star wars old republic is actually quite good

[Red Storm]

With the greatest of respect, you liked DA2. And DS3.

So not really seeing your endorsement as being the vote that rings true.

lol I have to agree. Sorry Karmy but it almost never fails, everything you seem to like is everything I don't like in games.

 

[Ferzerp]

Pretty much all mmos are fun for a little while...

Emphasis on the little while.

 

[lord_emperor]

SWTOR is an excellent game and would be well worth the subscription fee IF most of its players hadn't already played World of Warcraft.

Everything feels like a 1:1 clone of World of Warcraft, with logical progressive upgrades. This was the "safe" plan and exactly what BioWare stated they're going for. That was a huge mistake.

I just couldn't keep repeating dungeons and raids as end-game PvE and queuing to the same battlegrounds any more.

 

[micrometers]

lol I have to agree. Sorry Karmy but it almost never fails, everything you seem to like is everything I don't like in games.

I prefer the term "off-beat"

 

[micrometers]

SWTOR is an excellent game and would be well worth the subscription fee IF most of its players hadn't already played World of Warcraft.

Everything feels like a 1:1 clone of World of Warcraft, with logical progressive upgrades. This was the "safe" plan and exactly what BioWare stated they're going for. That was a huge mistake.

I just couldn't keep repeating dungeons and raids as end-game PvE and queuing to the same battlegrounds any more.

Serious Q: how would you have changed the design to make this one more unique?

Me, personally, I'd do away with the MMO pretensions and sorta make it like an "MMO-lite" like Diablo 3 in many ways. Maybe also have a way like Spore where your SP game can import designs from other player's SP games to make it seem more diverse.

 

[micrometers]

Yeah karmy is known for trolling with his 'opinions':

DA2 > DA:O

ME2 > ME1

Mass Effect and DA:O are overrated

Bioware RPG's are the finest combat experiences

RPG Fans: What is the point of inventory?

Ocarina of Time is overrated cause Windwaker is better

Best gaming was xbox/ps2/gamecube era (he was probably a kid at this time)

Mists of Pandaria looks like the best WOW Expansion yet

Warcraft 3 is under appreciated compared to SC2, and DOTA is incredibly stupid

lol. I'd like to see your point-by-point reasons why those were wrong. They're all very valid IMO.

 

[Dumac]

lol. I'd like to see your point-by-point reasons why those were wrong. They're all very valid IMO.

lol see?

 

[Craig234]

"RPG Fans: What is the point of inventory?"

I think RPG's have been taking a lot of shortcuts on inventory for a long time.

You're carrying around your broadsword, spear, crossbow, and axe among other things, maybe an alternate armor set - and yet they don't show up graphically, it's not explained how you lug all that around the countryside, and you're quickly ready to go in battle with a monster.

It's pretty nonsensical and we excuse it as 'helping with gameplay to ignore it.'

Even things like eating and sleeping. I remember a game like Might and Magic I would deal more with this - you have to find food and eat it. I don't remember for sure but there might have been a chance of bad food as well, which would cause a problem. I think you had to sleep - and might get attacked.

Things that RPG's since have mostly said 'don't worry about that stuff, it gets in the way of gameplay'.

Some games have gotten rid of things like food, others have evolved it such as to a tradeskill.

One of the more fun uses was having alcohol give your character both some bonuses and penalties, the penalties a bit worse.

What's not as good is when inventory is made into a game limit that gets in the way of fun - and even worse when DLC is sold as the solution (hello, Dragon's Age).

(It's hardly alone - Diablo II's expansion added inventory, a premium subscription to the forgotten Dungeon Runner added inventory space, etc.)

Of course the basic inventory is fine in RPG's - which include 'loot' as part of the game in pretty much all of them, going back to the original Rogue and D&D.

The main feature around it is ease of use - some games (hello, Diablo) have included a lot of having to manually rearrange items to use every last square.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Even a broken (analog) clock is right twice a day.

TOR isn't as good as a real SWTOR 3 would have been, but you do get 8 OK-to-good single-player stories instead of 1 great one. And the MMO grouping for flashpoints is fun to a non-MMO player like me.

It's faint praise, but I've found the single-player stories to be more engaging than the main quest in Oblvion, and everything in Drakensang. It's not a AAA-level single-player RPG, but it's a very very long B pr B+ one.

IMHO of course, but I do prefer Planescape: Torment and DA:O over DA2 so my tastes should be a little less suspect

 

[Sulaco]

Yeah karmy is known for trolling with his 'opinions':

DA2 > DA:O

ME2 > ME1

Mass Effect and DA:O are overrated

Bioware RPG's are the finest combat experiences

RPG Fans: What is the point of inventory?

Ocarina of Time is overrated cause Windwaker is better

Best gaming was xbox/ps2/gamecube era (he was probably a kid at this time)

Mists of Pandaria looks like the best WOW Expansion yet

Warcraft 3 is under appreciated compared to SC2, and DOTA is incredibly stupid

+1

I see an endorsement from "karmypolitics", I can't almost be assured it's awful.

 

[thepaqster]

I just couldn't keep repeating dungeons and raids as end-game PvE and queuing to the same battlegrounds any more.

Yep, this is exactly why I don't play SWTOR anymore.

 

[BrightCandle]

I played it when it first came out to about level 35. While I really enjoyed the game there were a lot of severe technical problems. They released corrupted installer files to a lot of their distribution servers so many people couldn't install the game. For months they refused to accept what they had done.

The straw that broke my back was a patch that made the game realise that I had 3 monitors and hence the game went into 48:10 mode, but it was only set to play on 1 screen so it was all really squashed. Eyefinity didn't actually work with the game at the time and that squash mode meant I couldn't play the game at all.

So I unsubbed after spending months just fighting technical problems. I liked the game, hated the poor implementation and downright terrible support representatives. Never got to the so called terrible end game.

 

[Craig234]

I'm kind of intending to play the retail copy I bought before the game is dropped to $15 and made F2P.

 

[zokudu]

Kinda want to get the box at $15 and play for a month or 2. Dunno why.

Too abd I can't because I setup my account back for the Open Beta and one of the security questions is "What Car would you be?". Fuck if I know what I answered to that back then.

 

[waggy]

has it got any better? i played for a few months after it came out. it sucked ass.

tempted to resub when its F2P but even then i suspect it won't be worth it.

 

[thespyder]

Even a broken (analog) clock is right twice a day.

TOR isn't as good as a real SWTOR 3 would have been, but you do get 8 OK-to-good single-player stories instead of 1 great one. And the MMO grouping for flashpoints is fun to a non-MMO player like me.

It's faint praise, but I've found the single-player stories to be more engaging than the main quest in Oblvion, and everything in Drakensang. It's not a AAA-level single-player RPG, but it's a very very long B pr B+ one.

IMHO of course, but I do prefer Planescape: Torment and DA:O over DA2 so my tastes should be a little less suspect

No one here is saying that Karmy 'Can't' be right. Just that I wouldn't take their endorsement of a game from them given his/her previously stated preference in games. In the same way that I wouldn't allow a clown give me fashion advice.

I have read several places that the actual stories in TOR are worth playing through. OTOH, I have heard that it is a very cloney copy of WOW, making it a pretty middle of the road MMO with nothing 'New'.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I haven't played any MMOs before, so the MMO parts are fresh and new to me

You can play it entirely as a single-player game, that just has common areas where other people might be doing a sidequest like "sabotage 3 swoop bikes" at the same time as you.

The half-dozen flashpoints (4-person raids with stories) that are avialable while leveling up are optional, but were fun for me. There are also a bunch of optional 4-person "heroic" sidequests of the simple "kill something bad" variety, but you can skip all of those and stay on-level.

 

[thespyder]

I haven't played any MMOs before, so the MMO parts are fresh and new to me

You can play it entirely as a single-player game, that just has common areas where other people might be doing a sidequest like "sabotage 3 swoop bikes" at the same time as you.

The half-dozen flashpoints (4-person raids with stories) that are avialable while leveling up are optional, but were fun for me. There are also a bunch of optional 4-person "heroic" sidequests of the simple "kill something bad" variety, but you can skip all of those and stay on-level.

My main problem with MMOs in general is that nothing you do actually changes anything in the game. so the fact that you can do 'The same mission as other people" or that you can do it over and over and over, just makes the whole experience seem kind of samey all the time.

Throw in the fact that you aren't the "Hero" (or villain) of the piece and I am lost after a few hours.

Shame really because I really wanted KoTOR 3.

 

[DaveSimmons]

The class stories are not like that -- you do have to save the galaxy, several times. Also, you don't ever repeat any of your class story. You can repeat the MMO parts (flashpoints, heroics) but you never have to. You'll only repeat single-player content (sidequests and planet quests, not class stories) if you play more than one Republic or Empire character.

Sure, your saving of the galaxy does not affect other players in the MMO, but neither does your finishing KOTOR 1 or 2 affect anyone else playing their copy of that game.

You can play it almost like any other single player game, and soon for free.

 

[thespyder]

Sure, your saving of the galaxy does not affect other players in the MMO, but neither does your finishing KOTOR 1 or 2 affect anyone else playing their copy of that game.

You can play it almost like any other single player game, and soon for free.

I guess I am not expressing my point. I don't care if anyone else's game is impacted. That isn't why I play games. I don't feel the need to compete with other players. That is one reason why I dislike Diablo 3 so much. It is so incredibly focused on the social aspect (and the auction house) that all of the fun from Diablo 2 was lost. But I digress.

I might try the free to play portions once they get there. But generally I wanted another single player Star Wars game (that was better than The Force Unleashed). Something that was an RPG with some meat in it. Kotor 3 would (hopefully) have met that requirement.

I played Evercrack for a year before I reached a point where I looked back on my time and said "Boy, why did I waste that much time on no progression or impact to the game scape?"

Not saying anyone else has to see or agree as I do. Just saying that, if I want to socialize, I can do that IRL. When I want to game, I don't need to play a game that is shackled to socialization to the point where the fun of the game gets impacted.

::steps off soap box::

 

[DaveSimmons]

Understood, but you can play for 100+ hours with no socialization or MMO elements at all, other than seeing other players around you in the common areas.

 

[micrometers]

Understood, but you can play for 100+ hours with no socialization or MMO elements at all, other than seeing other players around you in the common areas.

Yeah, but at the same time I feel like the story elements in SWTOR aren't quite as tight as the first two KOTOR games. I might be wrong, I dunno.

 

[power_hour]

So they gave up already, huh?

At first I thought the game was fun until I played the space combat. Couldn't believe how bad it was. Ground combat is fun and I did enjoy it for the most part. The crafting seemed a bit odd, economy awkward and pointless and the community rather weak. In the end I saw no reason to cough up $15 per month to play something basically a single player game.

The F2P model will get me to play again if only for my light saber fix. And when I want my space combat fix I have Star Trek Online. Wish they could just combine the two games.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Understood, but you can play for 100+ hours with no socialization or MMO elements at all, other than seeing other players around you in the common areas.

I might try the single player content when it becomes totally free to play. However, isn't it kind of weird playing single player with a bunch of other players running around in the background?

I just think you can never have the storyline, immersion, or closure in an MMO that you get in a quality single player game. I have nothing against MMOs per se, but it is just something personally I am not interested in. Maybe if I had some friends to play with instead of matching up with strangers, I would feel different.

 

[KentState]

I might try the single player content when it becomes totally free to play. However, isn't it kind of weird playing single player with a bunch of other players running around in the background?

I just think you can never have the storyline, immersion, or closure in an MMO that you get in a quality single player game. I have nothing against MMOs per se, but it is just something personally I am not interested in. Maybe if I had some friends to play with instead of matching up with strangers, I would feel different.

SWTOR is a little different. There are not other other players running around in the background when you are doing a quest. Yes, the travel paths have other players, but everything central to the story is instanced like a single player game. When you hunt down a sith in a base, it's just you and your companion unless you invite someone else. Also makes completely quests easier since there is very little competition for a mob.

Overall, it's a single player game with some MMO stuff tacked on. I got 3 players to 50 and that was enough for me. I just could not stomach doing anymore of the non-class specific quests.