Star Wars: The Old Republic

[Tantalus]

(I know there's already a thread on this but it's severely outdated and has the wrong title).

I have the game and played a few hours today with a few different classes (Jedi Consular, Trooper, Inquisitor, Warrior) and I have to say it is not only a great MMO but a great game too. BioWare set-out to make an experience one cares about, and I'm convinced. I cared about every decision I made in the dialogue sequences (which work great, by the way). The characters are pretty memorable (and this is only from a few hours of playing) and have superb voice acting.

Worlds are pretty big and leave room for expansion, like shuttles to other parts of planets in later updates. Combat is solid and as fluent as an MMO could be. The whole thing runs excellently and there is no loading screen between instanced space and the outer world.

Long story short: when they eventually start dispensing free trials, try it. It feels just like KOTOR, except there are hundreds of other players.

[James]

It is a dumbed down WoW with watered down cutscenes and dialogue as a gimmick, people proclaiming the romance dispenser is cool need to take a hike. I love how lazy they were with all player race models and the out right feel of the world, but at least colour contrast is great. There's nothing that attaches youbas a Star Wars or KotoR fan. It shits on KOTOR2 and treats Revan like shit.

[Kaiden]

I'm not paying £50 (£40+£9 sub) to play a game I might not even like. Will wait for price reduction.

[James]

Wait for the eventual flop to lead to a F2P.

[Kaiden]

Oh I wrote a rant about that a while ago.

I've played quite a few MMOs and they're probably my favourite genre alongside RTS and sandbox games.

They're pretty maliciously designed to be both addicting and a massive timesink. Naturally WoW is the most prominent at this and I think everyone's kind of realizing they're just putting out the same stuff over and over. WoWs name will generally crop up when you mention MMOs, being the largest by miles - but that's also a problem with the MMO market in general. While Blizzard has pretty much no competition, they'll continue to neglect their playerbase and half-ass stuff they used to do well (see: WotLK cinematic, the climax to Warcraft 3, the Frozen Throne, in comparison to what they've just released).

And then there's pricing, most of us have no interest in spending £9 ($15) a month on a game which gets new content every 4-12 months, especially not multiple subscriptions. And on that it brings me to the Free to Play model - a model in which you get the vast majority of the game for free and pay for additional non-core features or extra story arcs. This failed when implemented in Champions Online however because they literally made more than half the game unavailable unless you pay, mostly defeating the point in F2P.

I'm hoping over the next few years the F2P model catches on, I'd quite like to play Eve Online and such but no interest at all in subscribing monthly to more than one MMO.

The general inclination seemed to be that if GW2 does well enough it might make more people look at the F2P model, but we'll see.

[James]

MMORPGs are a sinking ship and they need to look at MOGs of other genres. Far too much gets invested into these AAA MMORPG releases in hopes of getting a part of Activision-Blizzard's pie, yet they fall every time wasting the money that could have been spent elsewhere to innovate.

TOR, as part of the Star Wars brand 'developed' by '#1' RPG developers Bioware looked like a dream come true and realistically could've beaten WoW. But the reception of testers see it for what it is: a WoW clone with less content. What is the point?

[Tantalus]

I'm not paying £50 (£40+£9 sub) to play a game I might not even like. Will wait for price reduction.

>Told to wait for free trial.

I really hope it doesn't flop and, James, while I disagree with what you said about the game itself, I do agree that MMO's are becoming shorter and shorter lived.

[Kaiden]

Trials often have a lot of restrictions, on WoW for example you can barely talk or interact with other players, basically the fundamentals of an MMO.

[James]

fUCK YOU JAKE I WANT TO ARGUE ABOUT HOW BAD THE GAME IS

[UT]

It looks shit, lol.

[Tantalus]

It looks shit, lol.

hey chloe ^^

how are your 'skilled' shooters?

[Tantalus]

It shits on KOTOR2 and treats Revan like shit.

KOTOR 2 needed to be shat on a bit.

And they really dicked on Revan and the prelude to KOTOR 1.

HE'S RED NOW. MEANS HE'S DARKSIDE.

[James]

HE'S RED NOW. MEANS HE'S DARKSIDE.

...

You haven't played TOR, much, have you?

[Tantalus]

...

You haven't played TOR, much, have you?

Level 15.

Saw the opening cinematic though.

[James]

ahahahhahahahaha

fuck you're going to hate this game

[James]

Let's talk about the gather quests and 1 mob bosses, the stuff they promised not to do.

Also the animations, hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

[Tantalus]

Let's talk about the gather quests and 1 mob bosses, the stuff they promised not to do.

Also the animations, hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

The majority of gather quests are just interacting with objects, as opposed to "collect 5 dozen skulls which randomly generate from mobs pleeeeeaase". In that way, it's an improvement. Yes, there are objectives like "defeat 15 Black Sun mercenaries", but they are bonus objectives and not needed for the completion of the quest, it's only really if you want extra experience.

The animations, at parts, are KOTOR level. When it's lightsaber v. lightsaber only, it doesn't look that bad. When it's ranged & lightsaber v. lightsaber, it degenerates into typical MMO animation. However, that's more of a gimmick than anything, and I'm certainly not turned-off by something as superficial as that. Admittedly, that was one of the main selling points, but it is still executed very well. I like WoW, believe it or not. This is an improvement and refinement of WoW, not something radically different that flops in the first few weeks - see every other MMO that receives a lot of publicity purporting to be different (APB, while not an MMO was still poorly done).

[James]

I don't remember people running like they're soiling themselves, or a cutscene where random guy is shooting at random guys and doing a chugga chugga animation without a gun and blaster effects come out every 1/3 of the chuggas.

Chugga chugga.

[Tantalus]

I don't remember people running like they're soiling themselves, or a cutscene where random guy is shooting at random guys and doing a chugga chugga animation without a gun and blaster effects come out every 1/3 of the chuggas.

Chugga chugga.

Actually the best animation is in Coruscant. The traffic STUTTERS.

THE MOST APPREHENSIVE SPACE TRAFFIC IN THE GALAXY.

[James]

i need to send you the megavideo link when i get in

chugga chugga

[James]

I forgot to send chugga chugga and can never show you.

How are you with the WoW clone now?

[Tantalus]

Still playing, not playing in the past two weeks because had a lot of work to do.


Still fun, still better than WoW.

[James]

have you got banned for swearing or fighting in zones you arent high enough for yet

[Tantalus]

No, but WHAT?!

[James]

I think I have the threads/archive/images of them. Bioware/EA are seriously horrible.

Oh yeah people got banned for "im 12 and what is this" meme posts on the forums, because apparently that means you're under 13 and that breaks the terms of service.

God this game has brilliant horror stories, glad the playerbase shrunk dramatically since release.

[Siva]

I T T, ANALOGIES

[ynnaD]

rip titanic

[clyzm]

I think I have the threads/archive/images of them. Bioware/EA are seriously horrible.

Oh yeah people got banned for "im 12 and what is this" meme posts on the forums, because apparently that means you're under 13 and that breaks the terms of service.

God this game has brilliant horror stories, glad the playerbase shrunk dramatically since release.

Is it seriously that bad? I was thinking of buying it but now, not so sure

[James]

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=im+12+ ... =firefox-a

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=sweari ... =firefox-a

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=sweari ... 20&bih=897

Yup. Stuff like this happens on a daily basis, along with new stuff. This is why we're calling it the TORtanic, not only did it have a shakey release, customer service are not exactly helping.

[clyzm]

Disturbing. Perhaps even more disturbing is that a lot of people are OK with this, "rules are rules."

What happened to BioWare? Is it the company overall or just a splinter group responsible for atrocities like this and Dragon Age II?