The game is absolutely awesome. They've combined KOTOR and Mass Effect into an MMO.

fark EA. SWTOR wont have a profitable subscription rate 6 months after launch.
No, I will never forgive EA/Mythic/Bioware for what they did to UO.

From a disgruntled former EA employee (new window)

EA Louse then takes a swipe at BioWare and their upcoming MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic. "They've spent more money making the Old Republic than James Cameron spent on Avatar. More than $300 million! Can you believe that? They are most proud of the sound. Something like a 20Gig installation, and most of it is voiceover work. That's the best they have. The rest of the game is a joke. EA knows it and so does George Lucas, they're panicking, and so most of Mythic has already been cannibalized to work in Austin on it because they can't keep pushing back launch."

"Old Republic will be one of the greatest failures in the history of MMOs from EA. Probably at the level of the Sims Online. We all know it too," prophesises the Louse.

Kazan: possibly has something to do with the fact that it is a steaming pile of garbage.

I thought it was pretty fun in the beta. Didn't much like some of the Imperial Agent class mechanics but not sure if that was just that it wasn't a good fit for me. Liked the Sith Inquisitor class quite a bit. They have mixed up some of the standard class/role archetypes seen in other media so it could be pretty interesting to see how the builds work at high level.

Gameplay I liked a lot better than WoW, much more immersive story, much less "I'm a random NPC shopkeep who needs 20 diseased rat testicles for no apparent reason" questing. I thought the Hutta quests in particular were well-done, with virtually every quest logically tying in to the overarching theme of a turf war among competing Hutt gangsters. Having everything voice acted was a great move as well, that really adds to the feel. And the Mass Effect-style conversation options actually make the conversations interesting, rather than "click 1 until the NPC shuts up so I can go back to collecting sheep vomit".

Compared to other betas, I think it's quite solid. If the rest of the game is as good as the first bits, it could be a very solid MMO. Otherwise, it will be another Age of Conan.

I want my damn Diablo 3.

Fat-D: No, I will never forgive EA/Mythic/Bioware for what they did to UO.

EA ruined UO all by itself, long before acquiring either Mythic or Bioware.

EA is the one lingering doubt I have about TOR though. EA takes great companies, burns them to the ground, pisses on the ashes, and then invents a machine that can re-burn pissed-on ashes just so they can burn them some more. Let's hope Bioware is not the latest victim in EA's mad quest to ruin every gaming company I like.

Weaver95:
um...what were you watching? because from what I've seen it looks pretty good so far.

He's trollin, you're hatin'. Pick popular item, spout things about which you have no proof, hint that you have no proof beyond watching YouTube, continue spouting.

Seriously weaver, I didn't expect you to fall for such a simple hook. :(

Frankly it looks like a fairly standard hotkey MMO, some of the mechanics are interesting but familiar. However, a beta that dumped 50 farking gigabytes of voice actor audio on to peoples drives is... interesting and from what I've seen of OMFG and TB playing it looks well.... it's KOTOR3. FFS it even gives you NPC companions pretty much from the get go so you can minimise chat and treat it exactly like KOTOR3 just with some very erm... odd... AI controlled NPC's wandering around.

Downside is £15 a month, OTOH what's their plan with expansions? I mean if they kick expansions (aka DLC) in for free I'm cool with that.

Bobby "I want each game to have a special, none interchangeable, peripheral" Kottic can EABOD's and so can his stinking company. TOR is going to make a fark ton of money for EA & Bioware, they will be building new vaults to hold all the cash. Will it kill WoW? No. But I'd wager a lot of zones in WoW will be barren wastelands for a while once TOR is out.

Kazan: Weaver95: , the game play looks solid

bwhahahahahahaha
*gasp*
bwahahahahahaahahaha


it's shiate. i saw the teaser videos and was like "oooh nice", then i saw in game videos and instantly was like "NEXT!"

Obviously I can't comment on specifics due to the NDA, but graphically it's about on par with WoW and the individual storylines are actually about on par with the KotOR games, i.e. they blow even the wildest blizzard acid trip out of the water in terms of creativity, and the control schema and general play are better than WoW's current technical setup.

Don't know that it'll _hold_ people since I've been too busy trying to break the game to really see what the end-game stuff is like, but it should be able to pull as hard as WoW for five or six months, I'd think. MMO experience tends to be defined by the community, though, and blizzard has a pretty good hold on the 13-year-old boys that seem to be the primary market for the real time-eating electronic games.

Depends how many tax loopholes EA can exploit this time.

Who needs Diablo 3 when you have Path of Exile?

http://www.pathofexile.com/
http://www.pathofexile.com/video/action-trailer/play


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en8no_jEfAQ


Did I mention POE is free as well?

SWTOR is a pretty solid game. Having beta tested WoW for almost a year before it came out then playing for nearly 5 years after, SWTOR is actually engaging and fun on just the single player aspect. Each class has something like 50 hours of scripted and voice acted game play and that's before you start having to deal with group content. The beta for SWTOR plays better than WoW did a year after it released (game play, lag and bugs I'm sure still needs to be tweaked).

It's a good game, even if it never reaches WoW levels of 12 million subscribers, it should make EA, BioWare, and LucasArts plenty of money. As with any MMO launch, wait a few months before you join if you're unsure. They already have my money.

Interesting coincidence to find this thread after finding out the servers are down.

You don't have to grind and healers aren't so special. Actually no individual class is.

Like it so far.

DDO + Mass Effect 2 + Bioware, as far as I'm concerned.

Well as someone with no money...I'm waiting paitently for Star Trek Online to go free to play in january. Then I will wait TOR to hopefully fail so it can go F2P as well.

/It wont happen.

Kazan: possibly has something to do with the fact that it is a steaming pile of garbage.

No way. SWTOR is awesome. As somebody who has played over a dozen MMOs starting from Everquest, i can honestly say this game has impressed me the most. This game is going to be dangerously addictive. You develop attachment to your character. You develop attachments to your companions. Your ship. And it has all the other things that make MMOs popular, they have mobs and loot to go after, groups and raids to participate in, PvP, guilds and communities.

Everything you do is so engaging. If you like KOTOR and Mass Effect, then you will like SWTOR. That is what it is. It is those games combined into an MMO. Maybe it took longer and was more expensive than anticipated, but it was worth it. I had no idea the size of the world until i got my ship (and it is exactly like having the ship in Mass Effect) and looked at the Galaxy Map. It is HUUUUUGE. And i can't believe they have voice overs and story lines for every single class and all the companions.

It is a very polished game. There is practically no zoning, not even so much as a hiccup when you enter and leave zones and story instances. It is just so seamless. The only zoning i encountered was when changing planets. But everything has just been so well thought out. The map is fantastic. It is minimal, but just so easy to use. You acquire companions like you do in Mass Effect, and you gear them up and can send them on errands (like selling the vendor junk in your bags or go off harvesting). And like Mass Effect companions, you have unique storylines with them, and they have their own personalities.

I would have bought this if it was a sequel to KOTOR singleplayer game. But the fact that this is an MMO blows my mind. If you are a KOTOR, Mass Effect, or Bioware fan, then you will like this game. This is Bioware in MMO form.

Merchandising!

Comin' for you, WoW.

StoPPeRmobile: DDO + Mass Effect 2 + Bioware, as far as I'm concerned.

This.

bighasbeen: I'm beside myself with worry over the fact that EA felt the need to shoehorn in online co-op into ME3. Am I the last person on the planet who doesn't want to be forced to deal with 12 year old shiatcockers on XBox Live just to get the full experience of a game? I deal with people all day at work. When I game, I want to be left alone. I want to be the star of my own movie, not part of an ensemble.

It's Bioware so chances are the single player story will be solid regardless. It does seem to be an odd departure from the style of Mass Effect, though.

That said, I personally love online co-op - I have friends who live thousands of miles away that I like playing games with, and it's actually relatively rare to find a worthwhile game to play, especially if we want cooperation and not competition.

Sum Dum Gai: Compared to other betas, I think it's quite solid. If the rest of the game is as good as the first bits, it could be a very solid MMO. Otherwise, it will be another Age of Conan.

I too played the open Beta weekend. Got Sith Inquisitor, Bounty Hunter, Jedi Knight, and Smuggler up to level 11. It was fun and had a good story. The graphics, while nothing stunning, are at least as good compared to contemporary graphics as Wow's were when it launched. I really enjoyed it. It's not the best game I've ever played or anything, but it's good and I'll likely play it for a good while to see where it goes from here.

Jim_Callahan: Obviously I can't comment on specifics due to the NDA

Yes you can. The NDA has been lifted.

T7 + my Jedi = formidable // T7 = kick-ass

Sum Dum Gai: Fat-D: No, I will never forgive EA/Mythic/Bioware for what they did to UO.

EA ruined UO all by itself, long before acquiring either Mythic or Bioware.

EA is the one lingering doubt I have about TOR though. EA takes great companies, burns them to the ground, pisses on the ashes, and then invents a machine that can re-burn pissed-on ashes just so they can burn them some more. Let's hope Bioware is not the latest victim in EA's mad quest to ruin every gaming company I like.
Well as much as I like SWTOR so far, EA did completely ruin Dragon Age. Thankfully Mass Effect 3 still looks solid and the multi-player bullshiat is totally optional.

LegacyDL: I want my damn Diablo 3.

I'm still waiting for them to finish Starcraft 2. Oh yes I went there.

I was hyped about SWTOR until i realized the only real character advancement comes from stats on clothing, just like WoW, and well, everything.

Pretty tired of the fashion show model of MMOs.

Kazan: http://youtu.be/zDVEHE10nHc

Eve to SWTOR: i'm sorry, i can't hear you over how much more awesome i am.

People still play EVE?

/I liked it better when it was called Earth & Beyond

J. Frank Parnell: I was hyped about SWTOR until i realized the only real character advancement comes from stats on clothing, just like WoW, and well, everything.

Pretty tired of the fashion show model of MMOs.

Talents are your friend (new window)

Jim_Callahan: Kazan: Weaver95: , the game play looks solid

bwhahahahahahaha
*gasp*
bwahahahahahaahahaha


it's shiate. i saw the teaser videos and was like "oooh nice", then i saw in game videos and instantly was like "NEXT!"

Obviously I can't comment on specifics due to the NDA, but graphically it's about on par with WoW and the individual storylines are actually about on par with the KotOR games, i.e. they blow even the wildest blizzard acid trip out of the water in terms of creativity, and the control schema and general play are better than WoW's current technical setup.

Don't know that it'll _hold_ people since I've been too busy trying to break the game to really see what the end-game stuff is like, but it should be able to pull as hard as WoW for five or six months, I'd think. MMO experience tends to be defined by the community, though, and blizzard has a pretty good hold on the 13-year-old boys that seem to be the primary market for the real time-eating electronic games.

NDA was lifted prior to the last Beta Test weekend cycle. We're in the clear.

So, here's the dish:

1) This game has made me fall in love with Star Wars again. I'm not gonna do the 'ZOMG! Lucas rape-raped my childhood!' thing, just say that I was disappointed in the prequels. But this game has re-ignited the feelings of wonder and amazement I had when I was 5 years old, sitting in a theater and seeing that Star Destroyer come on the screen back in '77.

2) The storylines are amazing. BioWare has done a tremendous job with them. One of the early Jedi Knight quests has you confronting a pair of padawans that have fallen in love and in that 5 minute quest, you see more about why Jedi falling in love is a dangerous thing than all of the scenes with Anakin and Padme in the prequels. The Sith quests and stories are deliciously, over the top, evil.

3) INteraction with NPC's is the same as all of BioWare's games: multiple conversation choices, with some leading to shifts in morality (Light SIde/Dark Side). All NPC interactions are fully voice acted and animated.

4) Game play is very balanced. The four non-Force classes can hold their own. Republic and Sith each have 1 class that uses 'cover' mechanics (shooting from behind cover, tossing explosive charges), and 1 class that's more free-movement fighting.

5) Graphically, it's on par with Rift. Much better than WoW; not that that's much of a challenge.

This game is going to seriously dent an already stale and staggering WoW. WoW hasn't introduced anything new or startling in terms of gameplay in the past few years, just repackaging and recycling the same quests and raids.

TOR, on the other-hand, brings so much in terms of new gameplay and new mechanics to the MMO genre, the same way that BioWare re-defined RPG's with the first Knights of the Old Republic.

The beauty of the Old Republic setting is you get all of the ideas and toys of the Star Wars setting and none of the beaten-to-death continuity of the movies and everything spun forward from them. KOTOR was a joy to play after seeing the first two Star Wars prequel films.