66 replies to this topic

[Kulyok]

I started playing Star Wars: The Old Republic (MMO) last weekend and was lost. It's like KOTOR1 with no party, an okay story(well, definitely better for me than Neverwinter MMO) and better graphics. And it's free, too!

 

I love it. Unfortunately, you can't "switch off" other players, so they're visible and are running around. But it's possible to turn off general chat and auto-decline all party/guild invitations. Aaaand you can't scale down the difficulty, so you have to skip some of the quests(my Dark Sith Warrior couldn't do the ship mission from Korriban to Dromund Kaas, the Twilek Padawan was too much for her. So I had to quit and create a Light Sith Inquisitor, and skip that quest altogether - maybe these quests will be available on higher levels, I don't know. Or maybe I'll have to stop playing, because it'll be too difficult solo).

 

Anyway, it's fun - for now, at least. I still have to try KOTOR2(got bored with the prologue, maybe because I created exactly the same-looking protagonist, but the protagonist herself wasn't the same), but SWTOR is very good.

 

(The most unfair thing is that you can't choose a companion, I guess. And, naturally, that you can't solo comfortably enough - difficulty scale is a bit too much for me. But it's still fun).

[Almateria]

Is the Gay Planet still a paid DLC?

[Kulyok]

I haven't seen anything like that, I think.

There's a huge campaign to buy something like "Rise of the Hutts" DLC/expansion - if I complete the game, I might consider it.

[Almateria]

Oh yeah, that was the name. Supposedly it's really good, but at the same time

the gay planet

[DavidWallace]

SWTOR repays quite a small amount of money spent on it - getting preferred status and a few better bits of gear can help a lot with the difficulty.

[Kulyok]

I'd be happy to! It's a good game, so it'll be only fair if I pay for it, especially since I'm going to buy that expansion anyway. 

 

I've looked here, though, and it doesn't seem like the preferred status makes things easier to play:

http://www.swtor.com/free/features

And at my level ~13, I'm not seeing any items I could buy and use(I visited the fleet stores and the Galactic Trade Network booth). 

 

Maybe there's a DLC gear pack, like in Dragon Age 2? Do you have anything specific in mind?

[DavidWallace]

TBH I'm not 100% sure, I'm going on second hand info (I subscribe). This: http://massively.joy...-experiment-fo/ and links therein were my main source.

[Tempest]

Oh yeah, that was the name. Supposedly it's really good, but at the same time

the gay planet

 

You are, however, right. Veteran TOR player here, and the game tends towards the mediocre. Yes, you do need to buy the expansion to see any same-sex flirt prompts at all. With one NPC per gender per faction, and it doesn't go anywhere.

[Kulyok]

Not buying the expansion, but I just bought two months of subscription time. I'm a sucker.

[Tempest]

In my opinion, TOR has some good ideas, no question, and the story can have some good stuff, but there are a lot of boneheaded decisions at work in terms of the core gameplay - I usually compare TOR's nuts and bolts to WoW as of three or four expansions back. A lot of planets are also poorly designed and involve either huge amounts of running around or just turn into grindy slogs (Belsavis and Makeb, I'm looking at you). The general upshots, most people agree, come from the stories and companions, although most tend to have at least one clunker of a companion. Imperial Agent and Sith Warrior are generally agreed to be two of the best, for what it's worth. I've played the Agent, Warrior, Trooper, and Smuggler to completion, and while I can imagine some might enjoy the Smuggler story, it felt extremely flat and dull to me.

[Mike1072]

I played TOR for about 4-5 months starting with Early Access, before the game went free-to-play.

It's one of the better MMOs as far as story goes, but it is still an MMO. They did a very good job of making it playable solo, but you will notice more of a grind compared to a single-player game. Having a companion makes questing a lot easier for all types of characters, and you eventually get a decent amount of companions to choose from. You can't really do the 4-man flashpoints by yourself at their intended level, but you can possibly manage them with 2 people, since each person can bring their companion to round out the party.

I got to end-game as a Sith Inquisitor -> Assassin tank and did some of the original endgame content (Eternity Vault, Karagga's Palace) as well as a ton of PvP (Huttball is amazing).

I really enjoyed the class content and was hoping they would release expansions with more of it, but that hasn't been their focus so far. They probably get a bigger payoff from developing 1 questline (with full voicing) that everyone will play than making 8 separate ones, considering the average player has only 1 or 2 characters at max level.

I might try out the new space combat expansion when it arrives.

[Eleima]

I had pre-ordered the game but ended up cancelling it when they announced it would be a subscription based model.  The game still retains my "preferred player" status, however, which is more comfortable than F2P.  I have a couple of characters on Red Eclipse, and my main is on Jedi Covenant, but my interest has been limited at best.  It just hasn't snagged me the way Guild Wars 2 did.

[DavidWallace]

I love it - it's absorbed my computer game playtime for the last year. But I generally play it with my wife, and that probably has various advantages, both social, i.e. some slog quests are less boring, and practical, i.e., you can basically do all the heroics and flashpoints. (2 people with about a four-to-six level advantage can do HEROIC-4 and flashpoints without too much trouble.)

[Kulyok]

I moved to the second planet and got my own ship, yay! And battles in space are incredible! The graphics seem very primitive at first, but wait and see! Asteroid field! Yay! I was amazed.

 

But... but... but... it's still more than a bit difficult: I have to skip all "group" quests/heroic quests/areas for four, including all flashpoints(though I got to the first flashpoint and completed it seven levels later, it just wasn't the same). And I feel bad when I see auto-skipping all group invites on my screen - I definitely don't want to play with other people, ever, but still feels a bit rude.

 

I started as a Sith Warrior, deleted her because she got stuck at that first flashpoint, and started a Sith Sorcerer(Inquisitor). Now I think I might move to warrior again - first, the spells are pretty week, straight hack and slash seems simpler. And second, I checked all the romances, and Sith Warrior seems to have the only decent one, alas(And Sorcerer's out of luck. Andro's voice! Yuck!) Sigh. I wish they let us have the companions we chose. But Sith Sorcerer's got a very cool story.

[Tempest]

F2P mode is passive-aggressive as hell, yes. As for Imperials, the Sorcerer is considered one of the two weaker stories on that faction by most players, with many of the more interesting moments coming from if you play against type and go light-side (Warriors share this - incidentally, dark side Jedi PCs are just Jedi who happen to be jerks, not philosophically committed like light side Sith PCs). The Warrior's romance for a female PC may or may not be to your taste - it's effectively continuous sexual harassment against the NPC in question, seeing as he has basically no social or political rights to say no to the PC.

 

Flashpoints are strictly optional, mind. The first one is thrown in your face to grab your attention, and it's the most story-heavy flashpoint. The rest are mostly dungeon crawls with one save kittens/squash kittens choice thrown in. Colicoid Wargames and to a degree Kaon Under Siege are exceptions.

[Kulyok]

That's quite some teasing about the romance.  I also heard the big spoiler - I think he had every right to do it, poor guy. (snicker) Looking forward to it.

 

I finally completed the Black Talon flashpoint(a mission you can't complete on your own unless you're willing to wait for a few levels) with a Group Queue(other random players who also need a group). I think I breached the net etiquette once during splitting items(you don't get individual loot, you get to split group loot), when I asked for a orange blaster for Vette(need), I shouldn't have. I apologised, though - I think I'll keep from asking for loot in Flashpoints for the time being. But otherwise it was okay.

 

I also wonder: people complete "Group 4/Heroic 4" missions(again, missions you can't complete alone right now or at all) by asking LFG("looking for group") in chats. What should I do if I want to join? Whisper to them in chat to ask for a group invite? And how do we agree where to meet? Or is the whole group teleported instantly? Sorry, I'm such a newbie at this.

[Tempest]

General flashpoint loot etiquette is to roll need on greens, blues, and oranges that are an upgrade for your character, not your companion. If no one needs on an item that would be good for your companion, then you're free to roll need.

 

For heroic quests, whisper to the person going LFG in chat for an invite or invite them yourself. Usually, people will start making their way over to where the quest is located once you have a full group.

[Vicen]

I also spend my time playing this game a lot with a good friend.  It has it flaws sure...but it's a heck of a lot better then WoW...which is far past it's heyday.

 

I mostly stick to republic toons, but right now I am leveling up a Inquistor.  I have to agree with Tempest that the Inquistor's storyline is a lot weaker then the Warrior's one.  Regardless, I still enjoy it quite a lot...and that won't be changing anytime soon (Unless Elder Scrolls Online shows decent amount of improvement on it's next beta test)

[Kulyok]

I'm starting to get it: I just played a heroic quest with three other inquisitors. Man, these sith assassins tank like no tomorrow - with these dual-bladed lightsabers and full shields on... (wistful sigh) I still get better companions, though. And it's fun!

 

Now to Balmorra... Quiiiiin, I am coming for you!

(what? I'm an excited girl! I've taken a look at other male romances for females, and I must say, while other three empire romances look okay(just not that inspiring), republic ones are totally meh. I wish they hired Aeryn or Rhaella instead).

[Tempest]

The romance for female Imperial Agents is notable, in my opinion. Vector is possibly the strangest person in the most eccentric cast of companions in the game, I feel. Not a bad guy, mind, just strange.