official Star Wars: The Old Republic

[Controlled]

Realism just doesn't age well.

I certainly agree with that statement.

Makes me wonder what we will think of Battlefield 3 in 10 years.

[Amarok]

Finally hit level cap. Had a blast getting there even though my server, which was high pop at launch, is pretty much dead. Inq is the only class that I have any interest in playing, and I don't really feel like leveling on another server atm. I do have friends on one of the higher pop realms. I'll probably just let my subscription lapse until they implement server transfers and then move over there as I think my subscription is up in one or two more days?

The graphics are fine, more than fine. animations are nice, and the cloth sim is better than anything I've seen in any other game.

The models are also high res, the textures less so but that's being fixed (the high res textures are there, but disabled during regular gameplay for now. what many people consider bad graphics is actually the cartoony style of the game. But if you actually look at the models they are high res as far as the meshes, unlike that other game peopel keep comparing to that has 3 sided trees and crap.

I actually prefer the more cartoony art style of SWTOR/WoW. You're right, realism doesn't age well at all. WoW's textures past the first expansion are actually high-res, a lot of the ones in SWTOR are not. The floor, most of the armor, the buildings, they're all low-res. Darth Baras springs to mind immediately; He's wearing what could be one of the best looking armor sets I've seen in a game in a long time but it's horribly low-res. A lot of the details are just "painted on" and everything is flat. Before you ask, yes I'm playing on the highest settings. The game looks amazing from a distance but once you get close to things it's pretty noticeable. Hopefully you're right and they're doing something to fix it, I don't mind all that much though as it's a pretty fun game.

[HawkMan]

No, SWTOR has fully high res textures.

you see them when you're in cinematics. You can also see them for a second if you click the intercom or holo thingy on the ship. They are not visible on characters yet for technical reasons as it would cause to many rea calls to the HDD slowing down the game, instead they use texture atlasing, where the merge all the textures of your and other peoples characters into one "big" texture, but this texture is the size of a regular high res texture so your character appears low res.

the 1.2 content patch is supposed to add the first fix for this which will let you set it so you and your companion at least will use high res textures, and possibly grouped people. it's listed on the forum thread at SWTOR. later they'll add more fine tuned control to it so more characters can be in high res for those with fast enough computers and drives.

You'll also notice the shaders look a lot more awesome in the cinematics, this is primarily because of the higher res textures giving far more details to the normal maps and spec maps and such of the models.

and why not just roll a new toon on the server. in SWTOR the story is the good part, the end game is just end game.

[Dashel]

Well, new end content in 1.1 so thats good news. I'm still taking my time atm. AA finally in, woo!

[Amarok]

No, SWTOR has fully high res textures.

you see them when you're in cinematics. You can also see them for a second if you click the intercom or holo thingy on the ship. They are not visible on characters yet for technical reasons as it would cause to many rea calls to the HDD slowing down the game, instead they use texture atlasing, where the merge all the textures of your and other peoples characters into one "big" texture, but this texture is the size of a regular high res texture so your character appears low res.

So they have high res textures they're just either not being used or not being used properly. That's good to know ... I guess? Technical stuff aside do you know what the players see? What appear to be low-res textures where all the details are completely flat and painted on. The environment is beautiful, but the NPC/PC armor, the buildings, and the ground all generally look pretty bad. Graphics aren't that important, but honestly if they have high-res textures and they're just not being displayed "yet" - What's the point of having them?

and why not just roll a new toon on the server. in SWTOR the story is the good part, the end game is just end game.

Because leveling the exact same class that I just finished leveling doesn't really sound fun and leveling a different one sounds even less so. So I'll just wait for server transfers and go play something else in the meantime. The end game is where the meat of an MMO is. That's what keeps people playing. Hopefully by the time server transfers are added they'll have fleshed out the end-game a bit more as well and it will keep me playing longer.

[Mathachew Veteran]

Now that my Inquisitor has reached level 50, I'm taking a break. Been playing it solid for the last month and need a break, so my subscription has been temporarily cancelled. I'll be back for more though!

[Twiddle]

I shelved my 50 SI Assassin for awhile, until level 50 gets some polish.

I started a BH Mercenary healer, who is currently at level 25. I actually really enjoy this class a lot, except two things.

1. No stealth. :( I'm so used to skipping worthless trash to get to objectives (and being able to solo most Heroic 2 and 4s because of it) that I keep reaching for my stealth button, but it is not there.

2. The "Heat" system. It....well, I don't like it, especially for healing. Or damage really. My heat goes up so high, and you have only one 2 minute cooldown to drop it one time, and one cooldown which requires 30 cylinders that will drop it slightly, but after that, if you get into any messy situations, well, you or your group is done for.

Maybe I'm not doing something right, but, healing a group, when the group is all taking damage is tough. I haven't had a wipe yet, but I've let one or two die, just because I couldn't keep me, the tank, and 2 DPS up without getting overwhelmed on healing. They say healers are supposed to also DPS in this game, but, not Mercs, there is no way that I can see to effectively heal a group and DPS, unless they are talking about weak targets, but that is it.

The story for the BH is quite interesting, it is feeling somewhat rushed. But it is still fun. Also, Tarro Blood.... Voice actor, does not match the ingame character lol. Has a deep booming scary voice, but the NPC looks like Justin Bieber in 5 years. It really breaks the immersion of him being such a bad guy, I just want to laugh every time I see him, and realize, "This...this guy is my arch enemy."

Also, the 1.1 patch, fixed a ton of things, which was great. But man did they royally screw up Ilum PvP. I'm curious to see what route they take to remedy this in today's patch. I wasn't one of the people who "exploited" the error, but I'm curious to see the punishment for those who did.

[HawkMan]

Like in every other mmo you won't see what punishment other people get.

As for the BH, it's kind of a special case, it's a great solo class that can stand on its own, but I don't think you'll be able to both heal and DPSin a group situation with him, maybe as a power tech. But as a merc, not really, the heals are to weak(though I'm arsenal).

Then again, ou shouldn't think of it as a BH after level 10. The advanced classes are two completely separate classes. And not specializations. Each side effectively has 8 classes, not 4 classes with two specializations. And merc isn't much of a healer or tank, but rather a jack of all. You can stand your own, you can self heal to some degree and you can dish out pain and have some CC. But you can't do any of them really good. Well you do good damage with arsenal. It's more of a utility class in grips that can step in where needed when needed.

[Alladaskill17]

First update of content is basically zombies? Original...

[Dashel]

Anyone else take a huge framerate hit with this patch (90s->30s)? On top of that, the new AA option looks worse than when I was forcing it via the video driver.

[Kirkburn]

First update of content is basically zombies? Original...

What are you asking for? Zombies as the second update? No zombies, but some totally original thing that nobody has ever thought of before? Bit of a tall order...

I'd rather suggest what matters is how the story is told, and whether it's fun ... not whether it has a certain type of thing in it. Otherwise you'll be rolling your eyes at every game for years.

[Emn1ty]

What are you asking for? Zombies as the second update? No zombies, but some totally original thing that nobody has ever thought of before? Bit of a tall order...

I'd rather suggest what matters is how the story is told, and whether it's fun ... not whether it has a certain type of thing in it. Otherwise you'll be rolling your eyes at every game for years.

Considering Zombies are the in-style thing it is pretty lacking on originality. I mean L4D, L4D2, CoD:WaW, MW3, CoD:BO, Dead Island, Red Dead Redemption, etc. Lots of games are at least including them as DLC at some point. Its almost as bad as the current Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic craze.

[S00N3R FR3AK]

Considering Zombies are the in-style thing it is pretty lacking on originality. I mean L4D, L4D2, CoD:WaW, MW3, CoD:BO, Dead Island, Red Dead Redemption, etc. Lots of games are at least including them as DLC at some point. Its almost as bad as the current Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic craze.

O look all games that came after KOTOR, which is where Rakghouls are from. These are not new creatures and it's fun to see them get brought back in this way.

[Slane]

Level 48. Should've hit 49 tonight also, but I decided to go ahead and drop Cybertech as I crafted my ship upgrades and my mount. Other than that it's useless. Mods weren't selling very well on my server, so I went ahead and picked up armortech. Still had plenty of stuff left over via scavenging. So I managed to get it to 400. Already got enough mats to craft the waist/wrists for dps/tank. Just need to clear 4 HM's. Alot more beneficial than Cybertech considering the gear is crafted rating 140 with an augment slot. Now to figure out how to get my hands on +34 augments. Best I've been able to do via slicing is +29.

[Minifig]

Weirdness. It says I should be billed today.. it's 5:00 EST, and I still have not been billed..I'm not complaining.. but it still seems ... weird.

[Delebre]

I am happy I've taken my time to play through. I have a level 30 Jedi, and a level 10 sith. Worth it to enjoy the story lines and side quests.. I'm liking SWTOR so far. I really HATE the UI right now though. Upgrading ship parts requires taking screen shots or writing specs down to see what is upgradeable.. Can't move windows around. Not enough quickslots.. etc. Also, as a Jedi Knight, when exiting your ship and coming onto republic fleet, I exit through the smuggler hangar apparently. **** like that is what irks me.

[metal_dragen Veteran]

2. The "Heat" system. It....well, I don't like it, especially for healing. Or damage really. My heat goes up so high, and you have only one 2 minute cooldown to drop it one time, and one cooldown which requires 30 cylinders that will drop it slightly, but after that, if you get into any messy situations, well, you or your group is done for.

Maybe I'm not doing something right, but, healing a group, when the group is all taking damage is tough. I haven't had a wipe yet, but I've let one or two die, just because I couldn't keep me, the tank, and 2 DPS up without getting overwhelmed on healing. They say healers are supposed to also DPS in this game, but, not Mercs, there is no way that I can see to effectively heal a group and DPS, unless they are talking about weak targets, but that is it.

Once I got my Sniper to 50, I rolled a merc also (level 20 currently).

Speaking as someone who has played as a healer and healed end-game in WoW, I have a few things to say about that:

1) DPS are on their own in a group situation. As the healer, it's your job to keep the tank up. If the DPS can't control their output and not pull aggro, they deserve to get dead (I also played DPS in WoW for a while and my main in TOR is DPS so I understand this very well and DPS management is the key to being effective as DPS).

2) You should never be DPSing in a group situation if you are a healer. The minuscule amount you will be able to put out is not worth missing a heal.

3) Healing in TOR, especially as a merc is very different from anything I've done before. Make sure you have your combat support cylinders weapon mod active when you are healing and use this a lot. This will help you manage your heat since your rapid shots don't generate heat and you still get to heal based on your tech power (also, stack some extra tech power if you can).

As for managing heat, as I said, you should be using your rapid shots with combat support cylinders enabled all the time. This generates no heat and when you need to toss off some larger heals, you have the room in your heat. Also, try to stay below 60 heat. This gives you maximum vent rate (the little arrows next to the heat bar). It's a fine balance, but with time you'll learn how to manage it more effectively (snipers/ops use a similar system, but instead of building it up, you start full and use it).

In general also, I've noticed that, unlike WoW, being effective at your class in TOR means using your cooldowns effectively. They aren't designed as "OH #$^%" abilities. Most of them have 2 minute cooldowns. In a boss fight, you should be burning these when they're up as you'll have plenty of time to use them several times and they will make you more effective.

[travl0r]

Hoping they'll adopt the free to play concept, at least offer a limited experience so everybody can experience the old republic.

[playXray]

Hoping they'll adopt the free to play concept, at least offer a limited experience so everybody can experience the old republic.

Yeah, it could end up F2P within a couple of years. I might still pick this up and play it for a few months even with the subscription, but if it ever goes F2P I'm right there!

[Twiddle]

Once I got my Sniper to 50, I rolled a merc also (level 20 currently).

Speaking as someone who has played as a healer and healed end-game in WoW, I have a few things to say about that:

1) DPS are on their own in a group situation. As the healer, it's your job to keep the tank up. If the DPS can't control their output and not pull aggro, they deserve to get dead (I also played DPS in WoW for a while and my main in TOR is DPS so I understand this very well and DPS management is the key to being effective as DPS).

2) You should never be DPSing in a group situation if you are a healer. The minuscule amount you will be able to put out is not worth missing a heal.

3) Healing in TOR, especially as a merc is very different from anything I've done before. Make sure you have your combat support cylinders weapon mod active when you are healing and use this a lot. This will help you manage your heat since your rapid shots don't generate heat and you still get to heal based on your tech power (also, stack some extra tech power if you can).

As for managing heat, as I said, you should be using your rapid shots with combat support cylinders enabled all the time. This generates no heat and when you need to toss off some larger heals, you have the room in your heat. Also, try to stay below 60 heat. This gives you maximum vent rate (the little arrows next to the heat bar). It's a fine balance, but with time you'll learn how to manage it more effectively (snipers/ops use a similar system, but instead of building it up, you start full and use it).

In general also, I've noticed that, unlike WoW, being effective at your class in TOR means using your cooldowns effectively. They aren't designed as "OH #$^%" abilities. Most of them have 2 minute cooldowns. In a boss fight, you should be burning these when they're up as you'll have plenty of time to use them several times and they will make you more effective.

Most of what you mentioned, I do. Taking Bioware's word on healers is what I was referring too, when they mentioned healers would be able to do damage, which I'm pretty sure they were referring to PvP.

My main is a 50 SI Assassin, and I pal around with a group of RLs. My healer buddy, who is a Sorc healer, will ask to to pull aggro sometimes, as he gets bored just standing there throwing an AoE heal every now and again when we do Hard Modes. He claims Sorc healing is a breeze even when others pull aggro. I'm not 50 yet on my Merc of course, just level 30, but as it stands now, there is no way I could deal with that.

I'm always firing on Rapid Shots in between everything I do, even between pulls so I can keep my 30 cylinders, and I use cooldowns very pro-actively.

One thing I noticed was that heat ventilation does slow down after a certain amount, but I always fired off up until 100. I'll look into trying to stay below 60% for heat ventilation. Sometimes it just seems impossible, with the amount of healing I am required to do with some groups.

[PGHammer]

There is literally no talk of the beta on the forums either.

I found some screenshots on Gamespot that I thought were pretty nice. What do you guys think?

1. For this screenshot, I'm looking more at the architecture and statues of the Jedi Temple in the background. It all looks really well done.

2. I actually feel more bad for the Sarlacc than the Sandcrawler!

3. Now I know that when I see the Sarlacc in the game, stay as far away as possible!

4. The Trooper's armor also looks great! Once again, I think I might want to become a Trooper... lol

5. I'm going to explore ALL OVER Coruscant, because this just looks AMAZING! Look at the Jedi Temple in back!

6. Not sure what this place is, but I really can't wait to check it out!

7. Lovin' the armor!

Let me know what you guys think of the screenshots. Shoot some ratings out! Which one is your favorite?

My favorites are #1 and #6. Coruscant is lookin' great!

Yep - Coruscant is what a future city SHOULD be.

Most amazing Coruscant-related factoid: It (the city, that is) is one of the LEAST changed over the six movies. I haven't really taken the time to explore Coruscant yet - at some point once I finish my upgrade (from Q6600 to i5-K), I'm definitely going to, though; not exploring Coruscant is like not exploring Metropolis or Gotham (DCUO) given the opportunity - "Is you cwazy?"

[Wakers]

Is this game worth trying if you're looking for a new MMO?

Waiting for Guild Wars 2 to be released later this year but need something to play for ~6 months - is it any different than the tradiational MMOs and would it keep someone interested even if they're not the biggest Star Wars fan?

My friends are pretty split - half of them seem to have unsubbed immediately calling it boring, buggy and a WoW clone with a Star Wars mod - the other half seem to be loving it.

[McCordRm]

I'm freakin' loving it. I'm only playing Empire characters, so I can't give a Republic perspective,

but every class is fun in its own right. The storylines are well done, and interesting.

[Got3n]

Ok so i was very weary about getting this game, didnt think I would like it after playing WoW for so many years...but I was wrong, there is so much to do, its actually fun, and questing is OMG AWESOME!!!!!!! Logged and started a character last night and got to level 10 and I can already see myself making more than like 4 characters, usually I only play one but this time I feel like I need to make more just to experience all the fun in this game.

[McCordRm]

What server did you go with? My RL friends and I are on The Ebon Hawk (Imperial).

You can find me in-game as Rabbit or Gatling.