SW TOR

pew pew pew
Jonathan
Grand Pooh-Bah
Posts: 6722
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:45 pm
Location: Portland, OR
Contact:

SW TOR

Post by Jonathan »

Launches December 20th.

Thinking about playing this with a friend from work and his buddy. Probably will get tired of it after a month or two.

Peijen
Minion to the Exalted Pooh-Bah
Posts: 2790
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2003 2:28 pm
Location: Irvine, CA

Re: SW TOR

Post by Peijen »

I thought about trying this game, but not a fan of buy mmo games. If they are going to charge me monthly fee, then give me the client for free.

Jonathan
Grand Pooh-Bah
Posts: 6722
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:45 pm
Location: Portland, OR
Contact:

Re: SW TOR

Post by Jonathan »

This begs the question: are there any new coop RPGs without subscriptions? It's actually fairly uncommon.

I played through Magika already. Diablo 3 sounds like it will qualify, whenever it comes out. Guild Wars 2 may not come out at all at this rate, but I bet it won't ship before SWTOR. Anything else?

VLSmooth
Tenth Dan Procrastinator
Posts: 3055
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2003 3:02 am
Location: Varies
Contact:

Re: SW TOR

Post by VLSmooth »

Do you consider Borderlands an RPG?

Speaking of which: To Chuck, George, and Jason: I just got to the Salt Flats (lv34). Did I catch up enough?

Dave
Tenth Dan Procrastinator
Posts: 3483
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2003 3:40 pm

Re: SW TOR

Post by Dave »

DIABLOOOOOO FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
It takes 43 muscles to frown and 17 to smile, but it doesn't take any to just sit there with a dumb look on your face.

Jonathan
Grand Pooh-Bah
Posts: 6722
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:45 pm
Location: Portland, OR
Contact:

Re: SW TOR

Post by Jonathan »

Good question. I think Borderlands is a shooter with RPG elements. It is getting trickier to distinguish.

Vyrosama
Master Chief Telephone Technician
Posts: 548
Joined: Tue Feb 13, 2007 5:51 am

Re: SW TOR

Post by Vyrosama »

The koreans are a huge fan of the f2p (free to play) mmorpg. It's based on the micro-transaction business model where they make you pay for conveniences (inconveniences depending on how you look at it) and customization. So they'll do things like give me $$$ and I can make your hair look purple, double your inventory space, make you level faster or give you a scooter so you can travel faster. There also has been adoption into a lot of the recent american mmos.

Here's some older/recent ones:

http://www.runesofmagic.com
--Played for a few months or so. I head this is extremely similar to World of Warcraft (which I have never tried). Interesting twist is that they added sub-classing from FFXI (and you can have upto two different alts). I actually paid some money to get some of the conveniences. Pretty good quest system and there's quite a bit of variety of things you can do. Most things can be soloed though and with subclasses you can be pretty self-sufficient so partying seems just for kicks or for those random boss missions.

http://www.playrequiem.com/
--gory/nightmareish themed rpg. Played this for a while. Not really good team-based dynamics but interesting to play for the giblets.

http://www.perfectworld.com
--I played this for like 10minutes then got bored. All I remember is that you can fly at a low lvl then I got my as kicked by high level mobs flying about the noob area.

http://www.champions-online.com
--Super-hero themed mmo.
--Played with George/Jason. Decent amount of content. Allows you to sidekick up/down to a level of your friends is nice although the quest system isn't the greatest. Also most things are solo-able so teaming up is just for kicks/annoying random boss missions.

http://www.spiralknights.com
--zelda mmo. Played w/ jason. A bit grindy but the game is well done and has enough variety to give it a try. Grindiness goes away with $$$ though.

http://dungeondefenders.com/
--thinking of getting this. TD mmo.

Too long of a post. There's tons more out there...Check out steam for a few more....

Jonathan
Grand Pooh-Bah
Posts: 6722
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:45 pm
Location: Portland, OR
Contact:

Re: SW TOR

Post by Jonathan »

Will give Dungeon Defenders a try, probably.

Jonathan
Grand Pooh-Bah
Posts: 6722
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:45 pm
Location: Portland, OR
Contact:

Re: SW TOR

Post by Jonathan »

Welp, subscribed. Let's see how this goes.

Jonathan
Grand Pooh-Bah
Posts: 6722
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:45 pm
Location: Portland, OR
Contact:

Re: SW TOR

Post by Jonathan »

Impression after two hours: this game is funnier than I expected. (playing a Jedi but giving all Dark side responses).

Jonathan
Grand Pooh-Bah
Posts: 6722
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:45 pm
Location: Portland, OR
Contact:

Re: SW TOR

Post by Jonathan »

Started to write up my experiences with this game several times, but I scrapped it every time.

Bottom line here is I am level 18 and still very much a noob. I am a tank and just got my taunt ability at level 16, I believe (probably a level 3-5 skill in some games). My defense is not substantially different from those of my "squishies". I think somewhere in the mid-30s the actual game design kicks in, but this is one of the gentlest learning curves I've ever seen.

I can say that equipment has been a meh, zone design has been a pro, and the combat is regular MMO combat, albeit with a little more mobility than days of yore.

edit: game continues to be funny.

Jonathan
Grand Pooh-Bah
Posts: 6722
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:45 pm
Location: Portland, OR
Contact:

Re: SW TOR

Post by Jonathan »

Hmm, so now in my low 20s the game begins to resolve. Last night we did a couple heroics and a flashpoint. We had multiple party wipes. The healer had to stop trying to dps and just focus on heal. As tank, I had to start managing my party's threat and aggro and keep my defense abilities going. Our dps didn't kill everything immediately. At 24 I will have one of my more important defense abilities and my first AoE taunt, and then I guess the shit is on like Donkey Kong. Took a long time.

The zone design continues to impress.

It is a little annoying that Dan and Erik treat our party as alts. They are max level on their mains. I, however, have no other character. Thus I am the eternal noob.

Jonathan
Grand Pooh-Bah
Posts: 6722
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:45 pm
Location: Portland, OR
Contact:

Re: SW TOR

Post by Jonathan »

You must weigh that against orange dual-bladed light saber, of course.

Peijen
Minion to the Exalted Pooh-Bah
Posts: 2790
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2003 2:28 pm
Location: Irvine, CA

Re: SW TOR

Post by Peijen »

so this is game enjoyable if I play an hour every couple of days?

Jonathan
Grand Pooh-Bah
Posts: 6722
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:45 pm
Location: Portland, OR
Contact:

Re: SW TOR

Post by Jonathan »

Solo: both Erik and Dan soloed, more or less, up to 50. The companion system makes it plenty possible to do this. There will be some content completely closed off to you, but you can get the necessary experience through other quests. You can complete the storyline missions by yourself almost always. Your gear might be a bit worse off.

One hour: this is a trickier question. It's much, much better than something like FFXI. The early zone design is more "series of villages separated by monsters"--- occasionally loops of villages --- rather than hub-and-spoke, for instance. If you only travel to where quests are, you'll always be adjacent to the place you need to be. Your character spends 30s in the world upon disconnect, but you do have a quick travel power if the baby is crying or whatever.

That said, I haven't gotten to Tattoine yet, where I understand that the zone design opens up quite a bit and overland travel starts to be an issue. At any rate, I play ~4 hours once per week, and anticipate no problems with that schedule. If you had two hours I wouldn't be worried at all. One hour might be somewhat problematic but possible. Give me another week or two and I'll confirm.

Fun: Your companion is equippable and somewhat controllable (more like you can configure what he does), so it's kind of like managing a mini-party. The encounter design through level 20 is not at all MMO-trinity defined. Past that the heroic content is serious business MMO heal-tank-spank, but the majority of quests keep the casual kill-everything-that-moves vibe that the early levels had. I think you'd get frustrated with the more difficult encounters, but there's not really much making you do them. I know it is plenty possible to be well over level by completing all the quests, and there's no penalty for doing quests or encounters below your level. As a solo player, if you keep yourself overleveled you can pretty much hit at the right difficulty. If you want to blitz your way up to 50 or through the class quests, soloing an hour every couple of days is going to be hard.

Pubbies can help out with the non-heroic content, which is most of it, and not be a drag. Mostly they're just a source of additional DPS. Yeah, you might lose a few die rolls for quality equipment, but on average you'll get half. Experience has a slight adder while grouped so even a crappy pubby should speed you along. Storyline class quests will add enemies if you bring friends, so only bring dudes who know what they're doing or no one at all.

Obviously, a big part of the draw is the story quests. You get penalized a bit for certain max level gear if you soloed your way up, but if you're not raiding/PvPing then it won't matter. The dice roll mechanic is a way to get random pubbies to do dialogue together without griefing each other, but it doesn't really contribute to enjoyment of the game.

The mechanics are definitely MMO mechanics, and the gear is definitely MMO gear. It's not Diablo or Borderlands. If an MMO is what you're after and you're tired of making lightsaber noises with your mouth, then I think casually soloing through TOR can be fun for you.

Jonathan
Grand Pooh-Bah
Posts: 6722
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:45 pm
Location: Portland, OR
Contact:

Re: SW TOR

Post by Jonathan »

Dan highly recommends Atlantica, if you want to solo an MMO and do not need lightsabers.

Jonathan
Grand Pooh-Bah
Posts: 6722
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:45 pm
Location: Portland, OR
Contact:

Re: SW TOR

Post by Jonathan »

My server is Jedi Covenant.

Peijen
Minion to the Exalted Pooh-Bah
Posts: 2790
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2003 2:28 pm
Location: Irvine, CA

Re: SW TOR

Post by Peijen »

Jonathan wrote:Atlantica
Atlanitca was not solo friendly, at least not when I played. I was around level 16ish and the monstesr started to join fights mid way through, so if you kill monsters too slow you will be in a fight forever. That was actually pretty cool, but fucking hard for a solo player.

Jonathan
Grand Pooh-Bah
Posts: 6722
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:45 pm
Location: Portland, OR
Contact:

Re: SW TOR

Post by Jonathan »

I never tried it.

Erik is going to go on vacation for 3 weeks soon. If you are interested, the first 15 or 20 levels are much faster than the subsequent levels. You could easily catch up to within five levels of us (25 now) and be a useful dps. We play Thursdays 7- done. Probably you could maintain leveling parity if you soloed during the off nights even if you couldn't play the whole night.

Jonathan
Grand Pooh-Bah
Posts: 6722
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:45 pm
Location: Portland, OR
Contact:

Re: SW TOR

Post by Jonathan »

Some more on that: Dan is botting up purple crafted armor, which means you can get some quality gear if you run with us. On the other hand, Dan has already said, "screw it, if my account is banned I will just quit" and Erik has admitted his interest in his other, non-party, characters has waned. But at any rate, if you want Republic on our server, you won't be worse off than solo.

I am likely going to get both of then to play Eve in the spring.

Post Reply