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.

[keg in kc]

I'm almost 1.2 ready, as well. Although I don't have a single piece of Rakata, and have not run so much as a single level 50 flashpoint, not even on Normal. No, I'm on the casual side of the coin, in the sense that I'm just not interested in raiding. At all. I have my legacy level up to 23, have a third character closing in on level 50, and have a million credits each sitting in the bank on my two previous 50s (I'd like to get that up to 2.5 million each, but probably won't; I hate anything grindy).

I actually would like to run the flashpoints at least once, but I'd probably have to ditch my guild to do that, and I'm not ready for that yet. In any event, I don't ever see myself spending time trying to get gear sets. That's the kind of thing that made me lose interest in both WoW and LotRO. Nothing burns me out faster than raiding. I just can't do the same runs week after week. I lose interest by the 3rd or 4th week.

[Hammock Parties]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

Belsavis was easy. The only annoyance there is the one that requires four cubes, and even that takes all of 10 minutes tops if you know the spawn points.

Nar Shaddaa is the last one that requires jumping. The one on the prison level probably gave me more fits than any of the rest of them in the game.

Check that, Hoth has two pretty annoying ones now that I think about it. One's inside the huge ship, requires jumping on moving shipping crates, and one's on the surface of the huge ship, takes a while to do. Those may be two of the worst, in terms of the time they take. Although I don't think I failed any of them as many times as I've failed the one on the prison level of Nar Shaddaa. Even knowing how to make the jumps I **** them up over and over.

There's also one on hoth that requires killing a champion level 50 (I think) mob, back in the imperial starting area (at least I think it's the imperial starting area).

Heh, my cousin and I spent hours the last two nights collecting datacrons.

The datacron is nice, but completing the jumping puzzle is so satisfying.

[keg in kc]

I did all but one of them on my Sage, and the one I missed was because it's impossible to get with my body type (at the docks on corellia).

I think I'm around 40 each on my other characters. Datacron hunting has been one of my favorite things.

[Pants]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

I'm almost 1.2 ready, as well. Although I don't have a single piece of Rakata, and have not run so much as a single level 50 flashpoint, not even on Normal. No, I'm on the casual side of the coin, in the sense that I'm just not interested in raiding. At all. I have my legacy level up to 23, have a third character closing in on level 50, and have a million credits each sitting in the bank on my two previous 50s (I'd like to get that up to 2.5 million each, but probably won't; I hate anything grindy).

I actually would like to run the flashpoints at least once, but I'd probably have to ditch my guild to do that, and I'm not ready for that yet. In any event, I don't ever see myself spending time trying to get gear sets. That's the kind of thing that made me lose interest in both WoW and LotRO. Nothing burns me out faster than raiding. I just can't do the same runs week after week. I lose interest by the 3rd or 4th week.

Man, "raiding" (it's with 8 people, so I don't think it's really raiding, is it?) on normal is so incredibly easy and fun in this game, you can pug it with no issues. You will never encounter any ninjaing or loot drama as BW auto-assigns the loot to everyone (probably in order to make it as pug-friendly as possible).

Soa on hardmode has been giving us fits for weeks now and we finally downed him and the satisfaction of achieving something with these other 7 people who've been trying their hardest for a while is awesome. Just awesome. I don't know how anyone can not enjoy it.

Also, raiding is repetitive but it's who you play with and what you make of it. I'm nowhere near burned out yet and 1.2 is on the horizon. I know I'd rather "raid" and get that feeling of satisfaction than do 90% of the same quests I did when I leveled my character. And I still can't bring myself to play a Sith.

The game is also incredibly satisfying to play as a well-geared Sentinel. I can go and solo a lot of the HEROIC level 50 content with ease and feel like a ****ing beast. Just melting facing while Doc keeps me up. I farm the Heroic 4 Generator mission bosses for their orange gear and then sell it off on GTN for a good chunk. In the meantime I'm getting decent legacy experience and getting my daily comms for the gang on my ship. It's great fun.

I would really suggest at least running the FPs because there's some really good content there (although it's not as fun as Ops).

And yeah, I'm only level 18 on legacy, but I'm not sweating it too much. I just want a mailbox and a dummy on the ship and I hope level 20 gets them both. If not, then I hope they let me buy it straight cash.

[Pants]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

I did all but one of them on my Sage, and the one I missed was because it's impossible to get with my body type (at the docks on corellia).

I think I'm around 40 each on my other characters. Datacron hunting has been one of my favorite things.

Yeah, I did them all as well. I never had too much trouble with the jumping puzzles with the exception of the Belsavis invisible bridge one. That last jump took me a while to get right (probably because I had to make it with my speeder? or I could just be a tard).

[keg in kc]

Originally Posted by Pants

Man, "raiding" (it's with 8 people, so I don't think it's really raiding, is it?) on normal is so incredibly easy and fun in this game, you can pug it with no issues. You will never encounter any ninjaing or loot drama as BW auto-assigns the loot to everyone (probably in order to make it as pug-friendly as possible).

Soa on hardmode has been giving us fits for weeks now and we finally downed him and the satisfaction of achieving something with these other 7 people who've been trying their hardest for a while is awesome. Just awesome. I don't know how anyone can not enjoy it.

Also, raiding is repetitive but it's who you play with and what you make of it. I'm nowhere near burned out yet and 1.2 is on the horizon. I know I'd rather "raid" and get that feeling of satisfaction than do 90% of the same quests I did when I leveled my character. And I still can't bring myself to play a Sith.

You gotta remember who I am. I'm not interested at all in being social. That's not why I play these games. I play because of the amount of content that MMOs offer. And the reason I love SWTOR so much is because so much of that content is solo friendly. In the end it's like the biggest single-player game ever made. (Which is I think a problem for a lot of the rest of the playerbase.)

There probably isn't anything I dislike more than meeting new people. Which is why I don't PUG, and why I won't PUG. I'm an extremely anxious, socially-awkward person by nature, and being in that situation, having to deal with people that I don't know, really takes all the fun out of it for me. Particularly if they're of the "pro player" sect. You know who I mean, the ones who think they need to 'educate' poor little ol' me about what's going on, the guys who as soon as you're in a group start telling you how you need to set your skills, what gear you need to have, how you have to do x,y and z, and exactly the way they say. My PUG experiences in MMO's have been filled with encounters with that kind of condescending elitist bullshit, and I'd rather not do stuff at all than do it with people like that. So I don't PUG. Hell, I don't even turn on General chat. If nobody in my guild is on, SWTOR for me is pretty much a single player game.

And as far as raiding in general goes I really don't have a competitive bone in my body, at least where MMOs are concerned. I just don't have any of those impulses that drive people to raid. I don't care about bragging rights, I don't care about gear, and I really don't get any sense of accomplishment from finishing anything with other people. I actually get more out of completing difficult things by myself.

I definitely haven't repeated 90% of the content either. I don't do anything on my alts but world arcs and class quests, no side quests at all aside from space missions, so it's at worst 50/50 old content and new content. Somewhat to my surprise, I actually prefer that to the way I did nearly everything on my initial toon, my Sage, because it keeps me at or just slightly below level, which makes the combat aspects of things much more interesting to me, as opposed to facerolling through all the planets. I've enjoyed Belsavis and Voss (2 of my favorite planets anyway...) a great deal more on my Sentinel in the 41-45 range than I did on either my Sage or my Gunslinger in the 45-49 range.

And I still only use Doc on the elites.

When I do run the flashpoints, it'll be for the story, really. That's the only thing I'm bummed about missing out on.

[Pants]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

You gotta remember who I am. I'm not interested at all in being social. That's not why I play these games. I play because of the amount of content that MMOs offer. And the reason I love SWTOR so much is because so much of that content is solo friendly. In the end it's like the biggest single-player game ever made. (Which is I think a problem for a lot of the rest of the playerbase.)

There probably isn't anything I dislike more than meeting new people. Which is why I don't PUG, and why I won't PUG. I'm an extremely anxious, socially-awkward person by nature, and being in that situation, having to deal with people that I don't know, really takes all the fun out of it for me. Particularly if they're of the "pro player" sect. You know who I mean, the ones who think they need to 'educate' poor little ol' me about what's going on, the guys who as soon as you're in a group start telling you how you need to set your skills, what gear you need to have, how you have to do x,y and z, and exactly the way they say. My PUG experiences in MMO's have been filled with encounters with that kind of condescending elitist bullshit, and I'd rather not do stuff at all than do it with people like that. So I don't PUG. Hell, I don't even turn on General chat. If nobody in my guild is on, SWTOR for me is pretty much a single player game.

And as far as raiding in general goes I really don't have a competitive bone in my body, at least where MMOs are concerned. I just don't have any of those impulses that drive people to raid. I don't care about bragging rights, I don't care about gear, and I really don't get any sense of accomplishment from finishing anything with other people. I actually get more out of completing difficult things by myself.

I definitely haven't repeated 90% of the content either. I don't do anything on my alts but world arcs and class quests, no side quests at all aside from space missions, so it's at worst 50/50 old content and new content. Somewhat to my surprise, I actually prefer that to the way I did nearly everything on my initial toon, my Sage, because it keeps me at or just slightly below level, which makes the combat aspects of things much more interesting to me, as opposed to facerolling through all the planets. I've enjoyed Belsavis and Voss (2 of my favorite planets anyway...) a great deal more on my Sentinel in the 41-45 range than I did on either my Sage or my Gunslinger in the 45-49 range.

And I still only use Doc on the elites.

When I do run the flashpoints, it'll be for the story, really. That's the only thing I'm bummed about missing out on.

For sure man, to each his own.

I did not know, however, that the planet story arcs varied by class. I thought all the quests outside of the class ones were the same for all classes.

[keg in kc]

Originally Posted by Pants

For sure man, to each his own.

I did not know, however, that the planet story arcs varied by class. I thought all the quests outside of the class ones were the same for all classes.

The planet arcs are the same, the class stories change. Basically the way it's worked is that every area I'm in generally has two quests, one world arc and one class arc. So 50/50. I'll generally do whatever bonus quest there is, too.

The downside is that neither my companions' gear or their affection is all that great. Well, Kira's in good shape, but the rest of them have basically nothing.

[Pants]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

The planet arcs are the same, the class stories change. Basically the way it's worked is that every area I'm in generally has two quests, one world arc and one class arc. So 50/50. I'll generally do whatever bonus quest there is, too.

The downside is that neither my companions' gear or their affection is all that great. Well, Kira's in good shape, but the rest of them have basically nothing.

Oh ok, now, I see what you're saying.

[keg in kc]

I think if I did flashpoints and PvP I could probably skip the planet arcs and just do the class quests. In any case, there's I think a misperception that leveling alts in this game is like leveling alts in other MMOs. It's not a chore at all. It can be time-consuming if you take the time to follow the cutscenes (which I do...) but it's not grindy at all. Partly because of the class arcs, and partly because the combat is so completely different from class-to-class.

(And actually I believe they're putting in legacy unlocks with 1.3 that will give faster xp to alts.)

[Hammock Parties]

Done got ganked for the first time.

[Hammock Parties]

Ho. Lee. Shit.

Tatooine is ****ing amazing. Whoever said this game didn't have open world exploration...they were wrong. The Dune Sea is spectacular. My cousin and I went out looking for datacrons and ended up just spending hours wandering around and discovering cool things...and then we stumble upon Imperial towns.

If you can run past the level 50 NPC defenses fast enough, you find yourself sitting pretty at a little bottleneck leading into the Dune Sea.



Guess who's coming through there: Imps.

Oh yes, it was time to gank.

In fact...this is my first pvp kill ever. In any MMO.



And then I ganked this bitch.



And then I got her again.



And then we ran into this.



All in all, an amazing night, and an amazing game. Oh, and the storyline with my Jedi Knight dueling a Sith one-on-one out in the Jundland wastes, and now going into the lair of the Sand Demon to shut down the device that's going to destroy Tatooine....well, it's just incredible.

On another note, we got WAAAAAY out to the edge of the map in the Dune Sea, and I see this place, but we can't get to it (the game just drains all your health if you try). Anyone know what this is, and if you can get to it?

[Pants]

Originally Posted by Satanic Goat

On another note, we got WAAAAAY out to the edge of the map in the Dune Sea, and I see this place, but we can't get to it (the game just drains all your health if you try). Anyone know what this is, and if you can get to it?

Probably a reserved location for future content.

Are you on a PvP server?

[kaplin42]

Originally Posted by Pants

Probably a reserved location for future content.

Are you on a PvP server?

Tattoine does have open world PVP in some areas. They should of made the whole planet like that. And I'm not really a PVP guy, but sometimes, it can break up the monotany.

[Pants]

Originally Posted by kaplin42

Tattoine does have open world PVP in some areas. They should of made the whole planet like that. And I'm not really a PVP guy, but sometimes, it can break up the monotany.

Tatooine's area is actually an FFA one. So you can kill your own faction there as well as the oposition. BW should have just made that planet the main hub instead of the Fleets. That way, people who were waiting for their Ops groups to fill up, or waiting for WZs to pop, or whatever else could just go and have fun in the FFA area. Oh well.