SW:TOR - First Impressions

[rofltroll]

I didn't play Beta (they tend to ruin games for me) so yesterday was my first day finally in game. After 12 hours of going at it hard I must say that Bioware did make a very good game and it has turned out better than I expected. I woke up this morning wanting to talk about my first impressions of the game, and since nobody I work with plays video games I'm just gonna post it here instead! I have both good and bad thoughts about the game so far, and I hope this is an unbiased review of what I think.

I liked...

- The world is very beautiful. I was skeptical how well they were going to pull this off, but everything from the starter zone to the ships to the instances is very detailed and well done. So far from the worlds I've seen (which isn't many), I'm a little disappointed that you can't go explore the world. It's not instanced but each world is just a zone, and I was hoping it would have been more open.

- The combat is extremely fluid and smooth. Very happy with this. From the videos and some other reviews I was worried it would be clunky, not at all though. The boss/mob/player combat in the Flashpoint I did was also very smooth and blended well. Mechanically they hit this on the money and I'm so so so so so glad. Nothing will ruin a game faster for me than something as silly as clunky camera movement or sluggish turning.

- I was also very impressed with the graphical effects (sparks, explosions, buffs, etc). And so far just seeing different colored Lightsabers and lasers hasn't bored me nearly as much as I thought it was going to. I'm not a Star Wars fan, so the idea of most people either wielding a Lightsaber or shooting lasers seemed dull, but it's actually not. You barely notice it.

Now for some criticism...

- No auto attack is actually a pain, and I was so looking forward to this. Even when Blizz announced that Panda's wouldn't have auto attack I was thinking "Oh thank god you guys are catching on", but I change my opinion yesterday. It's mad annoying to get a mob to ~5% health and have to blow more resources or a GCD to finish him off. It wouldn't be so bad if it was only once in a while, but when it's every mob it's just frustrating. I've looked down my tree and noticed that one of my attacks might kinda put a DoT on the target, I think, so perhaps that will help with this later when I get that ability.

- Every mob pack that I've encountered so far is 3-5 mobs. Now yes I know that they only equal 1-2 mobs in WoW/Rift terms, it's not the damage I take that bothers me it's when this is coupled with the above stated complaint that it gets annoying. But!.. I'm still lower level and perhaps this will smooth itself out as I get higher. I hope so.

- The questing is good, and the voiced over gimmick is a welcome change, but I'm not a questing/lore fan - sometimes I'd prefer to just grab a beer, some cheetos and just grind quests mindlessly - and this doesn't favor that at all. I do extremely care about character development, and from what I've noticed is that the response I choose in the quest will affect my character sometimes, so I pretty much have to pay attention to the quest to get my character to develop how I want. That might sound contradicting, so I guess I just prefer my character development in different ways than questing.

And I'm on the fence about...

- The UI and no mods, and yes this has been brought up numerous times already. The UI is not how I would design it at all, and UI customization would be greatly appreciated by me. As far as mods go, personally I like healing, tanking and dps mods, but I also see how they have their faults. It's my impression that Bioware wants this game to be more story focus and not so much competitive focused, and no mods is definitely the way to go about that. Whether I agree with that decision yet it to be decided.

- No LFD. I don't think that LFD destroyed WoW's community, I think it's much more than just LFD that did that. The game evolved and changed and the internet grew larger and held more information. Most people just point the finger at LFD though, and while it may have helped the community decline I do not thing it was the sole cause. I'm hoping that Bioware perhaps at least implements a server only LFD (lol maybe there is one and I just haven't noticed it yet). The only reason I say this is because I'm already getting bored of questing and was thinking of dungeon crawling for a while but this is made much more difficult due to no LFD.

The game is good, it just needs some spit and polish.

[Venziir]

The ONLY thing I'd like to see in WoW would be the voice-over bit, just without the Dragon Age'eqsue "good, asshat and badguy" responses, that's just too dumbed down (Baldur's Gate dialogues anyone??) but then again, that might get old, and as you put it "gimmicky".

[Drek]

I'm a wow/blizz supporter and I love swtor so far(probably more than the people who made all the "swtor wow killer" threads).
My only real issue is having no addon support. It really urks me not being able to more and resize my action bars or having a dmg meter so I can keep track of my progession and figure out what rotation/priority is actually most effective.

As far as the no auto attack...oh there is an auto attack, it's called the companion.

[sleekit]

UI customization is already in the pipe. it was announced on a "what's next" blog entry shortly after launch (along with PvE & PvP content, guild capital ships and more space combat).

Warhammer apparently had server lfd (and indeed this is probably where wow lifted it from along with the queue from anywhere thing around Warhammer launch) so it might come eventually as mythic has now been basically merged into Bioware as EAs MMO dept and a lot of the Warhammer folks worked on SWTOR (especially on the pvp side). i favor a server only system like you mention too as there are a few reasons why such a system would work better than it would in WoW not least of which is higher server population caps and smaller group sizes.

ty for your post.

[Fannyd]

Hey mate, cos I'm really bored at work I thought I'd offer some *friendly* counter arguments to your negative points here. Unfortunately you didn't say what class you're playing, but, see what you think...

- No auto attack is actually a pain
This maybe so, however, your character should have some form of attack that doesn't cost resource. This is effectively your "auto-attack" (you just need to press it)


- Every mob pack that I've encountered so far is 3-5 mobs
One of the awesome things about SW:TOR is the diversity in packs of mobs that you face. When you get a group of more mobs then they are weaker than if there are only 1 or 2 - whilst a this might be a pain at the start of the game, you'll find you prefer the bigger packs when you get a few aoe spells later on

- The questing is good, and the voiced over gimmick is a welcome change, but I'm not a questing/lore fan
SW:TOR actually has a system that I think will really appeal to youfrom what you've just written. Whilst your character has it's "core" progression chain - which you really should pay attention to, cos it's amazing! - on the path to achieveing these objectoves you will run into more optional "run of the mill" quests that you can grind out. If you fancy a "cheetos moment" then you can just blitz a load of these! (or play space missions on your spaceship!)

- The UI and no mods There is a blue post from the past couple of days stating that making the UI a lot more customisable is one of their main priorities

- No LFD This is a very subjective topic. However, mobility around the world of S:TOR is MUCH better than in old school WoW, and there is such a glut of playerbase at the moment, that means this really isn't an issue. In the future maybe...

[Deleted]

- No auto attack is actually a pain, and I was so looking forward to this. Even when Blizz announced that Panda's wouldn't have auto attack I was thinking "Oh thank god you guys are catching on", but I change my opinion yesterday.

Purely subjective of course, but I for one like this much more. Having to manually press a button is something I'd take over the automated hacking away at a mob anyday.

not so much competitive focused, and no mods is definitely the way to go about that.

I don't agree with this, if you want to allow modding and stay competitive this essentially means everyone would have to get the same mods to stay competitive in the first place. Else you are simply allowing for unfair advantages to some people over others, meaning that the whole 'competition' is about who gets the best mods. Dramatizing, of course.

- No LFD. I don't think that LFD destroyed WoW's community, I think it's much more than just LFD that did that. The game evolved and changed and the internet grew larger and held more information. Most people just point the finger at LFD though, and while it may have helped the community decline I do not thing it was the sole cause.

Not a sole cause, it came down to a state of mind. But it most certainly did a lot to cause that state of mind.

[rofltroll]

@ Fannyd: Thank you for your post

-No auto attack
Another person pointed out above that my companion should help fill in those holes essentially. Last night, I might have unintentionally disabled his abilities or something though, will give this another check after work today. He would help pew pew, but he wouldn't 'FINISH HIM' (lol) which is when he would have been most helpful.

-3-5 mobs
Cool, AoE spells would be nice. I have 2 right now, but one is hard to use effectively, the other has a long CD.

-Questing
I hadn't noticed that the side quests wouldn't punish my character progression. There were moments that I mistakenly chose the light option quickly going through the quest text (I'm making my toon dark), but they might have only been on main story progression.

[Semihage]

Wait till you get your companion (end of starter planet).. Then you won't miss auto attack and multi mob pull suddenly will start make a lot of sense

[rofltroll]

I don't agree with this, if you want to allow modding and stay competitive this essentially means everyone would have to get the same mods to stay competitive in the first place. Else you are simply allowing for unfair advantages to some people over others, meaning that the whole 'competition' is about who gets the best mods. Dramatizing, of course.

Well you just described the situation in WoW. If you want to be a competitive raider then you get certain mods to help you in that process. I feel that by removing the option for mods that while they are leveling the playing field, they are limiting how competitive you can also be. Just my opinion of course.

[CrypticSoul]

The things you're on the fence about will come in time. I mean, the game isn't even 2 days released yet. Keep in mind that this is a fresh MMO and not 7 years old like WoW

[Vervacious]

Your auto attack = your companion.

[Vassilios]

What do you mean the world is just a zone and you can't explore it? Can you give me some insight to this? I haven't bought it yet.

[Drek]

@ Fannyd: Thank you for your post

-No auto attack
Another person pointed out above that my companion should help fill in those holes essentially. Last night, I might have unintentionally disabled his abilities or something though, will give this another check after work today. He would help pew pew, but he wouldn't 'FINISH HIM' (lol) which is when he would have been most helpful.

-3-5 mobs
Cool, AoE spells would be nice. I have 2 right now, but one is hard to use effectively, the other has a long CD.

-Questing
I hadn't noticed that the side quests wouldn't punish my character progression. There were moments that I mistakenly chose the light option quickly going through the quest text (I'm making my toon dark), but they might have only been on main story progression.

Only chars I've actually played to the point I have multiple companions are Maurader and Assassin and both of their companions (if not healing) will fight to the death and kill without being told.

Might be because I play a Inquistor Assassin but I love running into groups and using the knockback(unlike wow if you knock a mob off a cliff in swtor they actually die)

If you ever pick the wrong Light/Dark choice hit Esc and it reset the dialog.

[Deleted]

I myself think that Space Combat generates very little exp, triple the amount of xp from warbirds (20-ish) and you have an alternative route of leveling, once you get bored of slashing through hordes of foes.