Star Wars: The Old Republic

[Guynemer]

boobies

[Dinner]

http://www.gamespot.com/event/codes/star-wars-tor/?tag=topslot;img;1

Free beta keys are being given away for Star Wars: The Old Republic but only until tomorrow (Friday 11/18/11)

[Felch]

I got a beta weekend invite. Looking at the info, I'm definitely excited about this. I think that having a companion character will be an awesome move towards customization. You can more easily broaden or emphasize your role. Plus the crew skills are supposed to automate crafting.

[Asher]

I got a beta invite a couple months ago, then another invite a couple weeks ago just for a beta weekend. Never took them up on it. I'll wait til it's done.

[Guynemer]

I just got a beta invite, but I had to use it by yesterday. :huh?:

Don't really care, anyway. Hell is other people.

[Felch]

I did the beta weekend, and I definitely like this game.

Character creation is limited, with only four body shapes, but that's not something I care much about. The races don't seem to make much difference aside from throwaway bits of dialog and different emotes. I tried out all four starting planets, and they're all decent. It's a good four hours before you leave the starting planet, and another four hours before you actually get your ship. There were occasional laggy times, but I played maybe twenty hours since Friday, and only had four occasions where it got too bad to keep playing. Not bad for a stress test weekend. I noticed occasional clipping, and a couple other graphical glitches, but even as a beta it's better than most games on release.

Quest dialog is good, and it plays out just like Mass Effect. I like the immersion, since in WoW and LotRO I tended to miss huge chunks of content because I'm too lazy to read the text boxes. Having good and evil options give the quests a nice spin, since most of them are just "Go to these three locations, and push the buttons". Once you get there, there's usually some starving orphan who needs help, or some other gimmick. It's cliché, but it also makes the quest feel less rote. Quests have bonuses for killing mobs, and the bonuses sometimes chain to form extra side quests to kill minibosses.

The fights are fun, especially as a smuggler. I mostly played as a smuggler because Han Solo is my favorite SW character, and because guns > swords. Smugglers and their evil counterparts the Imperial Agents, have a cover mechanic similar to Gears of War. When you're behind permanent cover, you're immune to enemy fire, but you can crouch and set up a force field at any time to get a lesser bonus. Cover is necessary for many of the skills and it makes you immune to interruptions, which is very nice. It's not revolutionary, but it's a change of pace from the usual grind. Most fights involve packs of enemies, 2-4 mobs, and it's fun to have to prioritize healers or stronger enemies. It goes a long way towards breaking the monotony of MMOs.

I didn't play with anybody I know, but I had good luck with the folks I ran into. Most people are happy to team up, although groups are limited to 4 total, so 3 human players can only bring one companion, and 4 humans can't have any companions.

The companions are great. They've all got at least a couple roles, so you can switch their stances as needed. I only ever got the first companion, who you pick up around level 8, but they're a great addition. They make it much easier to level as a healer/support character.

My only beef is that it still retains some of the old annoying features of MMOs. Town areas are spread out, so it can take a while to handle all of the non-combat chores. I can't for the life of me understand why trainers exist. If they made you go on quests to learn new skills, that'd be cool, but instead they're just some ******* you have to throw money at every time you level up.

Overall the game is great, but not mind-blowingly revolutionary. They took the Bioware RPG model and smeared it all over WoW. Definitely going to play more when it's released.

[Felch]

Sorry for the wall of text, the TLDR summary is "KotOR meets WoW, 9/10"

[Al B. Sure!]

Can you play as a Klingon?

[Felch]

You can. You can do anything you set your mind to, sweetheart.

[OzzyKP]

Thanks for the review.

[Felch]

I got my early access started. I'm on the Mind Tricks server, it's PvE. I've got a Smuggler named Johnsolo, and a Bounty Hunter named Bobafelch.

Getting it early is pretty sweet.

[Dinner]

I want to play a monstrously obese jedi character who has a mullet, receeding hair line, looks like he hasn't shaved in three days, and who is short but mystically still do all the jedi jumps and acrobatics. Bonus points if he wears a shirt which is three sizes too small and exposes his giant beer belly.

[Felch]

You can make a disgusting fat body, and the chicks you run into will still dig you.

[Al B. Sure!]

I want to play a monstrously obese jedi character who has a mullet, receeding hair line, looks like he hasn't shaved in three days, and who is short but mystically still do all the jedi jumps and acrobatics. Bonus points if he wears a shirt which is three sizes too small and exposes his giant beer belly.

So someone who looks like you but with magic powers and agility?

[Dinner]

Please!

Yeah, I've gained 20 lbs since I left the service but at 6'1" I'm hardly a fat body.