The Old Republic, now an even better single-player game.

[ajax34i]

Yeah, on your first character you have to finish the starter planet and get to level 10 to get your Legacy established (pick a name for it, activate it).

After that, it'll be available at level 1 if you create more alts. 

However, some of the unlocks have Legacy level prerequisites.  In general, if you want to pay in-game credits for unlocks instead of cartel coins, you have to also meet the legacy level prerequisites.  They're not too bad, though, LL5 - LL10, can get that from getting your first character to level 40 or so, I think.  The current 12x bonus exp applies.

[Scold]

On the 3rd planet now; w/ improved rocket boost II (which I was able to get w/ almost just the 500 bonus cartel coins I got automatically when I subbed), skipping generic PvE to get to the story content has never been easier.

Jesus christ this game has boring PvE. I like the story stuff, but I was unprepared for just how bad of an MMO SWTOR is as an MMO. Combat actually feels worse than it did in the SWG NGE... or Anarchy Online for that matter, a decade ago. Or Champions Online. This is probably the worst combat I've ever experienced in an MMO. I am trying to think of a way other than "play through BioWare star wars storyline stuff" that this isn't an irredeemibly shitty game.


Also I am level 18 on the 3rd planet and the game has never put a mat in front of me, asked me if I want to learn crafting, any of that shit. So as far as I'm aware that shit doesn't exist for me atm. Is that some level 20 unlock?

[koro]

The intro to crafting quest is one of the first things you see when your dude goes to Fleet for the first time. Maybe you were so overleveled that you missed it at the terminal?

[Scold]

I don't remember ever ending up at a terminal when I went to fleet. K, grabbed it now.

[Scold]

Okay WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT.

I buy a Builder's Pack to sell on the GTN for some credits, and apparently *it's bound to me for 36 hours for no apparent fucking reason*. So I have to wait 36 hours, AKA all my weekend playtime, to get cash out of it.

Aside from the fun singleplayer, from the first 20 levels this is honestly the worst fucking MMO I've ever played.

[Evildrider]

All Cartel items are bound for 36 hours.  It has been that way since the start.  It may be longer for f2p, not sure though.

[Scold]

All Cartel items are bound for 36 hours.  It has been that way since the start.  It may be longer for f2p, not sure though.

I'm not F2P, I'm subbed. And "It has been that way since the start" doesn't in the slightest excuse the game unless you're already wedded to the game for some reason.

[Rendakor]

Aside from the fun singleplayer, [snip] the worst fucking MMO I've ever played.

Sums up SWTOR quite well. Should've just been KOTOR3.

[Scold]

On the plus side, moment of genuine joy: Right after he dismounts a taxi, an animation bug causes my bounty hunter to sprint with both hands straight down at his sides like he's Forrest Gump. A+

[Draegan]

Aside from the fun singleplayer, [snip] the worst fucking MMO I've ever played.

Sums up SWTOR quite well. Should've just been KOTOR3.

It's a decent diku game with a cool story element. Probably one of the best dikus  around. But that still ranks as a shitty game these days.

[ajax34i]

On the plus side, moment of genuine joy: Right after he dismounts a taxi, an animation bug causes my bounty hunter to sprint with both hands straight down at his sides like he's Forrest Gump. A+

Heh.  Wait till you have to destroy a crate, camera, or whatever by shooting it with your weapon.  Your bounty hunter will forget to holster it, and you'll look quite silly, especially on speeders.  Even worse if you're a force user with a lightsaber, that thing will stay on as you ride your speeder or do animated emotes.

Cutscenes ignore color-coordination for your companions, displaying their outfits in their original color (dye packs are ignored). 
Some armors have skin-colored flaps instead of leather or metal colored flaps. 
Cloaks clip through your speeder.  Weapons clip through some robes.
Companions look up at the ceiling, bending backwards unnaturally, when you ride any elevator.
Bystander NPCs will start a conversation with each other, and if you move away before its end, you'll suddenly hear the end of the conversation at max volume, even though you're miles away.
There's no swimming.  Speeder jet engines work while submerged in water, apparently.

Game has bugs.

[Scold]

Pretty sure I'm going to drop the ~$25 and buy Treek. Seems like she'll massively help with some of the trickier boss battles, works w/ all player classes, and on top of that I don't have to worry about gearing her out. And then presumably whenever I'm doing anything story related, I swap her back out.

[Ingmar]

Er, why do you think you don't have to worry about gearing her?

[Evildrider]

Er, why do you think you don't have to worry about gearing her?

She doesn't come with 55 gear.. I think it's level 10 or 20?

[Maven]

I'm sure there's a good reason for the Cartel Market 36 Hour Bind that I can't articulate. It does smell of a preventative measure against some type of abuse.

For sure this game has bugs that the Live team will never fix. It's possible to be unable to complete Corellia's main quest chain if you abandon a specific mission in the chain. That pissed me off because it revealed a huge flaw in their mission design that QA should have immediately caught and identified. This game did take like 5 years to develop.

It'll never work flawlessly, but at least they are putting out new content on a reasonably timely schedule.

[Scold]

Er, why do you think you don't have to worry about gearing her?

She doesn't come with 55 gear.. I think it's level 10 or 20?

She comes with orange gear which you then buy mods for as appropriate.

[Ingmar]

I would describe that as having to worry about gearing her. 

[Lantyssa]

Yeah.  At 2-3 mods (3-4 if you augment) per piece, that's a lot of gearing.  I prefer doing that since I care more about looks than combat effectiveness, but without a crafter to handle, it's pretty easy to fall behind.

[Scold]

Update: I am having the best damn time with this game. I am studiously ignoring any MMO features whatsoever - other than asking in general chat when I have a question that needs answering, I'm full singleplayer, I think I grouped with one guy once for a pain-in-the-ass boss.

All 8 of my characters are in the level 25-30 range. The storylines are all pretty great, though if I had to pick out one as the weakest it's definitely the Jedi Consular.

I did as suggested, got an orange adaptive suit for 10k credits, and then used the storebought green mods on each planet (nice and cheap, no GTN to worry about) to turn it into real gear. The result has been lovely so far.

[Scold]

Still having fun, but god I hate Alderaan. 5-10 minutes of running to get everywhere, long linear dungeons killing the same group of mobs you can't skip 20x times to get to the end.

[Maven]

Wait until Corellia.  Alderaan's spread out, but Corellia is soulless and one of the worst designed zones I've ever encountered in an MMO. Hellgate: London was more interesting.

[Scold]

Something I just realized that I wish someone had told me earlier:

As soon as you have credits through GTN'ing packs or whatever, if you want to experience the game's romances, use vendor items in the capital city to get your companion up to affection rank 4 (6,000 affection and above). The easy-peasy vendor option only works for ranks 1 and 2 (rank 2 gifts still get you 50% affection in rank 3, which isn't nothing, so 24k creds handles the level), so best to have all your affection gains in conversation go toward getting you through the harder ranks.

[ajax34i]

The game has its own sub-forum, it's just been moved to the graveyard a while ago; companion affection and how to maximize it was a recent topic of discussion there.

[Azuredream]

Welp, resubbed for that sweet, sweet 12x bonus, I haven't played in the longest time. I have a couple 50s but now I can finally finish up everyone else's stories. I wanted to back when I played but I just could not stomach doing the same quests over and over. Whoever came up with this idea is a marketing genius. Also big thanks to the person a page back with the handy Cartel Coin guide. Nowhere else I've seen laid it out so handily.

I was somehow gifted Bat Country leadership by logging in and it kept bugging me to rename the guild. 'Bat Country' was taken so we are now unfortunately named 'Nobody's Home.' My sincerest apologies.

[Paelos]

Nobody's Home is much more apt.

Also could have gone with Tumbleweeds Inc.

[Lantyssa]

The few of us that are active are in the alternative Bot Country.  I think someone else mentioned being in Bat Country?  No telling how many guilds we've ended up having after all the moves.

[Fordel]

Yea the various server transfers and naming issues fucked everything right up.

[Hawkbit]

I was the leader of Bat Country, but I let my sub lapse and refunded the xpac.  It's just not fun to me.  I tried, though!

[Lantyssa]

You should have let someone empty out the guild bank.

[Ingmar]

The old guild had a bank?

[Azuredream]

It has one called the Bat Cave. Not really much in it aside from assorted greens and crafting recipes.

[eldaec]

Wait until Corellia.  Alderaan's spread out, but Corellia is soulless and one of the worst designed zones I've ever encountered in an MMO. Hellgate: London was more interesting.

Voss. I fucking hated Voss.

Corellia is a sprawling mess, but you can avoid shit by going the long way around. Voss is a godawful maze of trash mob aggro radii and impassable walls.

[Ingmar]

Did you confuse Voss with Belsavis?

[Surlyboi]

There's a difference?

[Fordel]

A couple yes.

For starters, Voss gives you unlocked flight points to the whole planet.

Belsavis has locked flight points and a separate teleport network, both of which don't work when you miss any link in the chain.

Voss is mostly open plains with avoidable mobs, outside of the last zone the shadowlands.

Belsavis is literally a prison planet, where getting anywhere on foot is an exercise in "can I climb up this hill/is there a hole in this wall/will this tunnel lead me out?"