Convince Me (please) The Old Republic Fans.

[Jaeke]

I have been a WoW player since Burning Crusade's release and I only cancelled my sub a few weeks ago. I have been waiting for GW2 as i was a big fan of the GW1 (mostly because its subscription-free) and I had been aware of TOR since its announcement although initially I was certain it was to fail and disappoint A LOT of people. However since its release i've been looking at a lot of gameplay (especially Sith Inquisitor) and have been growing my faith. I am a huge fan of KOTOR (i never played KOTOR2 as i despise Obsidian) and an even bigger fan of BioWare but I'm not sure if ToR will hold out as it is a Subscription MMO and GW2 has so far looked better and it is free-to-play.

So to Escapists who have played ToR who have gotten a good chunk out of the game to properly have their own opinions of the game: Is it worth it?

 

[Sixcess]

A friend of mine has been playing it since early access and raves about it - best thing since ever apparently.

I'm not a fan, so maybe you can take this opinion as neutral(ish)...

If you like KOTOR and like Bioware games in general then you'll like this, because it is essentially WoW style gameplay with Bioware talky bits and moral choices. The writing is well up to Bioware's usual standard, as is the voice acting, and there's lots of it. It looks nice enough (if you played WoW for so long you should have no complaints about the visuals) and it's generally very polished.

[sub]Obligatory gripe: Personally I found it too linear but your mileage may vary. Like I said, it's very much a Bioware game, not a sandbox.[/sub]

I think it's too early to say if it has endgame longevity, but overall I'd say get it. You'll enjoy the levelling.

[sub](Oh, and Jennifer Hale does the female Trooper voice. If you have a femshep then roll a Trooper and it'll feel like ME3 has come 3 months early...)[/sub]

 

[Windcaler]

Ive been playing ToR since the official release but I am not by any means an expert in the game. Ive been taking my time with the story of my Imperial agent and playing the game as basicly KOTOR 3 rather then the latest MMORPG.

That said, I think ToR is the best MMORPG Ive played to date and Ive played nearly all of them. Is it worth $15 a month? Thats a hard question to answer because $15 means a heck of a lot to someone who has a minimum wage job getting 20 hours a week while someone like me that has a career and gets paid a nice salary its not as big of a deal. I dont think I can objectively answer that question because the worth of money vs the worth of enjoyment is a highly subjective comparison

Heres what I will say though, I am having fun with the game and I think my purchase and subscription fee is well justified. However there are some things to keep in mind. If you dislike hotkey based MMORPGs then I have my doubts that you will like ToR simply because of the mechanics the game relies on. However if you enjoy the bioware style of morale choice and being able to play your character your way I think you will enjoy the game.

Its not a perfect game by any means though. Some of the games mechanics like crew skills will be hit or miss with some players. Some of the side quests appear to be written by Bioware's B team although from what Ive experienced this far the main quests are well written and thought provoking (especially the imperial agents). Also if you PVP a lot the few PVP scenarios can get a little old due to lack of variety.

I made this comparison before on the forums and I think its a pretty good one. The flaws of ToR are like specks of dust on a Lamborghini. The game is still amazing and well worth the price in my opinion

 

[Jaeke]

Thanks for the input

 

[babinro]

The OP mentions recently ending their subscription with WoW. To know whether this game is at all good for you would be to know exactly why you left WoW. If you're sick of the level grind and kill/fetch quest style than SWTOR won't change that.

The reality of the game is that it largely plays like WoW in the Star Wars universe with Bioware style storytelling.

My personal thoughts are that I now consider SWTOR my personal GOTY 2011. I love how the game can be played solo and only missing a few non-pivotal story elements. I enjoy how the condensed group sizes for it's hard missions makes every player feel important and useful in their roles.

Don't get me wrong, I could write pages on problems I have with areas within SWTOR. Much like Skyrim, this is a game that excels beyond it's faults because of the overall experience. I can see this being a perfect game to fill the gap between now and Guild Wars 2, at which time there will be little incentive to maintain a subscription as you'll have likely gone through the main stories with a few classes.

 

[Vrach]

So to Escapists who have played ToR who have gotten a good chunk out of the game to properly have their own opinions of the game: Is it worth it?

Without some qualifiers, all I can give you is a simple - yes.

What are you after? End game? Hardcore raiding? Casual raiding? Instancing (5/4 manning)? Solo content? Story? General game experience (so being judged as a game, rather than an MMO)? Give me some specifics and I'll be happy to give you an answer, explaining each point would take a while and I'd likely end up not answering the stuff you're actually interested in

 

[Klatz]

I quite WoW about a year ago after playing since 2005. I like TOR a lot and my enthusiasm for mmo's is back but with some caveats.

Pros:
Leveling is fun, the story aspect (quests, voiceover, setting) is much better than WoW. You will skip dialogue even the first time around but you'll listen/read most of it unlike WoW. Each basic character will, up to about level 20, have a fairly distinctive experience. They've polished out some of the drag of leveling, kill quests are automatic and the setting is way more immersive. The whole light/dark choices have a much greater gravitas to them; mainly in my opinion to the familiarity to the setting. You'll start to feel like each character has a personality and the light/dark choices flow from that.

The crafting system is much better. You can send your companion(s) to craft and level your professions (called crew skills).

The companions are an awesome addition. You can take on ostensibly elite mobs/quests by using your companion. And the interactions and personalities add a whole new flavor.

In sum, SW:TOR is lot like a single player Bioware game with a multitude of other players running around. You don't have to group (the rewards aren't that much better at least from the equivalents of 4 mans).

Cons:
A significant portion of it is frankly unfinished. PVP needs a lot of work. There's no level brackets so level 50s can beat up on much lower levels.

The gameplay suffers a bit from some bugs and lack of polish. It's not as smooth as WoW. I don't feel like I've got much control over my character's abilities and movements.

The grouping aspects can be cumbersome, no summoning stone for example, and no real lfg system. It's all chat based (which has its pros, for example you'll be more aware of your server population than in post-LFG tool WoW; the cross-realm LFG killed the sense of a server as a home for me).

I'd buy it just to play the leveling/questing game and the 1 month free time.

 

[RomanceIsDead]

It's not the next WoW.

 

[SmegInThePants]

i'm 100 hours in and starting to lose interest a bit. But hey, 100 hours of entertainment for the price of one game - totally worth it. As long as you are willing to quit once you lose interest, just play for as long as it is fun, then its likely you can at least get your money's worth of entertainment out of it.

My progression was like this - initial disappointment. Graphics weren't that great despite what people say. Controls/ui/combat were typical mmo fair, started getting bored immediately. Then the class stories started progressing and it got a lot more immersive. Ya don't have that in mmo's, except maybe the very early single player levels in conan before it opens up into an mmo (but in swtor its there the entire game).

At that point the game became a lot more fun. But now that i'm high'ish lvl, i'm having to spend more and more time in the typical mmo pve aspects of the game and less and less time in the story since leveling has slowed down so much, so now i find i can only enjoy an hour or two at a time of gameplay.

I think i still have enough interest to keep playing, but its definitely starting to taper off. I *really* enjoyed the class stories though. Worth the price of admission right there. Just don't expect you'll be playing the game 2 years from now, get your 1 or 2 months of joy from it, and leave w/out any hard feelings would be my suggestion.

pvp:

pvp ain't bad, but it can take a while for a queue to pop and the way they mix *all* lvls together in a battleground means that you can have a bunch of lvl 11's versus a bunch of lvl 50's. They buff the lvl 11's in this situation to be as strong as the 50's, but they still only have their lvl 11 abilities which despite the compensation still equates into a serious imbalance. So the pvp is a bit lame to be honest, but has potential.

And who knows what changes patches/expansions might bring, so even if ya unsub after a month or 2 of fun, ya might find yourself occasionally re-subbing.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

The Old Republic is the first MMO to make me honestly care about the quests simply for sake of the story and characters and not for that cheap Skinner Box shit of "small rewards frequently" in games like WoW. My interest is in my character's story, not the gear he's wearing or how high his level is.

And, because this is an MMO, I've been playing with my friends, I promise you, it's an experience like no other. I recently did a Flashpoint (analogue for MMO dungeon) for the first time, and it played out like a group of heroes of differing professions and backgrounds taking part in an overarching story in which we all have a stake of survival in. All of us get our say in how we deal with the story. Our characters have our own personal moments, like how when a Dark Jedi called me out personally since I was the only Jedi in the group. Or how my overly-patriotic Soldier friend refused to leave any man behind and cursed out the Sith commander who was taunting us over the intercom. I don't know any other video game that gives that type of experience.