A Big Very detailed review on SWTOR after beta WE *no spoilers*

[Deleted]

Hello ladies and gentlemen,

Welcome to my review. I’ve decided to write a very detailed review of my recent test of star wars the old republic. I Really wanted to write this review as hopefully it will help some of you that didn't get to try the beta or perhaps still un sure about the game. I know there are quite a few reviews floating around atm but I’ve found allot of them either not that helpful or still lacking some of content that is featured in this game. Trollbane recently wrote a review which was quite good so I encourage you to check it out as after playing it I thought it was quite close to home also the one by the old fart was quite gd. I’m gunna say a bit about myself and then crack on with it. This will be quite a wall of text so I apologise and ill separate the review into individual areas to allow you to skip to ones you feel you would like to read most about.

A bit about myself first:

I thought id mention quickly even though it don't really matter but I've played games really since the mega drive, from completing vice city 100% to Playing WoW for 6 years, and Raided hardcore style in vanilla and TBC and after that cleared all of wotlk normal and all of IIC on HC so I've done allot of raiding over the time. Also raided in other MMo's. I stopped WoW about 8 months ago as i felt that my time with the game just fizzled. I slumped through Wotlk but cata was the final straw for me. The other thing I'm interested in is building rigs so got a bit of knowledge when it comes to the technical side of programs.
I will be mentioning some comparisons to WoW (ill always have a soft spot for it lol). But mainly due to the fact you guys should be able to relate to it so I apologise if it bugs you. Anyway, enough of me blabbering on,
Unfortunately with my limit amount of time I could play, I could only do so much. I tried everything possible with my class but I rolled a sith warrior to then AC to a juggernaut. Got to level 18 (had a bit of RL and also tried some PvP and a bit crafting which slowed me down) and I apologise beforehand if I get any facts about the game wrong :S lol. Anyways first point!

Performance/Graphics and theme/Ambience/Movement:

So I log in and finally get to begin the adventure. Start moving..... the first thing that comes to my mind is, omg this is awful. The movement is quite different to other MMO's. When i played rift it didn't feel too dissimilar to WoW but felt quite a bit different. I carried on and after a while you get used to it. The movement isn't bad it's just very different. I think if you are used to playing other MMO's you might think it feels quite heavy but it works perfectly fine. Strafing is a bit od as your characters body actually turns the way you strafe lol.... By the end of me playing the beta I didn't even notice it and i just felt it was perfectly acceptable (the movement as a whole that is).
Performance wise I had very little issues. There have been quite a few problems I’ve seen from players from lag or graphics etc and I can’t say I felt any lag to a degree of making it un playable the whole time I was in the beta. The servers were crammed full so that’s great news. Also kind of annoying there have been people bitching about how they had to queue to get on.... Kind of stupid as god knows how many players were participating so they should of been prepared to queue from the word go.

There are quite a few graphical bugs I’m not gunna beat it around the bush BUT that is to be expected, and let me tell you there will be at launch too. No MMO in the history of gaming gets it perfect on launch. Look how many bugs games have had recently with the likes of RAGE and BF3 and there not even MMO's. But as beta testers we try and report as many as possible.
The graphics I feel are quite nice. This is a ongoing bitch fest with this games graphics. Allot of people have been complaining that they are not that good. Well tbh, there not as good as say rift or GW 2 but believe me it doesn’t have too. I would be worried if they were on the same level as WoW but there Allot better than Wow’s. Players who say otherwise are obv blind lol. The worlds do feel very worldly which is a great experience and ill explain why that is on a later point, but graphically i would say it's like a improved version of KOTOR 2. Cosmetics and physics are VERY good. For example when running with a cape the animation as he kicks it with the back of the heels as he runs is very nice. Combat physics etc ill talk about in another part of the review. So over all I would say the graphics are pretty good. Nice lighting effects and shadows. Once you start getting into cities it becomes allot more impressive.
One great thing about SWTOR is the ambience. Sound for example, it’s great. Everyone loves the light saber noise slashing through something or even just turning on hearing the faint hummmmm, or a couple of blasters rolling off several shots. The ambience really submerses the player which is great. Something you take for granted in other games. I would think allot more players will be leaving there sounds on. There’s also allot of ambient things happening such random people getting beaten up in bar or droids running around its great!!!!

So overall really impressed with the performance I managed to have in the beta technical wise, yeah there was the odd crash but to be expected. If others are having serious issues with their performance then I would strongly suggest looking at their rig or connection because I would say allot of the testers felt that it was fairly stable. But overall the graphics are nice enough to get involved into the game. I think what people need to look at is that, once you start getting into MMO's you very quickly start not worrying about graphics, as we have seen with other games. If the game plays well generally its over looked. Try and find some HD vids on you tube, but let me say allot vids around atm are not showing what SWTOR looks like at its best. In the beta we couldn't turn AA on and I'm pretty sure there will be further higher settings on textures on launch (though I'm not sure for certain).
On to the second of the most talked about subjects,

Combat/Combat mechanics:

So I have read allot about this game and one of the things i was lead to belive was that combat was pretty shaky, so im gunna talk allot about the combat:
This is one the biggys and most contrivstial points of the game. I’m gunna be blunt about it. Queue rant!! Is it clunky?!? NO! This combat system is not clunky AT ALL. 100% not clunky and please believe me with this, it is just not, it might be a bit slow at the start but let me explain:
When a MMO is made, developers have to ask themselves what is this mmo is about, combat? Social? RP? There are a few more options but the majority or modern day MMO's it’s about combat. If the combat was bad in this game then it would straight out fail. It doesn’t. Combat in a MMO i feel is made up of 3 main points:
1. Combat mechanics (Rotations/numbers)
2. Graphics/sounds/textures (what do you look like when fighting and how it looks)
3. Fluidity
For a MMO to work in its combat it’s got to nail all 3. SWTOR doesn’t lol! BUT no MMO I’ve known does. The important thing is it nails most of them and if not more than other MMO's out there. ZOMFG no auto attack!!?!
No this does not make you character feel sluggish slow or whatever has been said. Now I’m being blunt about this is because when you actually play, it just really doesn’t feel anything like that. Players that have said this are one of a few things. Either Just not interested or can't see the wood for the tree's. Sure it's not perfect but its bloody good. SWTOR is a hot key MMO, and it plays like one. The no auto attack is great. When you actually play you don't even notice you don't have a auto attack. For a start my standard base attack for building rage (assault) strikes multiple times within that 1 move so it even looks like your attacking with a auto attack. Combat speeds as you pick up more moves and your rotations become more intense. But the main thing it does not having a AA is it makes you think on your toes. The Moves also string together very well allowing your character to be constantly knocking out hit after hit. Those vids were you have seen the characters seem a bit hesitant, yeah, that's not what it's like lol. That's what happens when you don't know what move to use next so your character stands there doing nothing for .5 secs for example.
So far a few players have said you got to use your head in SWTOR for Gd rotations, and you do. The combat flows at times very quick, I really cannot get why people are saying it’s slow or sluggish. I was speaking to someone on the beta and he was saying to me how having no auto attack makes you stand still? Errrrrr no it doesn’t, believe me some of the wild accusations are just crazy. But anyway as a whole I loved the no auto attack, you did what you have to do and it does it fast and responsive because otherwise you would just stand there lol. As I’ve said before allot of attacks as a melee class, did a couple of attacks by using 1 move. Even if you don't love it, give it time and you will feel it's not even necessary to have a auto attack, after all why should you get dmg for doing nothing.... But to summarize, I know I keep going on about it but you got realise it does actually change the way a melee class plays or a non caster type class ( say like the bounty hunter) plays. It doesn't affect Casters so much as they never had a auto attack. Take a warrior from WoW and a sith warrior. Make them have the exact same moves but Wow's warrior has Auto attack. When you play both you still spam moves in the best possible manor but with the warrior from WoW you get a bit of extra dmg for doing nothing. I hate to say it to all you auto attack fans but it's plain simple and fact that I wouldn't be surprised if other MMO's don't follow the no auto attack saga, oh wait..... the big mammoth WoW already has with the monk class. Anyway, rant over.
Channelling comes to melee!! Ofc SWTOR isn’t the first game to do this but I don’t feel it’s been really used much in a melee class. However these sorts of attacks help change it up a bit. I had a channelling attack called Ravage. Now, there is a problem with this, and that is when you move, it cancels, so you got to use it when know you can pull off the whole sequence. But on the upside it allows Bioware to make some awesome looking combo that hits HARD and allows the player to use that head of theirs to know when to use this.
Animations in combat are quality, they really are. So many MMO's out there are so lazy with animations of combat but it makes combat feel so much better when there good. Wvery move has its own animation, it just looked brilliant! I’m not just saying this, I don't know whether it’s because I played WoW for so long and was just used to my lock doing the same cast animation every bloody spell, for 6 years... lol
I found it very responsive tbh. like if I’m to use a response attack (like retaliation) it will be quick to do it and show the animation. Combat as whole though is very sharp and also responds to the enemy in front of you better than any MMO I've played.
Talents trees where fairly standard in this game. I would say this will be something Bioware will look into updating as time goes on.
Rotations were great too, obv I couldn’t fully test these out at 50 but I’ve noticed a few players complain it's just about spamming the same move. I can assure its not. From what I saw, very quick rotations and the no auto attack forces the player to be quick and responsive to what’s going on his screen. Is a great feel. My class worked on building up force and then using it deal heavy attacks. I felt it worked really nice. You felt you were constantly stinging up moves. Starting off with your basic attack to build force, using say ravage when its off CD to hit a nice hard combo attack, then spank with a power strike. It actually looks like he's putting all his might into the attacks too .

Now then, Cover......................... Well hmmmmmm I’m gunna say this, cover in games I’ve always felt is a bit of a marmite thing. You either love it or hate it. I love it. I felt it works, it really does. Only the smuggler and IA use it. Unfortunately I didn't manage to try it, but i saw it being used in warzones and watched a few vids and it does seem to work. The way you get into cover is easy for a start. Once you are in you have some nice stat bonuses. Secondly other players such as sith warrior and Jedi knights can’t charge you for example, which I think is great. I think combat is quite close quarters allot of the time so I think you get away with not feeling slow or too stand off from the action. Once you’re in cover you can sit there and pick off and unleash, and you can nicely. I think it’s a great addition and adds a sense realism too. A smuggler would hide behind a wall of sand bags, sure you can see his head but let’s not get too picky now shall we.. It left me feeling, god dammit if only I had cover when I was playing my warlock!!!!
It does need some tweaking but overall it’s a real great job from Bioware. Some moves don't connect very well in PvP and just need some more fuidity added. Usually in other MMO's its been thing that hasn’t impressed me (the combat system). Don’t get me wrong Wow’s rotations and smoothness is there but it’s had 7 years to do that, Bioware are straight off the band wagon and I’m gunna be honest, has prob made a better combat system than Wow’s (people are gunna flame so bad for that lol). Before you do though, I know it has great rotations, some good balancing (i said SOME lol) in WoW and it works from class to class but the animations are just soooo boring. Tbh so are the lack luster spell animations on allot of spells like lightning bolt for shammys even after the update. So over all great job from Bioware and they have made a very very tight combat system.

User interface:
Now this is not so good. The Ui isn't bad but it's not that great either. It's quite big on your screen and it's not very customizable. But it didn't really bother me. I have a very strong feeling that they will add features and make it moveable etc. They need too otherwise theirs gunna be up roar that's for sure. However it doesn't stop there.
Certain features of this game are not that user friendly. Now I've been playing MMO's for a number of years, so it didn't really affect me, it was more of a inconvenience. Firstly ill talk about quests and quest utility. Or actually lack of it. It does need to vamped up a bit for convenience such as quest item shortcuts and there was also no information about quests on the tool tip. Party options are in the game but just not the user friendly to access even to the point finding it a pain in the arse to leave a party. I didn't bother joining a guild so I'm not sure what that would be like. The chat log is placed at the top left of your screen but if you get used to but it kind of works lol. It makes the HuD info of your character at the bottom with your target which is nice. There needs to be some additions such as target of target and also buffs and de buffs aren't looking too great either so they need to have a look at some of these issues. On a good note I did like the space theme of the UI lol.
Allot of the information such as party and achievements are placed in a codex which i wasn't too keen on. I don't think it's the fact they are in a codex, it just needs to be allot more pleasing to the eye.
Your bag was quite nice. Lots of space to start with which I'm not too sure is that was a good thing but i guess it's kind of pointless starting off with a 16 slotter lol. I think everyone is passed that. You could increase the size of course at a cost. Which brings me on to my next point.
Dosh or credits as such and auction house:
I liked money in this game it had allot more meaning to it. Firstly it affects your crafting which i will explain in a latter part of the review. Skills cost quite allot of money and you can also buy lower end gear with it. But the main thing you will use your credits on is crafting. Due to this, it makes money have that extra dynamics. Not just lets save up loads of money and charge 60k for a rare matt. Of course who am i to say that won't happen in this game but what i do like is that there options to spend your money other than the AH, I didn't destroy any of my items but I've also heard repair bills are quite tough too.
I haven't got much to report about the AH tbh. I had a quick look (as you do) but obv there was barely a economy being the beta and all. It looked fairly standard from what I saw however i didn't like that searching for something on the AH is a pain as you have select off like 5 different drop down menus before you search. Back to the whole user friendly thing again i guess.

Companions and crafting and gear:

Now then I'm gunna start with gear. It's pretty straight forward really, you got your shitty greys and whites, Greens, blues purples and oranges lol. You get commendations for killing mobs in the zone you're in which you can hand in for gear, which i actually quite enjoyed. Just something a bit extra for slogging your guts out lol. I liked it mainly because you can't just hand in a load of badges and get fully pimped. You're looking at maybe a couple of items per zone. You got your badge vendors for everything inc 50 gear at the main Hub. But over all pretty standard these days to just have a load of vendors everywhere. The last thing about gear is modifications. These work buy basically certain items allow you to add modifications too. I love this. Now you could argue that this is another form of jewel crafting and enchanting but i love the style of it and the customization. For example, you have a light saber hilt, you can change the stone colour which have stats, you can add a modification and add a enhancement and one other but i have forgot the name of that slot. But i like the concept behind modding and the utility to change each piece out and in. There are some items that have stats and mod slots which is imba. The other i was going to mention is i love the look of the gear. Firstly some of the pieces are quite detailed and have small details like for example if you wear a helmet sometimes it changes your voice to make it sound like you're in a helmet lol. Secondly they are very close to theme of star wars. Very sheek and stylish with that futuristic feel. I also feel they have made the gear quite unique to what advance class you pick which is nice.

COMPAIONS! This one is a biggy ladies and gents. Companions are great they really are. They have great utility options for a start. For example you can be in the middle of nowhere and bam your bags are full. No problem send you companion to sell all the greys. They go off on a timer which i think is about 1-2 mins and once they return you get all the cash. Stunning. The other handy thing it doesn't take the time for your bags to empty that happens instantly as your companion takes them away. No more item destroying . The next thing is they are good fighters. Bioware certainly went to town on the character devolvement side of your companion. They get some awesome moves and u can gear them just like yourself. Hold on! Did i just hear someone say rage loot? Yeah..... this could be a issue, it occurred at one point in the beta someone needed an item for there companion. I can see that causing some grief lol.... But anyway its neat that you can gear them. So companions are pretty good fighters they actually take a spot in a party, which i think is quite right. I'm not sure about raids but I'm assuming it's the same there. The other thing about companions is interaction. For each of your companions you get what i called a love meter (affection meter) where if you say things in dialogue they like or dislike it affects how much they like or dis like you. Though tbh its allot easier to make them like than hate you. After a while you will get a chance to speak to you companions properly every so often for a more personnel chat where I'm assuming you can find some info about them etc.
A few people have said they don't like them cos they don't like pet classes. Well i played a warlock for 6 years and it doesn't feel like a pet from WoW. There allot more personnel and most of the combat there not included in. You don't use them for PvP, raids and most flash points so they only really fight for questing. You don't really have to command them either they just fight so I can't see why people are turned off by them?
The last thing here is crafting that again you companion takes a great part in. Crafting is like a 70/30 thing for me. 70% I like 30 i don't. As we have seen in allot of MMO's out at the moment crafting isn't at its best really. Swg had a very in depth crafting exp and i really like crafting. It's rewarding if done right. Rifts what utter shite tbh. I was expecting the worst but was surprised. Firstly it works like Rift were you get the choice of 3 skills not 2 Like WoW's. There is allot to choose from. If I were you I would read up about each in the codex but I chose treasure hunting, architecture (or something like that), and artfice. 2 gathering skills and 1 crafting. treasure hunting was more of a universal gathering skill architecture gathered specifically for artfice and synthweaving. So you get a number things to do here. The worlds still have materials to collect from like other MMO's but you also have the option to send your companion out on a mission to get resources. This does cost credits, and as you can imagine the better the reward possibility the more credits it will cost. To make something you also get your companions to do that too. So no waiting around for 20 mins while you make 50 bandages lol. whenever you send your companion to do something its always on a timer. Now something about crafting I liked in SWTOR is its slightly has a chance base. You don't really know what your gunna get back from companion missions. also when you make something it has the chance to crit (i think) improving it slightly. I like that. Other MMO's have used this feature before ofc. The other option you get is too disassemble anything you can make for parts. So i could disassemble a light saber hilt but not a chest armour cos I couldn't make armours. This is good because your gunna have to make a few items that are crap and worthless to lvl your skill. So you do that to them and get some mats back. You don't get 100% of the mats back but some. Over all i really enjoyed the crafting system, but i do hope it's rewarding at the later stages with some gd hard mats to find in raids. Old school baby!

Quest, flash points, operations:
Now I'm not gunna go into massive lengths about quest details because as I'm sure you have heard it's amazing and plus your prob fed up with reading the review already lol. It is incredibly immersive. The humour in the quests is absolute brilliance as well from Bioware. You literally feel like you could level every class. But i will talk a bit about group quests. Now this is where i was totally shocked. I don't think i have grouped up for a quest properly for about 5 years in a MMO. This ended in the beta. The group quests are fantastic. They are hard enough to get another person and even 4 of you sometimes. This is where the MMO comes into play over the RPG but when you sit there and think these quest dialogues couldn't get any better, try doing it with 4 other people. let me tell you it's fucking brilliant If you are away you get the option to join as a hologram if you are too far away which is cool, the game rolls whoever wins says. But it just feels so cool doing it with your mates or even just randoms. Not knowing what there gunna pick. You also get social points doing it with people but I'm not sure what they gets you apart from points really
Again as I'm sure you know there is the light side dark side. Its great addition to the game and something i recommend to people is to turn off light and dark side icons on mouse over so you can't see what part of the conversations gives you what. It's a nice touch. But the main thing that caught my eye with light and dark is restrictions. Restrictions are great, they are. Let's be honest, most diehard WoW fans have a piece inside of them that still wishes horde didn't get pallys and ally didn't get shammys lol. We know it couldn't work without it but in this case Bioware have implemented a system that does work. For example you can't wield a green light saber if your dark points are too much or wear certain clothes. Visa versa. Now this don't affect the balance of the game but they affect your character and makes it allot more personnel so I think it's nice and I hope these things stay and if possible are devolved even further.
I didn't get a chance to do a operation but i did a flash point. Brilliant! I liked how it was just a 2 man flash point, because easy to group up but because its 2 people it was a bit of challenge. There was also some nice tactics for the bosses not just tank and spank. It also tied into the story well but this is where i feel it might end. The problem with MMO's atm is there dungeon/raid system is a bit dated. It's very hard to introduce no ideas to this system. Although i liked the story part of the dungeon once it's done its done and the player won't really care about it anymore. I guess it's a bit like sugar coating shit, but not that bad. Which is why it was the level of difficulty that most excited me about the flash point. Btw just to clarify I'm not a tard, and putting your player ability on the line in a review is never the done thing to do but seriously some of the aspects of the group content were a bit of a challenge which was a great thing! I least expected this game to be pulling that off! Please don't nurf it.

PvP:

Now this is a tricky subject lol. OK, to put it bluntly its not its best thing about the game. I managed to do about 5 war zones over the weekend. My first impression of the warzones scenically was a bit lack luster. Nothing really called my name out. Unfortunately i only did void star and Hutt ball. The problem with PvP is quite simply it works best as you develop with the game both player and company. What i mean by that is, if you pick a new game and enter a war zone your prob gunna be a bit shit. There's gunna be like 10 other players loads of shit going on and your prob gunna get tossed around a bit. When I ever i play PvP it always takes me a gd amount of time before if can really start getting in the swing of things. So i can't really judge on it as much as i would like to.
One thing i can assure you of is that MOST games that launch this is usually there weak point because PvP takes allot of balancing. The thing is though i came away feeling like with a few tweaks and some new things additions to PvP it could work perfectly fine. There is no reason why Bioware couldn't have a good completive PvP community on this game. But it does need some work. especially in the combat front. It need s to be more fluid and connect better, perhaps this may be where people are spotting chunkiness but PvP combat isn't a smooth as pve combat as of yet. The joining at any level is quite nice though, as you are still at a disadvantage at lower levels as your skills are still lower. I also found that is possible to level by only doing PvP, I've noticed a few people complaining taht you can't but i didn't see any where showing any signs that you can't. I was getting around 7k exp some war zones, thats pretty good for exp in this game.
But I'm gunna stop here guys and do a over view Because its prob become a mountain of txt.

Over view:

So there we go. Some good info there, but over all this really is a sensational game. I would give it a good 8.5/10. I had quite low expectations about this game after what I've read, but bloody hell it blew those cob webs away. I know people say you should ignore peoples comments but that's why we are on the forums, because we care about or are intrigued to hear people's opinions. I really didn't expect Bioware to bring out such a tight game.
Theirs work that needs to be done that's for sure. As I've put in several of my sections but i can easily put my hand on my heart on say that these things can be fixed easily. After all that's one of the reasons we all love MMO'S right? the amount that can change over time. As a few people have said the best way is to try the game first before you make a opinion about it because it could completely prove you wrong as it did me. On paper I will say though this could be one of the best MMO's to date and I'm really sorry if I'm seeing like I'm hyping it up but that's just the way the game has made me feel .
One last thing, end game...... It's true, if there is one thing this game needs to be successful is that the end game. But I will say this, from what I've played and the levels of difficulty i came across at low end of the game we could be in for a bit of treat with operations. The one thing apart from combat that stood out was Bioware have gone back to basics with parts of their game. Alignment restrictions, Difficulty, bosses , crafting materials from raids, a good general core to the game. just little things that make the game that extra bit sound, all that topped with a fantastic story line and structure. All we can do is wait and see, but i hope this has given you guys a bit more info. It was a very fun and pleasurable gaming experience and urge anyone who hasn't tried, try and dig out some information or trial it once its released.

Randytravis

[Mooji]

There's like a million other review threads, you coulda just put in your 2 cents in one of those.

[nogard64]

In before all the WOW fanboy hate posts, OH STOP POSTING your OPINIONS AS FACT.
In before all the wow Fanboy hate posts, YOU are just praising SWTOR because you have a deep seeded hate for WOW and you just want WOW to DIE in flames!

[Deleted]

Perhaps but most other threads have rolled off into other conversations

[Deleted]

i was looking forward to this game played wow for 7years now , i tried rift and it was fun for 2months .
now with swtor beta tried it and i have to say i give the game a 3/10 . in the end maybe 3months after launch ppl will come
back for wow or any other game that is releasing for example diablo 3

[Deleted]

I was comparing it to WoW, not saying wow is bad............. As i said at the top of my post i have a soft spot for wow. But at the end of the day there are better mechanics in this game.

[nogard64]

and I agree with a lot of what you say, but I also agree its not fair to criticize of some of the PVP and graphical elements, it just not possible for them to fully develop those aspects yet.

1) like you said PVP is a complicated process that take a ton of balancing and design, PVP is a 2 way street they need the players to provide feed back on various elements of it to work properly.

2) Graphics will only improve and get better once NVIDIA and ATI gets feedback from users playing the game, then they can optimize their drivers to improve performance of the game, thats why people always tell you to always update your drivers and when you see the driver update notes you always see a list of what Nivida has done to the driver, EX: Improved Performance in SWTOR by 50% etc etc etc. And I learn this the hard way, I forgot what game it was I was getting horrible FPS, like 15-20, I realized I haven't updated my drivers in a while and once I did so my FPS shot up to 30 FPS.

[Deleted]

Brilliant game...BRILLIANT I say...

Nice Review there, and that show how great this game is People taking the timeto type all that out and express their love for SWTOR, adding this to someone elses post just wouldn't work..

Hope to see you ingame Randytravis...

People saying it rubbish or boring, what are games developers supposed to do, its pretty damn hard making games, and making a whole brand new totally different MMO that shared nothing that proceeds its, its like asking for a new search engine that's does everything Google does buts is completely different or or inventing a new fuel, Its a Typical MMO, Kill stuff, gets gear kill more stuff rinse repeat, But this one adds a space theme and loads of Fun game play and voice acted story, and its a blast to play...

Some people saying the Graphics look already dated, Bioware need to sell the game to as many people as they can, and it run fine my my system and my laptop, if they made a game that only worked on a overclocked i7 powerhouse yes the game would like nicer but they wouldn't sell too many copies

and the Hero engin is only a few years old and is highly adaptable, so as other PC user catch up over the years they can tweak the engine

[nogard64]

A bit about myself first:

I thought id mention quickly even though it don't really matter but I've played games really since the mega drive, from completing vice city 100% to Playing WoW for 6 years, and Raided hardcore style in vanilla and TBC and after that cleared all of wotlk normal and all of IIC on HC so I've done allot of raiding over the time. Also raided in other MMo's. I stopped WoW about 8 months ago as i felt that my time with the game just fizzled. I slumped through Wotlk but cata was the final straw for me. The other thing I'm interested in is building rigs so got a bit of knowledge when it comes to the technical side of programs.
I will be mentioning some comparisons to WoW (ill always have a soft spot for it lol). But mainly due to the fact you guys should be able to relate to it so I apologise if it bugs you. Anyway, enough of me blabbering on,
Unfortunately with my limit amount of time I could play, I could only do so much. I tried everything possible with my class but I rolled a sith warrior to then AC to a juggernaut. Got to level 18 (had a bit of RL and also tried some PvP and a bit crafting which slowed me down) and I apologise beforehand if I get any facts about the game wrong :S lol. Anyways first point!

Randytravis

I'm in a similar boat as you, pretty hardcore wow player since TBC release, I started at TBC release.
But I do not feel a need to have a blind allegiance to wow. Wow is a product a brand, and they need to show loyalty to its customers if they want loyalty back, thats why you see many companys set up loyalty programs, Ford Loyalty programs Chevy Loyalty Programs, Airlines name planes after you if you shown you are a frequent flying whos been loyal. I don't see Blizzard or wow doing so. Not that they HAVE to but thats my point, they don't have to show loyalty nor shall I. If I find a better product I will move on to a better product its as simple as that. Not sure whats motivating the legions of Blind faith WOW fanboys who will flame your review.

[Deleted]

I'm in a similar boat as you, pretty hardcore wow player since TBC release, I started at TBC release.
But I do not feel a need to have a blind allegiance to wow. Wow is a product a brand, and they need to show loyalty to its customers if they want loyalty back, thats why you see many companys set up loyalty programs, Ford Loyalty programs Chevy Loyalty Programs, Airlines name planes after you if you shown you are a frequent flying whos been loyal. I don't see Blizzard or wow doing so. Not that they HAVE to but thats my point, they don't have to show loyalty nor shall I. If I find a better product I will move on to a better product its as simple as that. Not sure whats motivating the legions of Blind faith WOW fanboys who will flame your review.

Yeah prob, your right. But i actually wasnt looking at it from that point view. The only reason why i said about WoW was because i thought people could relate to it. People are still free to play WoW ofc The reason why i put that i had stopped was to mention that i had played soem other mmo's since there to show a bit of exp, which i forgot to put it in . I never meant to critise. Also i didn't mean for my review to sound too negative towards grphics and PvP because i completly agree with you about that. And when i ssiad you coulnd't have a competive PvP community its a complete type and was supposed to say could sorry again. I should rpob proof read more

[xeonix]

Amazing, well -written and up to the point. I enjoyed your review. I agree with most parts and i am buying the game. I am very curious about the end game aspect however as you are

[untouched]

Hello ladies and gentlemen,

SNIP

Randytravis

Wow, that was a long, long, long, long review.

As constructive feedback, more paragraph structure would be nice.

By the way, are you the Randy Travis? or just a Randy Travis?

[Deleted]

Brilliant game...BRILLIANT I say...

Nice Review there, and that show how great this game is People taking the timeto type all that out and express their love for SWTOR, adding this to someone elses post just wouldn't work..

Hope to see you ingame Randytravis...

People saying it rubbish or boring, what are games developers supposed to do, its pretty damn hard making games, and making a whole brand new totally different MMO that shared nothing that proceeds its, its like asking for a new search engine that's does everything Google does buts is completely different or or inventing a new fuel, Its a Typical MMO, Kill stuff, gets gear kill more stuff rinse repeat, But this one adds a space theme and loads of Fun game play and voice acted story, and its a blast to play...

Some people saying the Graphics look already dated, Bioware need to sell the game to as many people as they can, and it run fine my my system and my laptop, if they made a game that only worked on a overclocked i7 powerhouse yes the game would like nicer but they wouldn't sell too many copies

and the Hero engin is only a few years old and is highly adaptable, so as other PC user catch up over the years they can tweak the engine

Thank you . Yeah i completly agree with what your saying. If im being 100% honest, i actually felt the graphcs fellt very true in certain parts. I mean some of Dormund kass look sensational. I can not wait to get back into this game

[ITGuy]

This review was painful to read sir. Thanks though.

[Deleted]

[QUOTE=untouched;14424200]Wow, that was a long, long, long, long review.

As constructive feedback, more paragraph structure would be nice.

By the way, are you the Randy Travis? or just a Randy Travis?[/QUOTE

Lol unfortunetly im not the real randy travis no . But i hear what your saying about the paragraphs lol. I could of included so much in the review. It was originally laot longer than this. For a start i didnt get to talk about the class quest system works with the green and red gates. I also forgot to mention about they have made the worlds feel very real true to what it might if it existed. I found that it wsnt just some land mass with zones with random wandering mobs. I mean sure you had mobs but the worlds felt like worlds if you know what i mean. Ofc they achived this by using a similar technique to what guild wars 2 are doing by having sevral instances of the same zone. The great thing about this was that the chat channel was link to all the zoned instances and it very easy to switch between each instanced zone to go do a quest with anyone you want even if they wern't on the same instanced zone as you .

---------- Post added 2011-11-29 at 07:57 PM ----------

This review was painful to read sir. Thanks though.

Yeah i was worried it might be too much *shrug*

[Spaceshaman]

Wall of text seriously critted. But in a good sense. ^^

[InfernalDark]

This review was painful to read sir. Thanks though.

I was about to say the same.

[Deleted]

Good review, gave me some more insight. Thanks!

And I think ITGuy was mentioning painful due to the walls of text you had, not so much that you had a lot to say.

I loved the amount you wrote, but I'd suggest editing it a little and do some spellchecking and/or breaking things into more paragraphs. Just some constructive criticism. And yes, I did read the whole thing!

EDIT - for instance, I could tell you were quite enthusiastic about the combat system, as your paragraphs started turning into one big wall. The passion is great, but presentation is helpful too!

That's great . I really jsut wanted to put out there some of finer detials of the game. Yeah i really appreciate the feedback. First review ive written. Should of got my misses to proof read it lol. Thanks spaceshaman

[Talen]

Performance/Graphics and theme/Ambience/Movement:

>>>Didn't notice anything really offputting about movement.

>>>The graphical lag was, at times, very bad....bad enough to affect gameplay; screen freezes for 30s or so, low fps etc - game settings didn't seem to affect this - however, the server was full. Also slow to log onto the game and log off. Not queueing...just slow system. Definite performance issues.

>>>There were plenty of graphical bugs and glitches. Some could be put down to performace....seeing the entire Imperial fleet while locked in a tomb on Korriban was quite pretty though. Seeing someone walk through a wall was disconcerting.

>>>Graphics are simple in the KOTOR style. Worked well in style. Performance shoudln't have been an issue on my system.

>>>Ambience and background was very good.

Combat/Combat mechanics
So I have read allot about this game and one of the things i was lead to belive was that combat was pretty shaky, so im gunna talk allot about the combat:
This is one the biggys and most contrivstial points of the game. I’m gunna be blunt about it. Queue rant!! Is it clunky?!? NO! This combat system is not clunky AT ALL. 100% not clunky and please believe me with this, it is just not, it might be a bit slow at the start but let me explain:

Yes, it is and no its not. Simple fact is, the combat system isn't perfect. It can do with some improvement. And some of the mechaincs in use are questionable and the system can be clunky. OTOH, some systems work quite well.

When you play both you still spam moves in the best possible manor but with the warrior from WoW you get a bit of extra dmg for doing nothing.

And that isn't bad thing so long as the system is balanced. AA is nice to have because melee have a lot of instant attacks. Remove AA and the damage has to end up somewhere. This CAN leads to issues such as problems with burst. AA allows designers to tone down the active damage component without affecting damage throughput. Having it or not having it is a simple design decision....whats important is the overall balance and feel of the class

I hate to say it to all you auto attack fans but it's plain simple and fact that I wouldn't be surprised if other MMO's don't follow the no auto attack saga, oh wait..... the big mammoth WoW already has with the monk class. Anyway, rant over.

Its a planned mechanics. Its not certain yet.

Animations in combat are quality, they really are. So many MMO's out there are so lazy with animations of combat but it makes combat feel so much better when there good. Wvery move has its own animation, it just looked brilliant! I’m not just saying this, I don't know whether it’s because I played WoW for so long and was just used to my lock doing the same cast animation every bloody spell, for 6 years... lol

And WoW has different animations for the races. And has different cast animations for certain moves. And has a "flinch" animation.

Now then, Cover......................... Well hmmmmmm I’m gunna say this, cover in games I’ve always felt is a bit of a marmite thing. You either love it or hate it. I love it. I felt it works, it really does.

And conversely, I'm not sold on it. It felt really clunky to use. The Green "Cover" icon kept vanishing for example and some systems that looked like they should provide cover...didn't. The "Crouch" move provides a shortcut around such restrictions, but also raise the question...why bother with the mechanic at all? I was really disappointed with this aspect of the combat system. It needs more work I think.

User interface:[/B]

Its a bog standard interface. Nothing special. This is one aspect of the game that is indeed much worse that WoWs and it was a pain to find some features - such as Leave party.

Quest, flash points, operations:
Now I'm not gunna go into massive lengths about quest details because as I'm sure you have heard it's amazing and plus your prob fed up with reading the review already lol. It is incredibly immersive. The humour in the quests is absolute brilliance as well from Bioware. You literally feel like you could level every class.

Voice acting good. Class storyline good. Interaction/conversation system...good

Generic quests and quest design and mechanics....need a LOT of work. The system is very linear(although not as linear or railroaded as Cata), the quests are combat based. A lot of KILL X of this MOB. Collection quests were "KillX and loot them". There were a few "Kill X and interact with Y" but overall, quest designed is something that need to be improved...ESPECIALLY since levelling alts is a big part of Biowares plan for killing time in game.

But i will talk a bit about group quests. Now this is where i was totally shocked. I don't think i have grouped up for a quest properly for about 5 years in a MMO. This ended in the beta. The group quests are fantastic. They are hard enough to get another person and even 4 of you sometimes. This is where the MMO comes into play over the RPG but when you sit there and think these quest dialogues couldn't get any better, try doing it with 4 other people. let me tell you it's fucking brilliant If you are away you get the option to join as a hologram if you are too far away which is cool, the game rolls whoever wins says. But it just feels so cool doing it with your mates or even just randoms. Not knowing what there gunna pick. You also get social points doing it with people but I'm not sure what they gets you apart from points really

And then you wonder...what abut two weeks or months into the game. Will there still be enough people around to let these quests be done? That was the big problem with them in WoW. You get a short period of time when there isn't any major difficulty in getting a group for them. Of course, companions can help here.

Overall, its enjoyable. But there are still concerns and still stuff it can do "better". It is however, the best MMO I've played outside of WoW. It plays and feels better than LotRO and RIFT for example. There are still areas that need work, and the sheer expense in developing the game promises to limit what can be done with it - new races are minor additions, new classes a truly major and expensive undertaking requiring modification of existing zones or creation of new ones, plus new storylines and voice acting but plenty of scope for new content. Have to see what end game is like but I suspect BioWare will need to step up and really develop the combat and raid mechanics.

EJL

[Deleted]

Ok firstly just because some of the moves could be questionable dosen't make the combat system 'clunky'. Im'm sorry but the term 'clunky' defines combat as poor and rigid movement, and yeah it isn't. So im afraid players are not using the right terminolgy of the issues that the combat system might have. If the game is made with no AA from the start then i can't see there being any issues with numbers and if there is it can be chnaged. I would your say point about it causing issues with numbers and causing the melee class to not put as much dmg would be more concering if was implemented into a MMO that had AA originally. I did actually state it's not perfect too. Also i'm sorry i do not agree how WoW's combat animations are anything to comapre too...... That's just plain ignorance. Sure Each race as it's own method of a melee strike and cast animations and thats where it stops. It's a very lazy and basic system. Having animations for EVERY move, now that is when it starts to look good.

I do agree about your comments on class quests, but i think that the amount of players leveling up will be a greater amount that WoW's due to the fact alot more players will want to role multiple story lines. I also feel even with WoW when i was playing at the start of cata it was still possible to get hold of a group. Just because it takes a little longer to get a group dosen't mean they should nurf it to the hills and make it soloable. At the end of the day if all of these MMO's were easy enough to play solo then most people wouldn't group up, it's the difficulty factor that forces players to be sociale and always will be.