Pre-release thread discussion

[Mrbloodworth]

Played the first (?) Flash point.

Likely one of the best "Dungeon crawls" I have played, and mostly yes, because of the voice over. The VOs have a way of keeping things moving and interesting. Much nicer than walls of text. I enjoy that two players and companions are basically a full group ( of 4 ) too. I honestly thought we were going to fail hard core due to lack of other players, not knowing 2+ players were recommended. One criticism I have though, while I enjoy the scale of some of the environments/Citys, Some of the things you need are just to god dam far apart. Really, some areas/hubs have a ton of running to do.

The game also, desperately needs a cosmetics tab.

[Paelos]

I think if you are determined to see through the voiceovers you can get the base value of the game and hate it.

Then again, that never happened for me. I think the voiceovers also move things along in the story in a way that makes you care about your quests.

[Modern Angel]

The game also, desperately needs a cosmetics tab.

It wasn't going to launch with one because WoW ca 2006 didn't have one. That's basically their entire design philosophy.

[Numtini]

I don't get the "It's all an illusion" complaints.

For me it was just a matter of some emotional switch that got turned as I played. I knew in my head it was all illusory, but particularly after doing the same things over again a couple of times and having that demonstrated, the quest options just became tedious interruptions in gameplay. It's an emotional reaction, not something that has a logical basis to it.

I think where it really falls apart is repeating instances.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I don't get the "It's all an illusion" complaints.

So are choices in single player games.  So is reading a book, or watching a movie, or television.  You want choice you have to create your own content or write your own story.  Everything else is just an illusion and caring about that character in their situation, nothing more.

I view the whole thing as a shared reading experience, like a book club in game form.  A missed mark if Bioware were designing for the old generation of gamers. However, we're in our 30s and 40s and there's a new crop in the Gen Y and Millenials who are no where near as antisocial a group as we were.  Social experiences are where everything's headed as they become the target.  The old recluse gamer with only a few close friends or none at all in game is going to find themselves enjoying less and less as they're forced to be more and more social.

Fuck, this game even has a social ladder grind.  That should tell you something.  

There are really only three questions you need to ask yourself about this game.

1.Do I like the DIKU model?
2.Do I like star wars?
3.Do I want to pay $15 a month to play it?

If you answered no to any of the following you may enjoy parts but chances are you won't stay with the game long.  If you answered yes, then rats off to ya, you found robot jesus.

[kildorn]

I'm not a huge starwars fan, but I still like the whole scifi thing. I appreciate that everyone I've seen so far is wearing fucking pants or a robe. All the outfits just kind of work, though a few heavy armors seem to have odd bits coming out of them for no reason.

Weapon stowed graphics look silly for anything larger than a saber/pistol imo. I think the rifle ones work with a backpack, otherwise your gear just kind of chills in space behind you.

The DIKU needs some polish, but it gets away with hiding a lot of the odd bits behind visually interesting combat. A typical fight has blaster bolts going all over the place. Yes, they're cosmetic and useless, but I think it adds something to the immersion of the world.

The jedi sage's absorb shield talent that causes it to have a stun when broken is.. the worst graphical effect I've ever seen in a game. It's a flash of bright white when it breaks, which completely fucking blinds the player using it.

[Mattemeo]

It's fair to say I've been highly skeptical about Bioware's ability to deliver the SWtOR experience as they've been describing it the past couple of years. I thought that attempting to voice-cast the entire game was folly and an act that while admirable in ambition would sorely lack in actuality and more to the point, irritate players.

I never played either of the KoTOR games and my experience with other Bioware titles is fairly limited, too. I played Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II, Neverwinter Nights and Mass Effect (which I still need to finish, some time) and that's pretty much it so I couldn't call myself a Bioware fan-boy. I'm a bit of a Star Wars dork, but only a bit. I had to look up half the player races in SWtOR, so that says something.

Either way, I'm pontificating. I played the beta this weekend. I like SWtOR. I didn't think I would, but I do. Yes, it's a DIKU that in many respects blatantly apes WoW's earlier days (which having just cancelled my WoW sub I don't think is a bad thing since that game and its developers have lost all sight of reason and fun lately) but I'm ok with that since I have managed to keep my DIKU count to a bare minimum over the years and while the game-style is old, give it a fresh setting and a delivery with panache and I'll be interested. For how long remains to be seen, but with the story lines tailored to each class/subclass I think that could be longer than I expect. All I know is, between saturday and sunday I think I've sunk a good 12 hours of game time in. That's a couple of play sessions I've not devoted to WoW in longer than I can remember.


I was pretty surprised at the 'only 4 base classes' thing; I didn't know about that till I played the game. I wonder how many people might actually be put off by it. I'm not bothered, they've done a very effective job of window dressing the same mechanics to feel different enough to be compelling to play for me.

The UI is fucking horrible. They need to XMLize that shit and fast, it's clunky, hard as hell to navigate and takes up an unreasonable ammount of screen space. I know hardcore WoW raiders out there who devote more space to mod windows than field of view might think I'm exaggerating but fuck you and your spread-sheet noise, I like pretty things. UI that gets in the way of my pretty things is bad.

Besides UI there's a few other niggles I have but which are beta-related and which are system related remains to be seen.

But I'm in. If there's still time to pre-order I think I'm going to do so, though since I'm on holiday pretty much the day after official launch, how much I can actually play till the new year is my only issue.

[Mattemeo]

Incidentally I ended up playing Sith Empire considerably more during beta, while I'm more likely to play Republic during Live as that's what Slap are doing. But I really got attached to my little Rattataki Sith Inquisitor. Cute character with a cheeky, clipped English accent and a very fun storyline surrounded by total dickbagss and decadently evil fatties. I don't know how much of my time I'll get to devote to the other side during Live, but I know I want to, now.

[Modern Angel]

That's why I'm all in on Empire if I pick it up. Star Wars is stupid and goofy. It is, sorry. So while the Republic is all trying to be grave and serious about good guys and such, the Empire stuff is just over the top, campy, Hammer Horror fun. Everything Empire I've done revels in the goofiness of the entire thing.

[kildorn]

That's why I'm all in on Empire if I pick it up. Star Wars is stupid and goofy. It is, sorry. So while the Republic is all trying to be grave and serious about good guys and such, the Empire stuff is just over the top, campy, Hammer Horror fun. Everything Empire I've done revels in the goofiness of the entire thing.

I'm curious how camp evil it is. They're pretty much Space Nazi evil from the republic side's quests, but I just got the feeling they were.. racist idiots from the Sith starter area side. I also couldn't tell if the racist idiots in /general were just in character or not. :P

[DraconianOne]

That's why I'm all in on Empire if I pick it up. Star Wars is stupid and goofy. It is, sorry. So while the Republic is all trying to be grave and serious about good guys and such, the Empire stuff is just over the top, campy, Hammer Horror fun. Everything Empire I've done revels in the goofiness of the entire thing.

I'm curious how camp evil it is. They're pretty much Space Nazi evil from the republic side's quests, but I just got the feeling they were.. racist idiots from the Sith starter area side. I also couldn't tell if the racist idiots in /general were just in character or not. :P

One of the early BH quests had me going It wasn't just camp, it was cruel. Felt more like Hans Gruber than Arnold Toht.

[Modern Angel]

If you don't think using force lightning on a guy to make him talk about a brawl which got out of hand is campy, I don't know what to tell you. I can't take that seriously. The snarky British accent just turns it up to 11.

[eldaec]

The only way to avoid the GCD is to either put huge cooldowns on things, or make everything have a cast time. The GCD is there to avoid "I press macro button, seven spells hit you instantly" issue with instants.

What? You mean you could do what every game designer before WoW did, you have a cast time (if necessary a pre and/or post effect cast time) set for each ability so you don't fall into a retarded position where designers feel every ability has to have exactly the GCD, or be an instant.

[eldaec]

If you don't think using force lightning on a guy to make him talk about a brawl which got out of hand is campy, I don't know what to tell you. I can't take that seriously. The snarky British accent just turns it up to 11.

Pink force lightning no less.

[eldaec]

I don't get the "It's all an illusion" complaints.

For me it was just a matter of some emotional switch that got turned as I played. I knew in my head it was all illusory, but particularly after doing the same things over again a couple of times and having that demonstrated, the quest options just became tedious interruptions in gameplay. It's an emotional reaction, not something that has a logical basis to it.

I think where it really falls apart is repeating instances.

The repeating thing is key.

In a normal bioware game you don't repeat shit 20 times.

To make this work properly, Bioware would have to start shovelling in new content at an insane rate. It is perfectly possible to do on the income they'll have *if* they were properly organised and prepared for it.

Unfortunately they are almost certainly configured to worry about high end raiding instead - because that is what WoW does.

[kildorn]

The only way to avoid the GCD is to either put huge cooldowns on things, or make everything have a cast time. The GCD is there to avoid "I press macro button, seven spells hit you instantly" issue with instants.

What? You mean you could do what every game designer before WoW did, you have a cast time (if necessary a pre and/or post effect cast time) set for each ability so you don't fall into a retarded position where designers feel every ability has to have exactly the GCD, or be an instant.

.. the GCD IS a post-effect cast time.

Every ability has either a cast time (pre effect), or a default post-effect cast time (the fucking GCD)

It's the same for everything because, well, it just mechanically makes more sense than "this has a .7s post effect cast time, this one has a .4s, this one a 1.8s.."

The GCD is essentially a way for melees to have "cast times" that are backloaded. It feels better than sitting there watching a cast bar run down while trying to chase shit around.

I guess I'm failing to see your complaint about the GCD except that it should be slightly different for some abilities for some random complexity reason?

[Pezzle]

Game is still fun.  Would it have been better if they took some chances?  Certainly.  As one of those old timer solo types I changed my tactics and found a person to play with.  That makes a huge difference.  We get to laugh at dialogue and say outrageous things.  You also get social points which are important if you want any of that gear (it is not for companions).  The stories and choices do not tend to be outstanding but they are reasonable.  There are funny lines, you get a range of companions to suit your play style and personality and progress is not raid driven.  I am not sure if you can raid complete quests, that could be interesting for a guild.  

I still make a terrible Sith.  For whatever reason the mindset of the people who wrote those quests eludes me.  Are you psychotic?  Even the opening planet bothers me.  If there is some super awesome ancient Sith artifact in the ruins why wouldn't a Sith Lord just get it himself?  Yea yea challenge and worthiness.  Fuck that, give me power?  The Sith stories may be interesting but the world interaction struck me as weaker.

The space combat may not be Xwing vs Tie Fighter but it is simple and distracting enough.  That is all it was meant to be.  You pick up some bonuses and titles and get xp.  Unlike previous Star Wars MMO's this game actually has ships so you get the STAR in STAR WARS.  The crafting system is still maturing.  It looks like you can find some nice patterns that would be useful.  Last night I found a pattern for a heavy helm that has 307 ac and 3 open mod slots.  Oh, Cybertech also covers vehicle stuff (yes there are at least custom ground vehicle patterns, dunno about ship mods).

On flashpoints.  The first one is the best by far.  I still run Esseles in the 30's and just warn people they will not get kill xp.  You get bonus xp, your dark/light points and a ton of social points.  I have not run all of the flashpoints yet, but so far the rest are semi mindless grinds.  I have no experience with raids or pvp.  

They still have some kinks to work out.  Commendations are not terribly useful.  You have a bunch at the end of a planet, then you go to a new planet and the gear is just as good or better just from running around.  Maybe use them for companion stuff or a good mod?  It needs a little work.

The game is Diku but it has redeeming features, at least for now.

[kildorn]

Sith Inquisitor torture scene is a bit campy, a bit torture-y. They off screen the torture bit IIRC, the shocking him thing is not the torture option. I get the feeling force lightning is just the Sith version of a curse word from how often it's tossed around.

The "holy shit evil" to me is things like the Republic side view of them, where they're actually running death camps and piles of bones on furnaces. The "We are space Nazis" thing is pretty heavy handed.

[Der Helm]

The repeating thing is key.

In a normal bioware game you don't repeat shit 20 times.

This.

The "generic" quests  ll over the place started to bother me on my second playthrough (brought a marauder to 12 before I started an inquisitor). Read in the general chat that it might be possible to JUST do the story-related quests, but as others have said, that might stop very soon after the first planet. And fuck fedex quests (even if they have me running around to show me a few places at a quest hub).

[Paelos]

Sith Inquisitor torture scene is a bit campy, a bit torture-y. They off screen the torture bit IIRC, the shocking him thing is not the torture option. I get the feeling force lightning is just the Sith version of a curse word from how often it's tossed around.

The "holy shit evil" to me is things like the Republic side view of them, where they're actually running death camps and piles of bones on furnaces. The "We are space Nazis" thing is pretty heavy handed.

On the flip side, the Sith Warrior questline shows Jedi's as weak-minded fools who keep trying to talk about serenity and patience while they are being mind-fucked by the strong Sith.

[Amaron]

The game also, desperately needs a cosmetics tab.

It has one but it's not obvious at first.   Basically every blue item with mod slots has a base armor/dps level.   If you put in a mod though it OVERRIDES the armor/dps of the item.   So say if you got a high level purple you could put a level 1 mod in it and it's dps would suddenly suck or vice versa.   

I don't know why they excluded common greens from the system but it doesn't really matter after you've got several blues you like the looks of.

[Mrbloodworth]

That's silly.

I just want them to copy LOTRO.

[Merusk]

Someone in the other thread indicated that system doesn't work as you level up anyway.  something about how raid gear (and I assume pvp gear) would need to be used instead because mods can't come close to their stats.

[Thrawn]

I'm curious to see how much high-end "rare" drops from raids and such are going to have Light/Dark requirements as well.  It could really suck that you can't use some amazing huge upgrade of an item because you selected Light story options instead of Dark.

On a minor note, does anyone else think the pre-order color crystal is just, BAD.  It makes sabers black/yellow so they look almost exactly the same as the yellow training sticks you start out with and the same as what most NPCs I've seen use so far.

[Der Helm]

On a minor note, does anyone else think the pre-order color crystal is just, BAD.  It makes sabers black/yellow so they look almost exactly the same as the yellow training sticks you start out with and the same as what most NPCs I've seen use so far.

So THATS what it is. I /whispered a few guys on the second planet that they prob. got a lightsaber after they left the starter planet and should equip it. 

[kildorn]

Token gear itemization is odd. On the third planet I was flipping through what to spend all my tokens on, and they have FOUR offhand only lightsabers. Hokay... I get that the token theme for that planet was "offhand items", it just seemed like you'd need one or two. An END heavy one, and a STR heavy one.

[Rasix]

Finally logged in for the first time in months.  The system performance is hugely improved and there were no visible signs of lag.  The loot indication delay isn't nearly as bad as it was in earlier phases.

I tried the sith warrior.  While the saber combat is pretty entertaining to watch, I think I'll stick with my bounty hunter.  I liked the voice acting better, I'd rather shoot shit with missiles and whatnot.

[Pezzle]

I have seen precious little in the way of drops for things like Dark Side Jedi since they put in the crystal color restrictions.  Maybe one saber and an inquisitor pants pattern?  Almost none of my gear has had light side restrictions either.  Maybe I am simply not noticing.

I have found myself yanking out mods to use on other items.

My character has no bonus ugly crystal.  Is that just on new pc's?

[Merusk]

Just new PCs.

I forgot to mention one hugely annoying thing for Jedi Knights.  Your first companion is a ranged tank, but everything closes in on him for melee.   so you either never use force jump or you have to stand way back and then jump in after sending the pet in.  Was a bit of a nuisance to me.  Then again, when you first get him, he's wasting 3-4 mobs in the time you kill one.   

[kildorn]

Light/Dark seems to be mid/high level I think. I saw a dark1 item drop from the esseles flashpoint, and a light2 item for sale in the fleet vendors with a minlevel of 28 or so.

[Pezzle]

Well, my Sage is 38.  Maybe my duo buddy is noticing more, I will ask.

Funny about the Jedi Knight tank you get, as a Consular I wish, I DREAM of a ranged tank.  Qyzen does fine but his jump range is limited and not NBA JAM inspired like Jedi force jump.  His reaction times are just, slow.  Reaction on a ranged tank may not be faster but you skip the whole distance problem.

Tonight I should finish Balmorra!

[Paelos]

On a minor note, does anyone else think the pre-order color crystal is just, BAD.  It makes sabers black/yellow so they look almost exactly the same as the yellow training sticks you start out with and the same as what most NPCs I've seen use so far.

First thing I said when I socketed that thing was: "Wait, did I forget to equip my lightsaber? No. Wow that looks exactly like a vibroblade. That really blows."

[PalmTrees]

Only got to play an agent up to 10 due to the holiday weekend, but I liked it enough to keep my pre-order. Had some quibbles with the story but I liked it well enough. I'm just fine with diku, global cool downs, etc.

What really got to me were the open dungeons. I walked to all my non-instanced quest objectives on a carpet of corpses (even at 2:00 am eastern). Only getting to fight about 1 in 5 spawns when I was lucky enough to be there for a re-pop.

[Pezzle]

On a minor note, does anyone else think the pre-order color crystal is just, BAD.  It makes sabers black/yellow so they look almost exactly the same as the yellow training sticks you start out with and the same as what most NPCs I've seen use so far.

First thing I said when I socketed that thing was: "Wait, did I forget to equip my lightsaber? No. Wow that looks exactly like a vibroblade. That really blows."

Wait until you see the WoW sword(s?)

[Der Helm]

What really got to me were the open dungeons. I walked to all my non-instanced quest objectives on a carpet of corpses (even at 2:00 am eastern). Only getting to fight about 1 in 5 spawns when I was lucky enough to be there for a re-pop.

At least we all know this is going to be a rather shortlived problem.