Are you buying Star Wars the Old Republic?

[zombieshark6666]

So... most of the people who are not buying this game are not because of their pride it seems.
Come on guys 160 dollars a year? I pay more than that a month for my car insurance. Get over it.

lol! Why don't you pay even more if you think it's cheap for a dated, ugly game? They might like a donation to help fund further expansions and such!

 

[Freyar]

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!

Sorry, but that's Industry Standard. I hope you argued that against World of Warcraft, EvE Online, and a number of other MMOs when you found that out with them too.

 

[Supernova2000]

Sorry, but that's Industry Standard. I hope you argued that against World of Warcraft, EvE Online, and a number of other MMOs when you found that out with them too.

No because the only MMO's (excluding Free-to-Play) I've ever played were Guild Wars and more recently, Star Trek Online but having bought the lifetime subscription - NEVER do that by the way, for no game can ever be enjoyed for anywhere near that long - I never took notice anyway.

They don't charge you until the free time is over btw. Also, this a fairly common tactic used by every single MMO at launch, including wow.

I see...well I was foolish enough to buy an STO lifetime subscription (which I'm increasingly worried I won't be able to sell, the closer that game gets to it's F(ucking)2(-faced)P(ricks) launch date!), believing an Amazon review-bomber isn't that much of a stretch I suppose. I must confess though, I caught myself looking at the TOR box in Gamestation today; £44 (I didn't buy it, mind) but it occurred to me that there have been plenty of shitty singleplayer games I've spent roughly that much on that completely alienated me within a week, never mind a month. So, when the price comes down and if the free trial leaves a good first impression, I may buy it but I'd definitely draw the line at the end of the 30 days, regardless of whether or not I still like it by then; part of the problem with STO is that I hit the end-game too quickly, which to my mind, is just a game of Who Can Put Off Buyers Regret The Longest, which, as you no doubt guessed, I lost. Better to end the relationship before it turns sour.

 

[DaJoW]

To quote myself from another thread:

If you're very unsure and have 2 hours and 40 minutes, here [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1ls5L4blYM&feature=g-u&context=G265d977FUAAAAAAAAAQ] is a pretty informative discussion between three veteran MMO players. In short, they say:
It plays very much like WoW with really only 1 new machanic for one specific class (IA/Smuggler);
Everything it does that WoW also does, ToR does as well or better;
The stories (each class has its own story) are in general very good, make more sense and are more interesting than "pretty much any other MMO" they had played (rough quote, listened to it last night);
PvP is not very good right now, but the big class-balance issues should sort themselves out when people learn what they're supposed to do - AoE classes rule the day because nobody knows who to kill, so they just randomly hurt anybody and they expect that to sort itself out once people learn more about the classes and which need killing, giving single-target classes a stronger position - and the "you always play Huttball" will hopefully sort itself out once more people PvP;
It's quite buggy, some of which have been around since early beta;
There's a lot of instancing, making grouping useless/bothersome too often (but far from always) while questing;
That is solved by having companions, squadmates like in most Bioware RPGs who can also be sent off to work on professions - since you can only bring 1 with you and you get 5-6 of them, you can have 4-5 people gathering or crafting while you quest (or you can do it yourself I think);
The companions - like in other Bioware RPGs - have their own personalities, chip in on conversations with NPCs and from time to time want a private chat if you piss them off, which the people in the podcast found great and immersive;
You get your own ship (woo!) but you can't take other people on it (boo!);
Early dungeons are of wildly varying quality (the first being gailed as brilliant, the next 2-3 being called boring and unimaginative);
It's the best, most refined and most content-laden MMO on release they've ever played.

Sounds one-sided I know, but if you listen to the podcast they have trouble to keep from praising it through most of it. Kind of in closing they said that it's very much worth the buy, but nobody can say if it's worth the subscription yet.

I was on the fence before listening to that podcast, having heard some pretty terrible things about it, but apparantly what I've heard was exaggerated. I recommend listening to it, they do discuss bad things, it's just that it's overshadowed by the positives.

 

[Agayek]

If you're very unsure and have 2 hours and 40 minutes, here [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1ls5L4blYM&feature=g-u&context=G265d977FUAAAAAAAAAQ] is a pretty informative discussion between three veteran MMO players. In short, they say:
It plays very much like WoW with really only 1 new machanic for one specific class (IA/Smuggler);
Everything it does that WoW also does, ToR does as well or better;
The stories (each class has its own story) are in general very good, make more sense and are more interesting than "pretty much any other MMO" they had played (rough quote, listened to it last night);
PvP is not very good right now, but the big class-balance issues should sort themselves out when people learn what they're supposed to do - AoE classes rule the day because nobody knows who to kill, so they just randomly hurt anybody and they expect that to sort itself out once people learn more about the classes and which need killing, giving single-target classes a stronger position - and the "you always play Huttball" will hopefully sort itself out once more people PvP;
It's quite buggy, some of which have been around since early beta;
There's a lot of instancing, making grouping useless/bothersome too often (but far from always) while questing;
That is solved by having companions, squadmates like in most Bioware RPGs who can also be sent off to work on professions - since you can only bring 1 with you and you get 5-6 of them, you can have 4-5 people gathering or crafting while you quest (or you can do it yourself I think);
The companions - like in other Bioware RPGs - have their own personalities, chip in on conversations with NPCs and from time to time want a private chat if you piss them off, which the people in the podcast found great and immersive;
You get your own ship (woo!) but you can't take other people on it (boo!);
Early dungeons are of wildly varying quality (the first being gailed as brilliant, the next 2-3 being called boring and unimaginative);
It's the best, most refined and most content-laden MMO on release they've ever played.

Sounds one-sided I know, but if you listen to the podcast they have trouble to keep from praising it through most of it. Kind of in closing they said that it's very much worth the buy, but nobody can say if it's worth the subscription yet.

Just to address a few things that are incorrect here:

The instancing is generally quite easy to do with groups and it actually makes some things run smoother. There's a few bugs they still need to work out with the instancing (for example, a friend of mine got stuck in someone else's class mission area and couldn't leave), but without any bugs it is absolutely no trouble or issue when questing or doing whatever else.

Crafting cannot be done by you, it must be performed by your companions. It's not a bad system, but it takes forever to make anything and it's very RNG dependent. The only thing involving crafting you can do yourself is gather materials in the overworld.

You can bring people onto your ship. It's slightly more complicated than boarding your own, but it's still fairly easy to do. The owner of the ship has to be in the hangar, but not in the ship, then everyone else in their group can board their ship.

 

[XUnsafeNormalX]

No. Nothing they've shown has really interested me. Also the direction of making an MMO by making a single player game is mind boggling. Could you imagine how much content the game would have on release if they didn't bother with the voice acting? The same voice acting that will be meaningless in two months to the playerbase.

They must be delusional over at Bioware.

 

[Freyar]

Voice acting has added a good amount of immersion to the game which moved it away from the more standard WoW-esque feeling. Yes it's like WoW, but it does better with story as a result.

 

[XUnsafeNormalX]

Voice acting has added a good amount of immersion to the game which moved it away from the more standard WoW-esque feeling. Yes it's like WoW, but it does better with story as a result.

This might be the game's downfall though. The story part is nice but how can it hold subscriptions? 2012 has a lot of arguably fresh and innovative MMO's on the horizon and with Blizzard's next MMO sure to be announced soon ToR's gameplay and graphics might start to look very dated, very soon.

 

[Freyar]

This might be the game's downfall though. The story part is nice but how can it hold subscriptions? 2012 has a lot of arguably fresh and innovative MMO's on the horizon and with Blizzard's next MMO sure to be announced soon ToR's gameplay and graphics might start to look very dated, very soon.

We'll have to wait and see what happens. Don't get me wrong, it's a concern I have too, but I'll be taking advantage of it as it is now. It's an enjoyable game right now, and subscriptions are healthy (granted for now).