Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

[VarrusTheEthical]

I have to say that the trooper storyline, as far as a I got though it, was pretty good. Recruiting companions made sense and there relationships with the PC seemed appropriate and believable, largely due to the game's excellent voice work. You get to meet a lot of interesting NPCs, and many of the side quests have interesting stoylines themselves. By and large, the lightside/darkside choices for the most part seem pretty good, though there are definitely some odd choices.

I am really looking forward to the release of the game on the 20th. I'm particularly curious with what "fixes" that will be made between now and launch.

[Civil War Man]

Recruiting companions made sense and there relationships with the PC seemed appropriate and believable, largely due to the game's excellent voice work.

On the subject of voice acting, I'm pretty sure James Urbaniak (the voice of Doctor Venture) was the voice of the Havoc Squad medic (the thin sketchy-looking one with all the cybernetics), which I find both fitting and pretty funny.

[TheFeniX]

After watching this video, I was hoping John DiMaggio did some TOR voice acting. Alas, I can't find anything on his IMDB page.

One last bit about the beta. I didn't want to comment earlier because I had only done one flashpoint (Essles), but we ran through Hammer Station about an hour before server cut-off. I have to say, I'm liking the smaller parties and the two instances I've run. Hammer Station is visually dull at the beginning, but once you get to the last third, it just feels like a bad-ass place to be fighting. The boss fights are..... of moderate difficulty. Void zones are very clearly marked and people still find a way to stand in them.

The main issue is that mobs of 2-3 enemies will all channel a high DPS abilities at the same time and there's no way to know what you can actually interrupt, so interrupting them all is extremely difficult and Crowd Control was a bit buggy. All in all, they were both very enjoyable. Not as easy as WoW instances, but also not as unforgiving as the original Rift instances.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

Uh... some issues on Taris...
Spoiler

Why is the wreckage of the Endar Spire on the planet?? Didn't it completely distintegrate in space from the Leviathan? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMdGHmnR-dg

[Mr Bean]

The CC powers that affect all levels and the ones that only affect non elites are clearly marked. For some reason smugglers kick disables anything up to a Raid boss in one go but you can only use it every 60 seconds (45 seconds with perks) Every class has a 3-4 second stun that works on anyone but is on a longest recharge. Knowing which is your classes and when to use it is vital.


As for PintO's question I say artistic license not scientific sense.

[PREDATOR490]

Customisation in TOR is seriously lacking. For a game that people gush over for looking awesome its hilarious the VISUAL customisation is awful. I couldnt really care less what the vista of Coruscant looks like compared to making the actual characters I am going to be fighting with look like people rather than horrific cartoon characters.

Kinda sad the game has less armor customisation than the original KOTOR and KOTOR 2 bumped that up a little more.

The traveling mechanic - Utterly disgusted by it.
Level 14 you learn to sprint faster as a cheap method of giving people a 'mount' rather than just give them amount that gets faster as you level then a speeder at 14 that gets faster via upgrades.

All because Bioware want to stretch out the leveling process by having people take longer to get from A - B rather than make more A - B - C - D... content.
I would rather spend my time doing something AT B rather than spending ages just trying to GET to B but naturally the fucking idiots object to this because apparantly WOW made people wait until they were XX before getting a mount.

So... lets duplicate what even WOW changed because players didnt like it... here I thought the goal would be to try and adopt things that people actually LIKED from other MMOs.

Space combat - Its a rail shooter which Bioware had to go and make on the spot cause people were bitching like mad for it so I'm at least willing to cut them a break for doing a pretty decent job on getting SOME space into the game.

That said, I still find it hilarious BW can apparantly make up visually impressive space content on the fly but the actual functionality interms of customisation, skills and general interfaces is abysmal.

Essentially BW have basically sunk their entire effort into making 8 seperately voiced KOTOR stories which arent that bad if it was a single player game.
However, they have done so by basically forgoing game variety and functionality wether it be cosmetic armor options, variety of companions available at the same point rather than a specific set only THAT class gets or being able to wield weapons of choice.

[White Haven]

...do you have any concept of how ridiculous it would look if Sprint were a speeder? Speeder?

[Mr Bean]

...do you have any concept of how ridiculous it would look if Sprint were a speeder? Speeder?

Considering that Speeders are only a what 70% speed boost? Yes they look silly. They need to take a page from Anarchy Online and let you get transport from level 1 if you have the cash. But then make the transport expensive enough (Say 50,000 Credits) you won't have enough to buy one till your 20s. As for me, hey collectors edition.

[PREDATOR490]

...do you have any concept of how ridiculous it would look if Sprint were a speeder? Speeder?

Sprint IS a mount / speeder. You run from 1 - 14 normally then suddenly learn to run faster.

I find it far more silly that someone can spend their time running from 1 - 14 but suddenly they manage to 'learn' to sprint.
It would be more sensible if you got a passive OOC sprint from the beginning and got faster as you level up to a capped point until you EVENTUALLY get a speeder that can go even faster with upgrades. Paving the way for Speeder racing that KOTOR fans want which could easily be a rails racer in the same vein as space combat.

Sprint gives you a 30% buff
Speeder gives you a 70% Buff

Instead of getting 30% in one go at 14 and 70% at 25

You can give players sprint at level 1 that has a 2% speed buff that increases by 2% every levels
15x2 - 30 %

Personnally I would take it all the way till you get a speeder.
25x2 - 50% in speed

Then you get a speeder that can start off at:
50% speed and increase by 2% until 50

50x2 - 100% in speed

Simple fact of the matter is BW have introduced a mount that is basically your character running faster gained at a random level.
If BW have realised this 'mount' is required to get around faster then it would be more logical to either turn that mount into a legitimate speeder or turn that mount into a passive ability that levels with you from beginning to the point where you get the 'official' mount thus peoples ability to travel the world scales as they level and you can match the size of the distances to that scaling.
I.E Dont make a sprint ability AT ALL... just make it your natural character run that increases as you level. No need to switch on a stupid ability everytime you die and one less slot devoted to a power that should always be on by default when your out of combat.

If your bitching about how stupid it is to have people driving around speeders that are slow as fuck and out of place... I would happily see BW drop them entirely and just make people able to run faster and faster with copious amounts of taxi travel routes added to hubs.

[White Haven]

In other news, a mountain.

[PREDATOR490]

In other news, a mountain.

In other news: White Haven

[TheFeniX]

I have to say, Haven's got a point. Blowing up about a sprint ability is pretty out there.

But I do find the customization in TOR extremely lacking. There's few options for your character at creation and the lower level equipment is pretty standard. Although, you rarely look like a clown at low levels, unlike WoW. And only having 6 customization options for your companions is pretty lame. Contrast to STO, which was weak everywhere, except the character and crew member customization which would be cool just to have separate from the game itself (I was able to create a Klignon named Frank N Berry and did a pretty good job making a look-alike).

I'm hoping they implement a costume system in the future and open up a lot more ways to make unique characters. Just buy out Trion and steal Star Trek Online's character creator. No one else is using it.

[PREDATOR490]

I have to say, Haven's got a point. Blowing up about a sprint ability is pretty out there.

What BW have done with sprint is merely an example of what they have done with the entire game.

Mounts - Instead of being a speeder its just you getting a little trail effect and running faster for 10 levels until you get the proper mount
The Costumes - Railroaded into a fixed set by endgame which the progression videos demonstrate rather effectively
Weapons - Classes get fixed weapons like Single Saber for Knights, Duals for Assassins. Apparantly no one on the Republic side knows how to use sniper.
Classes - Effectively copy / paste job mirroring with a change in animations and change of some skill names. Smuggler shoots with two pistols, Sniper shoots with a rifle
Companions - You cant change what they do and your stuck with a fixed set with fixed looks
Missions - The only thing that is different is the main story lines which are largely predictable and linear

Effectively,
TOR is KOTOR 3 with 8 seperate stories and multiplayer functionality at the expense of the individual player variability options
BW have sunk alot of the work into those 8 stories and the VA work to the point the rest of the game functionality is seriously underdeveloped by comparison.
TOR is a one trick pony with VA Stories, after that trick gets old the game has little to fall back on to make it stand out against it's competitors beyond brand loyalty.

[TheFeniX]

Effectively,
TOR is KOTOR 3 with 8 seperate stories and multiplayer functionality at the expense of the individual player variability options

Yea, I'm totally ok with an MP KOTOR game. Bioware seriously can't take my money fast enough on that one. It's also why, even though I'm afraid it's going to suck, I'm dumping $60 on Mass Effect 3 because of the 4-player co-op, even after skipping ME2.

But your argument falls flat after that. Other games don't even bother with class questing, instead focusing on the faction or the race, which is fucking stupid. TOR offers more customization than WoW does in many areas and about the same in others (bitching about tier sets being all the same is hilarious when every set for my DK has been "MORE SKULLS! PASTE MORE SKULLS IN THERE.") and only being able to fall back on 8 complete class quests from levels 1-50.

Who knows, maybe everything will fall flat at level 50. But what exactly opens in the endgame of WoW? More generic grinding?

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

The Costumes - Railroaded into a fixed set by endgame which the progression videos demonstrate rather effectively

Nope.

One of the cool things TOR actually does really well is exactly this - you can wear pretty much whatever the fuck you want, thanks to their keen itemization/upgrade system. I can take my cool level 15-ish Jedi robes and wear them all the way to 50 (instead of the completely dumbass looking high level Sage shit), not only with the stats of any other level 50 item, but the particular blend of stats that I want. Now, it's a bit more expensive to do that effectively via the modification system, but it is there for those of us who like the look of gear other than what the linear level progression tells us we should wear.

[Stark]

Unless they've divorced stats from appearance its still dumb.

[charlemagne]

Cosmetic slots for items to override the appearance of the items you actually wear for their stats is pretty common place. Even Age of Conan got that functionality at some point. It's like BW didn't even look at other MMOs.

[White Haven]

An item's quality does one thing, and one thing only: it determines the upgrade slots an item has. An item's level, for blue-quality and higher items, ONLY impacts what mods come in the item to start with and how much armour it has if its armouring mod slot is empty. So you can, literally, just keep dropping new mods in something that looks awesome until something that looks awesomer comes along. Oh, I'm sorry, did I break some ranting?

[charlemagne]

Ok, that actually does sound like an interesting system.

[White Haven]

I also fully intend to keep some super-shabby-looking gear around with awesome mods in it for a doubletake set in PVP.

[VarrusTheEthical]

Well I just got an invite for the beta they're doing this weekend. Any other SDN folks been invited?

[Mr Bean]

Well I just got an invite for the beta they're doing this weekend. Any other SDN folks been invited?

You mean last week? The last Beta weekend was supposed to be last week before launch.

[Stark]

I also fully intend to keep some super-shabby-looking gear around with awesome mods in it for a doubletake set in PVP.

This does nothing in any of the games that have divorced stats from appearance for years. Is TOR particularly itemisation-slanted for power?

[VarrusTheEthical]

You mean last week? The last Beta weekend was supposed to be last week before launch.

I mean one for this coming weekend, they're doing a smaller beta to test the new patch before launch. Apparently they are inviting a small group from those who participated in last weekend's beta. Everyone who did the beta last weekend should check their E-mails for an invite.

Edit: Here's the link to the game testing threat do see for yourself.

[Civil War Man]

I also fully intend to keep some super-shabby-looking gear around with awesome mods in it for a doubletake set in PVP.

This does nothing in any of the games that have divorced stats from appearance for years. Is TOR particularly itemisation-slanted for power?

Not as far as I could tell when I played the beta, though I didn't get to high levels. And the shabbiest gear either can't be modded or can only hold a few mods, so I don't think it'd work anyway.