Old Republic? You goingto play it.

[Rushster]

While I have not gone hands-on with it myself, some of the other IncGamers guys have and were left a little disappointed. Are you going to pick it up on the 20 December? I am in two minds, it look like it's WoW in space with lots of voice acting/cutscenes.

[Fercil]

I'm going to give it a try and see how it works out. I don't believe it will be nothing like WoW for me, while I enjoy the movies the setting sounds somewhat not working for mmo for me. But definetely checking it out, have it on pre-order already actually.

[Zarniwoop]

it look like it's WoW in space with lots of voice acting/cutscenes.

While I cannot comment in any detail, I share your concern, but my concern is much stronger than yours.

[Kalvin]

I don't think I will play it... but please do have fun :)

[Amarules]

I got an email this week notyfying me that I have upcoming beta access. But having watched a few of the streams since NDA lifted I dont think Im going to even trying it. Game looks like a wow clone with poor animation and fairly dull dungeon content.

As for the spaceball come tdm whatever the hell it is pvp mode ..it just seemed so poor compared to what you already get from games like wow..and I havnt played that in 11 months.

The combat looks poor and lacks fluidity. Lots of people will try it. I'll stick with Skyrim/ D2 until glorious day of days when I can finally play Diablo 3!

I think the big issue as ppl have stated is its so much like wow but just won't be as polished so I can totally see many ppl quitting through boredom after a few weeks. I feel any new mmo thats wants to succeed has to do something new to move forward a genre which is fast becoming as stale as the fps market with most devs wanting to produce a modern warfare clone.

The only fps (bf3) aside that I've found genuinely interesting in the last several years is Borderlands because the devs stayed away from the on-rails, linear, scripted cinematic experience that defines the modern fps. Forgoing competitive pvp in favour of a co-op focused experience which was actualy really fun. The game wasnt perfect..(needs less brown lol) but respect to the devs for not making another wannabe sheep.

I honestly can't see myself diving back into the mmo market until its sees a title thats prepared to follow a new path and thus present me with a game I wont feel like I've already played 10 times before.

[Zarniwoop]

I cannot imagine this game having any longevity at all.

[Drixx]

I have actually been pleasantly surprised by it. I've been pretty "down" on it up until now, but having had the chance to get in and play it, I find myself pleasantly surprised. I'll have more in depth thoughts later after my access goes away and I won't be wasting precious play time.

[demasked]

Never played Wow so I probably won't play this game either.

[Skullbash]

I've never been able to get into any mmorpgs before and hated the ones that I've tried, but I like this one, it reminds me more of the first two games and has a pretty decent story.

[Emphrygian]

Yes, I will play it. We'll see if it can keep my interest up in the long run (and it will have strong competetion in the not too distant future from D3, ME3 and perhaps FFXIV once it nears 2.0 release), but what I saw in a weekend of beta testing essentially hooked me.

[Auctor]

Beta tested it last weekend, and it was far better than I had hoped. It reminded me alot of wow, but in a good way. Bioware pretty much stated that they have implemented a lot of features that worked well for wow, which honestly makes sense. It does feel like a much more serious, story-driven game than wow though, (at least the wow that exists today) as each class has their own storyline with personal "story areas" (think instances only your character can enter), which works really well imo.

The voice acting and dialogue options is another thing that I really liked. It's extremely well done and your character feels a lot more "alive".

Since I only tested it for 2 days, I wasn't able to make it into the endgame, so I can't comment on that, but from what I've seen on youtube, it looks great.

Of course there's also the fact that I really like the star wars universe in general, so my opinion may be a bit biased. But I would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes mmo's.

[Zarniwoop]

There's nothing new besides the voice acting.

I guess after reading the comments here, its time for me to recognize that I'm totally not hip at all. Everything this game tries to do minus voice acting is done better in wow (and directly ripped from wow). I reacted to the story the same way (its nice to have a few more details about what you're doing), but it adds nothing to the multiplayer long term.

Note: I am NOT a wow fan boy as I haven't really enjoyed it since Vanilla and there's a lot of other MMOs I'd rather play.

[DoW Fanatic]

Nothing about that game jumps out at me as a reason I'd want to pay a sub for it. I've tried most MMO's out there and settled on a niche one for years but even that got old.

[permaximum]

If Zarniwoop says SWToR won't be good, it will 100% become the best MMO :). There's a thread where he predicted Skyrim would be a disaster :D

[Zarniwoop]

The difference is that I played this before release.

I don't think this will be a disaster. It cannot possibly be as it delivers what millions of fans want. Better story than traditional MMO fare. It just doesn't deliver anything else that we haven't seen previously. There's nothing wrong with that. I played it and really enjoyed it. I just am not able to see myself playing it a year from now is all.

Skyrim DID suffer the failings I listed, but what I didn't expect, and what almost NEVER EVER happens in the game industry, is streamlining along with MASSIVE, HUGE work going into other areas of the game to make them outrageously beyond anything ever seen in the game industry. I can count on ZERO fingers the times that's happened before. By all measures, Skyrim is my game of ... well the best newly released game I have played since at least 2004. Nothing else that I can think of in that time period really comes close to what Bethesda has accomplished, bugs and all.

[Emphrygian]

The difference is that I played this before release.

I don't think this will be a disaster. It cannot possibly be as it delivers what millions of fans want. Better story than traditional MMO fare. It just doesn't deliver anything else that we haven't seen previously. There's nothing wrong with that. I played it and really enjoyed it. I just am not able to see myself playing it a year from now is all.

Skyrim DID suffer the failings I listed, but what I didn't expect, and what almost NEVER EVER happens in the game industry, is streamlining along with MASSIVE, HUGE work going into other areas of the game to make them outrageously beyond anything ever seen in the game industry. I can count on ZERO fingers the times that's happened before. By all measures, Skyrim is my game of ... well the best newly released game I have played since at least 2004. Nothing else that I can think of in that time period really comes close to what Bethesda has accomplished, bugs and all.

Hmm, and I thought I'd just skip Skyrim as I already have too many games on my to play-list. Now I feel I owe it to myself to get it. Damn you! ;-)

[korialstraz]

I ended up with getting the game. Currently sitting on a lvl 16 Juggernaut with Cybertech crafting, Scavanging gathering and Underworld Trading missions. It's quite a fun game tbh, and hopefully they have a decent end game and are able to push out new updates efficiently as well.

There are some bugs still, and a lot of improvement can be made in several areas. But I'll give them some time and see how they deal with what needs to be done.

[korialstraz]

Currently I got a lvl 46 Juggernaut, same crafting profs. I have to admit I'm dissappointed with the crafting system. It's good in a way that it doesn't need you to stay at some station while crafting, or run around the world gathering mats (although you can do that as well). But it seems like there's a lack of useful stuff to make, at least for cybertech. Also at lvl 50, the best things you can make (as a cybertech), is inferior to what you can buy doing daily missions. Sure it's nice to have when making an alt, and for those who buy stuff while lvling. But if you make your own stuff, or just roll with what you get from mission rewards and drops off dungeons, it will easily be enough to carry you to 50. So most profs aside from biochem (making stims and medpacks) seem kinda pointless.

There's some bugs I feel also should've been dealt with before the game launched, but I'll withold judgement on that until the first major patch.

Haven't gotten to see end game yet though obviously, so still excited for that! :D

[Zarniwoop]

Its honestly not even up to WoW's standard.

It certainly doesn't suck, but jesus, I'm shocked by how vanilla it is.

There is nothing new here minus the voice overs. Go kill 10 of these, click 10 of those.

Level 30 and getting bored.

[korialstraz]

True it doesn't innovate anything bar the voice overs. But I'm enjoying myself so far. Just reached 50 a couple days ago, and just taking it somewhat slowly (for someone who has a lot of time on his hands atm).

Looking forward to seeing how hardmode flaspoints end up being, and especially what awaits in operations.

Also my guild have killed a couple world bosses too! Some are quite an interesting fight.

I should probably mention that my only other MMO is Rift, and I only got to around T2 dungeons, right before raiding when I quit. So I'm probably not as bored with the MMO style of things as others might be.

[Emphrygian]

I'm currently lvl 31 and I'll have to admit I'm getting kind of bored. I've been playing FFXIV on the side and I feel more and more drawn to it. Aside for some really annoying bugs, there are several things that I feel could have been a lot better:

1. Crafting: Simply put, crafting is more or less moot unless you do Biochem and even that might not be useful for much longer since they nerfed it twice already if I'm not mistaken. There is no skill and very little discovery in the crafting system. It's very much "buy the recipe, click this, get that". Done. Boring.

2. Linearity: I enjoyed the beta and was prepared for a linear experience in the beginning. But boy does it get tedious! I feel I have no real choice, but always have to go in the direction the devs want me to and when it feels very forced, I don't like it.

3. Leveling: I'm not a fan of super grinding and that's what made me give up FFXI many years ago, but in SW:TOR everything is the opposite. I like to do everything when I play a game, but trying to complete all quests on a planet is becoming a chore, because I essentially outlevel a lot of quests before I have a chance to do them, meaning I get no meaningful reward. I realize the devs probably want to attract casuals by making level grinding non-existant, but for me it actually ruins part of the experience I want.

Now, I do think the game is enjoyable and I'm usually having fun when playing it, but as I said, I'm getting more and more drawn into FFXIV, which I really wasn't expecting. I also like that the devs of FFXIV are very much in touch with the community. This is likely due to the fact that FFXIV was a huge mess when it was initally released and Square Enix need to make sure they do their best to keep whatever community they still have. It's also less burdening since the community is a lot smaller when compared to SW:TOR and, dare I say, much more mature in general.

Anyway, I already paid for another 2½ months and I'll stick around until then, but right now I'm thinking of cancelling after that since I don't feel there will be enough to keep me entertained. Especially with the FFXIV 2.0 launch closing in fast...

[korialstraz]

1. Crafting: Simply put, crafting is more or less moot unless you do Biotech and even that might not be useful for much longer since they nerfed it twice already if I'm not mistaken. There is no skill and very little discovery in the crafting system. It's very much "buy the recipe, click this, get that". Done. Boring.

I partially agree with this. Some crafting choices are more interesting than others though. I can't recall exactly which crafts, but I'll try and explain as best as possible.

When you craft there are basically 2 sets of rules, or 2 paths in which the crafting can go. 1 is the linear path. Craft items, improve, buy new recipes, craft more. The items won't change, apart from getting +1-+2 stats or so by reverse engineering. These items are usually items with a name that isn't very unique. The armoring and mods from a... damn I can't even remember the name, and I got that crafting maxed out. Anyway the crafting profession that makes the armoring items and mods for orange armor, as well as grenades, speeder bikes, ship parts etc. The name on the mods could be something like 22b force armoring. The next up would be 23b force armoring etc. The name never changes, it's not unique, thus you will not find any new recipes from reverse engineering.

However the earpieces you can craft with said profession has unique names, and can also discover new stats when reverse engineering from green to blue, and again new stats from blue to purple. I believe the first reverse engineering attempt can produce 3 differnt stats (one per recipe discovered), and another 5 when going from blue to purple. On top of this, the normal stats will increase a little as well. This means you can potentinally discover a lot of new recipes from a single bought recipe. I believe it was somewhere around 20 new recipes per basic recipe you buy.

So for some professions, the crafting has quite a bit of debth to it, but the stats and whatnot isn't great enought to replace even gear from daily missions at 50. Only exception might be a crafted orange armor with another slot (critical craft). That slot can only be filled with items from slicing. And on top of that, you'll need the best purple mods, armoring and enhancements in it to MAYBE be able to compare with the daily armorings and mods you get at 50, which is 1 tier higher than what can be crafted.

That was at least the state last time I played. So yes the crafting is moot, but it's not as shallow as many people believe.

[Emphrygian]

Yes, crafting blue/purple items is a bit more involved than I made it sound like, but it's very random. I haven't decided if I like the idea or not, but just thinking of how many of item X one would possibly have to reverse engineer* (if you're unlucky) in order to get that "best" purple modifier makes me cringe. Since the game (AFAIK) does not skip to another recipe if you already have the one you're awarded upon a successful reverse engineering attempt you can actually keep going more or less forever. That's one way to keep players playing, but I think there are better ways to do this.

*As a small numerical example, using number I've made up myself, as I have no idea what the odds are in the code, let's say you want that special purple version with a specific mod. You then have, say, a 10% base chance of a succesful reverse engineer. That will in turn generate a blue recipe with a 1/3 chance of being the parent of the purple mod you want. You then craft the blue item and, again, have a 10% chance in reverse engineering it and upon a succesful attempt, you stand a 20% chance of the generated recipe being the one you're after. That adds up to: 1/10*1/3*1/10*1/5 = 0.0006667 = 0.06667% chance of succeeding in one go. Seeing how this is a Diablo forum, we're used to bad odds when item farming, but to me the difference is there is some kind of enjoyment to be had even when doing boss runs. Crafting in SW:ToR is just clicking, which gets old. Fast. And I think I've been generous with the odds of a succesful RE attempt, although to me, it seems to be somewhat level dependent.

P.S. I'm not bashing the game. As I said, I do enjoy it, but at the same time I cannot help but feel that there are several things that are underdeveloped, likely because of EA pushing hard for a holiday 2011 release. The crafting system is one of them, which I think is a shame. PvP is another, although little PvP is better than none at all (AKA FFXI/FFXIV).

[Emphrygian]

So for some professions, the crafting has quite a bit of debth to it, but the stats and whatnot isn't great enought to replace even gear from daily missions at 50. Only exception might be a crafted orange armor with another slot (critical craft). That slot can only be filled with items from slicing. And on top of that, you'll need the best purple mods, armoring and enhancements in it to MAYBE be able to compare with the daily armorings and mods you get at 50, which is 1 tier higher than what can be crafted.

With my numerical example above fresh in mind, this is exactly the problem. REing 750 base items will yield approximately 50% chance of generating the exact recipe you want. Gathering all the mats for that will take a long time or cost a lot of money, yet you can get better gear by doing a few daily missions and therefore it's hardly worth it. For the sake of the longevity of the game, let's hope they improve crafting going forward. It does worry me though, that instead of boosting other professions, they have nerfed Biochem twice already. If that's their balancing strategy, I think they will have a tough time keeping subscribers.

[korialstraz]

Yes, crafting blue/purple items is a bit more involved than I made it sound like, but it's very random. I haven't decided if I like the idea or not, but just thinking of how many of item X one would possibly have to reverse engineer* (if you're unlucky) in order to get that "best" purple modifier makes me cringe. Since the game (AFAIK) does not skip to another recipe if you already have the one you're awarded upon a successful reverse engineering attempt you can actually keep going more or less forever. That's one way to keep players playing, but I think there are better ways to do this.

I have to agree that stuff like this is not the best way to keep people around. Especially considering most crafting professions are crap. And since mostly biochem is (was?) usefull, it just makes it even worse. And that's when we don't consider that biochem's crafting recipes are mostly consisting of the type that only has 1 recipe to be learned per RE. Or two if you count green->blue->purple. Which is nothing compared to the some 20 odd recipes you can get otherwise going from green to purple.


*As a small numerical example, using number I've made up myself, as I have no idea what the odds are in the code, let's say you want that special purple version with a specific mod. You then have, say, a 10% base chance of a succesful reverse engineer. That will in turn generate a blue recipe with a 1/3 chance of being the parent of the purple mod you want. You then craft the blue item and, again, have a 10% chance in reverse engineering it and upon a succesful attempt, you stand a 20% chance of the generated recipe being the one you're after. That adds up to: 1/10*1/3*1/10*1/5 = 0.0006667 = 0.06667% chance of succeeding in one go. Seeing how this is a Diablo forum, we're used to bad odds when item farming, but to me the difference is there is some kind of enjoyment to be had even when doing boss runs. Crafting in SW:ToR is just clicking, which gets old. Fast. And I think I've been generous with the odds of a succesful RE attempt, although to me, it seems to be somewhat level dependent.

I think the chances from green to blue is slightly higher. Only very rarely did I use more than 10 attempts to get a recipe, most of the time I managed to get a recipe within 5 attempts. Only once did I try upwards of 30+ times before succeeding. And I had quite a few purple recipes, and even more blue ones. However going from blue to purple seemed quite a bit worse.


P.S. I'm not bashing the game. As I said, I do enjoy it, but at the same time I cannot help but feel that there are several things that are underdeveloped, likely because of EA pushing hard for a holiday 2011 release. The crafting system is one of them, which I think is a shame. PvP is another, although little PvP is better than none at all (AKA FFXI/FFXIV).

I agree with everything. Parts of the game feels kinda rushed, while other parts are really awesome. They could've done a better job at crafting, pvp and space combat, as well as guild functionality.


With my numerical example above fresh in mind, this is exactly the problem. REing 750 base items will yield approximately 50% chance of generating the exact recipe you want. Gathering all the mats for that will take a long time or cost a lot of money, yet you can get better gear by doing a few daily missions and therefore it's hardly worth it. For the sake of the longevity of the game, let's hope they improve crafting going forward. It does worry me though, that instead of boosting other professions, they have nerfed Biochem twice already. If that's their balancing strategy, I think they will have a tough time keeping subscribers.

Gathering the mats (especially for some of the higher lvl mats) isn't even an option unless you're the luckiest man on earth. I'm not quite sure, but isn't it possible to RE purple items as well? And in my case one of the purple mats needed was mandalorian iron. I believe I found about 8-10 of those after 3 days of sending 4 of my crews out on missions constantly while playing. And I think I'm even being a bit generous here, since you don't always get to send the companions out looking for iron. Btw I used cybertech (just recalled the name). It was fun to lvl up, and I do get some use out of getting purple lower lvl armoring and mods for alts. That's about it though. That and crafting an expensive speeder that requires a lot of mandalorian iron.

[Zarniwoop]

Now that its been out for a while, how do you all feel?

I quit at level 30 and cancelled.

[korialstraz]

Got my Juggernaut to max lvl, a sorc thingy (the caster) to some odd 40 lvls or so (mainly pvp), and a few other alts here and there. But quit since all of my friends did the same. Also too many things ruining end game (imo). For instance not being able to get loot from the loot chest in dungeons if you died, crappy crafting (to the point where daily max lvl missions could buy better items), uninteresting space combat, poor guild functionality, bugged quests in general and bad support. The support thing might just be being unlucky, but I had troubles submiting the ticket, and a couple days later all my attempts showed up as tickets (although some with bugged ticket numbers). Then a day or so later I got an automated reply in French, and a bit later the same I think in English. And when I finally got to talk to someone, he said they'd look into the issue, but never heard from them again. So eventually just aborted the heroic mission, or whatever they called it, and told them to just not bother.

Haven't tried since, although if they managed to implement a lot of what they talked about, like being able to build guild capital ships and whatnot, then I can see it being fun to play. I loved the world bosses for instance, and the pvp although wonky at times, mostly due to balancing teams was entertaining. Didn't get to try that many hard mode dungeons, and never got into the raid dungeon.