Star Wars The Old Republic Roll Call

[Syt]

It shouldn't be a big problem to buy a cheap item to modify on the Galactic Exchange, though. Currently (level 28) I only lack belt, boots and wrists.

[celedhring]

Yeah, you even get that free pilot suit on the mail when you create a character, which is modifiable. It looks ass but I used it until I was able to get better-looking pieces.

[Syt]

It's still remarkable how much the game has changed since release in 2011. It started as WoW-contender with a Star Wars veneer and better storytelling. Obviously, it confused people - the hardcore MMORPG crowd didn't necessarily want to be involved with all the lore of The Old Republic and the fully voiced quests and were rightfully asking what SWTOR did better in therms of mechanics. On the other hand were the KotOR fans who wanted (single player) story with meaningful decisions. And in the end nobody seemed very happy.

It didn't help that it had countless time sinks. You had to manually unlock every teleport point and couldn't use taxis unless you had discovered the taxi pad first. Quick travel was only possible every hour, I think. Speeder travel became available much later (I thought Taris was well paced as Imperial - as Republic it was horrible because you didn't have a speeder yet at that point in the game). Fleet passes had a 12 hour cooldown IIRC.

Skills needed to be unlocked at trainers (which were in each planet's start hub - more backtracking), and would cost tens of thousands of credits at later stages. There was no option to unlock a vendor droid, auction terminal or mailbox in your spaceship so you would always head to fleet or main planet if you wanted to buy stuff off the auction house. There were no cosmetic outfits (or player housing).

Your player class had proper skill trees where you would choose your advancement and what to unlock when (though you could say the current progress is the distilled form of standard builds that emerged).

Etc. etc. It seems thatBioware has now realized that the people sticking around are the ones who like the setting and story, not so much the unoriginal mechanics, and are changing things up in that regard to focus on that.

[celedhring]

My biggest gripe with Swtor is that - while I like the storytelling and the setting a lot - it's still way too much like any other MMO. As a game, it's pretty much WoW with a Star Wars skin. They didn't try to change or improve anything, and the usual mmo mechanics/grinds are a bit at odds with the story focus. "See, you have to infiltrate this Imperial prison and rescue a captured Jedi" - but then, "infiltrating" becomes killing XXXXXX mobs until you get the necessary quest item drop. Gee. But then you get into the prison and find out that the Jedi you were meant to rescue has fallen to the dark side because of the horrors he experimented during the war, and he's actually the guy running the joint. And that's cool. But I hate the wow-ish grind to get there.

Now that they are de-emphasizing the grinds, it's looking better to me.

[Syt]

Agreed. A lot of the game was grinding through enemies to get at the good story bits. I wonder how much further they can morph the game. Though with a healing companion combat is much faster, because there's practically no recovery downtime between taking out groups of enemies (previously I would often take out a few enemies - rest - take out more enemies - rest again - *yawn* ).

One thing that I liked in WoW better than in TOR was the exploration. When I first played WoW in 2005 I was awed by the huge open world and the crazy stuff you could encounter around every corner.

SWTOR is broken up into planets, and each map is fairly linear. They feel more like a very large Dragon Age: Origins maps than the openness that WoW (and other MMOs) have - not least of all Star Wars Galaxies.

[celedhring]

Maps lack personality, yeah. There's a same-ish feel to every corner in a given planet. I remember planet Voss - which has a cool story. At the end of it you travel to the "nightmare lands", which is built up throughout the planet storyline as a dark, mysterious, and forgotten place... that looks exactly the same as the rest of the planet. Meh.

[celedhring]

I also wonder if they can really escape the realities of the MMO business. The idea of having grinds is to give players something to do that requires little resources on your part. Now, they are cutting on grinds* and traditional MMO endgame content like raids, but committing to monthly story releases. It's an ambitious switch, but cool if they can pull it off.

*There's a new grind to unlock new companions and companion storylines in the new expansion, I haven't tried it yet.

[Grey Fox]

They have to do to keep the money coming in. People are not spending money to accelerate content anymore.

[Syt]

Well, they will profit from the Star Wars hype for a while. It should be interesting to see how they fare in March or next summer.

[crazy canuck]

One thing that I liked in WoW better than in TOR was the exploration. When I first played WoW in 2005 I was awed by the huge open world and the crazy stuff you could encounter around every corner.

SWTOR is broken up into planets, and each map is fairly linear. They feel more like a very large Dragon Age: Origins maps than the openness that WoW (and other MMOs) have - not least of all Star Wars Galaxies.

Agreed, that is what was the aggravating for me.  It was great to explore the map in WoW.  There were substantial rewards for doing so too.  On the early TOR maps the player is on rails and on the bigger maps there is no real point to doing anything other than going from point A to B because its all the same anyway.

Now that they have become more story centered I will probably give it another shot.  The problem with it being a WoW competitor is that it didn't do anything better and it did some things a lot worse.

[celedhring]

Playing the Imperial Agent, and it's the best written/coded story so far. Lots of attention to details and little moments that make the plot and characters sink in. Really enjoying it.

Tomorrow I'm getting the new expansion though, so I'll go back to my Jedi Knight.

[Barrister]

Both the agent and the smuggler had fun storylines.

Trouble is I hated that cover mechanic!

I have to admit feeling an itch to get back into this game, likely just because Ep7 is coming up.

[celedhring]

Both the agent and the smuggler had fun storylines.

Trouble is I hated that cover mechanic!

I have to admit feeling an itch to get back into this game, likely just because Ep7 is coming up.

I like the cover mechanic, I'm playing a sniper so thematically it makes sense in my mind.

And yeah, the same happened to me, I'm playing this game because of Ep 7 coming up. They are banking on that, most probably, and hence them streamlining the game.

[Syt]

I'm also not a fan of the cover mechanic of smuggler and agent, though I like the stories.

I've only ever finished the Sith Warrior story (which I liked) and have Smuggler at mid-40s (quit on Belsavis), an Inquisitor in mid-40s (quit on Belsavis) and an Agent in mid-40s (after Belsavis) - there seems to be a pattern.

I've brought Bounty Hunter and Trooper to late 20s. Never played a Consular even to Coruscant. 

Though at this point only Agent and my current Jedi Knight are fresh in memory (and the Trooper). I'm making good progress with my Jedi Knight (one planet takes ca. 2-3 hours), so I hope to finish the story before going to the new content.

Tried a solo flashpoint yesterday (Talar V or whatever it's called). That was ... dull. No real challenge thanks to über-companion, no useful loot, and the story not that interesting. I did make 40,000 credits, though, but that was an hour of annoying grind.

[celedhring]

Yeah, solo FPs are really dull. They intended it so you could see the story without having to find a group, but they are a chore to play. I enjoy grouping, anyway.

The followup to Taral V (Maelstrom Prison) is really big on Kotor lore, though. If you haven't done it, you should.