Considering it, a few questions though.

[Orodoth]

Hey guys. I'm considering picking up a copy of TOR, but I'm not sure yet. I was hoping I'd hop on here and ask you guys a couple questions about it before I made any decisions.

1) How's the PvE? I'm a really raid oriented guy, and I've heard some bad things about the end game in this game, so I'm wondering if that's blown out of proportion, or it's really just not that great.

2) Is the PvP balanced? I mean, is there one class that absolutely dominates or is it fairly even. Also, how are the bg's? HuttBall looks really cool, but again, that's only from watching a few videos and stuff.

3) Is the levelling experience a grind, or is it actually fun? I only played the beta and got a Sith Warrior to about 15-ish, and it was pretty fun levelling through the starter zone then the next planet, which I can't remember the name, my apologies. But, is levelling beyond 20-ish fun and exciting, especially because everything is so story driven?

4) Aaaaand the story is my last question. There's people complaining about the fact there's a dialogue cut-scene for every quest. Is this actually as annoying as they say, or is it just people looking to find fault.

Thanks in advance for responses!

1) The PVE is heavily story driven, which is fun and engaging at times, but at its roots, simply tries to mask how linear it is. The amount of side quests varies from world to world, but you essentially needs to do most of them to be the appropriate level for the next world.

2) Pvp is moderately balanced, but the over all flow of combat feels a bit clunky, making it very unenjoyable for me.

3) In conjunction with answer 1... EXTREMELY grindy. It was fun enough for a while. I made to lvl 35 on a Sith Assassin before I finally had my fill and un-subbed.

4) The voice acting is really the main thing they have going for them (in my opinion) in terms of keeping you engaged in the story. The over all stories are well written, and would actually make some decent novels with minimal tweaks. I actually enjoyed having everything spoken to me, versus having to read witty quips, one liners, and pop culture references (albeit I do chuckle at them from time to time)



Over all, I would give SWTOR 7.5 stars out of 10. It (again.. IN MY OPINION) wasn't a horrid game, but after playing WoW for the better part of 6 years, and trying pretty much all new MMOs only to come back to WoW, I feel that I'm simply set in my ways of what I like, and what turns me off.

Some good points*
1) The player base seemed rather large and active (though, the action of actually forming a group and traveling to an instance felt a little alien at first, it was actually quite refreshing
2) The armor and weapon artwork stayed very true to the Star Wars brand. I liked it.
3) The worlds are rather large, and its quite some time before you get a speeder, meaning you hoof around quite a bit and see the vast majority of the terrain.
4) The weapon customization is fairly detailed, in the sense that you can upgrade a weapon multiple times to keep it competitive. I was able to use the same double bladed light saber for 8 levels before I needed an upgrade, and only had to spend small amounts of credits to keep it up and going. (That and the color crystals are pretty awesome too, you can even change the color of your blaster bolts)
5) Space combat missions were fun. Granted, they did get a bit stale when I hadn't unlocked new ones, but they have daily quests that award a pretty decent chunk of exp around the low to mid levels.

Were it not for being an avid and frequent WoW player, I would most likely still continue pressing on in that galaxy far far away.

[kijthae]

Hey guys. I'm considering picking up a copy of TOR, but I'm not sure yet. I was hoping I'd hop on here and ask you guys a couple questions about it before I made any decisions.

1) How's the PvE? I'm a really raid oriented guy, and I've heard some bad things about the end game in this game, so I'm wondering if that's blown out of proportion, or it's really just not that great.

2) Is the PvP balanced? I mean, is there one class that absolutely dominates or is it fairly even. Also, how are the bg's? HuttBall looks really cool, but again, that's only from watching a few videos and stuff.

3) Is the levelling experience a grind, or is it actually fun? I only played the beta and got a Sith Warrior to about 15-ish, and it was pretty fun levelling through the starter zone then the next planet, which I can't remember the name, my apologies. But, is levelling beyond 20-ish fun and exciting, especially because everything is so story driven?

4) Aaaaand the story is my last question. There's people complaining about the fact there's a dialogue cut-scene for every quest. Is this actually as annoying as they say, or is it just people looking to find fault.

Thanks in advance for responses!

1-) Currently pve is easy.Designed to explore more story. Its still funn and absolutely worth to try but not chalanging at all. Wait patch 1.2 try to do new operations in nightmare mode , it could be the chalange of your pve life.

2-) Ignore forums trolls.I play one of the most balanced pvp in swtor.I qqed alot at the start now im laughing myself and still exploring new tricks everyday about my class

+in Swtor survival cooldowns last very short time from 2 seconds to 5 seconds. There are cooldowns that increase your defences and lasts 12-15 seconds but they are generally designed to be poped with full hp and at the start of the fight.They wont save you when you had %10 hp left.

+armor is not useless in swtor. Classes can wear light medium heavy armor and in swtor a light armor wearer feels the delicateness of being caster / stealth class or heavy armor wearer can feel tolerance of being the heavy guy.However they all can be very fragile or strong depending on how they use their cooldowns , snares , cces.

+There is no auto attack in swtor. There is no " I touched you , you snared " abilities.There is no " you hit me , you took 112 damage".You need to cast an ability to snare , you need to wisely use an cooldown for a small damage to attackers ability

+Interruptions in swtor are deeply engineered. There is no silence or a type of interruption that prevents you casting one ability from same tree for a time. You need to use your all ccs as interruptions as well as you need to use them to survive , trap enemy.Some casters can tolorate interruptions more then rest and some cant but they have other tools to passively heal , damage.

+Stuns have very short time in swtor. You are immune after a total of 5 second stun .Some classes have ways to avoid them if they are smart enough.Some classes lack stuns , their only stun is 1 minute cooldown and required to be chaneled which limits situations to use them wisely.

+ some ppl like they do on many things that they have never thought why it exists , complains about knockbacks on swtor.There are ppl who just quits game becuase of this. Knockbacks are avoidable for an experienced player. If you are in the middle of 5 players who has knockback abilities and you cant avoid , dont rage. Pvp101 in swtor is knockbacks.

+Environment in warzones have great effect on your success to achieve your goals.Its really plain in other mmos.Swtor allows you to use your creativity , strategies.Even a fresh lvl 50 between last tier equipment geared players can do a lot of help to achieve victory.

Also there are some issues about pvp

- Fps issues if you dont have TOP pc equipment but there are ways to improve it a little bit like ramdrive.Game engine is designed to be usefull for a 10-15 year time period.Only top systems of today can run it best but this is only for pvp , im having 40 fps out of pvp with max quality with my 900$ pc.
- PVP stat expertise is something bioware is messed at the moment.They need to find a smart solution.Ppl stacks %8 expertise ( its %12-13 cap )and uses pve stuff to get more hp and offensive stats


3-) Leveling is fun.There are many options to make a new character even for 1 more of same class. Linear system gives you real feel of progress. Question indicators are fine example of good interface , you mostly wont be stuck and your story will flow smooth. There are bonus objectives , heroic quests ( they are dailly ) , dailly space missions , dailly pvp quests for people who just wishes to hit 50 fast.

4-) Story may feel plain as a jedi who makes light sided choices as well as a sith who always makes dark side choices. I made a pure sith bloot warrior and went full light side and story became so vivacious.Im planning to make a dark side jedi. Cut-scenes are littlebit overused but you can always skip them.

[achaeon]

Buy it. Just 1-50 alone is worth the cost. Best leveling experience ever.

Not really, I was bored after level 30. The voice acting got repetitive too.

---------- Post added 2012-04-03 at 08:09 AM ----------

I'm not sure who those people are or why I should care or quite frankly what bearing their "mass exodus" has on the game.

That was the same point as his was, basically no one cares who you are. He was clarifying what was considered a 'big promoter', not some random internet defender.

[Sparklehorse]

Sorry, you aren't who i'm referring to. When I say "biggest promoters" i'm referring to people such as towelliee, mufasaprime etc. I could care less if you play the game still.

When people jumped on the bandwagon at launch and said "zomg this game is amazing blah blah blah" and now they don't play it, it's a telling sign.

Who?

I think you might be overestimating the impact these players leaving might have on the game considering there are a lot of people who have no idea who you are talking about. I'd be careful looking for "signs" of a games demise based on two players feel (especially considering they have had zero input into this thread) when your assumption is based on some presumed popularity of said players.

To those claiming mass exodus and f2p in a year. As per a link on the SWTOR forum to a developers twitter account a couple days ago, "We are close to having another population status report in the next few days, people will be pleasantly surprised.(paraphrased)" Would link you the thread but the forums are down atm. Make of that what you will but it sounds to me like they are happy with sub numbers. That could mean there has been a rise or it could mean there has been a negligible loss or it could mean they have held steady. At any rate, it doesn't seem to indicate any evidence of a mass exodus or of a drop so severe that the game needs to go free to play.

OP, the game is good. No matter how you look at it, it's worth the price of admission. The game is totally worth the initial 40-60 bucks you will pay for the first 30 days (box price) and then it is even more of a value if you continue to sub considering your cost is around 50 cents per day.

Endgame PVE is just challenging enough to keep you entertained though some of us would have liked it to be a little more difficult but this is being addressed with the next tier. One should note here that Bioware could have made their first raid instances too difficult to complete as a cheap means of keeping people subbed but they didn't. They had enough faith in the content not to create the huge gear check bosses that conveniently gated the content and kept it from being completed. Those of us that raided in WoW since Vanilla can compile a list of those bosses.

PVP is fun. Balance as far as classes are concerned is quite good. Make no mistake about it there is a fotm (sorc./sage) but it is being balanced for 1.2 (the patch coming this month. The actual warzones are well designed and the competition is intense. TTK is absolutely awesome in this game. Let us hope that they don't screw that up too much with the healing nerfs. Time will tell.

Leveling is as fun and involving as you want it to be. You can engage yourself or you can space bar through it. It's slower than WoW's is atm and that's a good thing in my humble opinion.

Companions are awesome. Not only do you get to gear yourself out but you get to do it with all of your companions as well. Want you and your companions to have matching outfits. Buy them, slap mods in them, Voila! RP until your heart is content. 1.2 is going to make crafted, modified gear as good as late game tier gear. If you don't like it, screw it, go buy that crafted orange gear and slap your epic mods in and suddenly, you're raiding in a pair of panties (not sure why this appeals to people but it does lol.)

OP I urge caution when taking any advice from any forum either good or bad. Many people have axes to grind and MMO forums are great grinding stones. Get a trial and try it for yourself.

Is it perfect? Nope. No game is. What it is though, is a very good game, a very young game with a bright future, a game with a group of devs that are listening to the community and who want their game to be awesome. The question for some people is whether it's worth 50 cents per day to watch it grow from the inside? Some folks say "Hell Yes!" and some would rather cancel and take pot shots from the sidelines about issues that were changed weeks after their subs ran out.

[Lugor]

Quickly addressing your points

1. Any type of serious raider from WoW will find the end game lacking. There just in not enough to do to keep you coming back. The lack of combat logs (promised in the next patch) gives you no way to objectively critic your performance. No addons means the raids mechanics are rather simplistic.

2. PvP is fun, but you could find yourself frustrated by the imbalance. Healers are nigh impossible to kill one v one. If you concentrate on completing the objectives of the battleground, you'll have fun. If just killing other players is your cup of tea, then just a few classes are really capable of that.

3. Leveling is the only thing this game does in an outstanding manner. Very linear, but story driven and fully voiced acted. If you like the single player RPG experience with coop play or mmo light mechanics, and enjoy leveling multiple alts, this is the game for you. Just realize they forgot to roll the credits after you hit 50.

4. It's not that bad, you can space bar past the spoken dialog. The only time you must endure it is if you are grouped and waiting for the Mass Effect style dialog choice. Even then, it's just waiting for your group mate to finish watching his cut scene.

Hope this helps!

[Deleted]

I just received it today (only £22 on Amazon.co.uk), and wondered if I should hold off until the patch hits.

[Deleted]

I just received it today (only £22 on Amazon.co.uk), and wondered if I should hold off until the patch hits.

Depends if you can live with out some stuff good quality of life stuff that they have included in 1.2, customisable UI, mission clickables, the colour matching system

Alot of the stuff is for endgame such as the dailies, ops,flashpoints crafting or higher levels 30+ for the legacy system.

[OhpUldum]

I just received it today (only £22 on Amazon.co.uk), and wondered if I should hold off until the patch hits.

Definitely install the game and play on the player test servers until the new patch is released. The difference between the live release and the patch can make it feel like two totally different games. Overall you will have a much more enjoyable experience with the game playing in the 1.2 iteration of it.

[Hippodotimus]

I stopped playing cause i got bored after hitting valor rank 80. There was just nothing to do and all my friends were leaving the game in masses. The day I picked up 30 boxes in ilum for the daily without seeing one person at 4 pm in the afternoon is what broke me.

Now i look at the 1.2 notes and say to myself that all of that should have been in the game at release. And for that reason I havent looked back I felt as if I was paying to beta test swtor.

But to each his/her own I guess. You might like what other people didnt and will enjoy it. Its def fun leveling. The LS/DS choices made for some fun quests. Buuuuuuuut thats it. Just try it out what do you got to lose.

[Vegemeat]

Who?

I think you might be overestimating the impact these players leaving might have on the game considering there are a lot of people who have no idea who you are talking about. I'd be careful looking for "signs" of a games demise based on two players feel (especially considering they have had zero input into this thread) when your assumption is based on some presumed popularity of said players.

To those claiming mass exodus and f2p in a year. As per a link on the SWTOR forum to a developers twitter account a couple days ago, "We are close to having another population status report in the next few days, people will be pleasantly surprised.(paraphrased)" Would link you the thread but the forums are down atm. Make of that what you will but it sounds to me like they are happy with sub numbers. That could mean there has been a rise or it could mean there has been a negligible loss or it could mean they have held steady. At any rate, it doesn't seem to indicate any evidence of a mass exodus or of a drop so severe that the game needs to go free to play.

OP, the game is good. No matter how you look at it, it's worth the price of admission. The game is totally worth the initial 40-60 bucks you will pay for the first 30 days (box price) and then it is even more of a value if you continue to sub considering your cost is around 50 cents per day.

Endgame PVE is just challenging enough to keep you entertained though some of us would have liked it to be a little more difficult but this is being addressed with the next tier. One should note here that Bioware could have made their first raid instances too difficult to complete as a cheap means of keeping people subbed but they didn't. They had enough faith in the content not to create the huge gear check bosses that conveniently gated the content and kept it from being completed. Those of us that raided in WoW since Vanilla can compile a list of those bosses.

PVP is fun. Balance as far as classes are concerned is quite good. Make no mistake about it there is a fotm (sorc./sage) but it is being balanced for 1.2 (the patch coming this month. The actual warzones are well designed and the competition is intense. TTK is absolutely awesome in this game. Let us hope that they don't screw that up too much with the healing nerfs. Time will tell.

Leveling is as fun and involving as you want it to be. You can engage yourself or you can space bar through it. It's slower than WoW's is atm and that's a good thing in my humble opinion.

Companions are awesome. Not only do you get to gear yourself out but you get to do it with all of your companions as well. Want you and your companions to have matching outfits. Buy them, slap mods in them, Voila! RP until your heart is content. 1.2 is going to make crafted, modified gear as good as late game tier gear. If you don't like it, screw it, go buy that crafted orange gear and slap your epic mods in and suddenly, you're raiding in a pair of panties (not sure why this appeals to people but it does lol.)

OP I urge caution when taking any advice from any forum either good or bad. Many people have axes to grind and MMO forums are great grinding stones. Get a trial and try it for yourself.

Is it perfect? Nope. No game is. What it is though, is a very good game, a very young game with a bright future, a game with a group of devs that are listening to the community and who want their game to be awesome. The question for some people is whether it's worth 50 cents per day to watch it grow from the inside? Some folks say "Hell Yes!" and some would rather cancel and take pot shots from the sidelines about issues that were changed weeks after their subs ran out.

The impact is that these people were part of the day 1 nerds proclaiming this game to be amazing, awesome, stupendous etc.

Now they don't play it, and that says enough about the state of the game.

[Leonard McCoy]

The impact is that these people were part of the day 1 nerds proclaiming this game to be amazing, awesome, stupendous etc.

Now they don't play it, and that says enough about the state of the game.

Hah really? Why because their gifted with some super ability that turn their opinion into fact? I swear to god people think way to much of themselves..

[radarhead]

Its worth playing at least 1 char through to 50.

[SirRobin]

Hah really? Why because their gifted with some super ability that turn their opinion into fact? I swear to god people think way to much of themselves..

What strikes me as odd here is...

Well... Let's put it this way. When someone claims the population is dropping I've seen you reply that they have no proof. Yet you'll post claiming BioWare is "committed" to TOR and your proof is often the "guild summit." You will even post videos of it. That isn't proof that BioWare is committed to TOR. That is proof that BioWare had a PR Event for TOR. Those posters have, through their personal experiences, as much proof that TOR's subscription numbers are falling that you have, through your personal opinion, that BioWare is "committed" to TOR.

Beyond that, does it actually matter if TOR's subscription numbers are falling? Not to the people who work at BioWare Austin, but to the posters here. If John comes out of EA's Witless Protection Program tomorrow and says that TOR only has five subscribers left, are those claiming a need for proof suddenly going to post, "I was a fool! It's all so clear to me now." I doubt it. Its more likely that they'll post, "Well it doesn't matter anyway because I still like it." Just as if John said that TOR had five bazillion subscribers that we would be almost guaranteed to see varieties of, "Told you so."

Though probably with much more colorful wording and phrases.

It doesn't particularly matter if TOR's subscription numbers are falling or not. Just as it doesn't particularly matter if BioWare is committed to TOR or not. It doesn't even matter if you are a "fanboi" or a "hater." What matters is if you yourself are enjoying the game. What matters is if TOR is satisfying its investors' expectations. Your own enjoyment of the game will mostly determine whether you continue to pay to play, or not. Just as whether this game financially continues to satisfy its investors' expectations...

Will determine whether many of the employees at BioWare Austin will continue to have jobs to be committed to this game with... or not.

[Leonard McCoy]

What strikes me as odd here is...

Well... Let's put it this way. When someone claims the population is dropping I've seen you reply that they have no proof. Yet you'll post claiming BioWare is "committed" to TOR and your proof is often the "guild summit." You will even post videos of it. That isn't proof that BioWare is committed to TOR. That is proof that BioWare had a PR Event for TOR. Those posters have, through their personal experiences, as much proof that TOR's subscription numbers are falling that you have, through your personal opinion, that BioWare is "committed" to TOR.

Beyond that, does it actually matter if TOR's subscription numbers are falling? Not to the people who work at BioWare Austin, but to the posters here. If John comes out of EA's Witless Protection Program tomorrow and says that TOR only has five subscribers left, are those claiming a need for proof suddenly going to post, "I was a fool! It's all so clear to me now." I doubt it. Its more likely that they'll post, "Well it doesn't matter anyway because I still like it." Just as if John said that TOR had five bazillion subscribers that we would be almost guaranteed to see varieties of, "Told you so."

Though probably with much more colorful wording and phrases.

It doesn't particularly matter if TOR's subscription numbers are falling or not. Just as it doesn't particularly matter if BioWare is committed to TOR or not. It doesn't even matter if you are a "fanboi" or a "hater." What matters is if you yourself are enjoying the game. What matters is if TOR is satisfying its investors' expectations. Your own enjoyment of the game will mostly determine whether you continue to pay to play, or not. Just as whether this game financially continues to satisfy its investors' expectations...

Will determine whether many of the employees at BioWare Austin will continue to have jobs to be committed to this game with... or not.

That's not true at all. It absolutely does matter if BW is commited to this. You keep bring up Warhammer or Tabula Rasa but did those games react to fan feedback like star wars has? did those games go out of their way to spend time and money to set up a guild event for their fans and get their feedback on how to improve the game? You label it a PR event. That's not what it was. They don't need to host a PR event and take feed back from players at the summit and online. Thats such a ridiculous framing.

I ask for evidence to be presented because people make assertions that are in no way verifiable. I at least have some evidence, their stated sub numbers in Januarary. How you manage to twist that and post it in the same category is a marvel well done.

[SirRobin]

That's not true at all. It absolutely does matter if BW is commited to this. You keep bring up Warhammer or Tabula Rasa but did those games react to fan feedback like star wars has? did those games go out of their way to spend time and money to set up a guild event for their fans and get their feedback on how to improve the game? You label it a PR event. That's not what it was. They don't need to host a PR event and take feed back from players at the summit and online. Thats such a ridiculous framing.

That you would even ask does make me wonder how long you have been involved with mmorpg's. Yes, some were very responsive. Mythic, as one example, changed much of WAR's original design due to fan feedback. So while you might think its untrue. Well, sorry if its unacceptable to you but that doesn't change it.

I ask for evidence to be presented because people make assertions that are in no way verifiable. I at least have some evidence, their stated sub numbers in Januarary. How you manage to twist that and post it in the same category is a marvel well done.

With a solid launch of Star Wars online game, EA investors can breathe a sigh of relief
Electronic Arts reveals new Mass Effect 3 and Star Wars online numbers

How is that a marvel? Did you forget that John brought up the end of February's numbers too? You have video links to a PR Event that BioWare is by no means alone in having in this market.

[Leonard McCoy]

That you would even ask does make me wonder how long you have been involved with mmorpg's. Yes, some were very responsive. Mythic, as one example, changed much of WAR's original design due to fan feedback. So while you might think its untrue. Well, sorry if its unacceptable to you but that doesn't change it.


With a solid launch of Star Wars online game, EA investors can breathe a sigh of relief
Electronic Arts reveals new Mass Effect 3 and Star Wars online numbers

How is that a marvel? Did you forget that John brought up the end of February's numbers too? You have video links to a PR Event that BioWare is by no means alone in having in this market.

Again did WAR have an event like the guild summit? I know you think its a PR event but it's not. It's a genuine attempt to promote and encourage the community for the game as a whole. That's how these games survive. Call it a PR event all you like that does not make it true.

[Forsedar]

Again did WAR have an event like the guild summit? I know you think its a PR event but it's not. It's a genuine attempt to promote and encourage the community for the game as a whole. That's how these games survive. Call it a PR event all you like that does not make it true.

Ontop of that: Bioware was actually LISTENING to the audience there and taking questions through their livestream during the panels too. I know a few times they were like, "Wait... we never thought about it like that. Daniel, write that down." They weren't being sarcastic, they genuinely took the communities concerns into play and are working to better the game.

[Vegemeat]

Again did WAR have an event like the guild summit? I know you think its a PR event but it's not. It's a genuine attempt to promote and encourage the community for the game as a whole. That's how these games survive. Call it a PR event all you like that does not make it true.

Blizzard holds an annual PR event where they take questions and concerns from the community and respond with the similar marketing tactic of "that's a cool idea, thanks", it's called blizzcon. Guild summit is the same, why is this such a hard concept for you to grasp?

[Forsedar]

Blizzard holds an annual PR event where they take questions and concerns from the community and respond with the similar marketing tactic of "that's a cool idea, thanks", it's called blizzcon. Guild summit is the same, why is this such a hard concept for you to grasp?

Because all the questions asked and answered at blizzcon have to do with retconning lore. It doesn't help... ever.

[Vegemeat]

Because all the questions asked and answered at blizzcon have to do with retconning lore. It doesn't help... ever.

Oh sorry, I guess the class Q&A, Profession Q&A etc don't count as actual questions because it has to do with Blizzard and therefore it's automatically dismissed as relevant to your inaccurate post earlier.