GamerStrategy BlogLike many of you, I had been waiting for Star Wars: The Old Republic since they first announced it. Being the gamer and Star Wars nerd that I am, it seemed like the perfect game for my friends and I to enjoy. The cutscenes leading up to launch were fantastic, and even the thought of BioWare developing an mmorpg seemed too good to be true. Knights of the Old Republic was one of the best Star Wars games ever made, and BioWare has evolved as a studio since then into more great titles such as Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2.
I suppose I should mention that going into Star Wars: The Old Republic, I carry with me the experience of 4+ years of World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, City of Villains, and EVE, to name a few. After leveling three level 85s in World of Warcraft, I figured I knew what to expect when it came to mmos.
Turns out I was right and I was wrong.
Starting up Star Wars, I was greeted by a surprisingly robust character creation system for an mmo, it wasn’t on par with Mass Effect, but it was still a far cry better than many other games. I like my character to look as unique as possible, so this was a nice feature. I chose to be a Chiss Bounty Hunter, because I mean.. Boba Fett.
Anyways, right off the bat you are thrown into a conversation choice system which is the trademark of BioWare games, and what really sets them apart from other studios in the industry. The speech options were interesting, the voice acting decent, and the scripting excellent for the most part. Then quicker than you can say “I am your father”, you are grinding away mmo style, collecting 10 of these, killing 5 of those, it’s the same old formula but with a Star Wars twist. To address question in general, for me the experience seems to be putting in the annoying grind work to earn yourself some interesting speech options after the quest is done, or during the quest in some cases. Maybe I’m getting older, and I know every game is technically a grind, but I just felt really bored with the actual gameplay. I mean, when you first get your skills, its a lot of fun to fire wrist rockets and laser bolts, but in the end it’s still just a standard PvE spell rotation.
Environments in Star Wars: The Old Republic are were very hit or miss I found. Some areas looked excellent, and some just looked terrible. I feel that although World of Warcraft had inferior graphics, the zones for the most part were better designed and constructed. This is just my opinion though, and it’s not like the environments for really that bad overall.
The instances, or “flashpoints” as they are called in SWTOR were another feature I was on the fence about. Some were very cool, and had some nicely integrated dialogue parts which were fun. The fact that you choose and roll on the speech choices with your group was a very cool addition and something I still enjoy doing. That being said, not having a dungeon queue like World of Warcraft makes things very annoying, especially after typing “LFM Healer and Tank!” in general chat for the hundredth time.
In a lot of ways, Star Wars: The Old Republic feels like WoW before many of the newer features were added. Coming for World of Warcraft, there are definitely a few things that just make you wonder what they were thinking not adding them in. For example, the Galactic Trade Network (Auction House) in Star Wars has to have the most infuriatingly difficult interface I have ever used. This is to the point where I would rather just stay poor than use it, for the most part. There are many little things like this in the game that get annoying the deeper in you go, although for the most part none of them are too game breaking.
PvP is fun in theory, and when I do get a good match it’s fun, but it seems for the most part they are fairly one sided. There are definitely classes that are stronger than others, and I do realize some patches will balance this in the future, but after getting gunned down by Republic Troopers for the 10th time, it gets a bit frustrating. On the flip side, the actual PvP venues are pretty fun and straightforward, especially Hutt Ball, which can be either the best or worst, depending on your team. There is a cap on how many PvP points you can carry at one time, which is a bit annoying, but I suppose they have to balance things like arena points in WoW.
I suppose I have painted a rather negative picture of the game, which is not my intent, as it is a fairly good game over all. I mean, compared to Star Wars Galaxies it’s in an entirely different league, so for Star Wars fans like myself even the many flaws will not entirely deter me from playing it. Once a few patches have been introduced to combat the glitches and class imbalance, things will begin to come together and I have every confidence this game will be around for a while to come…. or at least until Blizzard launches their new mmo.
Anyways, those are just my general thoughts on the game so far, I will most likely write some guides once I have played at 50 for enough time to get my head around the game in its entirety.
- Karoken
