**OFFICIAL** Star Wars: The Old Republic Thread

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Demo24

Diamond Member
Aug 5, 2004
8,356
9
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- Elite Mobs need toned down a little. I know.. I'm used to WoW where if one is skilled enough with thier class, they could solo an Elite mob if needed. When going up against Elite mobs, even with party members, we'd sometimes just get our poo pushed in :) They hurt! Might just be a tuning thing.

- WTB Healers? Hehe.. probably a byproduct of everyone wanting to play a Jedi.. could not find healers for any instance runs. Not the games fault, but I'm sad I didn't get to test Flashpoints..
- Could not figure out how (if there is one) to display the combat log.


Personally I like how some areas can be at times rather challenging, but ultimately if you get the standard group of tank,dps, and healer you basically just sorta grind through them. Long as everyone maintains decent health, just a matter of waiting on the mobs to go down. I've read that they may be looking to make the boss characters more interesting and hit in different ways, I haven't played this build enough to know though.

As for healers, one problem with that is you won't get that ability until lvl 10, and if you don't see the trainer in the space station then you'll have to try and do it without. I did at one point go back after I was like 10 lvls higher and go through a flashpoint solo to see what actually happened, was kinda fun.

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Yes graphics are kinda 'meh', but honestly after I played for awhile I forgave it as the artistic style imo lets it get away with it. It's certainly kinda taxing for whatever reason. Some of the lighting effects are kinda neat, like when you go to Nar Shadda with all the neon stuff, looks really good actually.
 

HumblePie

Lifer
Oct 30, 2000
14,665
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That's why the game has layering/instancing of world areas.

You must not have played many recent MMOs, because ones like LOTRO and Rift offer graphics that are 10 times better than what SWTOR has at the moment.

Instancing was not designed to lighten the graphical load. It was designed for server load and gameplay reasons. Chiefly the gameplay reasons where you have static time spawns that people are fighting over. Everyone that has ever played Everquest remembers that bullshit. It does have the slight benefit of also helping graphics to an extent, but that is not the intention of that MMO design.

Also, this game has been in development for over 5 years. This isn't like most single player games where a gaming company licenses out the latest and greatest single player graphics engine and builds a game around it in a year or less. Still it is my opinion they took way too long even for an MMO like this to come out. It should have taken 2 years tops.

The graphics are old and out dates. Still they are tastefully done decently with what they are using at least. Personally I would rather have a game with good gameplay and story than pretty graphics. Too many games go for the later and end up being NOT FUN to play despite being very pretty.
 

HumblePie

Lifer
Oct 30, 2000
14,665
440
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Was able to get in some time in on the game this weekend during the stress test. Here's the view from a WoW addict: (Played a Jedi Knight/Sent. to L16)

Pros:
- The graphics weren't THAT bad..I did go in and enable everything I could and it looked decent. I could tell AA was disabled though. The starting area (Jedi Knight) looked good.

I agree

- Combat was fun, and I liked having to activly hit my skills to make attacks happen. I wish I had more "defensive" options that I could activate during a fight. Felt like I was a glass cannon and had no way to save my own butt when I got into trouble :)

Take a class that isn't a glass cannon? I played a tank spec Jedi Shadow and I wasn't a glass cannon at all

- Story was really good, and I liked having the choices available to me.

Same here

- Companions are neat, and they do help alot when questing. I don't like having to group up often to complete quests, so this helped alleviate that a bit.

I love the companion system. Groups are groups of 4 and content was designed around that. So if you only can find one other person to run a 4 man instance then you can still do so using the two companions. They aren't quite as good as real players, but they can fill the job.

- I only experienced a queue "issue" on Friday night. I Alt-F4'd the game a few times and checked different servers and found one without a queue. Once I was logged in, I never experienced any lag/peformance drop and did not get disconnected.

The flashpoint instances were buggy and dropping people. Also they were running code in the background to randomly drop people on purpose for which they stated to simulate some server instability or some such. I went 20 hours from Friday to Saturday with no drops at all. I had left my char macroing crafting while I was asleep. Then the next morning and after I would DC every so often. Once it happened 5 times in a row. Damn annoying.

Cons:
- Group questing, the bane of WoW, stinks just as bad in here. I know most group quests are not required to move the story along, but having to spam General looking for someone to help out with "Heroic 2+" quests seemed annoying.

Not a big deal with companions. Just need to find one person. My only problem is that if you did find one person, one of you NEEDED to be a healer. Reliance on healers for these groups is just too great.

- Elite Mobs need toned down a little. I know.. I'm used to WoW where if one is skilled enough with thier class, they could solo an Elite mob if needed. When going up against Elite mobs, even with party members, we'd sometimes just get our poo pushed in :) They hurt! Might just be a tuning thing.

There are elites with the gold star, and then there are Elite bosses. Elites around my level or lower were easy for me as a tank spec Jedi Shadow. Easy for the healing spec Jedi Sage as well. At least one at a time. However some instances had 3-5 elites in a group plus a number of "strongs" which are slightly more powerful than normal mobs but are not elites. Those pulls were most definitely rough. In case you didn't know the system, here it is. Nothing special around the portrait or next to the mobs name was a normal. A silver star next the portrait and name was a Strong mob. A gold star was an Elite mob. A gold and silver star conjoined together was an Elite Boss mob.

- Current Group finding methods are not that great. Most players that will be coming to this game are WoW players. We're used to the Dungeon Finder. Having to rely on the "social pane" to find groups or spamming General is not that great.

Social pane, general chat, or hanging around the entrance to the instance always worked for me. Took less than a second. Aslo general is NOT world wide chat. It is just general for the main map you are in.

- WTB Healers? Hehe.. probably a byproduct of everyone wanting to play a Jedi.. could not find healers for any instance runs. Not the games fault, but I'm sad I didn't get to test Flashpoints..

Yah, this was a problem. EVERY base class has a healing subclass to be picked. In fact I thought most of the healing subclasses were way more powerful than the other classes. Still it was hard to find healers and tanks (at least I was a tank) as everyone wanted to be a dual wielding lightsaber jedi knight that was all glass cannon.

- Could not figure out how (if there is one) to display the combat log.

Combat log specifically removed for now. Which annoyed me because I KNOW based off the hover numbers that popped up that some skills were not doing what the skill description said they were suppose to do. For example I had 3 melee skills. My spammable weak one that costs no force. Listed when I logged off at 140-160 damage spread out over 3 hits. Which it typically did 140 to almost 200 damage over 3 hits. I had Double Strike for 25 force cost that did two hits in a row where each hit was suppose to be for 150-180. However all my hits were from 250-290 per hit. Last I had was my Shadow Strike which was a backstab ability. It was listed as 510-590 for 50 force cost. This one is the one that was broken. It almost always hit for 330-360 per hit. Was not worth the force cost, long animation, nor setup time to run around the back of the mob to execute. Only reason I found to use it was that it generate a TON of threat. As a tank, getting that agro fast makes a huge difference. So I used it once to get agro and then used my other two abilities after that.

Overall, I came away impressed. At first, I felt it was just WoW.. but with a Star Wars skin. After playing some more, I started getting really interested in the game and story. It'll be interesting to see if Bioware implements any of the feedback from this weekend, since I'm pretty sure MANY WoW players were invited and played.


Yep, the story makes the game. A story based MMO is specifically what I was waiting for.
 
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KIAman

Diamond Member
Mar 7, 2001
3,342
23
81
I got the beta invite over the weekend but forgot my password. I used their password reset 100 times and even emailed their customer support and got a ticket number.

I did not get a single reply. No reset password. No playing over weekend. Sigh.
 

Gothgar

Lifer
Sep 1, 2004
13,429
1
0
Well, I tested it this weekend. And I for one will be keeping my pre-order.

Glad I had a chance to put some hours down and play it.
 

KeithTalent

Elite Member | Administrator | No Lifer
Administrator
Nov 30, 2005
50,231
117
116
Uh, what? o_O

I'm assuming he thinks it would be like a cool little movie if it was all put together. Can't say I disagree, though it would be somewhat disjointed having all of the story threads just thrown together like that.

KT
 

HumblePie

Lifer
Oct 30, 2000
14,665
440
126
someone needs to just rip out all of the story elements and post them on youtube.

That would be hours upon hours to watch and record. It's not movies you are watching so there is nothing pre-recorded to just post. Although there are a few of those. All the in game story elements are done using the engine in the game.
 

cronos

Diamond Member
Nov 7, 2001
9,380
26
101
Grab your beta key from Curse:

http://www.curse.com/betas/swtor-na

Btw, if a few days ago you received the beta invite from SWTOR directly (the one without the date or anything else, just a notification), DO NOT redeem this (and, presumably, the one from SunnyD's post above). It specifically says in that email:

As part of this test, we will be partnering with games industry sites to distribute additional beta codes as necessary. This will help ensure we meet our population goals, so we can effectively stress test our servers in preparation for launch. Please do not acquire and redeem one of these codes as it could jeopardize your ability to participate in this test.
 
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Wordplay

Golden Member
Jun 28, 2010
1,318
1
81
Grab your beta key from Curse:

http://www.curse.com/betas/swtor-na

Btw, if a few days ago you received the beta invite from SWTOR directly (the one without the date or anything else, just a notification), DO NOT redeem this (and, presumably, the one from SunnyD's post above). It specifically says in that email:
Oops... maybe it will be a good thing if I don't get into more betas though. :hmm: School work might suffer. :p
 

SunnyD

Belgian Waffler
Jan 2, 2001
32,674
146
106
www.neftastic.com
- WTB Healers? Hehe.. probably a byproduct of everyone wanting to play a Jedi.. could not find healers for any instance runs. Not the games fault, but I'm sad I didn't get to test Flashpoints..

I played as a trooper, and was quite pleased when I got to specialize and realized I could be a combat medic! Yay! Blow shit up WHILE healing! What's not to love?!
 

MarkLuvsCS

Senior member
Jun 13, 2004
740
0
76
Played a bit as consular and gunslinger. Absolutely loved the story and quests although I typically would just skip to the text for every other game. I did Esseles with just DPS and sorta a tank.. We had one guy jump in start getting agro on boss while everyone else focused the adds down. We wiped probably around 8 or 10 times, mostly just once or twice most of the bosses to get a feel for what they did and how to approach the encounter. I don't know if it was just all of us being new that was pretty relaxed group, but there was no crying and such from wipes.

Finding people seemed pretty easy. I would normally just ask in general chat and within a minute I would have people wanting to come. I agree it was definitely lacking healers even though 3 classes can heal. I admit I didn't want to heal in beta, and hopefully won't have to spec healing through leveling. I do plan on respecing healer @ 50. I'm hoping to level as a Sage telekenetics, but heal for group missions and maybe some low level instances. I like the fact stats are focused for a particular class because it makes it easy to find the right gear.

One thing that does suck is it doesn't utilize more than 2 cores =/, and as such seems pretty CPU limited.
 
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Coydog

Member
Nov 4, 2011
37
0
0
Cons:
- Group questing, the bane of WoW, stinks just as bad in here. I know most group quests are not required to move the story along, but having to spam General looking for someone to help out with "Heroic 2+" quests seemed annoying.

You do realize if your smart you can utilize your companion to do the Heroic 2+ quests. You just can't expect to go in there and roll stuff, you REALLY have to be on your toes.

- Elite Mobs need toned down a little. I know.. I'm used to WoW where if one is skilled enough with thier class, they could solo an Elite mob if needed. When going up against Elite mobs, even with party members, we'd sometimes just get our poo pushed in :) They hurt! Might just be a tuning thing.

Again, these are Elite mobs and should be rather difficult to take down. WoW elites are a joke when I'm 5 levels lower and could kill them pretty easily.

- Current Group finding methods are not that great. Most players that will be coming to this game are WoW players. We're used to the Dungeon Finder. Having to rely on the "social pane" to find groups or spamming General is not that great.

It wasn't that bad, I was able to fill up for grouped quests pretty easily.

- WTB Healers? Hehe.. probably a byproduct of everyone wanting to play a Jedi.. could not find healers for any instance runs. Not the games fault, but I'm sad I didn't get to test Flashpoints..

You don't gain access to healing abilities til you are able to train in your advanced class. Strange as it is, its the way the Devs are doing it, especially since there is NO standard healing class in the game, almost all of the classes can heal.

As far as development, I was part of the abomination that was Warhammer: Age of Reckoning release and honestly think BW did the right thing and waiting. You only have one chance to make a first impression. Also look at Age of Conan, same thing. Those games are pretty playable now, lots of hype, fans screaming for it 'now' etc, but never took off. To many people hearing the horrors of the game being released before it was ready.

Also, iirc, WoW took 4-5yrs to develop as well.
 

Chiropteran

Diamond Member
Nov 14, 2003
9,811
110
106
As far as development, I was part of the abomination that was Warhammer: Age of Reckoning release and honestly think BW did the right thing and waiting. You only have one chance to make a first impression. Also look at Age of Conan, same thing. Those games are pretty playable now, lots of hype, fans screaming for it 'now' etc, but never took off. To many people hearing the horrors of the game being released before it was ready.

Also, iirc, WoW took 4-5yrs to develop as well.

Despite it's success, WoW was *not* released when it was ready- like most MMOs, it was released early. There were no raids in the game at release. The paladin and druid (i think, I know it was 2 classes) just got talent trees at release with no beta testing. Battlegrounds, despite being a promised part of the game, were not done. Game was terrible unbalanced in pvp, no diminishing returns for CC so for example a warlock could just chain spam fear. Racial abilities were just added at release with no beta testing, and incredibly unbalanced.

I don't really have a point, except that "release it when it's done" isn't absolutely required for an MMO to be successful, if it's good for other reasons.
 

Coydog

Member
Nov 4, 2011
37
0
0
Despite it's success, WoW was *not* released when it was ready- like most MMOs, it was released early. There were no raids in the game at release. The paladin and druid (i think, I know it was 2 classes) just got talent trees at release with no beta testing. Battlegrounds, despite being a promised part of the game, were not done. Game was terrible unbalanced in pvp, no diminishing returns for CC so for example a warlock could just chain spam fear. Racial abilities were just added at release with no beta testing, and incredibly unbalanced.

I don't really have a point, except that "release it when it's done" isn't absolutely required for an MMO to be successful, if it's good for other reasons.

I know WoW wasn't 'ready' for release. I remember launch day pretty well (Tauren Druid - Argent Dawn). But at least WoW was playable for the most part upon release. WAR wasn't. From what my friends who were drooling over AoC, it wasn't either.
 

Demo24

Diamond Member
Aug 5, 2004
8,356
9
81
Played a bit as consular and gunslinger. Absolutely loved the story and quests although I typically would just skip to the text for every other game. I did Esseles with just DPS and sorta a tank.. We had one guy jump in start getting agro on boss while everyone else focused the adds down. We wiped probably around 8 or 10 times, mostly just once or twice most of the bosses to get a feel for what they did and how to approach the encounter. I don't know if it was just all of us being new that was pretty relaxed group, but there was no crying and such from wipes.

.

Just an FYI on that one because for whatever reason it sounds like the first boss is still the most difficult, and the easiest way to beat it is:
simply ignore the adds and focus everything you got on the boss, and it should go down from that. If you died from that when you come back you won't have to take on the boss again.


In the past all my groups have been great! I wonder if will all the people now in if it's changed much. Only time I've ever had problems finding one is for heroics kinda on the edge of the world or during down times.
 

HumblePie

Lifer
Oct 30, 2000
14,665
440
126
I know WoW wasn't 'ready' for release. I remember launch day pretty well (Tauren Druid - Argent Dawn). But at least WoW was playable for the most part upon release. WAR wasn't. From what my friends who were drooling over AoC, it wasn't either.

Umm, they were all in the same state of "playable." If you mean playable by servers being up, but there being long queue times and occasional disconnects or crash to the desktop. All three had those problems. Well AoC didn't have the queue times at least. The servers were up and mostly stable and same with the client for all of them.

Now if you want to talk about a failed launch, look no further than Everquest. The servers were almost constantly down for the first month. They ended up having to extend the free month period because of that.