SWTOR is at times brilliant and at times so stupid

[desura]

Brilliant: robots with a different linguistic language structure.

Stupid: lightsabers do less damage than walking sticks, judging by the number of times you have to hit a guy with it before it does any damage.

 

[Sonikku]

You're talking to someone with the Ashbringer.

I have to wail on stuff over and over again just to kill something.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

My problem with the beta I tried out was there wasn't much star wars in it. It felt like any other mmo. Quest go here kill 5 or bring this back to me with exact locations on the mini map.

 

[zinfamous]

My problem with the beta I tried out was there wasn't much star wars in it. It felt like any other mmo. Quest go here kill 5 or bring this back to me with exact locations on the mini map.

It definitely feels that way if you are playing a crappy class(storywise) and/or haven't gotten far enough in the story. Bounty Hunter is terrible, for example.

SIth Inquisitor, Agent, and in many ways Jedi Knight are pretty awesome and feel very much like Star Wars. You have to be evil in this game, though. It's terrible otherwise.

 

[DaveSimmons]

The Jedi Consular story line has you acting Jedi-like quite often.

Also, with XP boosts (you get some free) or a subscription you can skip all the generic MMO shared sidequests and just do the class story and planet quest line. Those are even marked differently now so you can tell the planet quest apart from the other 4 people who want you to smite ten owlbears.

They've also added a Solo mode for the flashpoints (raids) which fill in some pieces of the story, so you can do those single-player and take your time watching the cutscenes and enjoying the scenery instead of running to keep up with jaded veteran players who just want the gear tokens.

 

[Trefugl]

Yeah now that they've changed the XP you get from quests it's easy to just power through the storylines and only do sidequest if they are interesting or on the way - even without boots - so you get to feel the story and skip the boring parts. I've enjoyed it as a random time killer and if I'm in an MMO mood. I don't think I could ever have the time or patience for a "real" MMO again, but I can stand SWTOR.

 

[Zenoth]

In my opinion, the evil / dark side-focused play of the Sith Warrior campaign is absolutely brilliant (playing it Light-sided is horrible). It could have been a movie on its own (heck, more than one). It's my personal main "head canon" playthrough of Old Republic, and I also used my Sith Warrior to complete the Knights of the Fallen Empire expansion. I'd say that the Imperial Agent campaign was pretty darn good too (very nice to see the Imperial Intelligence and how it operated; those guys were smart and efficient, and could have brought ultimate victory to the Sith Empire had it not been for the internal infighting between the Sith that essentially cripples the Empire, and often at the worst possible moments).

My three favorite campaigns were: 1) Sith Warrior, 2) Imperial Agent, 3) Jedi Consular.

As far as game-play related issues, the main one I have is the constant traveling through massive maps during the campaign. I know there's fast travel and eventually you get a short-enough cooldown on it, but you still need to get to point B to progress your story missions, and more often than not the amount of traveling necessary to finish x, y and z missions is driving me crazy (not to mention that the actual traveling speed via vehicles is negligibly better than just running, even at tier 3 vehicle speed which is supposed to be something like 110% running speed, but it really feels like 50%). And, obviously, the fact that the game more than shows its age, not just graphics-wise but also in terms of animations (they're very stiff and remind of me the kind of third person animation "quality" we had in games like Morrowind). And of course the fact that the combat is exclusively tab-target based (obviously an old engine like that wouldn't do dynamic combat).

I only play Old Republic for the campaigns though. I really don't play the actual MMORPG side of it. However, despite its shortcomings I am actually waiting for the next expansion, can't wait to see where that story goes, and can't wait to get in the shoes on my beloved Sith Warrior again.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I'm almost done with the Sith Inquisitor story and it was pretty good too in a crazed B-movie science horror way. Dialog choice: shock him again (with force lightning)

The writers did a nice job on the Inquisitor & Warrior stories of showing how the Republic and some allegedly light-side Jedi are corrupt in their own ways. Some Jedi are smug weasels who lie and cheat more than a Sith "for the greater good."

 

[zinfamous]

I'm almost done with the Sith Inquisitor story and it was pretty good too in a crazed B-movie science horror way. Dialog choice: shock him again (with force lightning)

The writers did a nice job on the Inquisitor & Warrior stories of showing how the Republic and some allegedly light-side Jedi are corrupt in their own ways. Some Jedi are smug weasels who lie and cheat more than a Sith "for the greater good."

Sith Inquisitor is just so satisfying, how sadistic you can be. The Jedi Knight that I leveled...I realized in the starter area that the game wouldn't let me be light side if I refused to snitch on some young Jedis trying to make out--that is when I decided to be even more evil than my Inquisitor. It's fun, but none of that really matters because it is more conversational and none of your evilness translates over into that actual story mission. BUT--blowing people up and trapping citizens in rooms and watching them burn during the flashpoints--especially when you are the Jedi making the story decision for a PUG--damn that is awesome. Lightside PUGs are such wusses.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I did that with a second Consular character but didn't finish that playthrough. Lying to the Jedi council and my master, taking all the evil choices, using a red lightsaber... fun.

 

[Sonikku]

I'm almost done with the Sith Inquisitor story and it was pretty good too in a crazed B-movie science horror way. Dialog choice: shock him again (with force lightning)

The writers did a nice job on the Inquisitor & Warrior stories of showing how the Republic and some allegedly light-side Jedi are corrupt in their own ways. Some Jedi are smug weasels who lie and cheat more than a Sith "for the greater good."

My big regret is that when recruiting my apprentice I selected "I'm the sith lord here" which results in that annoying Sith academy guy throwing another tantrum and telling you he'll inform Thannaton. I wanted to kill that guy from the first quest chain. I found out that had I chosen a different dialogue option I could have zapped him to death.