So, is it fun or just shiny and new?

[Threash]

He's actually kinda right, having a cut scene and voice over for every single minor quest got old after a while.  I actually preferred the DCUO method of having voice over for the main story quest and side quests were just text as normal.

[Nevermore]

He's actually kinda right, having a cut scene and voice over for every single minor quest got old after a while.  I actually preferred the DCUO method of having voice over for the main story quest and side quests were just text as normal.

Hasn't gotten old for me yet at all.  I suppose I'm the target audience though, since I eat up story and RPG elements in any game I play.

[Paelos]

I love people talking to me about the story rather than reading it. I don't skip anything, even if it's a side quest. Half the fun of this game is making fun of their dialogue and your responses after you pick an option.

[01101010]

Good novel versus technical manual. YMMV.

[Venkman]

I skip some of the side quest dialog; however, I find I'm listening more often than not. I'm kind of a softy for hard luck stories, and "side quest" is a very gray area in TOR. There's multi-phase side quests that are deeper than most other MMOs full quest lines. And some of the ones on Taris (post-sack Trantor, really) were pretty poignant.

If you like the grinding/MMO component, TOR is fine for that at least insofar as it's not-WoW and is a more interesting world than Rift (though I did enjoy that a lot for a few months).

It's also a fantasy world that, to me, implies the absence of a grind of any kind.  Nobody in the movies or books or whatever is grinding for cash or powers or anything.  So, I have a feeling that it'll be a lot less fun to me once the grind starts (if it does).  Which is why it'll probably suck if they nerf how fast credits can be made, or the xp curve.

I'm pretty sure Luke leveled up regularly from A New Hope, through Empire and into Return of the Jedi.  Most of his grind took place doing all those Dagobah dailies and between Empire and Jedi, though. 

Feh. Luke was a OP twink.

/dejavu?

[taolurker]

See, it wasn't the cut scene for everything that bothered me, it was seriously a totally different complaint.

The cut-scene was me reading subtitles.

It wasn't that it just plain up should've been text, it's that it should've been him making his gibberish and a translator (be it protocol droid or idiot henchman) putting it into Basic/Human.

[Rendakor]

I agree with tao; I skip almost all the alien "quest text" just because I don't need to hear something gibber at me; I read the subs then hit spacebar.

[01101010]

I agree with tao; I skip almost all the alien "quest text" just because I don't need to hear something gibber at me; I read the subs then hit spacebar.

Same. Unless it is Hutt or some other speech I like hearing.

And Luke was twinked out... had a legendary sabre from level 1 Jedi. Which is pretty much when the Emperor should have called bullshit on him. :D

[Rendakor]

The only ones I don't skip are the R2 style droids.

[March]

He's actually kinda right, having a cut scene and voice over for every single minor quest got old after a while.  I actually preferred the DCUO method of having voice over for the main story quest and side quests were just text as normal.

Am I a bad person for doing the snoopy dance whenever I see a simple mission terminal?  In TOR, when I find a new quest hub I check my watch to determine if I have enough time to invest in just getting the quests; more than a few times, the answer has been no.

If people think this is worth playing for the "story" then all I can say is the editor needs to be flogged; there are far too many useless conversations with meaningless dialogue choices to set-up perfectly mundane collection quests.

What I like about the "story" is that the leveling experience has a fig-leaf of context for _why_ my counselor is on a particular planet, which is slightly different to the reason my Trooper is on the same planet.  But really, that's just the Class quest; everything else is dross, and after the first 10 levels I honestly cannot associate the mission with the story... there are simply too many that are all basically the same.  The best you could say about it is that the story and leveling experienced are shockingly well choreographed to the point that finishing the story seems to coincide with the level-up that ends the zone...  it's similar to, but better than the revamped WoW 1-60 because it takes the initial ride seriously, rather than expediting to get to the real game. 

I say this not to pan TOR, but to offer what I find compelling.  For me, there's a certain _fullness_ to my character - and here I'm not referring to the story, but to the fact that I don't have a pet but rather companions; I don't have a craft, but rather a small company; I don't have a house, but rather a spaceship that gives me experience and gold.  None of these systems alone are particularly impressive, but taken together I find that I have an abundance of things to do that all support the basic goal of advancing my character.  In the way these things are assembled, I think the sum is greater than the parts even (especially?) when compared to WoW.

What I cannot foresee is whether this felicitous combination means anything once you hit cap.

[Merusk]

Some people are a little more "A" than they previously thought.

ESAK or EAKS depending on my mood and I've been enjoying even the silly dialogues for tedium quests.

[apocrypha]

I went in fully expecting to skip VOs for minor quests, but I've found myself listening to them all. The only ones I skip are the subtitled alien language or droid ones, because why listen to beeps & clicks once I've read the text?

[MuffinMan]

I'll never skip the droid sounds, it's one of my favorite things about Star Wars. If I ever get a droid companion that does the R2 "scream" when hit I will never stop playing this game.

[Malakili]

It's a fantasy world we know, rather than Rift's generic fantasy world. I admit to getting a kick to seeing familiar places in game, mostly familiar from other Star Wars games at this point. It's a diku, with some tweaks. If you hate mmos, you'll hate it. If you love Star Wars, you'll love it.

What if I hate MMOs and love Star Wars?

[Morfiend]

It's a fantasy world we know, rather than Rift's generic fantasy world. I admit to getting a kick to seeing familiar places in game, mostly familiar from other Star Wars games at this point. It's a diku, with some tweaks. If you hate mmos, you'll hate it. If you love Star Wars, you'll love it.

What if I hate MMOs and love Star Wars?

I know this wasnt a real question, but I will give it a real answer.

You could very well enjoy this game if the above is true. With how instanced the game is, you do not have to interact much with other players, especially if you play on a PVE server. You would probably enjoy this game more hating mmos and loving star wars than you would loving mmos and hating star wars.

[Malakili]

It's a fantasy world we know, rather than Rift's generic fantasy world. I admit to getting a kick to seeing familiar places in game, mostly familiar from other Star Wars games at this point. It's a diku, with some tweaks. If you hate mmos, you'll hate it. If you love Star Wars, you'll love it.

What if I hate MMOs and love Star Wars?

I know this wasnt a real question, but I will give it a real answer.

You could very well enjoy this game if the above is true. With how instanced the game is, you do not have to interact much with other players, especially if you play on a PVE server. You would probably enjoy this game more hating mmos and loving star wars than you would loving mmos and hating star wars.

It was 1/2 serious.  I'm a huge star wars fan, huge huge huge.  But I can't stomach another DIKU, and Bioware's recent single player stuff has left me feeling cold as well.  There have been times I've decided to buy this game, and then always backed out before doing it.  The Star Wars pull is a very strong one, but I know I won't really actually like the game that much either way.

[Simond]

The best description of SWTOR I've seen was on the SA forums. Loosely paraphrased it was along the lines of "The new things added to the genre by TOR are great, everything else about it is worse than WoW to a greater or lesser extent". And given that The Vision (tm) has already reared its ugly head (see: LFG tools), I suspect that at lease some of what people are seeing as sub-par is actually the dreaded Working As Intended

So I'm going to wait for the free trial.  

[Ingmar]

My favorite MMO ever this far into it, I will almost certainly be playing this as my main game for years.

[Thrawn]

I'm a pretty big Star Wars fan, played a lot of WoW and a few other MMOs off and on and I am for sure on the side of "shiny and new".  I'm not even 50 yet and I think I'm getting bored of the game, the farther I get into it and the more I see the less impressed I am.

[UnSub]

My favorite MMO ever this far into it, I will almost certainly be playing this as my main game for years.

So in F13 speak, you might make it to the 6 month mark? 

[Selby]

What if I hate MMOs and love Star Wars?

What about those of us who don't mind MMO's but can't stand Star Wars? ;-)  Yes, it really is an honest question.  I've got friends who are going nuts for this game solely for Star Wars and want me to play it, but I've never liked Star Wars much at all.

[eldaec]

What if I hate MMOs and love Star Wars?

What about those of us who don't mind MMO's but can't stand Star Wars? ;-)  Yes, it really is an honest question.  I've got friends who are going nuts for this game solely for Star Wars and want me to play it, but I've never liked Star Wars much at all.

Assume you mean dikus and not mmo games in general, then you should play rift instead.

Except that you probably like your friends, meaning you should play swtor.

[Trippy]

What if I hate MMOs and love Star Wars?

What about those of us who don't mind MMO's but can't stand Star Wars? ;-)  Yes, it really is an honest question.  I've got friends who are going nuts for this game solely for Star Wars and want me to play it, but I've never liked Star Wars much at all.

Do you like BioWare RPGs?

[Selby]

Do you like BioWare RPGs?

To a degree, yes I do.

[Ingmar]

My favorite MMO ever this far into it, I will almost certainly be playing this as my main game for years.

So in F13 speak, you might make it to the 6 month mark? 

Nah, this is going to take WoW's place for me almost certainly, and other than a 6 month break I played that solidly since release. I came from DAOC though, it is the EQ/SWG crowd that is so fickle in their loyalties. 

[Ginaz]

My favorite MMO ever this far into it, I will almost certainly be playing this as my main game for years.

Same here, I even subbed for 6 months.  I can't see myself playing another MMO for the foreseeable future.  I'll play GW2 but thats a no commitment type MMO.

[Dark_MadMax]

Well I am getting bored of it already . Part of it is that story of my main was a major let down  and left a very bitter after taste. Another part is that besides the story games doesnt really differ from any diku. Its nice to explore and play trough once, but I am just not the type to play those for years running endless gear treadmills...

       So exploration aspect only thing keeping me playing. I hope BH story doesnt suck in same way and I still didnt explore a lot of game world even if it does, but once I am trough -I  am trough.  The thing which usually keeps me for a while is PvP,  which is terribad in SWTOR from what can I see so far (world one is non existend and warzones in diku are always meeeeh)

In any case its exactly what I expected and have no regrets, but if majority of population shares same sentiment long term subs for swtor will probably not pass 1 mill mark

[Lucas]

I'm enjoying it so far for the story and the SW universe; in time, I'll get more involved in the roleplaying community so I hope there will be something decent going on once certain RP hubs will be established; finally, while you need to add moar operations, moar flashpoints, moar end-level stuff to keep your playerbase, I desperately hope they will expand the game "horizontally" as well: new minigames (pazaak, pod races), social gear/clothes, ship customization (incoming), solo features and so on.

[ajax34i]

This is actually good news to me, because I liked how the Consular story started. 

The Jedi Knight story (the start) complements the Consular one, actually.  I've played them one after the other and had a few "Oh, so that's what's happening" moments.  They investigate different parts of what's going on.

[kildorn]

My favorite MMO ever this far into it, I will almost certainly be playing this as my main game for years.

So in F13 speak, you might make it to the 6 month mark? 

Nah, this is going to take WoW's place for me almost certainly, and other than a 6 month break I played that solidly since release. I came from DAOC though, it is the EQ/SWG crowd that is so fickle in their loyalties. 

Just wait until SWTOR makes you level your pants.

[El Gallo]

What if I hate MMOs and love Star Wars?

What about those of us who don't mind MMO's but can't stand Star Wars? ;-)  Yes, it really is an honest question.  I've got friends who are going nuts for this game solely for Star Wars and want me to play it, but I've never liked Star Wars much at all.

As a generic DIKU, it is vastly inferior to WoW or Rift.  Seriously, it's like WoW re-envisioned by Smedley.  I'd wait 6 months to see if they've added basic creature comforts like a UI that wasn't designed by a retarded 6-year old; a lfg tool (which may take longer since they'll need to fire the assholes running the team who think spamming "LF HEALS ESSELS PST" in the space station for 3 hours "builds community"; ability thinning and/or a Rift-style macro system to make the 73 abilities you'll be expected to use actually useable; and a quest-flow/world revamp so you don't spend 30% of your playtime (a) running back and forth through looooooooooong, empty, dead hallways in huge buildings (or vast stretches of generic land) back and forth to quest vendors, or (b) reclearing out of mini-dungeons you just cleared into because they almost never have easy exits near the end (or because the objectives keep you running back and forth to parts you cleared earlier but have since respawned).

All this fail is worth it to me because I'm a huge sucker for Star Wars, DIKU, and Bioware games (if you're just in it for the latter, keep in mind that the story won't hold up to any real Bioware single player RPG just because there's so much generic collect-bear-asses crap in between the story parts to keep the rubes like me paying).

Barring huge changes, I seriously can't imagine anybody playing this game for 6 months, but what do I know.  There are still at least 100k people playing EQ1 I think. 

[Dark_MadMax]

As a generic DIKU, it is vastly inferior to WoW or Rift.  Seriously, it's like WoW re-envisioned by Smedley.  I'd wait 6 months to see if they've added basic creature comforts like a UI that wasn't designed by a retarded 6-year old; a lfg tool (which may take longer since they'll need to fire the assholes running the team who think spamming "LF HEALS ESSELS PST" in the space station for 3 hours "builds community"; ability thinning and/or a Rift-style macro system to make the 73 abilities you'll be expected to use actually useable; and a quest-flow/world revamp so you don't spend 30% of your playtime (a) running back and forth through looooooooooong, empty, dead hallways in huge buildings (or vast stretches of generic land) back and forth to quest vendors, or (b) reclearing out of mini-dungeons you just cleared into because they almost never have easy exits near the end (or because the objectives keep you running back and forth to parts you cleared earlier but have since respawned).

Barring huge changes, I seriously can't imagine anybody playing this game for 6 months, but what do I know.  There are still at least 100k people playing EQ1 I think. 

Man all the things you listed are nice to have , but honestly do they really define whether you stick with game or not? 

[Xuri]

The devil is in the details.

[sam, an eggplant]

Man all the things you listed are nice to have , but honestly do they really define whether you stick with game or not? 

Of course. We're still in the honeymoon period, happily leveling away. In six months we'll all have multiple maximum-level characters. That's when retention mechanisms come into play.

[Draegan]

I skip some of the side quest dialog; however, I find I'm listening more often than not. I'm kind of a softy for hard luck stories, and "side quest" is a very gray area in TOR. There's multi-phase side quests that are deeper than most other MMOs full quest lines. And some of the ones on Taris (post-sack Trantor, really) were pretty poignant.

I'm the same way.  Last night, in the early AM, I just wanted to get to the completion of ACT 1 so I skipped the dialogue of a lot of the side quests.  However the few hours leading up I listen to some and I skip some too.  Depends on my mood.