Noob questions

[Murgos]

When you look at how much MMO's tend to evolve over their lifespan SWTOR is in a pretty good spot.  Polish up the few negatives, reinforce and enhance the positives and it's going to be really addictive.

[Draegan]

The only thing that has yet to be determined about this game is often they make new stuff.

[Sobelius]

The only thing that has yet to be determined about this game is often they make new stuff.

I'm not sure what the Legacy system is supposed to deliver, but I'd almost like to see future content aimed at the idea of your character continuing literally in a future of some kind -- i.e. no engagement with the current stories or planets but instead something set, say, 2-3 years from the current content such that you have a connection to previous events, and you still have your character, but you're now ahead of other players not only in level but also in overall story timeline.

(Jeez that's a horrible sentence.)

[Venkman]

So what's the verdict thus far?

Is it just a shinier WoW or is there a compelling reason I should rush to sub up?

Not meaning to start a war, just genuinely interested and hoping to get a tl;dr blurb or two.

As others have summarized, it's BC-era WoW. Everything else depends on the kind of MMO you want:

• Crafting was designed for non-crafters. Your companions do most of the work on a timer (ala Torchlight) so you don't need to leave the action except to train, though you can manually scavenge/slice/collect with them in tow.
• The Story is, well, it could be something that immerses you lite-KOTOR style, or it just gives you an interesting way to grind out the Light or Dark side for what amounts to factional gear.
• Space combat is either enjoyable or annoying. As much my baseline is still Freespace 2, the system they put in TOR is workable and can be fun for the pew pew. The XP-to-time is also rather nice.
• Very cool ambience in parts, though this can also be a downside because they chose to make avatars like 50% too small or something. Everything is just too goddamned large. Great for screenshots, crappy for running around.

Otherwise it has all the same trappings and annoyances of stock MMOGs. And the jury is still out on post-launch content and directions for the game. It's easy for them to continue to extend levels and story arcs of course.

[Nevermore]

I actually get some City of Heroes flavor from it, too.  Mostly from the way the enemies are set up as groups of minions with more powerful enemies interspersed around, and a few of the environments.  Gameplay as far as your character's abilities is mostly WoW, but I do like not having an autoattack.  What can I say, pressing buttons makes me feel like more of an active participant.

[Venkman]

That's a good point. I was thinking CoH earlier not because of your (valid) reasons but because instead of being balanced to fight one, maybe two, possibly three mobs solo as in WoW, here they've set it up so you're fighting 3-4 at a minimum, often 5 and 6 at the same time. It's a nice way of making you feel heroic, something I loved about CoH (and which DCUO does too in some outdoor cases).

[Viin]

My only gripe is that I feel I'm leveling too fast for the plot/quests I'm following. Most of my quests are green or grey by the time I get to around to them ...

Hmm I should stop logging off in a cantina, might help a bit.

[Kitsune]

How is the appearance of fighting represented to players?

My beef with applying WoW to lightsabers is entirely a graphical issue.  The game engine can track HP dropping to 0 like every other diku, I just don't want to see anything being struck more than twice and still standing.  Lightsabers are like SDF-1 guns; there's no being hit by one and still being okay after.  If you get hit by one, your arm should fall off and you should fall down and scream for a while.  Being shot by blasters tends to be pretty quickly lethal too.  Nothing in a Star Wars game should just twitch and make an 'ugh!' noise with some red numbers over their head after someone slid a lightsaber across their chest.  They should pop open like a tauntaun so you can crawl inside them to keep warm.

What a smart game would do is keep track of damage behind the scenes, and show the target dodging or parrying the attacks until they run out of health, at which point you see the attack score a clean hit and they drop dead.  The old Star Wars pen and paper RPG did something like that, claiming that instead of tracking HP, it was tracking endurance, and when it ran out the person was too tired and slow to avoid the blaster shot that finished them off.  Which at least makes more sense than smacking some guy in the face with a lightsaber over and over again like a wiffle bat.  That's mostly how the Jedi Knight games worked; scoring a hit was tricky against other jedi, but a good clean hit would pretty easily kill anybody, turning fights into nicely cinematic-y duels with lots of lightsaber-on-lightsaber clashing while lesser threats like lone stormtroopers were cut down like wheat.

People in Star Wars movies survive by not being hit, not by shrugging off the hellishly lethal weapons.  People with lots of armor, people with no armor, people in vehicles, they all tend to die in one hit.  Some of that can be hand-waved away with personal shields, and non-lightsabery people need an excuse for not instantly dying when a jedi gets within six feet of them, given that they can't really parry a lightsaber with their pistol, so shields are fine.  But if someone has to stand in place whaling on random_imperial_trooper_002 for fifty seconds with a lightsaber before he dies, that's simply a big failing with the game.

[Quinton]

Very cool ambience in parts, though this can also be a downside because they chose to make avatars like 50% too small or something. Everything is just too goddamned large. Great for screenshots, crappy for running around.

This is probably the most immersion-breaking thing for me.  The scale just feels wrong all the time.  It's one of the things that drove me nuts about WoW too.

Not really the end of the world but every time I stop and think about the scenery (which generally looks pretty decent)  it bugs me.

[Cyrrex]

Very cool ambience in parts, though this can also be a downside because they chose to make avatars like 50% too small or something. Everything is just too goddamned large. Great for screenshots, crappy for running around.

This is probably the most immersion-breaking thing for me.  The scale just feels wrong all the time.  It's one of the things that drove me nuts about WoW too.

Not really the end of the world but every time I stop and think about the scenery (which generally looks pretty decent)  it bugs me.

Don't other games end up with some kind of "widen camera angle" scaler to fix this?  I agree with the comment, in any case.

How is the appearance of fighting represented to players?
blah blah etc.

Not surprisingly, it is not how you want it to be.  There is still some element of slashing and blasting enemies who then do not immediately fall to pieces, especially with the higher end mobs.

That said, as with the COH comparisons made above, this game does a better job than most MMOs of conveying the sense of Hero Power that really helps put the combat over the top.  Better than WoW, that is for damn sure.  From the time I aggro a Mob to the time that the first is dead and the next one is almost dead...it seems like an instant.  More realistically, I force jump into the fray, immediatly perform an AOE sweep (the cooldown is finished before the force jump animation is even done).  Before I can even do anything else, my companion has finished off the first mob or is about to.  I instantly switch targets and pull off my Force Scream, and that kills off the second mob, or very close to it.  All this takes...two seconds?  I then turn my attention to the third mob, and maybe I have a Retaliation ready to go.  If so, it take another second, two max, before my companion and I kill him off.  I don't really know the real world time, but you absolutely mow over the trash mobs.  Limbs are not falling off, but you feel exactly as powerful as you should feel.  The actual combat animations themselves are generally really nice, and the sound effects are outstanding.

Really, I think they nailed this part, short of the FPS-like representation you are looking for. 

[DraconianOne]

Very cool ambience in parts, though this can also be a downside because they chose to make avatars like 50% too small or something. Everything is just too goddamned large. Great for screenshots, crappy for running around.

This is probably the most immersion-breaking thing for me.  The scale just feels wrong all the time.  It's one of the things that drove me nuts about WoW too.

Not really the end of the world but every time I stop and think about the scenery (which generally looks pretty decent)  it bugs me.

This is precisely the thing that bugged me about other games and that I ended up loving about WoW and now SWTOR. I don't care that the scale is wrong, I just love the sense of vastness and that's all so big and epic. LOTRO did scale better but for some reason, I was always left underwhelmed.

[PalmTrees]

My only gripe is that I feel I'm leveling too fast for the plot/quests I'm following. Most of my quests are green or grey by the time I get to around to them ...

Hmm I should stop logging off in a cantina, might help a bit.

I have the same problem, even without logging off in a cantina and skipping heroics. Finished Tatooine at 31 and now starting Alderaan which is listed as 28-32.

[Der Helm]

Not surprisingly, it is not how you want it to be.  There is still some element of slashing and blasting enemies who then do not immediately fall to pieces, especially with the higher end mobs.
(snip)
Really, I think they nailed this part, short of the FPS-like representation you are looking for. 

Had a moment in game yesterday where I just ran through some kind of underground base and me and my companion slaugthered mobs left and right. First time ever in an MMORPG playing the game looked and felt like the intro movie.

[Murgos]

From the time I aggro a Mob to the time that the first is dead and the next one is almost dead...it seems like an instant.  More realistically, I force jump into the fray, immediatly perform an AOE sweep (the cooldown is finished before the force jump animation is even done).  Before I can even do anything else, my companion has finished off the first mob or is about to.  I instantly switch targets and pull off my Force Scream, and that kills off the second mob, or very close to it.  All this takes...two seconds?  I then turn my attention to the third mob, and maybe I have a Retaliation ready to go.  If so, it take another second, two max, before my companion and I kill him off.  I don't really know the real world time, but you absolutely mow over the trash mobs. 

I feel the same way on my Shadow.  Sneak into a group of minions, AoE push-back w 4s stun to knock em all around.  Then slam one with a rock to kill it, re-stun another with the instant cast ability and then snicker-snack down a third just as it's getting off the floor.  Tab to switch targets and finish off the one coming out of stun.  Done, 6-8 seconds of whirling flashing lights, sparks and things flying around tops.  If I have a companion out it's even faster but usually they're off doing crafting stuff.

The best is when in the middle of everything you see your toon do a behind the back block of a blaster bolt or sword strike with his saber.  I love that blocks, dodges and parries are all animated.

[Der Helm]

Ok, noob questions, what is my primary stat as a sith assasin (dps) ? Is it still willpower ?

[luckton]

Ok, noob questions, what is my primary stat as a sith assasin (dps) ? Is it still willpower ?

Surprisingly, yes.  All four classes are stone-set to one of the primary stats, regardless of whatever role you take.

[Miasma]

You hit people over and over with light sabres, it doesn't make sense but there are no feasible alternatives.  They already parry and dodge enough and I dislike that more than wailing on someone with a light sabre.

I don't like how massive all the hallways and rooms are in the dungeons/bases/what-have-you either.  I can almost see the grid that the inside areas use.  Doesn't help that most of us just put a hundred hours into skyrim with its form fitting dungeons.

[Kitsune]

One of the things that I loved so much about the Jedi Knight line was the realistic danger of the weapons.  You could wind up one-shotted by a sniper's disintegration gun, and just bumping an ignited lightsaber into a guy while you walked past could make his head fall off.  I know that MMOs can't be quite so cavalier, but Star Wars is a poster child for the "one main character is worth fifty extras" trope.

That and force-pushing people off the walkways in Nar Shaada always made me smile.  Especially when my roommate thought he was being cool by leaping down at me, only to get rocketed up in the air and fall into a bottomless pit when I'd force push him straight up.

[Murgos]

That and force-pushing people off the walkways in Nar Shaada always made me smile.

Well, this you can still do.

[Draegan]

Ok, noob questions, what is my primary stat as a sith assasin (dps) ? Is it still willpower ?

Surprisingly, yes.  All four classes are stone-set to one of the primary stats, regardless of whatever role you take.

Trooper/BH = AIM
Smuggler/IA = Cunning
Jedi Knight/Sith Warrior = Strength?
Jedi Consular/Sith Inquis = Willpower

[Miasma]

One of the things that I loved so much about the Jedi Knight line was the realistic danger of the weapons.  You could wind up one-shotted by a sniper's disintegration gun, and just bumping an ignited lightsaber into a guy while you walked past could make his head fall off.  I know that MMOs can't be quite so cavalier, but Star Wars is a poster child for the "one main character is worth fifty extras" trope.

That and force-pushing people off the walkways in Nar Shaada always made me smile.  Especially when my roommate thought he was being cool by leaping down at me, only to get rocketed up in the air and fall into a bottomless pit when I'd force push him straight up.

You can have dual light sabres turned on and /dance, the sabres stay on and are constantly flowing through your body.

[sam, an eggplant]

The only bad thing about this game is that the UI is fucking down right awful.  I'm surprised the chat system works.

I don't know about the only bad thing, but yeah. I really miss not even having basic macros, and the auction house is the worst-designed piece of dogshit I've ever seen.

[Zetor]

A lot of basic UI functionality just doesn't work, either -- try filtering for 'usable' items on a vendor or trainer. The guild window is also pretty buggy, doesn't display all people, etc.

Not gamebreaking stuff, but it can get annoying.

[Paelos]

Just so you guys know, I highly recommend duoing this game with a friend. Not only is there no penalty for it, but you can basically own anything you want on the way up.

A friend of mine and I have been jumping on vent nightly and playing a Jedi tank and smuggler healer combo with our pets out. It's awesome. Not only that but you get to make fun of the stories and gloat over who wins conversation rolls. We died laughing when we heard the quest from one of those dwarf pig things talk for the first time. That and anybody who has an Abraham Lincoln beard.

[Nevermore]

I like the Freddy Mercury 'staches, myself. 

[sam, an eggplant]

A lot of basic UI functionality just doesn't work, either -- try filtering for 'usable' items on a vendor or trainer.

That's right, I noticed that too. Good catch.

[rattran]

Agreed on the bork'dness of the UI. It's a UI from a long time ago. You can't move the frames, opening a 3rd window closes one of the previously opened. Focus target modifier keys work ~70% of the time, which makes healing a bitch. Guild List breaks often (ctrl-u twice to reload ui) Having to look down at your health rather than having it higher on the screen, and no real ui thing for reactive.

Rift, LotRO, and WoW unmodded UI's are all superior to this one.

[apocrypha]

Just so you guys know, I highly recommend duoing this game with a friend. Not only is there no penalty for it, but you can basically own anything you want on the way up.

A friend of mine and I have been jumping on vent nightly and playing a Jedi tank and smuggler healer combo with our pets out. It's awesome. Not only that but you get to make fun of the stories and gloat over who wins conversation rolls. We died laughing when we heard the quest from one of those dwarf pig things talk for the first time. That and anybody who has an Abraham Lincoln beard.

Just started exactly this with a mate. We're level 5 now, 30 mins in, and already I've nearly hurt myself laughing. Good sign.

Agree about the UI issues, but I suspect (& hope) that this is an area that will receive a lot of attention over the coming months. The GTN UI needs serious work too.

[Fordel]

Of all the things they shamelessly copied from other games, why couldn't the GTN be one of them. 

It is seriously one frustrating Auction House interface... I'm either blind, or they took out the ability to sort by armor slot. 

[luckton]

You also can't do a specific name query until you first make and fetch a query for 'all the things' in the category you select.

I can somewhat understand the perspective of whoever designed this system...if you limit the amount of data being queried to certain categories instead of the entire fucking d-base, you slightly improve the server-client connection for everyone as a whole, or something.

It's still silly though.

[Miasma]

Of all the things they shamelessly copied from other games, why couldn't the GTN be one of them. 

It is seriously one frustrating Auction House interface... I'm either blind, or they took out the ability to sort by armor slot. 

No you can't look by slot, best I can come up with is putting in "gloves" in the text filter since most all of the slots share a common word like that (not chest and some others though...).  And as luckton said you have to do the word filter after you search for some insane reason.  Some of the components you can key in on things like "Might" if you want strength gear for example too.

I have also found that your ill timed companion quest completions won't close the search window if that is the only window up.  So open up the GTN and close the auto-opened inventory window and the quest completion window won't blow away your carefully refined search.

[Venkman]

The GTN UI is definitely in the "minimal viable product" range of launchability. It's enough that it's there and enough that the truly invested can find something with a great deal of work. But they probably just figured a large density of players wouldn't care until they were playing the late game when gear improvements are more infrequent.

And now it's a self-fulfilling prophesy. Less people are relying on it because it's barely useable and therefore there's not much of a market for crafters. Already I'm seeing trade channel spam and people hanging out at Coruscant.

Could just be they had nostalgia for EC Tunnel 

[apocrypha]

Is there a way to turn off the camera auto-rotate? When I'm running along I like to be able to look in a completely different direction without having to hold the mouse button down if I want. Otherwise you can't inspect things without having to stop, which is very annoying.

[Ratman_tf]

Me want to tank with Sith Juggernaut. Wat do?

What's my important stat? I'm assuming Endurance for moar HP. Lots of armor seems correct. I put sunders on mobs and they hate me, right?
I'm only 13th level so far, but it'd be nice to know what to shoot for.

[tmp]

A lot of basic UI functionality just doesn't work, either -- try filtering for 'usable' items on a vendor or trainer.

My yesterday's laugh of the day was seeing the AH list the l.20 items before l.19 items when told to sort by level in ascending order.

At least it did recognize 21 to be larger than either of those, properly.