Years in the making and costing more money than every generation of your family past and future has and will ever see, the second Star Wars MMO is a brute-force attempt to be an online hit. It exists to be a sci-fi alternative to the tall shadow cast by World of Warcraft, which is why you'll spot a rather familiar feature or two. or three or four or five or six hundred. Yes, much of what The Old Republic is unabashedly traditional for the MMO genre, but it redeems itself from being WoW in space with the addition of a heavily story-based, semi-singleplayer layer that tries to lend purpose to your adventures and monster-bashing.
The game's created by Mass Effect and Knights of the Old Republic creators Bioware, oft-hailed as kings of game storytelling. A legion of writers and voice-actors have been tasked with creating hours of dialogue and cutscenes intended to create meaty, epic stories for each of the game's player classes - and all of those having branching chat and consequences based on your moral choices. You can be a quasi-evil Jedi or a noble Sith-contracted Bounty Hunter, or vice-versa, or anything in between.
This being an MMO, there are of course big statistical bonuses to be had from min-maxing your morality, but if you want to roleplay, that options there. As a Bounty Hunter, I proved disturbingly willing to execute people in cold blood but stopped short of putting kids in any kind of peril. It's hardly deep and nuanced, but unlike the vast majority of MMOs it's a point of emotional connection to your character and their actions, rather than caring solely about their stats and armour sets.
The entertainment value of the classes differs a little; I found the nominally Light-side Smuggler to lean towards the bland, but the murderous derring-do and bloody competitiveness of the Bounty Hunter proved entertaining, sinister and packed with sharp dialogue and performances. Superficially speaking, the quests rarely escape the traditional kill x of x or collect x of x or courier x to x format, but because they're book-ended by a quick, fully voice-acted chat with someone, a sense of context beyond 'reward!' often creeps in.
You want to help this guy, or you have a negative reaction to that hissing, paranoid weirdo and decide not to pitch in. This is most effective when you're about to fight a named or boss character, and get to have a quick argument first - often including a shoot first/questions later approach or in some cases an attempt to talk them out of whatever skullduggery they're up to.
It's stronger stuff than MMOs tend to offer, a lavish world away from the scrolling text-boxes and frozen-faced NPCs of its rivals. At the same time, it can be hard not to wish it wasn't a fully-fledged singleplayer RPG with wider choice of actions and encounters that didn't always boil down to clicking a series of icons (or pressing number keys) to win another identi-fight. Plus the presence of other players, shouting and moaning and looking for groups and talking to NPCs who were, only moments ago, claiming you were their only hope Obi Wan Kenobi, can disrupt the fantasy. If this is supposed to be your amazing adventure, what are all these other guys doing?
In happy contrast to that is that the other players can boost the sense of this being a living, breathing place. Of course a space station would be full of other people all pursuing their own self-interests - what, you expected everyone on it to be waiting in a neat line to sell you new trousers and offer up quests? If you can deal with the noise of people's neediness, SWTOR can be a thrilling place to be.
It's just a crying shame that, a few key features aside (companion NPCs and, come the endgame, owning your own spaceship being the most notable) SWTOR cleaves so closely to the World of Warcraft model: quests and crafting and postboxes and flightpoints and skill trainers and PVP arenas and all. It'd be grand to feel more surprised by it, for it to be a voyage of discovery and wonder rather than of the same loot-crazed hamster wheel we've all spent so much time on already. That said, making laser guns and lightsabers fit that model so naturally is a respectable achievement, given sci-fi MMOs have by and large struggled in the past.
There isn't too much the game actively gets wrong, aside from some launch-fortnight tech issues, but if it matched the obviously lavish world design with something more than workmanlike it could have been the giant-killer it so clearly wants to be.
Comments
Khan said: MCOnyxiaBWL i think were the end game instances in vanilla WoW I have played WoW for years through Vanilla till the release of Cataclysm Unfortunately blizzard has decided to force feed shit as some mentioned above In the hope of salvation i have quit WoW With the release of SWTOR i wanted to have a go with MMORPGs Thoo the storyline didnt thrill me as musch as it did to some Havent reached 50 yet lvl 32 atm but i am not on a rush to get to the endAs a fact stupid DCs are most annoying
Atlanleo said: The thing that bugs me most is when you change planet it it doesent feel like it Like you said just another sone with exacly the SAME quests Think the class quest is funny and brings some joy but the planet thing really bugs me And if you start a new character you have to do the same quests at the same planets again Should be able to do different quests at different planets no matter the lvlafter lvl 10 Then people would feel like they travel more and get a greater experiance After all travlingfrom planet to planetis a great part in STAR wars And my final complain is that there are too boring killing the same mobs like a hundred times just to get a little ex No better in high lvl
zjb said: Objectively Like the issues mentionedThere were plenty of spelling mistakes and stat mistakes in WOW tooltips and quests that were not actually corrected for several yearsAs for issues with being stuck in an animation that too is not unique to SWTOR Think back to vanilla WOW and mining some of the slightly buggy ore veins that left you in the mining animation or looting a corpse that left your crouched while still being beaten on and plenty of other situationsGlitchy spots in instances that reset aggro or combat WOW has plenty of these too much to the delight of gold farmers and power-levelers who know precisely how to exploit themasdf and yourself strike me as those who probably space-skip all the time and try to race through the content as quickly as possible to get to the top level without actually paying attention and enjoying the journeyYour complaints about end-game are probably very valid but slating the game for the rest of the mentioned reasons I think is a bit cheapMind you thinking back there wasnt a huge amount of end-game back in vanilla WOW either Just a few instances to repetitively run for a few pieces of rare gear
Poo said: This is indeed the state of SWTORPeople are just unable to look past their fanboyobsessionwith Star WarsIf you can for a moment set aside the fact that its Star Wars and look at things objectively then you can see things as they areA below-average wanna-be WoW clone
Poo said: Its aMassivelySingleplayer Online Roleplaying Game Sure the voiceovers are nice on your first playthrough to 50 They get kinda boring on the second and so-on Not much endgame there but what little is there is buggybrokenand not creativeIts the perfect game to be reviewed though as most reviewers are only gonna play it for a short while to get the feeling of it I wont argue If I sat down and played this game for 2 days and then walked away forever then I too would have a high opinion of the game and would likelyrecommendit to othersThat said once you play ALL the way though and you realize there is almost non-existent PvE endgame and severely broken PvP endgame you go back to leveling alts It is at THIS point you realize only about 110th of your quests will be new story everything else will be the same as you just playedWanted to love this game really badly its Star Wars for Christs sake Just really can bring myself toanymoreIts a poorly-done wow in spaceAmazing voice-over work is about the only Compliment I can give it
Gfysandblowme said: Wow sucks SWTOR is the best thing going Whiners can go be bored playing WOW or wait another 5 years for Blizzard to finish lol Go hump a Panda Have fun xD Sounds like some babies paid in advance for shitty wow and are now bitter Noting is perfect retards Everything has been pretty much done dunces SWTOR just does it far better BEST MMO EVER redacted
KYLE said: What they need is a MMO that has the same concept as Saints Row Giant map numerous factions factions fight over territories territories unlock different quests to level up PVE intermixed with PVP and most important of all make the game CHALLENGING Vanilla WoW was where it was at BC was o-k After that gamers around the world have been forced fed shitty MMOs
Asdf said: I agree there was a lot of promise- but too much left lacking and unpolishedexploits- gaining infinite lightdark points bots and speedhacks- destroy the value of what you worked for quests that dont work bosses that are stuck in invincible mode- revan words misspelled- impireil in ilum they were that rushed they forgot to spellcheckpoor pvp design- being forced to play scenarios that favor certain classes continuouly being tossed from ledges playing against lvl 50 teams with 2 people and being unable to avoid while the lvl 50 team still gains all the rewards for victory at level 15 against imbalanced classes exploitable terrain standing inside the huttball podium dual invisible exploit to remain invisible while capturing objectives pvp battlegrounds illum absolutely empty- quests unfinishable tattoines smugglers den- empty and stripped of all resourceshigh level flashpoints in order to avoid exploits are hit-or-misssometimes you can turn a corner duck behind a box and a boss will enrage- and everyone will simultaneously die sometimes your tank can run circles and avoid everything and then theres the Revan- if you interrupt his spell when hes low life- you miss a cutscene and he cannot die- and stays invincibleconstantly getting stuck in objects being disconnected from the server every 30 minutes- and then logging in to fall through the ground and dying being instant-killed by being pushed through walls-falling through the ground being stuck in the falling animation or being trapped somewhere else heals dont connect because target is standing on a line in a different room- within range items disappearing while equipping themyou grind through the game and all the rough edges- hoping to explore the galaxy and appreciate the star wars lore butat 50 when the single player ends theres not much else the storyline that had been engaging is gone and pvp is lacking the battlegrounds are empty crafting becomes a wasted effortId enjoy the storyline of the other characters- but the normal grind is tedious and boring the quests become a grind
Oconor said: If youre going to make claims for originality than itd be best to back it up with some specific evidence
Mote said: Got two main problems with this game1 Everyonelooks the samePlayers havejust the same two character models except different sizes skinsand different junk stuck to their heads This is Star Wars man Give us something more exoticHeck at least give us wookies2 Too much focus on solo play Im all for story but first few days in it felt like Mass Effect except with a subscription fee
Jason said: One session during the beta Sorry to say youre missing out Longtime WoW player here to say that SWTOR is hands down freaking awesome Yes it has an array of just launched MMO bugs but its so polished theyre easy to forgive Its freaking awesome
Kevscar said: one session in beta test convinced me not to buy Nothing new to get excited about
Sarnius said: best mmo there is no doubt