Undocumented Alien wrote on Jan 17, 2012, 20:12:

Powerleveling is also optional.

Right on!

Level 19 Gunslinger, /played 1 Day, 4 Hours, 8 Minutes... enjoying the ride.

I've played more than you as I have 3 chars in the low 20's that I'm dabbling with. So far I prefer the Gunslinger.

My assessment is this game has its ups/downs but is certainly a very good MMO. For me it is a WoW-killer because I am bored with WoW.

Had both games been released at the same time (WoW with a current graphics engine) then it would undoubtedly crush this game. However, WoW was released ~8 years ago and has had plenty of time to bore people to death.

jdreyer wrote on Jan 17, 2012, 23:45:

Lorcin wrote on Jan 17, 2012, 22:39:

jdreyer wrote on Jan 17, 2012, 22:11:
A Rakghoul sounds like something out of Borderlands. Or Fallout. Just sayin'

Yeah or KOTOR - you know the game which was out 6 years before Borderlands (although it was after the original couple of Fallouts).

Oh, wow, KOTOR is one of the few games I've ever played to completion, and I don't remember the rakghouls at all. On the other hand, HK-47 will be embedded in my frontal cortex forever.

Rakghouls were at the bottom level of the world you started on. The undercity of Taris shortly after getting Mission and Zaalbar. Mostly I remember the literally stratified world where the bottom level was a hell hole complete with zombies. And deciding how to handle the infected and what to do with the Rakghoul serum was one of the first real moral choices.

This comment was edited on Jan 18, 2012, 04:10.

Having a blast! Too bad the Empire side is way, way more... colorful, if you will. Te Republic is kinda boring and.. blue, gray, with a pinch of brown.

That makes little sense but that was me describing my feelings

The Jedi Knight and Consular are, so far, the most boring characters.. class story wise. The Sith Warrior story is the most Star Warsish and best so far. Sith inquisitor the worst on the Empire side, which is one big collect quest basically.

Playing BH and IA with my cousin since yesterday. So far the class quests are very rich in detail, dialogue and some healthy intrigue. Very promising!

Smuggler quest.. I'm lvl 20 now and all I've done so far is chasing a guy. That's perfectly fine UNLESS the pleasure of finally catching the asshole doesn't seem to happen and you realize it may aswell turn out you won't until endgame. Which basically makes you want to alt-F4.

Imperial Agent and Smuggler have the most awesome gameplay though.

Lorcin wrote on Jan 17, 2012, 22:39:

jdreyer wrote on Jan 17, 2012, 22:11:
A Rakghoul sounds like something out of Borderlands. Or Fallout. Just sayin'

Yeah or KOTOR - you know the game which was out 6 years before Borderlands (although it was after the original couple of Fallouts).

Oh, wow, KOTOR is one of the few games I've ever played to completion, and I don't remember the rakghouls at all. On the other hand, HK-47 will be embedded in my frontal cortex forever.

jdreyer wrote on Jan 17, 2012, 22:11:
A Rakghoul sounds like something out of Borderlands. Or Fallout. Just sayin'

Yeah or KOTOR - you know the game which was out 6 years before Borderlands (although it was after the original couple of Fallouts).

A Rakghoul sounds like something out of Borderlands. Or Fallout. Just sayin'

you fail to acknowledge that crafting is not completely random. Or else blues wouldn't be so easy to craft and purples are so disproportionately harder..or broken.

and keep it up with the ad homs

VoodooV wrote on Jan 17, 2012, 18:23:
Twice now playing SWTOR I've wanted to pause in my leveling and work on crafting and gather the skills and the materials necessary to get the best armor I could for the level I was at. RE'ing a blue recipe to get a purple recipe is either broken or it's insanely difficult and the only way to make it less difficult is to increase your crafting skill, but at a certain point, you no longer get any crafting XP for crafting the items appropriate to your level and you need to start crafting stuff in the next tier to start getting experience again.

Your problem here is you've got faulty information. RE-ing is random. You can get it on the 1st RE, or the 101st, it's all on luck and yes getting purples has a very small chance. Second, no having a higher skill doesn't affect it, and neither does having higher affection from the companion you're using to craft either.

The rest of your drivel really isn't worth a response.

Powerleveling is also optional.

Right on!

Level 19 Gunslinger, /played 1 Day, 4 Hours, 8 Minutes... enjoying the ride.

jacobvandy wrote on Jan 17, 2012, 19:34:
I don't think your wanting to craft so much (and needing to feed that habit by farming mats and/or making enough money to pay for missions) means the game was designed for powerleveling... Crafting is completely optional, and none of the other professions are as time- and resource-consuming as armormech, so that's all on you.

Powerleveling is also optional.

I also like how you made a drug addict analogy in describing my playstyle .

see how some play styles are apparently more equal than others?

This comment was edited on Jan 17, 2012, 20:11.

I don't think your wanting to craft so much (and needing to feed that habit by farming mats and/or making enough money to pay for missions) means the game was designed for powerleveling... Crafting is completely optional, and none of the other professions are as time- and resource-consuming as armormech, so that's all on you.

The problem I have with the whole "race to the cap" mentality is that it has permeated the whole MMO genre. It's not just simply a different playstyle anymore. It's become expected now so the game design revolves around the mentality that you want to level up as quickly as possible to get the most pain-free experience.

Twice now playing SWTOR I've wanted to pause in my leveling and work on crafting and gather the skills and the materials necessary to get the best armor I could for the level I was at. RE'ing a blue recipe to get a purple recipe is either broken or it's insanely difficult and the only way to make it less difficult is to increase your crafting skill, but at a certain point, you no longer get any crafting XP for crafting the items appropriate to your level and you need to start crafting stuff in the next tier to start getting experience again.

Well in order to craft the next tier of equipment, you need a new set of materials, and sure you can get those materials through missions but they are ridiculously expensive. the easiest way to get the mats is to go to the next planet, but then you'll start getting XP again and leveling up, which is what I was trying to avoid. I stopped for a week and actually paid the money to try and get the mats I need, but even though the things I was trying to RE no longer gave me XP, I was getting no success at getting the next level of recipe.

so even if you want to stop and smell the roses and and explore and work on crafting, There are mechanics in place that always egg you on to the next level. I feel I'm being punished because I stopped leveling for a week.

To me it seems me that the path of least resistance in this game is to level up much as possible and then go back and work on on exploring areas you couldn't get to earlier or can more easily get mats for crafting. The mentality that seems to infect this game is to not worry about getting good gear as you're leveling up, just keep leveling, just keep leveling until you hit cap THEN go back and get the good gear. But what about MY playstyle of not necessarily leveling up, but wanting to get the best gear for my current level. Sorry, we'll make that difficult, but we'll make it easy for you to quickly level up...oh wait, not I need more gear to match my level. It's an endless cycle and the only way for it to stop is to be at the level cap.

So IMO, you can't use the "power leveling is just the way I like to play" defense ...no, it's THE playstyle the game appears to cater to. it's not just one way to play, it appears to be THE way to play if you want the least amount of headaches and that's what I'm somewhat annoyed with. Now in SWTOR's defense, maybe that's not what they intended and all of what I've described. is just the result of a brand new game that hasn't been fine tuned and rushed out the door..then fine. I'm patient.

I don't see MMO games going out of their way to provide RP opportunities. I do see PvP balancing/tuning and Endgame content to be the focus of many if not all games. So you can't play the "it's just my playstyle" card when it's clearly the playstyle that dominates the game and gets the most attention compared to other playstyles.

It just reminds me of how religious people always seem to think that any criticism against them means that their religion is under attack and being victimized, when in reality, it's the dominating influence and in no danger of being marginalized/threatened.

This comment was edited on Jan 17, 2012, 19:25.

Wallshadows wrote on Jan 17, 2012, 17:49:

Hoth > orbital station > airlock > board ship > load screen > select planet > leave ship > load screen > airlock > orbital station > Belsavis

I really like the game - but yes there does seem to be some padding (pretty unnecessary in an mmo - and Quesh is pure filler, like an B-side of a planet) and the load times are pretty horrendous. It really is select character then wander off for a min or two. Also alt+tab makes it load for 5 or 10 secs on mine - complete with loading screen.

I'm defiantly renewing - I'll have maxxed my juggernaut by the renew date but I want to play through at least one of the Rep classes as well. First MMO I've ever played where I've enjoyed the plot (I liked the Storm Peaks storyline but that was all from wow).

I have to agree with that and is something I forgot to mention in my earlier post.

Going from, say, Hoth to Belsavis as an example can really detail the drawn out process of planet-hopping.

Hoth > orbital station > airlock > board ship > load screen > select planet > leave ship > load screen > airlock > orbital station > Belsavis

That doesn't even take in to account the fact that there are dark screen buffers outside of the actual loading screen and in between transport areas. I find it really funny that I can casually travel thousands of parsecs in 7 seconds but it takes me 2 - 3 minutes to get from my ship and to the planet.

Furthermore, as an Imperial Agent, I had several quests where it would direct me to the fleet to talk to my trainer which then would direct me to another planet. I have a holocron system on my ship and a portable one in my pocket, do I really have to go out of my way to talk to someone?

It's not bad when you do it every now and then such as when you are questing as a zone can take several hours to finish but when you are 50 and hunting for datacrons or helping out guildies, it adds up and can be nuisance. There are quicker methods such as direct flights to the Fleet and the emergency pass but the transports are not always in the best spot and the emergency pass has an 18 hour cool down.

Brataccas wrote on Jan 17, 2012, 16:48:
Whereas WoW feels like a world to me, Swtor feels like a series of connected rooms.

This is really my only complaint about the game, but when you think about it, it is difficult to make a Star Wars game world that is fluid. It is easier in games like WoW and Rift because you are essentially dealing with a single planet, so you can design the game world with some commonality between zones. For a game that takes place in space, across multiple planets, it's much harder to create a streamlined game world that flows from one zone to the next. The only way around it, I think, would have been to have SWTOR take place on a single, or at least fewer planets (for instance having Coruscant and Dromund Kaas being the faction starting zones, and having Corellia being the primary, massive, game world), and adding more with expansions.

As it is the game isn't much different from what is out. No, it is not a WoW clone, but it is an MMO and as such will have things in common with genre standards. What it is is a fresh and new setting, and it is done well. As long as they keep on top of the bugs and improvements I think it will be around for a while.

Undocumented Alien wrote on Jan 17, 2012, 17:01:

I get DC'd a lot... And it's infuriating..

To be honest, I haven't DC'd once with SWTOR, and I have a level 19 Gunslinger. Maybe it's your ISP? I use Version FIOS, usually a very good connection.

Ya... it's quite likely only half (or less) related to the game, but I had to choose something ; ) At least I don't rubber-band like crazy, as was the case in CoH/V so long ago... Worst net design ever... Client prediction/verification ftw ; )

It could even be that my router hasn't been rebooted in a while, and all the ports are gobbled up by some other software I won't mention : )

-Alamar

I get DC'd a lot... And it's infuriating..

To be honest, I haven't DC'd once with SWTOR, and I have a level 19 Gunslinger. Maybe it's your ISP? I use Version FIOS, usually a very good connection.

Ok, to those playing, give an honest review. Is the game the WoW beater it was claimed? Will you renew the sub?

No, it's not a WoW beater. Whereas WoW feels like a world to me, Swtor feels like a series of connected rooms. The voice acting is well-done but I found the class stories a bit simple and fairly predictable. I dislike the (lack of) responsiveness of the characters -- it feels like I am constantly waiting for an ability animation to finish so that I can get to my next attack. Longer animations often bug out and fail to apply their effect, requiring you to repeat the action.

Many many other bugs abound. Outside of a few exploits (which have been addressed in recent hotfixes), I haven't encountered any truly game-breaking issues, but all of the smaller frustrations add up. There's no doubt in my mind that BioWare was pushed to release this about six months earlier than they should have.

It's not a bad game, but it doesn't feel like I am part of the Star Wars universe when I log in. The wife and I have already cancelled our subscriptions. I suspect subscriber numbers will drop precipitously around the three month mark.

I will renew my sub.

Most of the problems I have encountered are by no means game breaking but there are several annoyances which I would love to see taken care of such as getting stuck between a rock and a hard place (literally) and the goofy jump system. The engine as a whole is really just a wonky piece of software which feels terribly 'optimized' and the signature Bioware shadows force me to turn them off (it gives a nice boost to performance too).

For anyone with an ATI card and running under Windows 7, go to your shortcut properties and run the game under Windows XP SP 3 compatibility mode and you should notice a fairly nice boost in performance.

ASeven wrote on Jan 17, 2012, 15:41:
Ok, to those playing, give an honest review. Is the game the WoW beater it was claimed? Will you renew the sub?

Claimed by who? Every mass market MMO that has been launched since WoW first hit, has had rabid fans claiming it's a 'WoW killer'... The only true WoW killer is WoW, or more accurately, boredom and burn-out...

For the first few years, people wanted something new enough that while it was the same thing, it was different enough to feel good... For the last few years, people are sick of MMO's, lament the old days, or just can't put in the 80+ hours a week they used to, and think that's the game's fault...

Anyhow... SWTOR...

Will I renew? Yes, but maybe not this week... Why yes? I like the game... I like the content, the stories, even the space battles... Why not this week? I get DC'd a lot... And it's infuriating... Especially if I only play for a few minutes in a day, and half that time is spent re-doing an 8m space mission because it kicked me out part way through... In short, it has promise : )

Some major pros and cons?

A major pro, for me, and a con for some, is that the game is very solo friendly... I don't feel the same about a lot of people that claim it's a solo RPG, because it also does a lot of good things promoting grouping. For solo'n, most of the content is reasonable...

Some of it is easy, some of it challenging, and there are likely times you'll need a hand (from someone other than your companion). That last part is a con though, and can be annoying...

I like the idea of group play, but I want to go through the story on my time, and having to wait a while to get a hand (like because I'm the highest lvl in the guild) is a bit annoying (so having the option if doing other stuff, like space missions, to lvl and come back is nice).

Major cons? Other than the launch-time bugs, like the far-too-often DC'n mentioned above, the biggest is that it's still an MMO... I can't think of anything else specific enough to mention here, so I'll cop-out and go with that...

SWTOR has answered the genre's problems in it's own way, including lack of connection to your character, how the world changes as you do stuff, etc...

The first they do well; voice conversation really helps here... Your characters, and companions each have their own 'personalities', and it helps me get into the spirit... I like making Mako happy (on my BH), and pissing off everyone else with much sarcasm (on my Sorc), in part, because their voices fit.

The second, they tackle with class specific instances, which I think is a great idea, but does absolutely nothing to change the world as you do things, but I would argue (strongly) that this is part and parcel of the genre... WoW has a neat way of doing it (phasing), and has the biggest actual long term effect, but only affects a small portion of the world. I can't think of any other MMO right now that has more than a half-assed attempt to 'fix' this often-brought-up complaint...

Oh right, I just rememberd my one major con... Repetition of content... I don't mean that everything is the same... It is, by the nature of the genre... At least it's not green slimes vs blue slimes 10 levels later heh, but there's not much more the genre can do outside of 'fed-ex' and kill quests, even with some flair...

I mean that once you leave your starter world, the content is 80% the same for every character on a faction. So while I'm enjoying the separate stores of my BH and Sorc, I'm really not enjoying the huge repetition of all the other stagnant quests, in the same places, in the same order... I get around this by not playing as much (gaining rest bonus), and doing space missions (which admittedly are more repetitious).

-Alamar

Edit: Whitespace... no walls crit'n for you!