**OFFICIAL** Star Wars: The Old Republic Thread

[Arsinek]

Anything new in this game? When I beta tested it seemed extremely linear with small cramped worlds and no good pvp.

 

[eadInc]

Anything new in this game? When I beta tested it seemed extremely linear with small cramped worlds and no good pvp.

Everything is subjective but...

I only started testing this October and beyond (General Game Testing) so I'm not sure what you faced as far as linearity was concerned, but BioWare games are generally linear - so I doubt that has changed.

Cramped World? I have never felt that way. Beyond the starter planet (lv1-10) and perhaps even the second planet, the planets start to grow immensely. I will say, I have only played a Jedi Knight on the Republic side up to lv18 (vs my now 29 Sith Warrior) and barely remember Taris and Coruscant did feel "smaller" to me than Dromand Kaas (Republic 2nd planet versus Imperial 2nd Planet). But once I stepped in Balmorra, Tatooine and Alderaan - eesh. Those worlds go on for quite a while.

PvP. I enjoyed it. Sort of slowly at first. More due to my class, Sith Warrior - but once I hit level 24, the pain of /another/ Huttball game turned into something of a joy. You get your second stun (Force Choke) and then around the corner, Force Push (lv26) - allows you really control the flow of the game in a better tactful way rather than just bashing the shit out of your opponent. Of course, according to the Patch Update, "Backhand" got pushed to a Tier 5.. :/ So I may not have two lovely stuns anymore *cry*

I'm enjoying the game thus far as my Sith Warrior. Solo-wise, I simply run the Class-Story which keeps my interest and level via PvP.. and when my friends are about, we do the World Quests because that makes the VA that much more appealing as you roll in the conversation system.

 

[Coydog]

Anything new in this game? When I beta tested it seemed extremely linear with small cramped worlds and no good pvp.

Well, this just broke this morn after the NDA was lifted

Outlaw's Den

Some highlights:

• Free-for-all rules: Kill anyone and everything that isn’t in your own party/group, including players of your same faction
• Rare vendors – that are killable – and don’t re-spawn on a regular schedule
• Rare resources for Crew Skills
• Map designed with objects and architectural features such as arenas and pits – to do with as you please
• Commerce area with access to your cargo hold (bank) and the Galactic Trade Network (auction house.) Even this area of Outlaw’s Den is not a sanctuary. Always keep one eye open at the mailbox
• It’s well-marked so players shouldn’t be surprised if they stroll into the area

Origin worlds to tend to feel small, but I've been in 2 beta's and can honestly say the worlds open up as you progress further.

If you tried it early then you really didn't get to experience the PvP. It's fun and got to say I have a blast in Huttball. If your idea of good PvP involves killing low level players in their starter zones then this isn't the game for you. Origin Worlds + Cap cities are not visitable by opposing factions. Away from Capitol cities and origin worlds they are subject to the server rules about PvP.

 

[s44]

They probably nerfed stealth after they found we were using it to ninja entire group quest objectives without killing anyone...

 

[Coydog]

They probably nerfed stealth after they found we were using it to ninja entire group quest objectives without killing anyone...

I think you may be right. I remember going on my SI and just stealthed my way through TONS of content, killed who I had to and then left the same way.

 

[Merad]

So will the client automatically update for the next test or do we have to download the entire thing again?

 

[mnewsham]

So will the client automatically update for the next test or do we have to download the entire thing again?

It depends what build you currently have installed. Although they recommend uninstalling whenever a new build is released it isnt always required.

 

[sushicide]

It'll update, but it's a huge patch...makes no difference either way.

 

[BenSkywalker]

NDA is up, nice

What exactly is everyone's problems with the graphics? Either a whole lot of people on here haven't played or I am missing something fairly large. Myself and a couple of guildies were discussing the graphics, after seeing all the rants online I was expecting something genuinely poor, and what we saw was at least the equal of Rift, beyond WoW from what I have seen. No, it doesn't come close to Crysis, but it certainly seems to be very well done IMO. The engine utilizes shaders and lighting effects for its' impact far more then textures, which perhaps turns some people off, but I was actually rather impressed with how good the game looked. Maybe it's just because I've played too many MMOs, after getting a decent amount of in game time I can't understand people griping about the overall look of the game.

Not all of it is driver issues in the least. Things like the tentacles on twileks doing crazy stuff twitching all over the place in some scenes, or armors not showing up correctly, or some textures not being there and the word "DEFAULT" instead being there.

I haven't seen any of those issues at all, nor did any of my guildies(all using nV)? You running an AMD board perhaps? I know General chat was full of users with all sorts of problems running Radeons. IME ATi first and now AMD doesn't care about MMO players, they aren't used in benchmark charts and they won't even respond if the problems are caused by their drivers(still have over a dozen help tickest in for 1800xt for the first few months after I got it- WoW, WAR, Aion, none of which were ever replied to).

- Healers are OP. Like when AoC came out, the healer class is OP. Damn near the same dps as another other classes, and can tank almost as well with the exception of a dedicated tank. Not sure why more players weren't playing healers.

Spoken like someone who hasn't healed much in the game. While it is true healers can do close to the dps of the dedicated dps, they can only do that if they aren't healing. What's more, they can dps for *more* then they can heal for. More then a few times we figured out our best strategy was if I swapped from healing to just straight dpsing as the heals are so ineffective at lower levels they are almost useless unless you are fighting a party vs 1 mob(currently one of the MHs for a top 50 in the world Rift guild, not a nub ). I guess at this point you could say that the hybrid classes are OP, and there are *NO* healer classes in the game, I could agree to that. I'm sure that when we hit end game things will change considerably, the true balance of a MMO lies at max level and none of us have had much experience on that end.

Last item up for discussion that needs to be massively worked on and revamp. Space flight. It's a FARKING SIDE SCROLLER!

WTF? Maybe watch some YouTube videos at least before you make comments? Or do you have absolutely no clue what a side scroller is?

I feel like I'm playing starfox.

Hmm, this makes it sound like you just have no idea at all what a side scroller is. StarFox is a rail shooter, which is like what ToR uses for their flying sequences. I take the fighter segements for what they are, mini games tacked on to a MMO. If you compare the fighter sequences in ToR to say, jousting in WoW- there is absolutely no comparions. It is a serviceable mini game with reasonable mechanics for what it is. Honestly, it was much better then I thought it was going to be, I was expecting Blizzard level quality and they crushed that fairly easily.

I'd even go so far as to recommend removing all current aspects and not bothering with space flight until an actual good system can be put in place if ever.

Is it ever mandatory? I've run quite a few of them, but haven't seen anything leading me to believe that you ever need to take part in them if you don't want to. As a point of reference, if you like it or not, the StarFox series is the most popular space shooter series ever. It may not be the hard core XW v TIE style that some players want, but I saw no issues with the game mechanics outside of them being simple which I thought was a given with what it is.

My only caveat is server stability. If the next beta test doesn't go smoother, I'm going to be inclined to cancel my pre-order.

The last weekend beta test that I took part in was more stable then WoW was on any given Tuesday four years after release. I saw one server crash, one scheduled take down(given, I wasn't on the whole time, but I logged ~30 hours).

 

[Merad]

What exactly is everyone's problems with the graphics? Either a whole lot of people on here haven't played or I am missing something fairly large. Myself and a couple of guildies were discussing the graphics, after seeing all the rants online I was expecting something genuinely poor, and what we saw was at least the equal of Rift, beyond WoW from what I have seen. No, it doesn't come close to Crysis, but it certainly seems to be very well done IMO. The engine utilizes shaders and lighting effects for its' impact far more then textures, which perhaps turns some people off, but I was actually rather impressed with how good the game looked. Maybe it's just because I've played too many MMOs, after getting a decent amount of in game time I can't understand people griping about the overall look of the game.

You guys must not have looked at many things up close. Texture quality in the builds they're giving us currently is very, very poor.

I expect that they're just holding back the high res textures to save on download size. But if what we have now is the best available....

 

[Wordplay]

I don't like the ending to Revan.

Major spoilers, not about Revan:

Spoiler

I wonder what they will do for an expansion. If they are killing off everyone so early then WTF will happen once 5 months pass and everyone is board?

 

[BenSkywalker]

You guys must not have looked at many things up close. Texture quality in the builds they're giving us currently is very, very poor.

Yes, I have. What games are you comparing it to? The game doesn't rely on texturing for the strength of its' graphics engine as titles like WoW do, but the shaders, lighting and particle effects of the game surpass it by far(and Rift for that matter). I haven't seen any real blurry textures, they seemed rather clean to me. The cloth in the game seems pretty well done for a MMO, and animations that actually have contact is a very nice change.

Taken as a whole, after quite a bit of time studying the graphics in the game, I think it is overall the most impressive MMO to date judging it solely on the graphics. Does that put it remotely close to games like Crysis/Metro 2033 etc, of course not. Taken in the context of the type of game it is, I was rather impressed.

 

[coloumb]

I don't like the ending to Revan.

Major spoilers, not about Revan:

Spoiler

I wonder what they will do for an expansion. If they are killing off everyone so early then WTF will happen once 5 months pass and everyone is board?

Everyone will be wood? [board= wood. bored= OMG..give me something to do!].

I suspect a lot of the power gamers will be bored within a month after release. I won't be surprised to see level 50's within the 1st week after the game goes live.

People who can play about 40ish hours a week will be bored within about 5-6 months.

Everyone else - maybe a year at best.

I think Bioware already has plans in place to release new planets/content at regular intervals. Comic Con panel makes it sound like they'd like to have a significant # of planets [I think a dev stated at least 50 planets] and hope they can keep the MMO going for at least 10 years.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Beta RSVPs are up on the site if you haven't gotten your emails yet(downloading the game early before the mass email goes out helps).

I suspect a lot of the power gamers will be bored within a month after release.

Judging by the current tuning of their content, end game is going to take a hell of a long time to work through. Looking forward to bosses that take a month or more to work out how to beat myself With level 30 trash mobs in the open world wtf pwning players atm, I'm not thinking that people are going to clear all the content too quickly. Anyone who played TBC when it launched and worked their way through Mag can likely appreciate how a relatively small amount of content can keep the hardcore entertained for quite some time(SSC and TK were up for quite a while before anyone dropped a single boss).

I don't like the ending to Revan.

I'm rather torn on it.

Spoiler

I think it is fitting, although honestly I was pulling for Scourge to approach the situation a bit differently.

 

[manko]

Beta RSVPs are up on the site if you haven't gotten your emails yet(downloading the game early before the mass email goes out helps).

Thanks for the heads up. I checked and haven't got an email yet, but I was able to RSVP and start downloading. Wasn't sure if I could patch my older client so I'm re-downloading the whole thing.

 

[Anomaly1964]

C'mon fellas...

...don't post spoilers (even with that black out, it's TOO tempting to look, LOL!).

 

[s44]

Yeah, let's save the spoilers for a separate thread. And btw, the blackout does nothing on tapatalk (fortunately, I've already been spoiled by playing through).

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

Everyone will be wood? [board= wood. bored= OMG..give me something to do!].

I suspect a lot of the power gamers will be bored within a month after release. I won't be surprised to see level 50's within the 1st week after the game goes live.

People who can play about 40ish hours a week will be bored within about 5-6 months.

Everyone else - maybe a year at best.

I think Bioware already has plans in place to release new planets/content at regular intervals. Comic Con panel makes it sound like they'd like to have a significant # of planets [I think a dev stated at least 50 planets] and hope they can keep the MMO going for at least 10 years.

What about the PvP? Will people on PvP servers want to level up additional characters so they can have varying capabilities in PvP?

 

[Anomaly1964]

From what I read, VERY few will be level 50 in one week...

...and if they are who cares, I'm not playing to RUSH through the game.

 

[s44]

The only people who'll hit 50 in a week are those who hit 50 in beta already.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

Oh, another thing. Are all the gear drops in TOR super common, even at high end raids? I know in EQ it might have been annoying to have to raid a high level boss every week for months to equip your whole guild but it fosters a much better sense of accomplishment than getting it too easily. Gives a guild something to work at.

 

[s44]

Hey guys, the Thanksgiving beta client download is up. Go to the tester page.

I'll be trying it on my parents' minspec rig. Hmm, maybe I'll upgrade them to quad while I'm visiting. (To get a holiday BF3 fix.)

 

[Demo24]

I wonder what they did to get the game file size down. When I first started it was like 26gb download, now its closer to 18...which is a huge drop.

I think I'll probably just uninstall it now anyway and wait for release. Highly unlikely I'll spend the time to get my character to 50 between now and then, and I'm tired of starting over.

 

[MajorMullet]

Thanks for the heads up on the Thanksgiving beta client being up. Downloading it now so I'll be ready when it starts. This will be my first time playing the game so I'm pretty excited to try it out

 

[Anomaly1964]

Hey guys, the Thanksgiving beta client download is up. Go to the tester page.

I'll be trying it on my parents' minspec rig. Hmm, maybe I'll upgrade them to quad while I'm visiting. (To get a holiday BF3 fix.)

Thanks dude!