It’s a new week, and as promised I’m going to be coming up for air after a 100% immersion dip in Star Wars: The Old Republic. LOTRO is big on the schedule this week, particularly with the new instance finder and the updated Yule Festival, so I’m going to be dividing my time accordingly. (Also? Don’t get Sims Free Play on iOS devices if you value your time. Just a warning.)
But after a good week of playing SWTOR, I simply wanted to make a quick list of five things I like and don’t like about the game. This isn’t a review, but just observations.
Like: Crew missions. Once you get a second companion, this turns into a mini-game in and of itself, as you send your crew away on missions or have them queue up crafting. My three crafting-related skills are well into the 200s now, and I’m very glad I took slicing, because it helps out tremendously with credits (which are in short supply as money sinks abound) and with crafting missions, which I can then use or give away to guildies. With the remote mission/crafting system, I feel like I’m doing a couple things at once, and that makes me feel very satisfied indeed.
Dislike: Bugs. I haven’t had any crashes or gamebreaking glitches, but you’d have to be blind not to notice that there are gremlins in the system. My companion’s changed colors (going photo-negative) a few times, I’ve seen plenty of dialogues where characters’ mouths don’t move, some nodes are bugged so you can’t use them, guild lists don’t display properly, and so on. It’s mostly little stuff, but it’s jarring because the rest of the game is so dang polished that it sticks out.
Like: The Collector’s Edition. I have no buyer’s regret for having purchased this. The statue and soundtrack are nice bonuses, but the in-game goodies are fun fluff. I like breaking out my holodancer while waiting with a group, my mouse droid is my most faithful of companions, and having a mount waiting for me at level 25 means I don’t have to freak out about saving up for one. Even the camera has its use, now that we figured it out: It basically hides the UI and takes a first-person perspective screenshot with a single click of a button instead of having to do it three steps manually.
Dislike: The Collector’s Edition Store. One of the big motivations to purchase the CE was the promise of an exclusive in-game store that sold special items. And while the store delivers on that, with custom armor pieces, mounts, pets, and companion customizations, I was put off by just how much it cost in credits. Most of it isn’t that affordable until you’re in your 20s or 30s, which means that if you’re starting out and make a beeline for the vendor, all of these goodies are going to be out of your reach. I know this makes me sound spoiled, but that was something I was looking forward to and I didn’t want to wait more to get it.
Like: Environmental objects that can be interacted with. Kolto tanks that heal you if you smash them. Droids that can be repaired with slicing and will follow you for a while to do your bidding. Explosive containers that can be shot to do extra damage to nearby mobs. These are all fun and welcome touches that make the scenery more than screenshot material.
Dislike: Few companion interactions. This may just be where I’m at right now, but it seems as though my companion and me barely talk. We’ve had two in-game conversations over the course of an entire week, but other than that she barely butts in during mission conversations or wants to chat. I was hoping for more interaction, and will continue to hold out hope that it’s to come.
Like: Flashpoints. They might be a little intensive, time-wise, but dang if they aren’t fun and somewhat convenient to jump into. Having all of them start from the fleet station means that there’s a central gathering point, and I’m definitely not having a hard time as a healer finding groups. What strikes me most about flashpoints is how little they feel like typical MMO dungeon crawls. They’re more fast-paced and have exciting settings and scriptings going on, and I find that they’re the right level of challenge. Last night our guild ran Athiss, and we pulled through boss fights by the skin of our teeth — and every person in the group got a really nice gear upgrade to boot.
Dislike: No dual-specs. I still don’t think BioWare should allow Advanced Class switching — choosing your AC should be like choosing your class, because it is — but there is an identifiable need for having dual-specs within your AC. Just because an AC can heal or tank doesn’t mean that player has specced that way, and as a result, we’re already seeing shortages of tanks and healers all over the place. Plus, as a healer myself, I wouldn’t mind having a second spec to do damage when I’m not in a group.
Like: It simply feels Star Warsy. Back when Knights of the Old Republic released, it was rightly hailed as a game that felt more like Star Wars than many Star Wars movie-based games that had been released. So it is here — the setting may be 3000 years before the films, but it’s got that classic Star Wars feel all over the place. Plus, I just love the “chunky” technology on display.
Dislike: Um… hm. I’m having a hard time coming up with a fifth. Not having more time to play it? Wishing I could break my one-toon-to-50-first rule so I could roll a Republic-side character? I’m at a loss here.
Bio Break 
Glad to hear I’m not the only one finding unuseable nodes. I’ve found quite a few scrap piles that I can’t salvage. Also, upon entering Flashpoints, my mouse pointer disapears. I have to click around like a mad man for a few seconds to get it back. These aren’t huge glitches, but still frustrating. Especially the nodes.
While playing in the beta, I found a lot of unusable nodes. Or Sino thought. Turns out that there is usually a sweet spot about where if you mouse over JUST right, you can harvest it.
Still crappy though.
A clanmate and I actually ran into a game-breaker where your mouse will cease interacting with UI elements. You can still click and interact with the world, but the UI doesn’t respond to the mouse at all. I used Alt+F4 to close the client and when I relogged I was skipped ahead of the queue but couldn’t actually log my characters on. I ended up having to close the client down again and wait through the queue to get things working again. My clanmate logged out of the game and logged back in and it was fixed for him. I’m not sure if he used a slash command or what.
I remember when KOTOR came out and people were saying it was more like Star Wars than the prequel trilogy movies themselves. It’s great how much Bioware understands Star Wars and how well this game captures it.
I wasn’t expecting to have this much fun playing an MMO again. It’s still early days, but I haven’t enjoyed anything too much since I stopped playing WoW a few years ago.
I agree with just about everything you’ve said here, except that I don’t see the lack of dual-spec as a real issue. That’s what companions are for in solo-play, they fill in the gap of your spec. The real trouble there is that some builds don’t get companions that are suitable until later levels… but I still find that to be OK overall.
It does seem to be an odd choice though… I mean, they took just about every other good idea from other MMOs, why not the dual spec concept?
“having a mount waiting for me at level 25 means I don’t have to freak out about saving up for one.”
I am hesitant to mention this, as I do not want to throw in a purple perpendicular between you and the green bisector of your CE. (sorry) But I hear from my guildies that a mount costs around 10K, While the skill costs 40K to train.
I cannot confirm this as I am not a high enough level.
Still at least its a bit less than the rest of us have to pay.
On dual specs- I would agree with Richard, once you get your companion going the need for a second spec is minimized. If you haven’t seen this BTW, you can open up your companions full tab, some of them have two stances they can toggle between. This is really necessary if you’re playing a healer, you need to set your companion to dps. If you’re a tank, consider taking the ships robot as he actually has some healing abilities.
It seems much better than WoW, where you basically had to have a leveling spec and a dungeon spec if you were a healer. They have said they will include dual-specs post launch, and that’s okay with me.
Figured I’d add my own little bits 🙂
Like: Attention to usability in the interface. I know this one won’t be popular, because everyone’s hung up on not being able to customize and/or build DPS meters, but there are a TON of improvements to the standard MMO interface. I’m playing a Sniper as an alt, and I realized last night that I can target a mob, start a Snipe or Ambush, and then change my target without interrupting the attack. I think there are a lot of these that we’re going to find over time as people try things they never would have thought we could do.
Dislike: The small group size. This one surprises me. My normal play group is myself, my wife and her sister, and one friend who usually is well ahead of us but keeps an alt around to play with us. So with the group size being 4, I figured it meant less overhead for us to get to the more challenging content. TOR has brought in other friends, though, and I’m finding that with only 4 in the group, we’re having to juggle a fair bit and split groups that we wouldn’t if it could handle 6. It also seems like with 4 people to group in a Trinity game, there’s not a lot of room for flexibility. If you’re going to run a Flashpoint, you’ve got the Trinity+1. That’s a pretty tight lock on what you can put together.
I agree with your points above, a few dislikes:
Not being able to sell all my junk loot at one time.
duel specs like you said
An unmovable UI (frustrating).
No target of target option
No macro options
Limited character creation (I would have loved to change the tint of my hair)
There are several small clunky things that I think could be way better. The UI and Target options for the most part. My usual UI set up is the opposite of what this default is, so it is very backwards for me (I usually have my hot keys at the top of my screen).
The whole game does feel Star Warsy, which is good, even though I personally am kind of “eh” on the whole Star Wars franchise.
More than that though, it feels a LOT like I’m playing City of Heroes again. The urban sprawl, the industrial warehouses and sewers, the thugs and military standoffs, all manner of weird NPCs, the cantinas/clubs, the blue futuristic UI, even the clicking of their feet on the pavement all feels very CoHish to me. I’d go so far to say that SWTOR, despite being a completely different IP, feels like a spiritual successor to CoH, more so than Champions or DCOU ever were.
I would agree with Richard except the order in which you get companions (based on role and need) is, in many cases, seriously idiotic. I mean, why Bounty Hunters get their heal bot right from the start while Knights/Warriors have to wait until 20/35ish to get theirs, I will never understand. But I do like the variety, since it influences how I choose what character to play. For example, I’m not playing a Trooper until I can speed past the first 20 levels to get my second companion (because I despise the first one).
I wonder what class you’re playing that doesn’t have much companion interaction. Most of the classes I’ve played have companions chime in constantly (almost once every conversation in some cases), at least during class quests. You said you’re a healer and not Republic so I’m assuming you’re a Sith Inquisitor? The “she” throws me off since it could be IA (Operative spec) unless your SI is 35+ (filthy powergamer! You’ve ruined your own lands, you’ll not ruin mine! :P). Maybe it’s alignment based, since my IA’s companion is really vocal (especially when talking to Keeper).
I think the game’s excellent and shows how much polish actually costs (there aren’t too many studios who could afford it). The problem I have is when people equate ‘polish’ to ‘perfection’ (as in, if the game has ANY bugs whatsoever, it can’t be ‘polished’). Many of the issues noted here have fixes slated for the launch day patch (according to the GMs I’ve spoken to when I’ve reported them). Some things need deeper fixes (like “helper” NPCs KSing you and stealing your XP. Case in point: the Urbax fight in the Smuggler class quest line. DAMN YOU, MIEL!) but those will come. I’m sure dual spec will come too but if I was a producer, I’d want to see how the classes as they’re designed are taken to by the larger playerbase as a whole. Beta’s fine but people didn’t play what they wanted to play during the stress test weekend (“I don’t want to spoil things for release”). I have some concerns about certain roles (i.e. where are the threat generation tools in the “tank” trees?) that I’m sure will be fixed once they’ve datamined sufficiently. Also, why is there a first tier alacrity boost in some trees (Dirty Fighting, for one) when alacrity doesn’t become worthwhile until you get lots of it (so the 6% return from two points is almost a complete waste until much later)?
Shadow, while your solution works sometimes, there are some nodes that just aren’t active. Just outside the doorway to Fieler Dan is a Desh Junk Pile that fits this description. From what I understand, that was a tough bug to find (very much like the loot bug that would be fixed by sitting and standing back up) since it involves server-client communication or something. But apparently, they have a fix for it (“that’s in the pipeline for the 20th”). The loss of animation sync (people talking without their mouths moving) is a tough one, when you consider the spacebar’s function.
I’ve had a ton of bugs.
From things like not being able to delete a Crew Skill that was picked up accidentally to my Sith Warrior who is permanently stuck on a mission where he can’t interact with the person because they’re stuck. Argh.
Syp, I just wanted to chime in and say — I wished I had written this list first–it expresses all of my likes and dislikes so well. D:
So… well done?
@starseeker
look under your crew skills. your companion can sell all your grey items at once. and you can have them do it anytime, from anywhere.
@ nobody, i know that 🙂 I mean just when I’m at a vendor, I’d like to be able to do it because my companion sometimes bugs out and won’t go sell stuff unless I re-log.
I’m on a server with long queues, and there’s no “grace period” if your client crashes or disconnects. So I’ll have an hour and a half to play, I’ll wait through a fifty minute queue, play three minutes, then crash, then have another long queue. Not a fan.
Also didn’t like how the early access was advertised (I didn’t realize “early access” meant “not early access, instead, early rolling invites”).
Also, it’s just an MMORPG. I’m tired of MMORPG combat, which was never that interesting to begin with.
Other than that I’m having fun. Looks great, plays great, I am liking the story so far, and companions seem like they will be fun (whenever I actually get one).
I broke my one class to 50 rule already. My brother is in the Military and is stationed overseas, we decided to play a couple of Jedi’s only when we play together. It might take year to level up, its still cool though.
The game is ok but it is sad that it killed another even better Star Wars MMO. I am of course talking about Star Wars Galaxies. That was a game where you could play the way you wanted. Crafting meant something and you had player housing and cities. Space was open and you weren’t stuck on rails. You didn’t have to do combat unless you chose to. LA ahd promised that it would continue when TOR released but then the new head went back on that promise and got greedy and agreed to EA’s stupid exclusivity clause that they always insist on when they make a game. They already killed othe great franchises in sports games and niow they have done the same to a Star Wars game and the best MMO ever. I predict that TOR will see a massive decline in subscription within a couple of months as people it max level and get bored. All it is is SWWoW. I linear game that you have to play the way EA/Bioware wants you to. I will play the game for a couple of months and then go to other MMOs until they add new content and then I will play the new content and rinse/repeat like I do with WoW. SWG kept me entertained for its entire 8-year run something no other MMO has even come close to doing.
Word to Wesley Quigg:
Spot on, man. That’s all.