Star Wars: The Old Republic

[keg in kc]

Don't believe there's a dedicated thread, and since they're starting to release information now, I figure it's time for one.

[Pants]

Removed.

Le Sigh.

[keg in kc]

Edited in a new embed. Same video uploaded by the same uploader. Not sure what they did.

[keg in kc]

PAX starts friday, I would expect the demos will be largely the same, although they're apparently announcing some stuff about open world pvp.

[Huffmeister]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

PAX starts friday, I would expect the demos will be largely the same, although they're apparently announcing some stuff about open world pvp.

Awesome, hopefully we'll have a release date by the end of PAX.

[keg in kc]

That's what I'd thought would happen originally, release date at PAX, since it's the gamer convention as opposed to the marketing or developer convention but now I'm not sure. This is totally a guess on my part, but I don't think we're going to get a release date more than a month out from the live game, and I don't think it's shipping until mid-november.

They are definitely ramping up the beta, though. Appear to have been a lot of invites lately and they're initiating high level testing as of today (giving people level 40s characters).

[Silock]

I'll admit, the more I see of this, the more I like it.

Just not sure it's going to really play like end-game WoW enough for me to stick with it long-term, though. I really like raiding and this just doesn't seem to have the same kind of feel.

[keg in kc]

Originally Posted by Silock

Just not sure it's going to really play like end-game WoW enough for me to stick with it long-term, though. I really like raiding and this just doesn't seem to have the same kind of feel.

Yeah, it's hard to tell at this point. They've said (officially) that there will be more than the 5 flashpoints announced so far, and that the Eternity Vault is only the first operation and that more are planned. But that doesn't really tell you anything solid.

I think they do intend for raiding to be an important part of the endgame, but that's just the feeling I get from interviews and demos. The information on operations is still so new, and they've shown so little of it at this point, that it's hard to get a real handle on it.

They do seem to be very bold as far as what they're trying to do. As in trying to do everything. There's already talk of an entire world dedicated to solo end-game content, as well as an entire world for PvP (I don't know about that one, as in if it's real or not, should hear about it Friday if it is...), in addition to the Eternity Vault operation and the 3 announced PvP warzones. I'm glad on one hand they're doing so much and not just relying solely on experiencing the other class stories once you've finished your first class, because I think variety is the key to a healthy long term game (as in giving people plenty to do after they "finish") I just worry that it will mean a whole lot of different watered down systems, none of them really spectacular on their own.

Now, I haven't seen anything that actually indicates that's happening, it's just a general concern I have. We should get a better handle on it as they get closer to launch, and now that they're testing higher level stuff in beta.

In any case, what people think of the game 6 months after launch, once the 'ooh's and 'ahh's and the newness has worn off, is what will ultimately determine the level of success. It's going to be interesting to watch.

[Pants]

Let's no kid ourselves, fellas. There's no way EA is suicidal enough to invest so much into this huge MMO only to not have end-game. I don't think that's even a question, if you don't have end-game, you don't have an MMO.

[keg in kc]

Originally Posted by Pants

Let's no kid ourselves, fellas. There's no way EA is suicidal enough to invest so much into this huge MMO only to not have end-game. I don't think that's even a question, if you don't have end-game, you don't have an MMO.

I think a tricky thing is that there's never been a game before, in this genre at least, where starting over again from the beginning is something you'd actually want to do. Which will be the case in this game for a segment of fans (i.e. people who love bioware RPGs, like myself). But that's a hard sell to traditional MMOers as being "endgame", where playing an alt is like some kind of punishment you want to get through as quickly as you can.

So I think you're right that they know they have to have endgame, but their vision of end game may not be exactly what people are used to. Or it might. It's hard to tell.

I'm still curious to hear more about the vaunted "Legacy" system. Even the people in beta don't have a clue on that, at least not that I can find.

[Pants]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

I think a tricky thing is that there's never been a game before, in this genre at least, where starting over again from the beginning is something you'd actually want to do. Which will be the case in this game for a segment of fans (i.e. people who love bioware RPGs, like myself). But that's a hard sell to traditional MMOers as being "endgame", where playing an alt is like some kind of punishment you want to get through as quickly as you can.

So I think you're right that they know they have to have endgame, but their vision of end game may not be exactly what people are used to. Or it might. It's hard to tell.

I'm still curious to hear more about the vaunted "Legacy" system. Even the people in beta don't have a clue on that, at least not that I can find.

I guess I'm a different kind of RPGer. I make one character and he's my perfect one and I just stick to him. I made twinks in WoW just for fun, but I never had more than one max level character in the game. Same goes for SP RPGs. I don't replay Bioware RPGs to see how different it would be if I played as a different character and made different choices. I do it how I like the first time and then I'm done (I realize I'm missing on a ton of content).

Making choices without being able to go back and redo something will be ****ing wild, though.

[Silock]

Originally Posted by Pants

Let's no kid ourselves, fellas. There's no way EA is suicidal enough to invest so much into this huge MMO only to not have end-game. I don't think that's even a question, if you don't have end-game, you don't have an MMO.

The question is not if it will have endgame, but the form in which it will come.

[Pants]

Originally Posted by Silock

The question is not if it will have endgame, but the form in which it will come.

Oh, I gotcha. Do you prefer the big, epic 40-man raids from old?

[kcxiv]

pfft, 72 man raids. Emp SSRA, Xegony, Rathe Council! haha Good ole days. Or can go back a bit further with the Avatar of War. Blade or Carnage! Or Ralloz Zek the Warlord. That fight was intense as **** for an MMO.

[Pants]

Originally Posted by kcxiv

pfft, 72 man raids. Emp SSRA, Xegony, Rathe Council! haha Good ole days. Or can go back a bit further with the Avatar of War. Blade or Carnage! Or Ralloz Zek the Warlord. That fight was intense as **** for an MMO.

How do you organize 72 people? Do you have any room on the screen left to see what's going on around you? LOL

[keg in kc]

Originally Posted by Pants

I guess I'm a different kind of RPGer. I make one character and he's my perfect one and I just stick to him. I made twinks in WoW just for fun, but I never had more than one max level character in the game. Same goes for SP RPGs. I don't replay Bioware RPGs to see how different it would be if I played as a different character and made different choices. I do it how I like the first time and then I'm done.

You're thinking about it wrong. Rolling alts in TOR is not like replaying a single player RPG. It's like playing a completely different single player RPG. To a point at least (world arcs for each faction are shared).

So say you start as a Sith Inquisitor. Let's equivocate that with playing KotOR, just for ease of discussion. You finish and decide to start over as a Smuggler. You aren't playing through KotOR again, doing all the same quests over again with different decisions. You're playing through KotOR 2 now. It's a new game with new characters set on some of the same worlds, and on some new worlds you haven't seen before. Completely new companions, completely new world quests. Completely new game, although it's still technically SWTOR...

When you go to play a third class after that, it'll be the same thing, for the most part. Since you've played both factions now, you'll start to see some degree of recycled content (world arcs), and you'll obviously have the same group stuff (pvp, flashpoints and operations). But the story for those classes, and the companions that they each have, are again completely new. So in essence you'd be playing KotOR 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8, because each class story is a completely unique play through the game, not recycling the experiences of the Inquisitor or Smuggler. It won't be replaying and seeing how the decisions play out if you make them differently, it'll be playing something new each time (until/if you repeat an actual class...).

WoW was nothing close to that. LotRO (which I played even longer than WoW) was nothing close to that. In all those games, and this is throwing aside the fact that I skipped most of the quest text anyway, when you played an alt you were doing the same goddamn thing you'd already done on your main, with no variety, no choices to make, nothing. Just the same rote quests over and over, and in the end just the same grinding over and over to reach the cap.

It's really hard to think of what TOR is, in MMO terms...