-]

My only real gripe is as a Sith Warrior, you're given a companion whose moral compass punishes you for playing your class/race to it's intent.

[CaramonLS]

It's not so much that I have a huge problem that it's a WoW clone - but rather they just blatantly copied things out of WoW. I mean Rest Areas / Rest XP? Not exactly a terribly complex thing, but again, they just directly copied the formula right out of WoW.

Specialize @ level 10? Yep.

Classes? They're so similar to WoW in terms of cooldowns, combo chain types, etc. They might as well have just called a Soldier a Wizard from what I've seen so far.

Vendor system? Identical.

Travel system? Identical.

Class trainers? Identical.

That's just off the top of my head.

Just... try a little harder EA.

[Coys1882]

Star Wars Licence + WoW model = $$$

What's to think about?

[Esoteric]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

It's not so much that I have a huge problem that it's a WoW clone - but rather they just blatantly copied things out of WoW. I mean Rest Areas / Rest XP? Not exactly a terribly complex thing, but again, they just directly copied the formula right out of WoW.

Specialize @ level 10? Yep.

Classes? They're so similar to WoW in terms of cooldowns, combo chain types, etc. They might as well have just called a Soldier a Wizard from what I've seen so far.

Vendor system? Identical.

Travel system? Identical.

Class trainers? Identical.

That's just off the top of my head.

Just... try a little harder EA.

Sounds like almost every single MMO - Aion and Rift were the same way. At least TOR has great voice acting and interesting plot and character choices.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by Esoteric

Sounds like almost every single MMO - Aion and Rift were the same way. At least TOR has great voice acting and interesting plot and character choices.

I get that, I do - but in a lot of places of the game (very limited experience), it feels like the just changed the animation from an Orc to a Jedi.

You can copy the model, I'm good with that, FPS games do it all the time, but you can change the gameplay up a little more.

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by Coys1882

Star Wars Licence + WoW model = $$$

What's to think about?

The fact that equation is probably going to blow up in their face. It's not a WoW model. It's WoW. Vanilla WoW to boot. Just terrible decisions all around. I hope I am wrong, but this game is going to kill Bioware.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

The fact that equation is probably going to blow up in their face. It's not a WoW model. It's WoW. Vanilla WoW to boot. Just terrible decisions all around. I hope I am wrong, but this game is going to kill Bioware.

EA might be the single worst company to create / ruin MMOs. Just brutal in every respect.

[nik-]

If I was making an MMO right now I would do everything in my power to make a WoW player's transition as seamless as possible, even down the majority of the hotkey to menu combinations.

There's nothing wrong with it.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by nik-

If I was making an MMO right now I would do everything in my power to make a WoW player's transition as seamless as possible, even down the majority of the hotkey to menu combinations.

There's nothing wrong with it.

Ok, but what is the draw to get me to leave WoW which I played for X years. There has to be some original content / gameplay. I think that is Blaster's point.

[Rathji]

^
Lightsabers.

Game. Set. Match.


Rathji

[MaDMaN_26]

Originally Posted by nik-

If I was making an MMO right now I would do everything in my power to make a WoW player's transition as seamless as possible, even down the majority of the hotkey to menu combinations.

There's nothing wrong with it.

^^ this

I was in on the very first SW:TOR beta in October and then the one shortly after that so I was not allowed to play again this weekend. But during those 6 days of play I played almost every class to level 10-12 and my inquisitor up to level 20. (got my ship, second companion etc...)

I have played wow for years. I quit last year after getting a few toons to 85 in cata... just got tired of the same ol carrot on stick gear grind. I think SW:TOR took what works from wow, added an amazing story (I honestly cant decide which class I want to see finish their story first) They have great class quests and levelling quests I don't skip completely and just read the last line that says "Collect x of y and return to me." They are all voice acted (well) and even allow me to respond in ways that affect the outcome and influence my companions - although gifts can fix that at a later date so play how you want, Dev's have even said story arcs will arise based on the good or bad influence with companions.) So Instead of simply clicking on a "accept" button, at least I give a crap why I'm collecting x of y and returning.

The crafting system is a little more complex but so much that no one will want to touch it, and the boring stuff is done by your companions... it takes them time to complete their tasks but the days of me standing in a city smelting a hundred bars of x so I can then smelt them or hammer them into a hundred of y Not to mention being an inscriptionist and grinding out 2000powders, to make into 2000 inks so I can then create 2000 glyphs... you simply tell your companion - go do this or make 5 of these I'll be back in a hour after I go kill stuff whilst making lightsaber noises.

There is always going to be the "blah blah blah it sucks, wow in space" Blaster type neigh Sayers - ignore them. They either hate the genre because wow IS the genre or they wanted a Star Wars game that was not a MMO... but as MMO's go - reinventing the wheel when you have a juggernaut competitor with 11 million subscribers... that would be a special kind of dumb. Use what they have made work and fine tune it, tweak it for yourself and make what didn't work better. Has SWTOR done this perfectly? No... but they did a pretty damn good job and it will change and adapt and grow like any MMO. In the end SW:TOR is a blast to play. I can't wait for the next beta at the end of the month... we all were probably invited (well emailed saying we will be invited) and frankly it cant be released soon enough.

Ordered my Collectors edition and registered my code for early access on day 2.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

Ok, but what is the draw to get me to leave WoW which I played for X years. There has to be some original content / gameplay. I think that is Blaster's point.

I played WoW for years and I'm bored of it, I'm trying this game out and I appreciate that I don't have to learn a whole new interface system to get into this game.

Mission accomplished, exactly what they needed to do, I am immediately comfortable with the interaction with my UI.

[Thor]

I finally got bored of WoW, now I get in and try out SW and I'm feeling that same lack of excitement again. Its too familiar, sure that will work for some people, but for a lot of us who have no desire to play wow again are not going to enjoy SWTOR.

Mind you I'm level 7 so I'll give it more time, but so far I find the graphics, the UI, creatures and everything rather mediocre.

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by nik-

If I was making an MMO right now I would do everything in my power to make a WoW player's transition as seamless as possible, even down the majority of the hotkey to menu combinations.

I fully and totally agree. I have said as much in this thread. "We have a brand new shiny shoe. It's awesome and totally fancy but fits exactly like your favorite old pair of shoes."

That's the problem. They didn't copy WoW. They didn't copy Cataclysm. They copied a 5 year old game. Vanilla WoW.

Originally Posted by MaDMaN_26

I have played wow for years. I quit last year after getting a few toons to 85 in cata... just got tired of the same ol carrot on stick gear grind. I think SW:TOR took what works from wow, added an amazing story (I honestly cant decide which class I want to see finish their story first) They have great class quests and levelling quests I don't skip completely and just read the last line that says "Collect x of y and return to me." They are all voice acted (well) and even allow me to respond in ways that affect the outcome and influence my companions - although gifts can fix that at a later date so play how you want, Dev's have even said story arcs will arise based on the good or bad influence with companions.) So Instead of simply clicking on a "accept" button, at least I give a crap why I'm collecting x of y and returning.

This is the thing: that is only a factor because it is new. People cared about what the WoW quests said too when it first dropped. That will fade after a toon or two. The fact that lightside/darkside points can be earned is moot since it's fairly obvious in most cases with what answer gets you what and never mind the fact it's the exact same as faction grinding. I'd much prefer the phasing that Cataclysm introduced, but won't be there.

Originally Posted by MaDMaN_26

There is always going to be the "blah blah blah it sucks, wow in space" Blaster type neigh Sayers - ignore them.

It is WoW in space. That's not nay saying, that's fact saying. That doesn't make it terrible. Vanilla WoW was and is playable, but the fact they have all this ground work WoW has laid and they opted to ignore all of it and start from the same place WoW did.

Originally Posted by MaDMaN_26

They either hate the genre because wow IS the genre or they wanted a Star Wars game that was not a MMO...

No, I wanted an MMO. Go back to the start of this thread and see how excited I was. My excitement waned as report after report painted the picture most people were afraid of.

Originally Posted by MaDMaN_26

but as MMO's go - reinventing the wheel when you have a juggernaut competitor with 11 million subscribers... that would be a special kind of dumb.

Agreed. Know what else is a special kind of dumb? Ignoring all improvements that juggernaut has made and starting back at step one.

Originally Posted by MaDMaN_26

Use what they have made work and fine tune it, tweak it for yourself and make what didn't work better. Has SWTOR done this perfectly? No... but they did a pretty damn good job

Not what I've heard. Not what I've read and after this weekend not what I've seen. It has all the crippling flaws of Vanilla WoW. How many people will walk right back over to WoW after getting griefed for two hours while waiting for one spawn for a quest. Players from Vanilla WoW will want nothing to do with that again, people that started after won't have the patience.

Originally Posted by MaDMaN_26

and it will change and adapt and grow like any MMO. In the end SW:TOR is a blast to play. I can't wait for the next beta at the end of the month... we all were probably invited (well emailed saying we will be invited) and frankly it cant be released soon enough

I'm going to love playing it. But the question is will it hold my attention after the 3 months? Only if the end game content isn't as bleak as it is expected to be. If it is, I'm out just like I was with WoW when the Cata end-game was uninteresting.