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Star Wars: The Old Republic [Releasing Date: Dec 20 NA/EU - NDA Lifted]
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Cystm said:
I thought it was an EA Origin digital distro exclusive... if not I would much rather order a boxed copy from Amazon.
Also, for those you post impressions/screens/videos, are you sure the beta stuff isn't under embargo.. I have a friend in the beta and he said he got a splash screen that said he's only allowed to talk about the beta on the official beta tester forum... and then proceeded to not share anything with me because he's a jerk. So just a heads up I guess.
BattleMonkey
Member
Gvaz said:
Because it's easier the way they did it and there really are more pressing matters for them to be spending time on doing than little visual touches like that I would imagine.
Jon of the Wired
Member
Well, after playing in two rounds of the beta, my conclusion is thus:
TOR is a middling Bioware RPG (think Jade Empire or Dragon Age 2 quality) buried under ten metric tons of crap whose only purpose is to waste my time. There's too many good games out there to suffer this kind of mediocre bullshit.
TOR is a middling Bioware RPG (think Jade Empire or Dragon Age 2 quality) buried under ten metric tons of crap whose only purpose is to waste my time. There's too many good games out there to suffer this kind of mediocre bullshit.
ElectricBlue187
Member
Yeah that's a pretty susscinct description. There's some pretty sweet parts to it (flashpoints, some companion and class quests$ but it's buried in a metric shit ton of what amounts to busy workJon of the Wired said:
Jon of the Wired
Member
DTKT said:
I like the idea of MMOs, but I've yet to enjoy playing one. For some reason, I still always hope the next one will be different.
For a second there I was like "you played for two hours?" then I noticed it was two rounds.
Though tbh it's easy to see the voice acting as "padding" if you asked me. (at least I'm guessing thats what he means)
I don't necessarily think it's entirely....needed? in an mmo and if you took it out it'd be like any other old mmo.
Though tbh it's easy to see the voice acting as "padding" if you asked me. (at least I'm guessing thats what he means)
I don't necessarily think it's entirely....needed? in an mmo and if you took it out it'd be like any other old mmo.
BattleMonkey
Member
Gvaz said:
It's a nice feature that adds more life to the whole lifeless feel you get in most MMOs and makes it feel like you at least have an actual character you are playing as. If a person doesn't like it, they can always skip it though at least.
My pet peeve is that theres not enough impact on your alignment stance outside of the gear requirements on some things. I do hope they implement more alignment features in the future even if it's just cosmetic.
Meicyn
Gold Member
And yet, it's a distinguishing feature for the game. Taking a distinguishing feature away and then saying the game is pretty much like other similar games is pretty silly. I mean, let's take away the fast running speed of Sonic in his games, and then we can remark that it's just another platformer. Maybe we can take away the fatalities in Mortal Kombat games so we can state that they're no different than other fighting games. How about we remove the accessibility that World of Warcraft provided at its launch and claim that it's just like any other MMO.Gvaz said:
The voice acting is padding? Yeah, right.
Fine Ham Abounds
Member
You know it's bad when you instantly recognize what esoteric movie a gif is from.Cystm said:
I shall not be dissuaded from playing this game, no matter the impressions! I bought fucking Shadowbane at launch for god's sakes, I trudged through lag in vanilla WoW for 4 months, I can handle this.
Giolon
Member
It is completely under NDA. The only things beta testers are allowed to say is that 1) there is a beta and 2) they are participating in it.EasyTGT said:
However, Bioware's not been particularly good about enforcing it (How can they be, really? This is the Internet), so people just don't give a fuck about honesty and integrity while no one's looking and run their mouths off.
So there's that, and I personally think that those dissatisfied with the game are more likely to break the NDA b/c they don't care what happens to their beta access since they don't like the game anyway.
ThatObviousUser
ὠαἴÏÏιÏÏÎ¿Ï Ïαá¿Ï εἶ
Voiced NPCs are awesome. I have to say I really like it. 
Would be very very very hard to go back to an MMO that lacked them.
Would be very very very hard to go back to an MMO that lacked them.Jon of the Wired
Member
Kintaro said:
My impressions may not be relevant to you, if you are someone that enjoys the conventional MMO model, but that doesn't make them worthless. They are my true account of my time with the game and I stand by them. True, it may be useful to disclose all the various preferences one has that may determine whether or not a potential reader is likely to agree with your opinion, but that would also be a pain in the ass and result in very long, very boring posts.
Anyway, returning to the topic at hand, if EA and Bioware are only attempting to court WoW players with TOR then all power to them, but they're leaving a lot of money on the table (including mine).
BattleMonkey
Member
Jon of the Wired said:
Well they made a MMO, which you don't seem to like. If you wanted a single player game then obviously this was never going to work out for you. They are going after the MMO money obviously here.
Lot of non MMO players are posting their dislike for the game and mentioning how they don't like MMO's, yet thats what it is.... I mean it's just kind of like.. what was expected?
I'm sure we would have all liked a KOTOR 3, but it was never EA or Bioware's decision or within their power to make said game. It's because of Lucasarts that we are not getting a true KOTOR sequel
Saying you have NEVER enjoyed an mmo before you flame an mmo with obviously more quality than da2 would really help put your opinion in perspective. I mean sure it has busy work but DA2? No.Jon of the Wired said:
Jon of the Wired said:
So adding one sentence to your post (I don't like mmos) is making a post too long? Yes your opinion is without worth to most people because it s like sending a vegetarian to review a bbq restaurant. Makes zero sense and lacks relevance.
I don't see how essentially reading you your quest text aloud and letting you press "YES/MAYBE/JOKEandorNO" every now and then constitutes something worthwhile.Parn said:
I mean, I understand the point of it, and at times I even like it.
However I don't really agree with any of your analogies. It could still be a star wars mmo if it changed to a text adventure or something instead.
The game can live just fine without it and still be a decent mmo in the star wars universe.
Some of the sidequests stories I just don't care, though I want to see the main storyline. Sure you can skip them, but most of the time I'm going "I don't want to read your shit, gimme loots"
BattleMonkey
Member
I have enjoyed greatly the voice stuff for the most part (outside of my complaints on boring Jedi stuff ). It really adds alot to the game for me that you don't get with other MMO's. Your character just feels much more alive and part of the universe, it's a neat immersion aspect. You also generally know when you are dealing with your storyline quests, so when dealing with the random generic MMO quests with non important dialogue, you can easily skip through them.
The story aspects are real good and it takes a few hours to get through each act of the actual storyline stuff. It adds another incentive to the MMO formula outside of just getting more loots and better character skills, you got the story you want to progress through as well.
It's an interesting hybrid of single player ideas into a MMO, but wont work for everyone.
). It really adds alot to the game for me that you don't get with other MMO's. Your character just feels much more alive and part of the universe, it's a neat immersion aspect. You also generally know when you are dealing with your storyline quests, so when dealing with the random generic MMO quests with non important dialogue, you can easily skip through them.The story aspects are real good and it takes a few hours to get through each act of the actual storyline stuff. It adds another incentive to the MMO formula outside of just getting more loots and better character skills, you got the story you want to progress through as well.
It's an interesting hybrid of single player ideas into a MMO, but wont work for everyone.
Doesn't the voice acting come down to one thing? Is the actual story good? If the dialog is all "Hey there, bring me 5 tail of something something", the fact that it's voice acted doesn't change anything.
So yeah, is the story/quests in Old Republic worth it? I guess we won't know till December.
So yeah, is the story/quests in Old Republic worth it? I guess we won't know till December.
EasyTGT said:
I haven't heard of anyone outside of the big sites getting kicked off. I've been hesitant to share too many details about it tho. :\
From all the misinformation that flies around in this thread, I think the NDA's doing them a disservice anyhow.
DTKT said:
Thankfully, there's none of this. Most of the sidequests do have a pretty interesting storyline behind them, and they're not merely a means to an end with some stupid arbitrary quest objective like WoW.
I'm enjoying the story of my character so far. It's not BioWare's best writing, but it's still far and away better than any other MMO.
Meicyn
Gold Member
So why would you play this game? I'm not being an ass here, it's a serious question. It's not like there's a shortage of loot-whore games designed around obtaining gear. Lord knows I enjoy them myself, as I played the crap out of Torchlight. I just don't understand why you would bother with an MMO whose distinguishing features revolve around the storytelling aspect when you don't care about storytelling.Gvaz said:
BattleMonkey
Member
DTKT said:
The storys vary per character you play really. Theres some that seem more interesting than others. For the most part even the quests that are your typical MMO "go do x of this" are hidden under a story of dialogue to make it seem more interesting. They literally don't just go, "kill 30 dudes over there, k thx". Actual character storylines are more interesting of course and present more unique moments.
Gvaz said:
You said before you don't care about WoW like MMO's, and now you don't care about the story elements in a MMO either. Why are you actually playing this then? Already has two strikes with you.
Jon of the Wired
Member
I think the degree of my antipathy towards MMOs is being greatly exaggerated. If I hated MMOs I would have said so. I also wouldn't have bothered playing the TOR beta for thirty hours or so, and so would never have been in a position to give my impressions on it.
Now, I have played a few MMOs, and I haven't really enjoyed any of them (except Guild Wars, if that counts). For each of the MMOs I've played the reason I haven't liked it has been the same, and it's the same reason I didn't like TOR. That is, despite all the cool things about MMOs, the moment to moment gameplay sucks. In TOR, you spend the vast majority of your time doing one of two things: walking in a straight line, or fighting some random crap mob. Fighting some random crap mob means: hitting the same buttons, in the same order, with the same timing, every single time. There is no universe in which that's fun.
Obviously for a lot of people MMO gameplay is good enough to at least not be a bother, and it's the social or character progression aspects of the game that drive them to keep playing. I like those things as well, but they've never been enough for me. I had hoped that Bioware could take their experience with RPG mechanics and produce an MMO that had truly entertaining gameplay. Sadly, I was disappointed and frustrated. Disappointed that the game was so very conventional, and frustrated that there actually was a core 10% of the game that was good (though not great) but that they'd padded it out with hours upon hours of crap.
That's what I was upset about when I posted before. I had just been thinking about how much time I would have to invest doing hateful fetch-quests punctuated by mindlessly repetitive combat to eke out those few moments of actual engagement. It feels like they're deliberately wasting my time in order to squeeze some extra subscription revenue out of me. It's galling.
Now, I have played a few MMOs, and I haven't really enjoyed any of them (except Guild Wars, if that counts). For each of the MMOs I've played the reason I haven't liked it has been the same, and it's the same reason I didn't like TOR. That is, despite all the cool things about MMOs, the moment to moment gameplay sucks. In TOR, you spend the vast majority of your time doing one of two things: walking in a straight line, or fighting some random crap mob. Fighting some random crap mob means: hitting the same buttons, in the same order, with the same timing, every single time. There is no universe in which that's fun.
Obviously for a lot of people MMO gameplay is good enough to at least not be a bother, and it's the social or character progression aspects of the game that drive them to keep playing. I like those things as well, but they've never been enough for me. I had hoped that Bioware could take their experience with RPG mechanics and produce an MMO that had truly entertaining gameplay. Sadly, I was disappointed and frustrated. Disappointed that the game was so very conventional, and frustrated that there actually was a core 10% of the game that was good (though not great) but that they'd padded it out with hours upon hours of crap.
That's what I was upset about when I posted before. I had just been thinking about how much time I would have to invest doing hateful fetch-quests punctuated by mindlessly repetitive combat to eke out those few moments of actual engagement. It feels like they're deliberately wasting my time in order to squeeze some extra subscription revenue out of me. It's galling.
Jon of the Wired
Member
Marrshu said:
Well, mostly. The main difference with elite mobs was that sometimes I used a medpack, and occasionally I died. And to be fair, I was talking only about crap mobs, not elites. You don't spend all that much time fighting elites.
Because there isn't one with star wars and not one in the KOTOR era.Parn said:
It's more like I enjoy mmos in general (if it wasn't for the social aspect....) but having played wow for a few years off and on, and trying to branch out to others, there just isn't much change in the mechanics of any of them.BattleMonkey said:
I think I'd be much more excited if this was a SP game, since it seems to laud itself heavily on the story aspect which feels like the better place for it. I can see what they're going for, but generally "the leveling experience" in mmos are tiring unless you've got your alts full of +XP gear that are essentially great blues that level with you and you level to cap.
For most, the story begins at level cap, this ends at the story end. Then what do I do? redo the whole story covering generally the same starter planets for one of three different base designs? Wait 6-12 months for the next xpac that adds some chapters of story? Sure you can do the normal mmo stuff but if the story is the driving force what's there to do when you're done? Instead of a perpetual carrot on a stick forever I'm seeing a carrot at the end of the road.
Fine Ham Abounds
Member
Lol man, I had just found this on Netflix last week is all. That's funny shit that it's on youtube.Cystm said:
As for this thread, yeah paniccat.gif is about right.
Giolon
Member
Sounds good to me. I'm sick of the race-to-the-end/raid-or-die mentality. If I can play through this and get to a satisfying "end", maybe hang it up, and check back in 6-12 months to see if there's any new content worth playing through I'll consider it time well enjoyed. I'm tired of the MMO endgame treadmill grinding faction reputations, grinding raid bosses, grinding loot upgrades. If they can tell me a damn good story while I level up, let me play a character of my dreams, and get to hang out with some of my friends while doing it, I'd give this game a 10/10. Maybe I'll roll an alt, just to check out their story, instead of trying to get a less occupied raid slot. Let it be about the damn journey for once.Gvaz said:
BattleMonkey
Member
Yea I'm enjoying just taking in the game as much as I can, and like the dialogue story elements. It gives me more to do than a normal MMO. If I wanted to just play a get to endgame grind, there are already a bunch of alternatives for that with tons of end game grinds.
Beta weekend 2 is THIS weekend!
http://www.swtor.com/news/news-article/20111004
Also from Reid:
Please read the Forum post folks. "Invites for the Beta Testing Weekend are being sent *over the course of today*, October 4th.
http://www.swtor.com/news/news-article/20111004
Also from Reid:
Please read the Forum post folks.
"Invites for the Beta Testing Weekend are being sent *over the course of today*, October 4th.What about EU? Are we still shunned?Jmac71 said:Beta weekend 2 is THIS weekend!
http://www.swtor.com/news/news-article/20111004
Also from Reid:
Please read the Forum post folks.
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