[dirtyklingon]

so i guess it's 2-3 weeks or so into gam ebeing live retail so here's my thoughts

overall aside from the story telling(ie voice over quests with sp rpg like dialogue choices), the game is all around average.

it has many of the same issues we see with any mmo launch, bugs, lag, broken quests and so on.

whiel certainly with wow cata or rift or aoc or warhammer ther ewas broken quests, i feel these impact swtor to a much greater degree, because if your class quest line is bugged at all, it heavily impacts yoru ability to progress, though you can jkeep levelign past it, failibgn to progress on any given point of your class quest will lock out the rest fothe class story lines, and as well companion unlocks. which ultimately makes these broken quests game breaking where they might not be in other games(cata could ahv esimilar issues, and for some people cataa quest would break at a point that was early in a zone, forcing them to switch to another too early or to vashjir which was widely hated)

the crafting and itemization, ie orange gear and mods seems quite innovative as a compromise between vainity slots and focus on functional combat gear. until you find out
1)there seems to be a very low assortment of orange pieces in term sof looks(seems this way from gtn at least)
2)scoial vendor orange gear are all light armour type, making them useless fo rcombat use for like all but 2 ACs
3)we're debating this morning, but it seems that either orange gear cbecomes completely useless after 50 due to no pvp/raid/fp level mods, or the raid level schems drop from raid bosses, but we couldn't get confirmation on that because the one raider that was awwake in irc at 4am est kept ridign our balls saying we were spreading incorrect information then claiming purple gear was labeled prototype(though some purple gear in the actual item name does hav ethe word prototype which is certain valid cause for confusion). but as well orange gear doesn't have the set bonuses that raid/wz/fp epics do, thus holding it back for viable use in endgame content.

adn again the other place gameplay wise that swtor seems to innovate in would be the crafting, except endgame crafting is tied to bop mat and schem drops from raids bosses and hardmode fp's ultimately forcing people tha want to craft at endgame aside from pots(and cybertech for grenades) into regular raiding/pve activities. which is going make crafters very happy no doubt for sure absolutely why not sicne all crafter LOVE TO RAID AMIRITE? lulz.

i feel like a lot of the qq you will see going around is either made up or heaviyl exxagerated. i mean we are seeing epic threads over nyerking 10-30 minutes queues ffs, which is the lightest queues i've seen in an mmo yet. where many other complaints can easily be dsiproven as either normal for an mmo or just ludicrous and probably because they read it and decided ti was true then decided to repeat it as if it is true. whiel certainly also there is a kind of delay on skilla ctivation, it's much shorter than .5s and i don't have the issues other juggs claim with our channeled skills(specifically force choke) nor the spamming the button locks out skills bug(i spam my buttons nonstop without issue) that beign said, it's certainly within the realm of possibility other people are getting these bugs or issues to a great extent than i ahve personally, however by and large they seem to be heaviyl exxagerated.


that beign said, i have or my guildies ahve cencountere da wide array of pretty lulzy bugs, most of which are mere annoyances.


as well something that nags me is around level 25 on tatooine the mobs slowly and increasingly become ov ertuned, making hte solo quest mob fights feel more like a chore and less like epic heroci battles where you are some total badass. it doesn't really feel harder at all, because ultimately i use the same strats/skills. and while some may argue that dying to a class quest boss mob a couple times where you expend stims and pots every time until you do an attempt where the boss mob crits you less often and you crit him more often feels more dificult... i guess i kinda get that feel i so often do in games that i feel the mobs are overtuned or the kill speeds are too long where i feel less and less like a heroci badass and more and more like a wimp, though in the case of swtor overall i'd say the effect is much less and far less obnoxious as it was in aion and warhammer.

the levelign experience is very rich and i'v enever had a more fun and fulfilling story driven levelign experience overall in an mmo, where i feel like i am impacting the story of the world in a meaningful way despite not being a heavily player driven game. it's also fun as a massive casual coop rpg.

the last bit is abotu world pvp and so far i'm a bti dissapointed but again it seems average. the issue seems to be twofold, everyone rolled emprie with an estimated average ratio of 8:2 emp:rep, the other seems to be that there isn't a whole lot of shared quest areas to fight over, or at least not before quesh9which is wher ei ma now just starting) though i hear there are mroe quest areas to fight over on voss. perhaps both of these issues together as an empire player are exxagerating each other. and tbh over all this is pretty average for wow clone launches/map design(notable exceptions were probably rift and aoc)

so on oldschool 90s style grading scale i give this game a 7.5/10 average (for an mmo), having played far mroe than any paid reviewer would. on current vidya gaem review scale i'd give a 8.4, whciha gain amounts to merely average.

while swtor does manage to be funner than other mmo's during the levelign process, it seems to be due largely to the mesh of mass effect story telling, with a love of the IP in a way that treats it right for a change( as opposed ot eh spate of terrible nyerkign IP humping mmo's of the last 7 years). aside from teh story it suffers from many similar/same issues of any other mmo launch, and is above or below other recent wow clone style mmo in different areas depending on where you look.

[SMareOP]

In b4 Pure posts something stupid or links another forum post.

[Machazareel]

Can't really disagree with anything, but according to this article:

http://www.gamespot....all%3Btitle%3B9

The actual populations across the game are more even than they appear. Our server seems very empire heavy, though. Could be that PvE servers have more republic than sith idk.

[dirtyklingon]

i also wanted to touch a little on teh subjects of cs and bans, which is kkinda hard to beleive some of these reports but if true-


first off, phone cs is confirmed pretty lulz from multiple relaiable soruce nvm the obvious- uk us france nad germany all have toll free numbers. all other launch countries are supposed to call a logn distance international 20 digit number and add their own country code which they leave for you to research. i've been activelly tellign people they can get skype for free and use it dial the US toll free number.

reports of calls typically take between 45 minutes and 3 hours to get in touch with a cs rep. at this time hte reports vary between an irish accent woman hanging up immididately and getting their issue resolves within 5 minutes.

it seems what phoen cs can handle is very limited. i forget the full range of rejected issues, but amogn tghem seems to be bans and in game bugs/issues/etc.

basn wise it's realyl hard to take these reports seriously. saying filtered words in pm's adn group/.guild chat among griends whos upposedly didn't report them, to buying low and selling high on teh GTN to having too high gear in yoru inventory(whcih does seem to be covered by the TOS) to farming nodes on illum in the pvp area with low level toon without bots or other obvious exploits(though all of these low level toon on high level zones are presented explicitly as *exploit* strat guides, one of which i found on the front page of the general forum of darth hater with the word exploit guide in teh thread title)

the proof given of these bans is an assortment of similar poor gramar and mispellings with deformed or broken links that look alot like the wow phishing emails, which soemtimes have the swtor.com style art background and sometimes seem to be plain text emails.

which would seem to make them obvious fakes except

there are legit looking screens and semi relaiblye sources of in game GM discussions over bugs and such in whoich the GM will have horrible typing as well as be totally unaware of the playe rend of thedicussion and seemingly giving unreleated responses to what the player is saying. hwoeve rhte screens come from /v/ and my semi relaible source some times says some pretty lulzy nyerk. so...

either way if these things are true, they may be competing hard with ncsoft for worst cs/gm support in an mmo ever, which is a tough task to take on, as few of us here should be aware of if you've at all paid attention to the server and aion related forums here on AS.

hwoever if it's just hte phone cs thing beign nyerkty, then like much else in swtor, it's merely average for an mmo that isn't wow adn isn't a very profitable f2p game(f2p game son average have much better cs and gm support than p2p games).

This post has been edited by dirtyklingon: 02 January 2012 - 05:23 AM

[dirtyklingon]

oh i guess i left out companions.

some poeple describe these as pets, but personally i find them far less annoying than pet class pets in other games. for one they don't add to yoru aggro radius when trying to squeeze past mobs, for two you can set which active spells they use.

not all companions are created equal in terms of theri contributions to teh story though and after becomign accustomed to vette's chatter in convos, i'm dissapointed that jessa seems to never chime in.

you'll also find that most classes get theri companions much later than sith warrior and jedi knight. for example bounty hunters don't get their 3rd companion until the end of tatooine and IA's not until the end of alderaan which is just before chapter 1 ends for them. where as by the end of chapter 1 sw has 4 companions and gets a 5th soon after with a 6th to come later on to top up.

i think people worry too much abotu companion affection and freak out at negative points. people also wrogn ly assumign that companions are ds or ls when really only sometimes do affection gains and losses overlap with ls/ds choices.

i was able to get 1500 affection with vette by the end of chapter 1 while going full ds but choosing things that i wanted that suited howi wanted to rp my toon. where as other people have a harder time getting overly positive net gain on her while trying to make her like them.

make i s abit mor eocmplex and for example device can't figure it out, where as my bro seems to have no issue with her even though he acts like a total badass dick nonstop.

vette for example likes earnign credits for any reason, like when you thumb your nos eat authority, adn lieks when you kill spineless cowards. where as she hates when you are cruel to or kill slaves.

mako is a professional she's there to kill teh mark and make credits, but if you go overboard with killing she will dislike it, and won't necessarily like you for asking for more credits, unless you are clever about it.

other companions have differnet likes and dislikes.

regardless you can ignore them liking yoru dialogue choices and simpyl give them gifts later on for relatively cheap to max out their affection and get max mission/craft bonuses related to crafting from affection with each of them.

[Nobody]

Don't know about the ban stuff, but I got this form letter back for reporting a game bug that kept my party from looting in an instance. I'm glad it wasn't something I expected them to do something about or I might have raged because the overall form is just in poor taste (I don't want my customer service people to ever act like droids kthx).

Quote

Greetings,

I am Protocol Droid M0-T0 and I have received your transmission.

Thank you for contacting us with this bug report. Your report has been forwarded to the relevant department, who will investigate further. We regret we will be unable to provide you with further updates on this issue, but recommend checking future patch notes for any up to date information.

We would like to apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused, and to thank you again for the valuable feedback you have provided. Please do not hesitate to report any other issues you may encounter whilst playing the game.

Galactic Support is our specialty...

Sincerely,

Protocol Droid M0-T0
Star Wars: The Old Republic Customer Service

[Outrageous]

Nobody, on 02 January 2012 - 12:17 PM, said:

Don't know about the ban stuff, but I got this form letter back for reporting a game bug that kept my party from looting in an instance. I'm glad it wasn't something I expected them to do something about or I might have raged because the overall form is just in poor taste (I don't want my customer service people to ever act like droids kthx).

It's not poor taste, they're keeping in character. Essentially, their support team is RP'ing. Anyone with even a remedial knowledge of Star Wars will know what Protocol Droids are.

Personally, I think it's awesome.

[dirtyklingon]

i think it's awful too snoozle

[SMareOP]

Outrageous, on 02 January 2012 - 01:05 PM, said:

It's not poor taste, they're keeping in character. Essentially, their support team is RP'ing. Anyone with even a remedial knowledge of Star Wars will know what Protocol Droids are.

Personally, I think it's awesome.

All GM's I ever talked to except for Aion would RP, not for bug reports but the GM's did.

This post has been edited by SMareOP: 02 January 2012 - 03:12 PM

[Nobody]

RP'ing gm's are a bit different than RP form letters. If any of you remember Tamat's old RP announcements, I often had to translate as they never got to the point. When you are trying to give information (that could potentially be important), RP is just a bad way to do it. Especially when people are having problems (which is usually why they seek customer service).

And honestly, for anybody that's worked in the service sector, I'd suggest that being relegated to a droid (especially a protocol droid) is just plain insulting.

I do suppose there are people that like to RP that though.

[SMareOP]

Nobody, on 02 January 2012 - 04:15 PM, said:

RP'ing gm's are a bit different than RP form letters. If any of you remember Tamat's old RP announcements, I often had to translate as they never got to the point. When you are trying to give information (that could potentially be important), RP is just a bad way to do it. Especially when people are having problems (which is usually why they seek customer service).

And honestly, for anybody that's worked in the service sector, I'd suggest that being relegated to a droid (especially a protocol droid) is just plain insulting.

I do suppose there are people that like to RP that though.

LoL it's not a droid that is doing the fixes it is real people. They told you thanks for the problem and they will look into it. I understand RP is creepy but you are taking this to a whole new level of lol.

[Device]

SMareOP, on 02 January 2012 - 04:45 PM, said:

They told you thanks for the problem and they will look into it.

People still believe this?

[SMareOP]

Device, on 02 January 2012 - 05:01 PM, said:

People still believe this?

I said they would look into it I never said they would fix it.

[Nobody]

But you believe they will actually look into it? I mean I know they will do nothing, but man RP'ing the nothing is a new level of creepy to me. It just is.

[0____________o]

snoozle, its not quite rping because the meat of the letter is plain english. I bet they have a default letter style like this:

Quote

Greetings,

I am <INSERT NAME HERE> and I have received your transmission.

<INSERT COMMENT HERE>

Galactic Support is our specialty...

Sincerely,

<INSERT NAME HERE>
Star Wars: The Old Republic Customer Service

imho if it were rping, you'd see that whole middle section sounding like youre still in-game talking to a beeping droid. Using a couple of default expressions to tie the letter to the game is okay.

With that said, nyerk them for telling you 1. they'll look into it AND 2. there's nothing they can do for you, all in the same breathe. big slap in the face to a paying customer.

nyerk them droid nyerkin nyerkers

[puremallace]

SMareOP, on 02 January 2012 - 05:05 AM, said:

In b4 Pure posts something stupid or links another forum post.

http://www.swtor.com...ad.php?t=120099

^ about bans. The Ilum bans were because people were linking /who screenshots of guys getting 5k xp every 8 min(respawn time) and if you interpret the TOS literally then Section B part 2? basically says you can not have crafting alts because it is considered Item Loading.

Stephen Reid did not help his case by trying to hide the fact people were exploiting. Trion and Blizzard came out and looked like idiots Bioware is not magically immune to it.

ZOMG DK I GOT IT...based off your review..no but seriously off your review

[SMareOP]

puremallace, on 03 January 2012 - 03:13 PM, said:

http://www.swtor.com...ad.php?t=120099

^ about bans. The Ilum bans were because people were linking /who screenshots of guys getting 5k xp every 8 min(respawn time) and if you interpret the TOS literally then Section B part 2? basically says you can not have crafting alts because it is considered Item Loading.

Stephen Reid did not help his case by trying to hide the fact people were exploiting. Trion and Blizzard came out and looked like idiots Bioware is not magically immune to it.

ZOMG DK I GOT IT...based off your review..no but seriously off your review

You are a sad, sad person. Please don't come on here AGAIN crying you cannot kill a group of mobs.

This post has been edited by SMareOP: 03 January 2012 - 05:13 PM

[Nobody]

Roll a healer. We kill everything. We're just a little slower about it.

[SMareOP]

Nobody, on 03 January 2012 - 05:33 PM, said:

Roll a healer. We kill everything. We're just a little slower about it.

LoL You're the only one that would group with him. Bads are not good healers.

[Nobody]

SMareOP, on 03 January 2012 - 05:42 PM, said:

LoL You're the only one that would group with him. Bads are not good healers.

One step ahead. I AM a healer... follow it through.

Healers really do seem to do well though in terms of killing pretty much everything.