A/V The Old Republic MMO: The New Official Thread

This was, I believe, largely a problem of marketing. It was, and is, entirely possible to play TOR as a single player game. My Sith Warrior playthrough did the following multiplayer events before reaching level 50: Black Talon once, Boarding Party once, and Foundry once. No heroics, no pvp, nothing. The game can be played in an entirely single-player context (heck, prior to server consolidation it was occasionally possible to be the only player on an entire planet sometimes). Played this way TOR is admittedly somewhat repetitive, since you go though effectively the same battle with simlar mobs over and over again, but that's hardly different from most single player rpgs - how many bandits do you slaughter in a skyrim playthrough? - but it is a perfectly satisfactory single-player game.

When free-to-play comes out Bioware needs to emphasize this. No one wants to pay subscription fees for a single-player rpg, but with free to play, there's no need, and the game has easily 200+ hours of content just playing through the Republic and Imperial sides once. The story content is good, and fans of KOTOR should give it a shot when that happens.

 

An interesting engineering fact is it's entirely possible to make a car that flies. Not like the kind in BTTF2 but similar enough that you could build them in the 1960s. The problem is that engineers noted the fundamental problem of the design which hasn't been fixed in decades. Specifically, the car that flies is a mediocre car as well as a mediocre plane. So, really, why not make good cars and planes?

The repeated emphasis of what an awesome single-player campaign TOR is...really isn't a good thing. The heart of WOW's success isn't guys who join up, play the single player campaign, and end up but the communities formed around it. People who become friends, exchange e-mails, talk on headphones, and generally have a vested interest in plugging their cash into the system. See Felicia Day's the Guild for a horrific but funny example.

When I was initially going to play Star Wars: The Old Republic I was going to join up with a couple of friends I hadn't spoken to in years and form a Guild. We were going to be a Sith Warrior, A Sith Inquisitor, and an Imperial Agent. All we needed was a Bounty Hunter and things would have been great. Then I noted that joining up seemed to be sort of against the storyline being told in the story. There wasn't much reason to join up either as I was underwhelmed by group content. The Flashpoints were okay but nothing as intricate as the main story.

So I soloed Sith Inquisitor and it was fun but it left me thinking.

"Is it a good thing I'd have preferred to play this on my Xbox at home alone?"

While it's impossible to translate, really I kept thinking that they might have better done a Multimedia project with six individual games set in the same timeline and *THEN* created the MMORPG.

 

Obviously, you didn't play Skyrim like I did. The poor Forsaken people are never going to recover from my many massacres.

Which is a shame because they rock the headdress and fur bikini.

 

Depends to be honest. If you take a lot of Japanese RPGs, then Grind Grind Grind is the name of the game even for a solo game.

 

You do realize that there are hardly any 'kill this many x' quests in TOR outside of the completely optional bonus objectives. You don't have to do those. In fact, there's relatively little reason to do so unless you wish to be massively overleveled. TOR has an XP surplus, not a defficency.

The only thing that's unavoidable about TOR as a single-player issue is that mobs in some areas, generally long, mostly linear caverns, respawn before you can leave and you have to fight them again on your way out if you've used up your fast travel for the moment. And even that's an element present in many single player RPGs.

TOR as a single player game actually resembles the Star Ocean series more than anything.

 

It's worth noting, however, that the game very rarely requires you to kill a large amount of enemies as a sole objective. Generally, kill objectives are placed along side other goals, and usually you'll easily reach that mark just getting to the goal (unless you are a stealth class), or in bonus missions. Bonus missions, I find, are far from absolutely necessary to keep up your levels.

EDIT: Err, I suppose Mechalich pretty much said that already.

 

All this talk of TOR has been making me want to play it, so I decided to get back in... or try to, anyway. I've encountered a very odd problem.

When I load up TOR, I can play for a maximum of two minutes or so, and then the game freezes, the audio clips like crazy, and then rather than be taken back to my desktop, my entire computer crashes, and I am promptly taken to my motherboard screen. Once my computer loads, it tells me that windows has encountered a problem. I don't believe it's a hardware issue: I've looked into drivers, dusted out my computer, and all of my fans are still working. In addition, I've tried the three other high performance games I own, The Witcher 2, Shogun 2 Total War and Battlefield 3, and can play without a hitch. Any ideas?

The most odd thing about it is that I, of course, searched for people having similar problems, and noticed that many have experienced it... after a patch in February, 2012. It seems, for them, it's mostly fixed.

 

I have heard of people complaining of this. Especially when it comes to getting customer support to help. I have not experienced this and do not know how to fix it. But you are not a lone. The only thing I can vaguely remember about it is that it has something to do with the graphics card and involves deleting a new driver and reverting back to an older update. But I may be wrong, I read about this a while ago, when I encountered a different problem with the game.

 

Still kind of annoyed that he doesn't speak basic, as Trandoshans usually do, so you always have to read subtitles.

 

Well, personnally, I actually like the general multi-lingual approach of TOR. There's a great many NPCs who don't speak basic, and there's a lot of Huttese in the game, which really helps to show how different certain cultures and populations really are.

Of course, generally I read the subtitles for almost all of the dialog, it's just so much faster.

 

The alien languages are much better than they were in KOTOR. In KOTOR, there were just a hand full of phrases, and they would be repeated whenever the characters speak (I dare you to try to put up with the boredom of not reading and skipping Zaalbaar's dialogue). In TOR, it seems much more worked out, like the characters could feasibly be speaking in another language.

 

I usually do as well, but companions that only speak none basic are kind of handled in an annoying way, as their throw in lines are also only subs, so sometimes you miss what they said, plus them often being very exotic aliens you could have had great fun with them speaking “broken” basic, since they had already sunk huge sums into voice acting.

Also a lot of intresting Hutts in the game. ^^

 

Trandoshans never used to speak basic until TCW came along.

 

Äh.... yes they did. Bossk in the novels always spoke Basic, as did the Trandoshans in Comics and Games (like Pekt in Battlefields or the Warriors in Republic Commando). Not saying that they don’t have their own language or anything, but they seem very well versed in basic, so I am really surprised that Qyzen doesn’t speak it.

 

Well, in Qyzen's specific case, I suspect it's a deliberate design effect. With the exception of the Imperial Agent, every class has one companion character who doesn't speak basic (Qyzen, T7-O1, Bowdaar, Yuun, Khem Val, Broonmark, and Blizz). That seems appropriate.

One of the features of TOR regarding languages that I really did appreciate was the constant mix between Basic and Huttese. If you go through a lot of NPC dialogues it becomes quite clear that within galactic society the two languages overlap and everyone is more or less expected to be fluent in both. It helps to emphasize the cultural ebb and flow of the galaxy.

 

Very much so also a feature I liked about many of the comics written by Ostrander and Duursema where they would have characters that grow up in such backgrounds often use pieces of Huttese to supplement basic.

 

Huttese is just so commonly spoken that it feels like a second language in TOR. In fact, the languages in the game are all quite interesting since we see:

• Basic
• Huttese
• Durosian (Neimoidian as well I think but not surprising if they are the same)
• Geonosian
• Killik
• Esh-kha
• Gree
• Trandoshan
• Dashade

There might be more but those are the ones I remember off the top of my head. But Huttese is spoken by Twi'leks, Nikto and a number of other species which just shows hwo widely spread it is.

 

I guess I was thinking of the Trandoshans in KOTOR 2, Jedi Outcast, and Jedi Academy, who didn't speak Basic.

 

http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2012/11/star-wars-old-republic-review.html

Here's my Star Wars: The Old Republic review, I'm going to review every single campaign in my blog for those who are interested. I'm open to suggestions as to which one you guys want me to do first.

Whatever the case, I love the game and I'm actually kind of sad that it's going free-to-play because that implies it didn't succeed in its original business model. The game may not be perfect but it deserved to be a smashing success.

I think the game is one of the best things to come out of Star Wars in years.

 

I must admit, I keep enjoying all the video snippets that people occasionally post and I'm badly looking forward to when I've got the time to play the game.

Ironically, I expect I'll enjoy it more because I've waited a year and have let the hype wear off, as a year ago I was all gung-ho and expecting the Second Coming of Christ Revan from the game, but when I found my laptop couldn't hack it, and have since not had time to play so not bothered to upgrade yet, I've kind of enjoyed that my expectations won't now be as unrealistically high anymore, allowing me to just enjoy whatever the game actually offers me.

I had a similar experience with Mass Effect 3, as I played it a couple of months after launch, so already had heard all the negativity about the ending, then got to it and just went "Oh, that's all?" and actually found I didn't mind it any more or less than most game endings.

By the same logic, I'm going to be very curious what the general reception of F2P will be by all those other people who haven't played it yet either, as it'll be interesting if their is the same negative experience, or if people who didn't get swept up in the initial media frenzy are able to take a cooler approach, especially given they won't be paying, so may not feel as pressured to 'get their monthly money's worth' out of the game, but can instead take it slow and not feel like they're blowing their subscription time.

Admittedly I've never cared for hardcore MMO playing though, so a more casual crowd will appeal to me more.

 

You've managed to play through all the campaigns? Where in the world did you find the time?

Will be very interested in seeing how you feel the various stories stack up to each other. I've played bits of all of them, though I've only beaten the Jedi Knight and am very far in the Imperial Agent story. Loved the former for the old fashioned pulp storytelling, and simply love the Agent story period.

The game was undoubtedly a success, being the fastest selling MMO to date, but I can see why switching to a free to play model would be a sign that it hasn't been consistent in that.

Definitely sums up my playstyle. I play the game very "episodically", and find I really enjoy it that way. All the stories, even the darker ones like the Agent's, are really fun in a way that just not much EU is anymore, and I find they do a fantastic job in making every planet be a satisfying experience on its own.

 

I vote Jedi Consular, mainly because I still like all the EU references (and my Shadow remains my favorite class with the stealth and tanking and such). Although I'm finally getting around to playing the Imperial Agent story and I can see why its so popular (although spy drama isn't really my favorite to be honest). Smuggler would be my next suggestion because of how funny it was. Jedi Knight is ok, it covers plenty of the traditional Star Wars story beats, I just didn't love it.

Its always hard to tell what they're aiming for with an MMO. Short of having millions of constant subscribers, nothing else really seems to qualify as a success. And plenty of other MMOs converted to f2p fast and many have survived so guess they couldn't resist following those examples. All those major figures resigning might be a bad sign though, we'll see. There is a ton of content in here and I like the class stories but its always seemed like they're going for so many different crowds (MMO gamers, Star Wars fans, KotOR fans, video game fans, and everybody else) and... are having a hard time holding people's attentions. WoW is still going, but just copying it won't work, as then people would then go play WoW instead.

I like TOR well enough, still spending a lot of time on it, but I'm slightly afraid at the server load when free-to-play launches. They used to have like 20 servers for each coast, then it came down to five servers of various types of player behavior, now its down to 1 per type, although the east coast is better off.

A news site I visit often mentions that November 15 also happens to be the date the Star Wars Galaxies New Game something was launched so that's not exactly a good anniversary, though I never played SWG myself and am just basing it on how everyone refers to that expansion.

Speaking of expansions, its been almost 11 months since the game launched (early access was December 13 I think, although I wish I had reserved more of my favorite names back then), so wonder what they'll rush towards next. The Annihilation novel comes out tomorrow, so there could be hints in there.

I like the class stories, but it being an MMO a lot of the stories, while entertaining, seem somewhat extraneous. They all contribute to the war, and the Jedi Knight was particularly important of course (the vague time jump still annoys me), but now story-wise it just seems like a continuous wait for whatever the next Operation will be, caused by the same recurring villains, and we already have several important missing/vanished characters from earlier Flashpoints still out there. Not to mention how they'll sidestep any important choices your player-character made near the end (ME3 really showed how Bioware operates).

Here's hoping free-to-play doesn't crash anything, since 1.4 I think the servers have crashed once or twice (not for too long, but still). At least we finally get to acquire HK-51, that should be entertaining (I've refrained from reading spoilers from the test servers), just hope its not too frustrating (Bioware had a weekend event once which was very poorly designed). If TOR had just been released as KotOR III, I would have loved it, or even as something like Dragon Age Origins, but I'm not the biggest MMO fan either, and they're really shooting for that market.

 

I never understood why Jedi would ware wedding dressed as armor?

My main is a Consualr Shadow, his build is buff, so suffice to say before i got this top
http://tor.zamimg.com/torhead/uploads/images/12596.jpg

and the alderaan white pants I looked silly, like wesly snipes in drag silly.

And I had to work to put my Sentinel who is an athletic build female in

http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&h...128&start=0&ndsp=35&ved=1t:429,r:11,s:0,i:108

the Black Hole gear for consulars was the first gear that wasnt groan worthy. I think Swtor has some of the stupidest looking gear in all of MMOdom. baring the lifeldian shoulderpads of warcraft,