To buy or not to buy?

[Charvie]

Hey all
I live in Australia and I have ordered in Sw:Tor through EB games. Currently I only have a $10 deposit on the game so I can just walk away should I chose to. (it gets in tomorrow)

My question is (title), whether or not I should buy the game.
After trawlIng through various forums, mainly here, I have heard that; it's terrible by some and by others it's the greatest thing ever.
What I want to know mainly is;
Is it fun?
What is the speculated lifetime of the game?
And would you buy it again if you had the option to?

[LordBalkoth]

Hey all
I live in Australia and I have ordered in Sw:Tor through EB games. Currently I only have a $10 deposit on the game so I can just walk away should I chose to. (it gets in tomorrow)

My question is (title), whether or not I should buy the game.
After trawlIng through various forums, mainly here, I have heard that; it's terrible by some and by others it's the greatest thing ever.
What I want to know mainly is;
Is it fun?
What is the speculated lifetime of the game?
And would you buy it again if you had the option to?

My personal opinion is buy. I bought the game today (now yesterday technically speaking) and spent the next several hours playing nonstop. My only question mark is end game at this point. I was blown away by meaningful choices in terms of questing even at low levels. I had opportunities to kill people (even if they deserve it) and get dark side points or spare them and get light side. In terms of immersion at low levels this thing destroys wow so decisively it is not even funny. Most importantly, it feels personalized instead of drive through feeling you get with WoW starting zones. Your own personal story develops which would develop differently even if you played exact same class and advanced class but chose things differently.

[Disegame]

Hi, ill keep this short and answer your questions.

Is it fun? If you played any other bioware game you will enjoy it. As the post above me said, the stories for each class can be fun, engaging and even different each time you play the same class depending on the choices you make. The voices and evironments are well done and ship combat adds so variation to your typically "run around" questing.

What is the speculated lifetime of the game? Like many mmos this is hard to determine but if you go off of the fact that Star Wars is a loved franchise alone and the previous one stuck around, that alone gives this a edge other games. Utimately, addressing bug fixes and balances as well as providing new/interesting contient will lead to a better life span for any game of this type so only the future will tell.

And would you buy it again if you had the option to? Is the game perfect?....no. Are there issues?...like most new games yes, but overall its worth the purchase price even if you decide you dont want to continue playing after your free month so you really dont have anything to lose.

[Wakwazu]

PS... it needs a beast of a machine

No it doesn't. It's standards are higher than most MMOs but it's nothing to build a new PC over unless you are using a workstation PC and not a gaming pc.

[Glorious Leader]

Is it fun?

Yea I've been having fun. Ummm most of the people I know are having fun. Most of the people in general are having fun. Most of the people I ask in parties and in pvp are having a blast. Your mileage may very but its more than likely youll have a blast.

What is the speculated lifetime of the game?

It'll be around for awhile. One of the surprisingly nice things is that they've decided to implement weekly patches fixing bugs and adding content. Alot of stuff was announced today actually. If they keep adding and fixing at this rate, its good news for us consumers and the game will be around for awhile

And would you buy it again if you had the option to?

Absolutely. I wouldn't play an SI again and maybe not Empire but the experience overall has been good. Even if you don't stick around the first month is worth it and if you feel like picking it up again sometime later its 15 bucks.

[DarthQQ]

People whinging it's a horrible game either a) haven't played it or b) want a game based on THEIR preferences, and theirs alone. Otherwise, it's a brilliant game and I agree with everything Disegame has said.

[Kudos]

Cancel your order from EB Games, and instead order a copy from Amazon. If you do this, you can be playing next week, instead of having to wait until march, and it is likely to be around $30 cheaper (not including delivery).

There's a tonne of Aussies already playing on The Swiftsure (PVP) and The Harbinger (PVE) servers.

As for people complaining about the game - compare it to console fanboys. They are loud, opinionated and very blind to anything positive the other consoles might have going for them. I've played a lot of MMOS, and this is the first one since Wow that I am definitely going to be playing for more than a few weeks.

[Pretentious]

Honestly, my question for you is this : Are you earning money (i.e. working), or are you in school (i.e. your parents give you money and you pay for things with that?) Because it really matters. $60, in this day and age working even a minimum wage job is easy to come by. If you do not have money, or wouldn't be able to walk away from the game in a couple months without buyer's remorse, don't buy it.

The game is fantastic. I have had a blast leveling, and I don't regret spending $60. Hell, my character alone has 4 days play time on it, so less than a dollar per hour for some cheap entertainment. But at the same time I realize that it's an MMO. And MMOs rise and fall. If the game was to die tomorrow, I would feel bad. But if it was to for whatever reason, cancel their servers in a month, I would feel like I received ample time.

So while it's worth it, unless you earn some income, spring for it. Worst case scenario, you don't get the money's worth. Best case scenario, you get a $60 game, for oodles of time in game.

So yes, it's worth it. Sorry if I rambled on, too many beers

[Kayko]

From a first time Bioware gamer and not a huge fan of the Star Wars movies (never went to a theater to see one or even rented one.. waited till they were on basic cable then kinda sat through it) or really anything else related to Star Wars (except of course Family Guy and Robot Chicken versions) I am enjoying the game incredibly.

From what I see, most of the people that are not enjoying it are Kotar players that just see it as the next in line from the Knights of the Old Republic games, which I never never even knew they existed prior. Other complaints I read seem to come from big Star Wars lore buffs saying things just are not right with the stories, and again, maybe it's a good thing I don't follow Star Wars. Then there are the others that will only bring up problems with any game.. (Tetris sucks!, It doesn't have enough shapes!.. blah blah.. those people)

I think it does have staying power at this time. There is high amount of repeatability built in with different stories for each class and the light and darkside choices to questions. I am only working on one character, but from what I've read, choices you make early in the game affect outcomes later. If that's the case, then story lines for the same class can play out very differently. I also see the potential for Bioware taking a page from the people over at Rift and getting out smaller amounts of content quickly rather then large patches every 7-9 months (WoW model) in turn, players don't become bored with whats available as quickly.

I can't answer your last question cause I don't really understand what you are asking for. Maybe if Bioware released another game using the same model with a very story driven MMO, then yes, I would buy it... hmm if only the people that did the storys for Final Fantasy IV, VI, and VII or the Chrono series got together with Bioware to make a fantasy MMORPG...

[DarthQQ]

People are complaining about the LORE?! BioWare has kept the sanctity of the Lore in this game more than even George Lucas himself! Anyone see what they've done with the Mandalorians in The Clone Wars series?! Horrible! HORRIBLE! How can people complain about the Lore in this game?

/facepalm

PS: BioWare fantasy = Dragon Age. Seriously, you'd love that. Nobody does storytelling better than BW.

[Geckomayhem]

1. Definitely fun. If you like Star Wars, you can't go wrong here. As people have been saying, it's very story-driven. I'm actually surprised that non-Star Wars fans are jumping into the franchise to have a bash at it. Not sure what life is like at end-game (or even after the Prologue) for any given class, but so far things have been engaging for each of the four toons I've rolled (what can I say? Despite having very little time to spare to play it, I really want to see the story from all four Empire starting classes).

2. No one can say for sure how long it will last. It has some good momentum and has had a good start. It would be good if the minor annoyances bucked all the naysayers and complainers off into another galaxy while they iron out bugs and adjust content. Regardless, staying power doesn't determine what a game delivers to each individual consumer. So long as I have lore to uncover, stories to play through, and people to meet (unfortunately, I don't know anyone IRL who plays MMOs, so I'm a loner), I'll be hanging around, immersing myself in all that it has to offer.

3. I'd buy it again if given the choice. You honestly can't go wrong -- unless you really can't afford to buy one-off games.

4. There is no 4, but if there was it would be a warning: the game hasn't been optimised yet. Unless you have a decent PC that is less than two years old, it's gonna struggle. Be ready for poor framerates, especially during server peak times, if you don't have a fairly solid machine.

[DeltrusDisc]

PS... it needs a beast of a machine

Nooooo. Rift needs a beast of a machine. My machine could barely push 50~ fps in Rift on high settings, I get consistently 70-110fps in SWTOR at maxed settings... with 8x AA forced. >_>

[Glorious Leader]

yeah you cant run it on integrated graphics like most ppl are trying to do on there Laptops

ive just been in the SWTOR forums helping ppl and they are all like "why is my fps so low"
well its because there running on a 5+ yo machine or running it on a laptop AND there are no drivers / poorly optimised game

even beast of machine is getting 20 or less fps in warzones

not a beast
so a semi decent machine

Really? No driver support yet? WTF is up with nvidia and ati?

[akky]

We don't have to wait til march, EB is getting import copies in for about $78 or so AUD. My advice, what Disegame said. I used a friend's account to check out whether it was worth buying online, but i found i had errors with acer hybrid graphics drivers, and even with stretched pixels and flashing textures like an 80's disco i loved it, and though i stopped at lvl 9 nursing a huge headache... I've since fixed the graphics drivers and I'll be checking prices in store tomorrow, and whether i buy physical or not, I'll be starting afresh on my own account tomorrow like a happy little school boy with his new toy.

[Charvie]

PS... it needs a beast of a machine

I have a x6 @3.8ghz 8gb ram & raid 0 caviar blacks. So hopefully it will run fine.

Thanks for all of your responses.
What I have gathered from this is that swtor is having all the kinks and flaws of a brand new mmorpg, and the only people who have problems with it are the very vocal minority, of which have a problem with everything.
So I will be buying it tomorrow for $78 and hope to see you all in game

[Cairhiin]

It's a great game, and I'm having a blast. I've not been this hooked since TBC. Yes, the game has issues but such is to be expected from a newly released MMO. However, BioWare has been releasing weekly patches to fix problems and is working hard, they've also already stated they're working on the first content patch with a new Operation, a new Flashpoint, on an entirely new planet. The storytelling is BioWare standards, something they've always been good at; dating all the way back to their awesome Baldur's Gate series. SW:TOR brings the RPG back in MMORPG.

[akky]

Went out tonight to local EB, they only got copies for people who pre ordered, went to another and they had 1 spare copy, woot... redeem code, login... servers are down >.<