Star Wars: The Old Republic

[Kekvit Irae]

I would say that, right now, SWTOR is World of Warcraft Lite. It doesn't have many of the great features WoW has, is extremely buggy, and isn't that engaging except for conversations. I would suggest just waiting until a few months until the game is fully polished enough to be worth your time if you are too used to WoW.

[Voigtkampf]

I have only played a Jedi Knight/Sith Warrior tank and it is so similar to a WoW protection warrior, you would think Blizzard could sue.

Speaking of which, I saw this picture a while ago and thought I might share this comparison between WoW and ToR warrior... (Click until fully enlarged)

[Kekvit Irae]

Speaking of which, I saw this picture a while ago and thought I might share this comparison between WoW and ToR warrior... (Click until fully enlarged)

Don't get me started on how "similar" the Sith Assassin is to the Rogue.

[econ21]

I will say that, at least compared to Burning Crusade (which was the last Expansion I played for WoW) that the Sith Warrior is a lot easier. The way you fight battles in KotOR is very different than in WoW, simply because most of the trash mobs are ranged and the battlefields are relatively large and spread out. For some reason, I never feel like I'm taking a very big risk when i go solo questing in TOR, whereas solo questing with a warrior in WoW could get pretty dangerous.

Well, I take your point but Burning Crusade came out about 4 years ago and there have been two expansions since. I do remember first arriving in Hellfire Peninsula - it was quite brutal, under-geared, stumbling among closely packed groups of hell boars, with massive fell reavers criss-crossing the lands and threatening to one shot you if you did not get out of their path. The dungeons were even more brutal. I am afraid you don't get that experience anymore in WoW. Levelling in current content (L80-85) is by the numbers; levelling in old content (L1-80) verges on the inane. They tried to make the heroic dungeons in the recent Cataclysm like Burning Crusade, and succeeded, but sadly there were too many complaints (and loss of subscriptions) so future ones are going to be dumbed down. It's like Blizzard are rushing players up to max level, then quickly gearing them up for raids, which are still a challenge but one which the rest of the game really does not prepare you for anymore.

Maybe I am just bad at Swtor, but I invariably find if I accidentally pull two packs I(hard to do, as you say, because of the spacing but it can happen if you try to skip packs), I die. If I fight two elites, I die. If I fight one elite and one strong opponent, I am likely to die unless I am very lucky. Even lesser fights, if I play less than optimally (e.g. let my companion pull aggro and die), I might die. I like it, I think you need some feeling of risk in an RPG but it is not a feeling I am familiar with from WoW. It may depend partly on your companion - healers make you feel secure in normal fights (you are getting healed and they are not, it scarcely feels fair), whereas with a dps, it feels more of a tense race to see which side drops first.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Been watching a live streamer named Towelliee on Twitch.tv play ToR for a while now to see what the game is like. Looks broken with recent patches fixing some stuff barely. Apparently according to Toweliee bags dropped solely on a random number generator and you could go for weeks without getting one new piece of armor or you might get the same thing again. Why would people even try if there is no guaranteed reward?

Oh also, /v/ seems to think that the "ToRtanic" is happening, but I don't where any numbers indicate that membership dropped after the trial month ended.

[Kekvit Irae]

I do have a problem with crafting. My Juggernaut is a Synthweaver, and i've yet to make anything worth equipping.

I'm Cybertech, and I'm the opposite. I craft armoring and mods all the time when I gain new levels. Since I'm running in mostly orange armor, it works out fine since I almost never need to upgrade equipment with found loot. Though, some of the crew skills do need balancing. I'm seeing a LOT of end game players running with nothing but Biochem.

My only real complaint with the game so far is the lack of any kind of a decent look-for-group system.

Dear god, yes. I want a dungeon finder just like WoW, but expanded so that you can choose companions if there are less than the required number of people for a flashpoint.

[Voigtkampf]

Yeah, the class mechanics will be nothing new to anyone who's played an MMO in the last ten years. I will say that, at least compared to Burning Crusade (which was the last Expansion I played for WoW) that the Sith Warrior is a lot easier. The way you fight battles in KotOR is very different than in WoW, simply because most of the trash mobs are ranged and the battlefields are relatively large and spread out. For some reason, I never feel like I'm taking a very big risk when i go solo questing in TOR, whereas solo questing with a warrior in WoW could get pretty dangerous.

A lot has changed since TBC in WoW. Last time I played my frost mage in arena, warriors would break my snares within seconds, and now, as a frost mage, you can spam frost snares basically every few seconds. Also, I am leveling my warrior, she is almost 82 now, and I am using the prot spec for it. Unlike before, its just as viable as arms or fury. Have I mentioned the self-healing ability of warriors these days? I won't even speak about the same thing for rogues now...

ToR related - as G-Cube mentioned, the lack of looking for group system is discouraging.

Oh, and a completely inoffensive name seems to have addressed me as /v/, I suppose.

Oh also, /v/ seems to think that the "ToRtanic" is happening, but I don't where any numbers indicate that membership dropped after the trial month ended.

I said nor claimed no such thing. I said that ToR, at this specific moment (probably in future as well) isn't interesting to me at all. As for the manipulation with sub numbers, everyone plays that game, so I don't care if ToR has 1, 2 or 5 million subscribers. I don't measure my personal (dis)like towards an MMO by the number of subscriptions. ToR will, in all probability, run for much longer, will earn their masters a lot of cash and will probably be the number 2 P2P MMO for years to come. But don't trust companies throwing numbers in your face. personally, I couldn't care less if WoW is being played by 10 or 100 or 1 million players, as long as I myself enjoy playing it.

As for the "haters", well, I wanted to love ToR, I really did. Was hoping that it would drag me away from WoW to something new. But after all the troubles I've had with Origin installation, the game activation (having played and reviewed most of MMO's out there, I got quite some experience in this) that was the most bugged and longwinded affair ever, the credit card issues, forced subscription to start playing (regardless of gametime of one month that comes with the game), response time from the support was a joke (rather poor one) and so on, I've lost my happy thoughts. To add to that BioWare banning people because of the dancing bug, the mysterious loss of the unsubscribe option from players accounts one month after the launch and banning of all who posted direct links on forums how to unsubscribe and deletion of those links, the horribly poorly management of the Ilum patch 1.1 PvP exploit and BioWare freezing in sight of the fiasco like a deer in front of the incoming car lights...

I don't hate ToR. I would have preferred KoToR 3 now, in the light of this game, but back in the day, I was looking forward to it. I simply think that the game is not good enough - at least at this point in time - to deserve an active subscription from me. Too many bad things in this game and the management around the game itself made me pass.

[Kekvit Irae]

Have I mentioned the self-healing ability of warriors these days? I won't even speak about the same thing for rogues now...

When I was playing my 85 Rogue in that Egyptian city dungeon whose name I forgot, our group had a bad pull, and everyone wiped except for me. I couldn't act like a coward and use my combat stealth to reset everything since I used it during the fight to ramp up the DPS, and I didn't want to accept defeat, so I stuck around and tanked all the mobs around me. Thanks to Cloak of Shadows, my interrupts and stuns, and Recuperate, I was actually doing quite well. It gave the Shaman enough time to self-rez himself and help out with healing me until everyone got back. Unfortunately, once my stuns wore off, the mobs I didn't engage went straight for the Shaman, so not only did I have to keep myself alive, I also had to keep the Shaman alive too. When all was said and done, both the Shaman and myself were still kicking (no pun intended) and all the mobs were dead at our feet. Everyone in the group was stunned to see how well Rogues could offtank in a pinch. Best quotes of the day were "oh wow" and "Rogues are OP :D"

Recuperate was one of the best things to happen to Rogues in a long time. While we have extremely high burst damage, we're also melee. Which means we are just like Warriors, only with crappy leather armor and low hit points. Having that self heal was vital to keeping us alive in heavy fighting when the AoEs started to hit. I'm not too keen on the nerfs Recuperate received, but I'll live. Especially since I don't play WoW anymore :P

[Voigtkampf]

I absolutely love open-world PvP, and my level 34 Sith Juggernaut has only encountered two republic players. I ganked them both, and it was fantastic, but one thing I've loved about every MMO I've ever played was the constant threat of higher level characters trying to kill you--and that's also just not there in this game.

Too much instancing/phasing. Age of Conan had that as well, and I didn't like it. When I recall the golden days of WoW, the fights in Southshore, Crossroads, Ashenvale... Open world PvP before there was any benefit from PvP, as well as no battlegrounds... To recall someone in Gchat calling out that he/she was being ganked, going over there to help, meeting more players from the opposite side, fighting four hours simply because it was fun!

Kekvit, just for clarification, I got nothing against Recuperate and rogues, I just mentioned that as an example how drastically WoW has changed during the years. Imagine anyone saying during vanilla "in TBC, rogues will have Recuperate", people would be on the street with pitchforks in a heartbeat, heh. Oh, I circumvented the "the game is broken and your class/spec is OP" argument entirely by simply leveling all the classes there were to max (or at least close there of). In that way, I never felt like I was a spokesman for a single class/spec. I enjoyed and still enjoy all the game's aspects.

[Kekvit Irae]

Kekvit, just for clarification, I got nothing against Recuperate and rogues, I just mentioned that as an example how drastically WoW has changed during the years. Imagine anyone saying during vanilla "in TBC, rogues will have Recuperate", people would be on the street with pitchforks in a heartbeat, heh. Oh, I circumvented the "the game is broken and your class/spec is OP" argument entirely by simply leveling all the classes there were to max (or at least close there of). In that way, I never felt like I was a spokesman for a single class/spec. I enjoyed and still enjoy all the game's aspects.

I know, I just felt like relating my own little nostalgia story. :P

[Voigtkampf]

Heh, I am probably threading all too carefully recently. Been following the angry crowds at various MMO portals all too closely recently. And yeah, it is nice to be a bit nostalgic from time to time.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Oh, and a completely inoffensive name seems to have addressed me as /v/, I suppose.

No. /v/ is a video game community from 4chan.org. Sorry about the confusion, I thought most people had heard of /v/.

I don't hate ToR. I would have preferred KoToR 3 now, in the light of this game, but back in the day, I was looking forward to it. I simply think that the game is not good enough - at least at this point in time - to deserve an active subscription from me. Too many bad things in this game and the management around the game itself made me pass.

I agree with this 100%. You sir, are right about everything.

[Voigtkampf]

No. /v/ is a video game community from 4chan.org. Sorry about the confusion, I thought most people had heard of /v/.

Aaah, that explains it, I fear 4chan and dare not thread anywhere near it.

I agree with this 100%. You sir, are right about everything.

Why, thank you, sir! But also, shame on you for introducing me to the temptation to put this in my signature. Must...try...stay...apparently...humble...

[johnhughthom]

As the first mmo I've given a fair crack of the whip, I've found SWTOR pretty enjoyable so far. Played a Consular up to level 38 or so, didn't do many Heroics as the server rarely had decent numbers on each planet. Decided to swap servers as I was pretty much playing a single player RPG and thought I may as well try to play it the way it was intended. Found a much more populated server and have reached Tatooine having done all the Heroics, one Flashpoint and all the space missions. The problem is, I'm now totally over-levelled, reached Taris five levels to high and thought it would drop down. Hitting Tatooine, I'm still four levels too high. I've read of other people complaining about this and the common answers seem to be don't do Heroics, don't go for bonuses (most of which you hit doing the quests naturally) and don't do space missions. My Consular, where I didn't do space missions, and only did a few heroics seemed to level up more in line with the area progression. Looking at the other players questing around me, most of them are a level or two below me, not as over-levelled, but still generally higher than the quests they are doing.

I doubt I'll bother playing any other characters if this is what comes from what I consider to be playing through the content naturally, I like at least some challenge to my games, and SWTOR could hardly be considered difficult even when levelling with the games intended progression.

[econ21]

John, I had the same problem being overlevelled around Taris. It bugged me a lot, especially early on, but you do get half experience for green quests, iirc, so to some extent it is self-correcting. I got to 50 on the last planet, so at the end, it did not feel too badly out of sync. I suspect it's less of a problem with alts, as you may have done many side quests on your main and are probably willing to be more ruthless moving on when quests turn green. My son felt less compelled to rescue every cat stuck up a tree (I guess that comes with playing a DS BH rather than LS JK) and if anything found the opposite to me - he needed to grind and backtrack a bit to get up to level.

[Major Robert Dump]

I am over leveled too because I take every quest and because I tend to spawn camp bosses when short on time, as going indoors is too laggy and I try not to group due to this, which means a lot of failed heroics, which means grinding my way through again and again until I am level high enough to mush the opposition. Right now I find I can solo 4+ heroics and flashpoints at @ 4 levels over if I play smart, but again the lag is an issue

[Kekvit Irae]

at @

:)

[johnhughthom]

So the latest installment in my epic story of overlevelling. I've just reached Alderaan, recommended level of 28. I'm no longer four levels too high, nor five, yes I'm six levels above the quest zone. My own fault this time though, as I went on a Companion quest and ended up doing the Nar Shadaa bonus series, which is quite a chunky bit of content. I would only have been three levels over otherwise, so hopefully the gap will start to close. It was nice playing the game at the respective level for the content, not exactly difficult, but I couldn't charge in to every fight without even looking at the enemy.

[Kekvit Irae]

So the latest installment in my epic story of overlevelling. I've just reached Alderaan, recommended level of 28. I'm no longer four levels too high, nor five, yes I'm six levels above the quest zone. My own fault this time though, as I went on a Companion quest and ended up doing the Nar Shadaa bonus series, which is quite a chunky bit of content. I would only have been three levels over otherwise, so hopefully the gap will start to close. It was nice playing the game at the respective level for the content, not exactly difficult, but I couldn't charge in to every fight without even looking at the enemy.

Overleveling is not a bad thing if you're going solo. Some of the sidequests and class quests can be tough if you don't level up or bring a friend. Wait until you get to Hoth, then you'll wish you were overleveled. :P

[johnhughthom]

That video has made me want to start new characters, I hardly recognised any scene or character. Shows how much content there actually is.

You were right about Hoth, Kekvit. I stopped playing my Consular soon after I arrived there, so can't remember if the difficulty ramped up there, but it certainly is more enjoyable, combat wise, for my Trooper. With the stronger enemies I have to actually use some tactics to win battles, my rotation of two of my companions between planets has helped as well, I'm using the carbon copy of myself on Hoth, when the healer would be much more useful.

[Kekvit Irae]

I've played my Sith Assassin as a WoW Rogue for 44 levels, and my roommate (Sith Marauder, DPS) and I still couldn't finish the Foundry flashpoint. I switched to tank, and the difference is like night and day. Not only did we finish the Foundry, we got through with only two wipes.

And as for the Foundry itself...
OH
MY
GOD.
The inner Star Wars KOTOR fan in my squealed in delight. Not gonna spoil it, but the flashpoint is DEFINITELY worth running through if you're a fan of KOTOR (and you should be).

[Kekvit Irae]

Or you could read torhead :P

http://www.torhead.com/guide/leaks

[johnhughthom]

Choopah da poochy na way. Dweep Dweepay. Utini!

Translation:

I was enjoying it, despite being overlevelled the entire game, and was considering subscribing for at least another month playing through the Imperial storyline. Then I hit Corellia. Now pretty much every planet could be called dull and lifeless, but it was bearable, Corellia has bored the life out of me, so much so I've skipped the side quests after the first zone and stuck to the story quests, I never do that. It's supposed to be a war zone, but it's more of a ghost town. The final stage of the storyline should be epic, with more attention to detail than the previous, more incidentals, bigger set pieces. Instead it's as if they gave up and threw together the most boring piece of crap they could. On the last quest, will finish that and see how I feel.

edit: Okay, final battle on Corellia for the Trooper is a buggy mess. Constantly unable to target enemies right in front of me as I cannot see them apparently, then they will suddenly get full health and start attacking me, then it happens again. Sub cancelled.

[johnhughthom]

I don't think I've ever played a game where I've changed my mind about it so often in a short period of time. I decided to have a quick look at an Imperial playththrough before my subscription expired, and I was shocked at how many more players there were than on the Republic side. I knew it was more popular, but not that it was so lop-sided. Grouping is so much easier, virtually no waiting around, compared to the Republic where you generally had to ask 3 or 4 times at least before finding somebody. Decided to give the game another month, I can't say I've found the Bounty Hunter questline any more interesting than the Trooper's,

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

though at least it's not the Mass Effect storyline regurgitated,

like most people say, early days though.

[johnhughthom]

Playing on The Progenitor, EU rp server. I considered rolling on a US server, as I play in the early hours of the morning quite a lot and the US servers appear to be busier (never seen a queue on an EU server), when I was switching after my first character but decided against it. Nothing at all to do with my opinion of Americans as loud and brash who will spoil my immersion in the game...

I've always been a goody two shoes in rpgs, and thought most people were the same, which is why the imbalance surprised me. As an example of my two shoedness, I've completed the Baldur's Gate games at least ten times right through, but only managed an evil character to the end of the first game. I do wonder how many Imperial players are playing a light sided character?

Nice to see Bioware engaging with the community, though I'm sure people will find some reason to complain that they answered 12 questions instead of 10. I do so love whiny forums for a bit of a giggle, SWTOR forum is among the best.

[Kekvit Irae]

Honestly, I can't think of a worse forum. It's awful.

WoW forums during Wrath of the Lich King.
Check and mate.

[johnhughthom]

After finding the Bounty Hunter a very different playing experience, abilities wise, from the Trooper, despite supposedly being mirror classes, I decided to have a go at trying the opening classes through the opening planet. I have to say I was impressed with the different feel of each, there is more replay potential in the game than a lot of people give it credit for.

[Kekvit Irae]

Finished up the Sith Inquisitor storyline after a two week hiatus, then canceled my account. I don't think I'll be going back.

[Major Robert Dump]

Since I really couldn't "play" due to bandwidth and lame laptop (as I found out when I got to Tatooine and tried to PVP), I hedged my bets and found an RP PVP server that had a decent forum community. I started 5 chars with dabbled around to get each past the second planet, to the point of getting the ship droid.

Then I began leveling all of my gathering and crafting, while using my "main" to get money on space missions. I did no side missions up to this point so he is not overlelvled.
Also, this main is all gathering skills to provide for the crafters

Meanwhile, with all toons at the level 16 mark, I have a cybertech, armstech,amormech and biotech all in the 250+ range, my investigation, diplomacy and 2 underworld traders are at 325+, and my two slicers (one my main) are pushing 400, My mains bioanlysis and scavenging is in the 300s, and my alts scavengers are in the high 200s. I based the crafting skills on what classes got what bonuses, with 2 smugglers, 2 troopers and 1 JK. I have no interest in doing a jedi sage.

So pretty much all I do is hop from alt to alt and craft, RE, and sell stuff. It's really the only way I can play with such crap facilites and less than an hour to burn each night if even that. The whole goal here was to be able to provide for my own equipment once I got to the point where I could play for reals and start doing pvp, at which point that will probably be how I level everyone except my main, because I kind of like the smuggler story.

[Voigtkampf]

The word is out on the virtual street that the Bioware is considering converting TOR to F2P. Surprised much?