Are you buying Star Wars the Old Republic?

[Volafortis]

I had the CE preordered, so yes. It plays super well as a single player game and an MMO, so it's good.

 

[Dastaria]

Yep, I bought it on the 20th (the day the game went live). I'm really enjoying it. It's less of an MMO and more of an RPG that just so happens to have other people, IMO.

 

[Zeraiya]

Yes

Sadly, only next year when the prices lower a bit =/

 

[Supernova2000]

I fail to see how another player doing the same quest is somehow proof that there are no universe wide effects from those story lines. Your story won't effect anyone else's, it doesn't work that way. That's how class quests function in TOR, they are single-player. Your decisions effect the plot of your story line alone.

And therefore have no affect on the game world at large! http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/dynamic-events/dynamic-events-overview/ Read up on Guild Wars 2's Dynamic Events system and you'll see why I prefer that to the traditional start-finish-reset model.

Watching those Let's Play videos did give me an idea though: You see, my ideal Star Wars game would be an RPG - preferably in The Witcher 2 engine and with the same moral choice system - in which you start off as a Jedi in training who soon becomes disillusioned with the Jedi and their narrow-minded code and so leaves the order at the first opportunity. Then at some stage afterwards, he meets and befriends a Sith who's left his order for the exact same reason, then they explore the galaxy together, learning from each other and realising that ultimately, Jedi and Sith are two parts of the same coin (yin and yang) and so return to their orders to try and convince the powers that be of this truth in an effort to prevent all-out galaxy-wide war from breaking out for the umpteenth squillionth time!

I realise that no such innovation is to be found in TOR though, especially after finding out that it was made by fan boys wanting nothing more than to wank off the films but it has given me the idea of setting up a maverick Jedi who pisses on the code but doesn't "fall to the dark side" and/or a reasonable, level-headed Sith as opposed to psychotic, chaotic evil super hitler number 87,634,750,246,387. But that's only if/when the game goes free-to-play or at the very least, gets a free trial.

The proof of the pudding lies in the eating after all.

 

[Z of the Na'vi]

No, I don't have any interest in The Old Republic.

I play World of Warcraft.

 

[Supernova2000]

There are several problems with dynamic events that make them no where near as awesome as you claim.

True, you've just reminded me of the faction wars in S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Clear Sky, which were problematic at the best of times; you take over the Bandits' base, only to be told over the radio 10 minutes later that they've "overrun the Garbage again", then after killing them again - if you decide to go back - you hear the exact same victory speech again and you can bet your entire artefact collection that you won't make it to the next map before they respawn yet again. 'Twas for the better that it was scrapped in Call of Pripyat.

And I'm fully resigned to GW2 failing in that respect - as indeed it sounds too good to be true - but it is encouraging to know that it is at least making an effort.

- Context, you have no idea why these events are happening, no explanation given as to why centaurs chose to attack a village. Don't give me that BS that it's there. text is not a way to convey a story in this medium.

I'm not championing blocks of text as a means of telling a story; I'm just as likely as anyone else to skip them since all I need to go on is that small objective description and map marker. And I only mention the voice-overs being a "wasted effort" because being praised as "the saviour of Tython" loses a lot of weight when you know that there are a thousand other "Tython saviours" running around. It would have been great as a singleplayer game, I'd probably have bought it straight away but once again, ironically, an MMO comes across to me as a million singleplayer experiences mashed up in a single confusing cauldron.

- It doesn't effect the world, only an area on the map, and only to a certain extent. Because they have to make it so they can eventually get the area back. So the centuars will never completely destroy the village, they'll just capture it for some reason. How does that make what you do matter at all? If shortly after you defeat a group of enemies, they just respawn and take the town over again? How does that effect the game world? Short fact of the matter is, it doesn't.

Okay, poor choice of words on my part, I don't expect everything I do to affect the whole game world because, realistically not every action has such wide repercussions. Personally, all I'm really asking is that I have a respectable amount of time to savour the sight of the wreckage that was once the enemy outpost and the troops retreating and shitting themselves before it respawns. And you know in an RTS when you have a builder unit set up a building and you see it slowly grow from foundation to scaffolding to finished structure? That would be enough to justify the respawn because I can then think "damn, they rebuild fast" as opposed to "the game nullified my victory again" because that would put it in context.

Maybe it's an inherent problem of MMO's having a much harder time maintaining the suspension of disbelief or maybe it's just me and MMO's because, knowing that there are others in the same game, I can't help but think of the big picture, despite my being a solo explorer by nature.

I have a lot more criticisms for GW2 on the whole as well, seeing as everyone sees it as the second coming of the MMO-jesus.

Let's say no more about GW2, as we still can't yet try it out and prove/disprove anything about it.

Many people have similarly creamed their pants for TOR, which automatically turned me against it (save for the monthly fees); I hate it when people jump all over something just "because it's Star Wars!", or any other IP for that matter because it's bad enough that publishers think so little of our intelligence already without us also validating such a viewpoint! I'm a Stargate fan but no upcoming Stargate game would ever win me over with the logo alone!

But I prefer to be pragmatic: Reasons why I wouldn't buy it - 1) the monthly fees, 2) the hate that stems from the aforementioned pants-creaming (although I think have gotten it out of my system now), 3) the issue of the aforementioned singleplayer cauldron 4) the space rail-shooter battles; talk about a backward step along Arcade Obsolescence Street. It just doesn't appeal to me.

Reasons why I would buy it (if not for the monthly fees): 1) the possibility of role-playing my ideal Force-wielding character, 2) exploring the galaxy, checking out the huge, expansive environments (certainly more than the square mile per planet offered in Mass Effect) on each planet, 3) lightsabre fighting (although, from what I've seen of TOR, it's more like a glowing baseball bat but what the hell), not because it's shiiiiiiiiny but because I prefer to wield a single longsword two-handed - which is most efficient - but there are far too few games that let me do that, plus it's easier to conceal 'cos I'm sick of seeing weapons floating behind my back when not in use! 4) the somewhat cartoony, stylised art style, the sort that ages well. 5) The light vs dark/Republic vs Empire thing, which isn't really a selling point for me but I will concede that it fits the standard MMO dual-faction system like a glove. 6) The voice overs. I know I've ragged on them but they sure as hell would hold my interest more than blocks of text.

 

[mikey7339]

I'm fighting every urge in my body to get this. Even if it is set in the Star Wars universe, every MMO I have played has proven to be, at best, a half year distraction that I end up eventually putting aside because I rethink my life, and shortly afterwards make it better.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

i really wanted to, as i am a kotor fanboy to the extreme, but with life/college and a new gf, i don't think i'd have the dedication to put into it, especially with those pesky monthly fees, which is the bane of my existence.

maybe this summer? otherwise all i can say was the beta was awesome and i thoroughly enjoyed what i played.

 

[Captain Pancake]

already have it, Jedi sentinel at lvl 13. Definitely worth it!

 

[danintexas]

Sadly no I won't. I love MMOs and I LOVE Star Wars - but I like MMOs as sandboxes. Give me a fantasy world I can live in and be my own. SWG/UO - MMOs these days are all the same. Single Player games with chat bars. Occasional raid content if you don't want to have any kind of social life. This just seems to single player - non-sandboxy for me.

But to anyone having fun with it - go for it - hope it stays around for years. But before I would even have to consider it I need to see more open world shit.

 

[Seishisha]

I wrote some time back a fairly lengthy post on my experiances in the beta of swtor and i guess if anyone is curious they could click my name and find it, but to cut it down to a shorter version no i wont be buying the game, it is basicly just way too simular to wow for me to enjoy playing.

 

[triggrhappy94]

My friend pre-ordered it and has an early release copy, and I've spent sometime messing around with it ( I was the guy named "Robin" who looked just like Robin and was running around yelling "Holy Habadashery Batman!" "There's trouble in Gotham!" "The Joker's running amuck!") We're thinking about doing a Batman and Robin team.
Needless to say, I had a good time with it. I looked into, though, and I really don't want to pay for a subscription. What really equates to buying the same game every couple months.

 

[LittleJP]

Seems to me they should have stuck to singleplayer. While I believe bioware would have made a decent game with it (Mix of the X series and KOTOR), it feels like EA went all, "DURR MUST BEAT BLIZZARD WoW MONIES DUR DURRR!!11!" and basically ramrodded it into an mmo.

Not my cup of tea.

 

[Supernova2000]

What I can say about TOR though: is that it's a really good game, it's not perfect, it doesn't quite have everything it needs yet to be amazing, but it is close. It's a got a lot of smart design going for it, as it stands right now, the game is flat out better than anything on the market today, including wow.

Still, like every WoW rival before, it's philosophy seems to be "if you can't beam 'em, join 'em, then you'll beat 'em"! No! Better though it may be, it's still far too similar to WoW to be able to kick it off the MMORPG throne; it's just limiting itself. You admitted yourself that TOR is mechanically similar to WoW, so it doesn't entirely invalidate my earlier statement; it's essentially WoW with a Star Wars paint job, less punishing grouping, holocrons, better crafting plus all your other aforementioned improvements.

The space combat is actually a lot of fun, and is more of a mini-game, but Bioware has talked openly on how they may change it to include more post-launch. Right now, it's a lot like if Star Fox had a good PC port. Which is pretty cool considering there's this whole other game attached to it. A lot of the community is calling for pazaak and swoop racing to be implemented as well, would be interesting to see that(and Bioware is listening to the good ideas from the community anyway).

I can never take space battles seriously when those massive destroyers can only pathetically pew pew pew each other to death; their weapons just look and sound piss-weak to me; it's the X Universe all over again, minus my eternal pet hate that is the jump gate concentration camp, of course. If they fired these [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMa3LXe6oVc] occasionally, I'd be fine with it. Yes I know it's very "un-Star Wars" but then again, so is TOR's moral choice system, which is one of the innovations that Star Wars has needed for donkeys years, even though I still think the arbitrary alignment bar undermines it because it makes some think "which option gives me the most goody/dick head points?". By the way, is hyperspace travel really as seamless as shown in one of the LP vids on Youtube?

Are they? Then they're better than Cryptic Studios at least (whom I'm told completely ignored all beta feedback for STO); I asked them for a refund and they completely ignored me but no matter, there's still hope that I'll recoup at least some of my loss.

 

[Supernova2000]

I just discovered - whilst reading some Amazon reviews - that apparently, you cannot access the 30-day play time from the initial purchase without being forced to either subscribe to a payment scheme or enter the code from one of those £20 time cards! All my reservations and fascinations about the game, blown out the airlock by EA being complete and utter dick splinters in their business strategy!