Star Wars: The Old Republic "Review"

[sleekit]

or alternatively you should crunch quieter :P

[Deleted]

though I would add to it as well, the biggest negative point to this game is that even though you can go to any planet at 20ish, it's not recomended. Mobs there will eat you alive. The questing is pretty linear but is somewhat acceptable due to the story involved in questing.

Yes, very true. You can go there, but you can't really do anything. Hence I made sure to add that you are generally steered into the direction of one or two specific planets. I suppose this is not too far away from say World of Warcraft though, you have a bit more options there as to where you want to go but in general you take a pretty specific path to level up. SWTOR is definitely a linear experience, but a great one... and for a great part feels different for every class.

Very nice review!

Maybe was just me,but i found it hard to listen to it while eating Kellogs .
Maybe you shouuld reduce the ToR sounds in comparison to your voice!

Thanks!

Turn down your crunch level!
I did notice that the audio levels were a bit off on occasions, apologies for that.

[Deadlycaster]

Not bad at all, subscribed to your channel. :>

[Hightotem]

Great job

[Dakia]

UI customization is in the works (as well as PvE & PvP content updates, guild capital ships and extending space combat)

http://www.swtor.com/blog/what%E2%80...t-old-republic

My guildies and I where talking about how awesome it would be to have guild vs guild space combat where you have people operating turrets, etc on the guild capital ships. Add to that boarding parties and space fighter combat and I would be in heaven.

It will probably never happen like that, but one can dream.

[Deleted]

Nice movie, now I want to buy it

[Parrin]

Great review Haasth! Now I'd like to see one for Rift. Ya know, whenever you have time.

[Agoraphobic84]

The review was very well done.

[Ryken]

Nice review! After putting in about 100 hours myself, I find I agree with almost everything you've written. A few points I wish you had of included:

Space combat review: A neat mini-game with a credit sink option to deck out your ship and compete in space missions. While not overly involved, it will add flavour and a Star Wars feel.

Warzones: You barely touched on this. Many people love PvP, and, while I think it is probably the least impressive aspect of the game, I think its needed in a review like this.

Companion Affection, Social Points and Alignment: You touched on this a little but a run-down on how alignment and companion affection work will entice those sort of Reputation junkies. Also noting that different Dark side levels affect your characters appearance (Eye colour and skin tone/texture) and how different alignment levels offer different gear. Which brings us to the next point.

Gear! People love upgrading gear, and while you touched on how you feel gear looks don't impress you, I think you overlooked the awesomeness that is Modifications. Essentially, you can get a piece of gear that has slots instead of actual straight up stats. You can then purchase, craft, or receive Modifications as quest rewards. This allows you to constantly upgrade the sweetest looking gear if it is a customizable piece.

Level flow: One of my biggest gripes with an otherwise fantastic game. If you complete each planet in its entirety, you will find that your level will increase faster than the planets you have access to. For example, by the time I was done on Balmorra, I had outlevelled Nar Shaada by several levels. By the time I finished Nar Shaada, I was level 28, which was the level you should go to Alderaan. But the problem is, Tatooine is in there as level 24-28. While in WoW, you could skip a zone completely and move on to a more challenging, your stuck with two equally crappy options: Go to Alderaan at 28 and level appropriately. But then Tatooine is still there, and by the time you'd done, you'd be doing Tatooine at level 35, over 10 levels. You simply can't skip Tatooine, because you need to complete your class quests at the very minimum to advance to your next story (Act 2). Now this is somewhat skewed for my experience because of the following!

Leveling in groups: I have leveled with my buddy exclusively. Which offers its advantages and disadvantages. First the bad: You get more exp for playing in a group. This causes the above issues. Also it makes taking on packs of mobs (Which feels epic as single player) feel a little less heroic. But grouping has its positives. On every planet there are heroic areas, which require groups of 2-4 to complete. While MMOs are designed to have you interact with others (And you can set a note saying that you're looking for a group for heroics and can find groups rather easily), having a friend with you who is on vent and knows to set companion AoE abilities off and smart CCs, make doing heroic 4 groups as a 2 man rather rewarding, challenging and gives you such an epic feel. Also my buddy is doing strictly nice choices in quests, while I'm going the mean guy. Its nice to sometimes lose the choices and gives you a diverse feel. Not to mention the social points gained from group questing is quite a lot! More social points = better modifiable gear access

Crafting: You mentioned how it is boring that you can't do it yourself and you need a companion to do it, but thats the thing. You can set your companion to craft for you, raise skill, get money, gear, companion gifts, and the lot for you while you can continue playing. There is little-to-no downtime while crafting and I find that highly enjoyable. I will say the crafting interface on crafting skills (Note: Mission skills are AWESOME) leaves a lot to be desired.

UI: You mentioned a lot on this, and I do agree. Of particular note is the lack of extra frames (Like target of target) which makes healing annoying. Also so does the lack of macros. I like having options to add stopcastings to my interupts and thus interupting in TOR without macros feels like a chore and very frustrating. Furthermore, the loss of the ability to perform on-mouseover macros makes healing a lot less fun. Last of all the Galactic Market (Auciton house) is not user-friendly at all and quite frankly isn't worth the hassle.

I probably have a lot more I could say, but I will say this: Every praise you put in your video was well deserved. The game is definitely a solid 4.5/5 for me. Combat is exciting, story is amazing, grouping is fun, mini-games are great, there are lots of time-sinks in terms of professions, mounts, pets, codex/exploration/datacron "achievements". The choices you make feel like they actually matter, and you get a great outlet for your evil side if you choose so

I've mentioned a lot of gripes in this, UI/Macros/Leveling flow, but please understand that these are more easily fixed than if the game had issues with the things they've hit the nail on the head, such as combat, questing, fully voiced etc. The issues with this game pale in comparison to the overwhelming awesome feeling you get while playing this game.

I hope this view helps!

Edit: A couple of very important things: Holocalls, if your group member is not near the quest turn in, they can simply holocall to your location and engage in conversation/turn in quests as a projection! Very neat feature.

Music is simply amazing and adds such a richness. Visually the planets are stunning also.

[Deleted]

Great review Haasth! Now I'd like to see one for Rift. Ya know, whenever you have time.

Haha, if you were to donate the game to me I'll consider it, no promises though.

Nice review! After putting in about 100 hours myself, I find I agree with almost everything you've written. A few points I wish you had of included:

Space combat review: A neat mini-game with a credit sink option to deck out your ship and compete in space missions. While not overly involved, it will add flavour and a Star Wars feel.

I decided not to include this as it is, as you said, merely a mini-game. I don't think it should be looked at more than that, it won't sell anyone the game (Well.. Probably some people) and concluded that putting that in the final video was merely a waste of time on it. I did want to use it as background footage, but other than using it in one transition didn't think it fit very well.

Warzones: You barely touched on this. Many people love PvP, and, while I think it is probably the least impressive aspect of the game, I think its needed in a review like this.

Good point, I didn't specify Warzones so much. I did put quite a bit of footage of it near the end during the verdict, but didn't specify on it at any point mainly because I didn't think I could really narrow them down so quickly. A proper, dedicated PvP video would suit more for that I feel.

Gear! People love upgrading gear, and while you touched on how you feel gear looks don't impress you, I think you overlooked the awesomeness that is Modifications. Essentially, you can get a piece of gear that has slots instead of actual straight up stats. You can then purchase, craft, or receive Modifications as quest rewards. This allows you to constantly upgrade the sweetest looking gear if it is a customizable piece.

Ah yes, modifcations. This is one of those awesome little mechanics I cut out of the final video. I also wanted to briefly touch on reverse-engineering, but in the end decided against for time reasons. Fair enough though!

Crafting: You mentioned how it is boring that you can't do it yourself and you need a companion to do it, but thats the thing. You can set your companion to craft for you, raise skill, get money, gear, companion gifts, and the lot for you while you can continue playing. There is little-to-no downtime while crafting and I find that highly enjoyable. I will say the crafting interface on crafting skills (Note: Mission skills are AWESOME) leaves a lot to be desired.

Yeah, that's why I made sure to include that part was purely subjective. I realize some people will love that new system, but personally I really do not like being unable to craft items myself. I don't really like waiting 20+ minutes until my items are done. It's a small gripe I have with the game, which is really purely my opinion and shouldn't in any way taken as a "fact".

Again, thanks a lot for the feedback guys!

[keese]

Extremely well done for your first review.

---------- Post added 2011-12-21 at 11:38 AM ----------

In fact, this review seemed better done and more professional than other "professional" reviews out there.

[Sealbinder]

Very well done.

Before I consider playing this I will probably give it 6 months. After watching MMO after MMO come out, have a great reception, but then shrink quickly in population I have decided to watch the game communities before starting any other games. I really hope this one continues with a large player base since I want to play, but I don't want to sink the money into a game to find myself in an empty universe a year later.

[sleekit]

tbth most of those games were never actually ever going to be in the same ballpark as WoW especially the ones with a heavy slant towards PvP (which attracted attention from certain ppl who are ultimately a vocal minority in the grand MMO scheme of things even though they'd never admit that) and/or fancy gfx and high system requirements.

i play lots of MMOs and have done for a long time (im housebound through ill health) but SWTOR is the first one ive ever put a pin on and said this one will possibly make a serious dent in the market. i'd lay real money down its still around and in all probability in a very healthy state in a years time....in fact i'd easily extend that to three years if there were decent odds.

anyway personally i'll be holding of til at least the January sales so its nice to see decent reviews :P

[Billy Idol]

nice review

[Deleted]

And I will vent all the Mandalorian Engineers I can.

[Glorious Leader]

I'm not sure exactly why we are all sitting around waiting for a game to revolutionize the mmo genre. I would be shocked to see one that actually did. You are quite correct in your review that swtor doesn't revolutionize anything but it doesn't have to to be success. Enjoy the game for what it is not what you think it should or shouldn't be. Excellent review.

[Deleted]

I'm not sure exactly why we are all sitting around waiting for a game to revolutionize the mmo genre. I would be shocked to see one that actually did. You are quite correct in your review that swtor doesn't revolutionize anything but it doesn't have to to be success. Enjoy the game for what it is not what you think it should or shouldn't be.

Agreed, and I think SWTOR is honestly the first game that I personally actually think rivals World of Warcraft in that and though it revolutionizes very little, I think it is definitely on the right track.

[Arisfarreach]

Very professional review. I loved it. I've really been on the fence about buying the game, but you have sealed the deal for me.

Thanks!

[Nask]

For a first review it is pretty good, but you come as too biased towards the game(And that is a no no for reviewing). No game is perfect enough that only few very minor negative points can be said about it and no, i haven't played the game myself yet. Even if YOU love the game you should always be critical about it, otherwise you are giving false image to the people about the game in question.

[Twotonsteak]

I believe Bioware is planning on introducing some UI features in the not-to-distant future, such as the ability move your UI frames and an in-game combat-log.