Star Wars: The Old Republic

By Chaltalian
in PC Gaming

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  • 2 weeks later...
Veteran

metal_dragen Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

Had a chance to get a first shot at the new operation last night with my guild. It's very well done so far. I'm glad they've finally taken end-game seriously and given us a non care-bear operation.

Our normal raid group is probably 85% Rakata (Tier 1.3) and we went into the instance on Story Mode to get an introduction and a feel for the fights. They've definitely tuned this one up and we're all very happy with it.

After about 4-5 wipes as we learned the mechanics and got the group organized, we downed the first boss (Toth and Zorn) and moved on to the second (Stormcaller and Firebrand). The second fight, we wiped another 4-5 times before we had to call it a night.

The fights are definitely more varied and much more about raid organization and coordination, which is awesome. We're all very excited about really putting in some good progression.

As for the other stuff in 1.2, the UI changes are fantastic, the combat log is a godsend. I haven't personally had a chance to, but several of my guildies have run the new warzone and are pretty happy with it.

The new daily area on Corellia is nice and easy to complete (about an hour total for all the solo and the heroic ender).

The guild bank is nice and has some good features, but definitely needs some more work to make it easier to manage.

I haven't had a chance to play all my characters to experience the class changes they made, but for snipers, it doesn't seem terrible so far. I haven't really lost anything (and any stats "lost" due to changes in the skill trees are more than made up for based on the legacy companion unlocks).

The legacy system is pretty cool. I haven't bought anything yet (have to grind out some more credits), but the unlocks so far have been cool - buffs to max health, damage and surge based on companions, etc.

Overall, I'm very pleased with 1.2 - we already saw about double our usual online numbers last night because of 1.2, so I'm hoping there's enough here to keep those people interested and in the game. It has a lot of promise and this is a good step in the right direction from Bioware.

Grand Master

Kirkburn

Posted
Posted

Sounds pretty good - I've been keeping my copy up to date ever since beta, and have been reading all the patch notes. I'm still really strongly considering getting it ... and now I see that the boxed copy is down to ?22. Despite my WoW sub ... I think I might actually go ahead and get it now.

(I've had a free week available to me for a while, but kept putting it off for potentially getting in the Mists of Pandaria beta)

The legacy system seems an especially nice touch. I love the idea of making a family tree of characters.

Veteran

Twiddle

Posted
Posted

I went to re-sub last night, and as the updater was going, I read the patch notes, and decided not too. I'm just not interested in it anymore I guess. Just remembering the boredom I felt kind of turned me off once I reach level 50 on two characters and was left with nothing much to do, story/quest wise. I really wish this would have been more of a KoToR 3 I guess. I wanted more story content, rather than end-game stuff.

(Also doesn't help nearly all my real life and old guild friends quit, out of 60 of them, only about 4 or 5 still play I think.)

I'll wait a couple more months when there is a lot more story content added to the game, so it will feel worth it paying $15 to finish up a couple days worth of story quests.

Grand Master

HawkMan

Posted
Posted

Individual according to your stories, but it mostly only affect the smaller story arcs depending on the choices you make there. The actual light and dark side points don't affect the story, it only affects what gear you can wear. Though the only gear affected now is relics I believe.

The stores are only affected by the conversation options you chose for each story/arc

Veteran

metal_dragen Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

I have been "youtube-playing" this game. Looks good. But I have a question: if I start as Sith, and only selection actions that boosts my light side, what is supposed to happen storyline and character wise?

That would ruin the experience if we told you! But seriously, each class story has unique endings depending on what dialogue options you pick and who you kill or spare (for example, the imperial agent has 3 unique endings). Most of them are aligned with whether you choose the dark side, light side, or gray dialogue.

As for your character, not much happens - you lock yourself out of dark side only gear, but gain access to light side only gear. If you go dark side, there are additional visuals (Sith Corruption which they renamed to Dark Side Corruption in 1.2) that make your eyes red, cause your skin color to get paler, give you really dark circles around your eyes and cause veins on your face to show.

Proficient

Beyond Godlike

Posted
Posted

The game is mostly Sith. I quit the game in Feb cause the Jedi faction is a ghost town on most servers. This game should be F2P by end of summer with how fast ppl are leaving it, and the amount of fail bioware has performed trying to 'fix' things, like giving the Sith the ability to farm PVP gear that takes a month to get, in 8 hours! Jedi characters were spawn camped on Illum and couldnt leave the planet because of it.

Grand Master

margrave

Posted
Posted

I'm still having a blast in SWTOR. I still really like it. Current analysis of the game has been that it peaked at 1.7 million and is in decline, but that it should plateau out at 1.2 million. If those numbers are close I don't see it going f2p as over a million is more than enough for a subscription model to live. I remember back in Everquest 1 it was HUGE that they had over 400,000 players. No one at that time imagined over a million.

Proficient

Beyond Godlike

Posted
Posted

I'm still having a blast in SWTOR. I still really like it. Current analysis of the game has been that it peaked at 1.7 million and is in decline, but that it should plateau out at 1.2 million. If those numbers are close I don't see it going f2p as over a million is more than enough for a subscription model to live. I remember back in Everquest 1 it was HUGE that they had over 400,000 players. No one at that time imagined over a million.

itsm uch lower than that

I mean, planets and major 'cities' have at most 150 ppl on most servers during peak times. Most of the planets sit below 50. I surveyed alot of servers back in Feb and it was awful what they called high population.

Grand Master

margrave

Posted
Posted

I was just taking numbers from:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/168878/Star_Wars_The_Old_Republic_sub_numbers_already_declining__analyst.php

I know that I barely see people on the Republic side, unless I'm on the fleet. On the Empire side I see bunches.

I just don't see this going free to play like people are calling, or at least not as fast as some are saying it will. Server merges will come before that.

Personally, I don't care about who has the highest population, I'm not playing with all those millions. I care if I'm having a fun time in a game, and if it's worth the cost to me.

Proficient

Beyond Godlike

Posted
Posted

I don't think it'll go Free to Play that soon, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's Free to Play early next year. Have to give BioWare some credit, they've done a decent job of supporting it.

I doubt the games decline is Biowares fault. Id blame EA more than anyone. By design tho, the game doesnt have a heavy MMO feel, more RPG.

Grand Master

HawkMan

Posted
Posted

itsm uch lower than that

I mean, planets and major 'cities' have at most 150 ppl on most servers during peak times. Most of the planets sit below 50. I surveyed alot of servers back in Feb and it was awful what they called high population.

Mighty big chip to keep carry around on your shoulders...

Yeah the game is well over 1 million, even over 1.5 now. and they are growing. they had a dip and some are leaving but the total number is growing. you have to remember that there's 24 hours a day, and most people don't play much more than 1 or 2 of them, and most not even every day. Even so you stats are wrogn anyway, if you take all the "visible" online players at peak time, you still only have a fraction of the people actually online on the server at the time. This game is heavilily instanced, and the majority of players will be sheltered int heir own instances of various dungeons, PVP arenas and flashpoints. You are only counting the small percentage of people hanging out at the fleet doing nothing but hanging out. whereas most of the people actually playing won't be visible.

Funny how you insist on posting in a thread about a game you obviously no longer play or like though.

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