The result is mixed somehow. The scale mostly tilts toward the better side, but the flaws are so general that makes them easy and worth to spot and eliminate. The game Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) passed the exam with good grades, but it is far from being perfect.
On December 15th, 2011 they switched the servers of Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) off, but we didn’t have to wait too long, because after some days the successor, SWTOR was released. If you bought it pre-purchased, you could start your adventures sooner. Anyway, this switch-off wasn’t a real problem, because SWG was too complex, empty, unbalanced and annoyingly bugged in the same time. Related to this, the newcomer is much simpler, full of quests, and if you want, you can swing your lightsaber right from the first moments. Does it sound good? Unfortunately, this has its own price too, for example some conventionalism and inconsistency.
In the character creation you can choose from four types on each side, be it the Republic or the Empire; this means two Force-user and two more ordinary characters in both case. The developers tried to make them identical by their own main story, which you need to fight through all the way alone. For example, on the Republic’s side the story of the Jedi Consuler is about a strange plague that attacks only Jedis – and it is probably spread by a mighty Sith.
On level 10 you can choose an advanced class. Each character has two such options. The system is sufficiently complex to make you think about your choice, even if there are not much unique opportunities, because the characters walk on skill paths set preliminary. In any case, it’s worth to read some skill descriptions, advices and suggestions written by other players on the forums.
It seems like we cannot step out of the conception that in any circumstances only the combat can be the foundation of good MMOs. Of course, one can refer to the success of WoW, but I would like to ask: Do we really need a cloned WoW titled Star Wars? Of course, this would be devoid of any sense, and I don’t tell you it’s entirely true, but the gameplay is not unique at all. As if BioWare wanted to defeat the mascot of Blizzard by its own weapons.
Luckily, this process is broken by some real role-playing elements. In the world of Star Wars, the consequence of personal decisions always was important. No Star Wars game is complete without the dark side of Force, and if your decisions are not following the unwritten rules of ethics and moral, the shadows can easily drag you among them. In my opinion it is good everyhow; it is not just about choosing the instruments of the light or dark side but partly it defines the quests you can take.
Besides, they put some emphasize on companions by partly connecting them to your decisions. In conversations popping up during questing you can gradually bring them closer to or push them away from you. From that matter, this is based on race or culture, because a morally right decision (e.g. supporting the weak) can easily cause some division between you and your companion (to remain at the example: a member of a battle-ready race won’t take well the morally right decision about supporting the weak – he prefers strength). Your companion may approve or disapprove your decisions, and it appears in your relationship. Besides, you have to dress and develop your companions, so it’s worth to look after him, because it affects on the efficiency of his helping hands – and it’s not all the same when, for example, he fights instead of you.
And if you are adventuring with a companion, you need to take only one step toward walking in a team. If at least two player characters form a team, then every decision brings so-called Social Points. If your decisions are the same, the points come doubled, so the game want to inspire the teamwork of like-minded characters. Unfortunately, these points can be used only scarcely yet, but we hope the developers will write some more options with time.
I don’t know if it is because of Star Wars fans, but the usual small communities were formed in a very short time. The distinct national chat room is a merit of the game in such an early phase, and the players talk not just about party invitations. On the whole, they are helpful enough.
Here, at the end of the article I must name some flaws mentioned in the introduction. For example, there is the question of the era: The game plays much (means: thousands of years) earlier than the movies, but if you know and enjoyed the Knights of the Old Republic (KotOR) series, you will hardly be disappointed with the atmosphere. However, this past is exactly the thing that annoys me. There always was some technical mix-up in the Star Wars setting: It’s like if technology didn’t evolved a bit during several thousands of years.
But the atmosphere deserves no complaint. You can walk on planets known from books and movies, and you can participate in space battles that are not parts of the story but mini-games perfectly fitting to the world of SW. The devs also improved the atmosphere by cutscenes. There are a lot of videos in the main story of the characters, and sometimes there are cutscenes in the side stories too. Of course, there is a catch: The game is 25G in size, which is a little bit too much for an MMO.
However, they flew away with the economy system. You get enough items from the quests to forget any trading facility (it’s said it’s not even worth to trade till level 35), and skill learning takes away almost every money. The only thing I don’t get: What do traders make a living by???
If skills were mentioned: Not long ago it was BioWare who experimented with skill combinations (see: Dragon Age). Based on this it is almost inexplicable why they didn’t implement a system like that into this game. On the one hand it would perk SWTOR up, and on the other hand it would make the system more simple for the users. All right, I know that as crescent roll is not french roll so I shouldn’t compare two different games. I just mentioned that the developer company is not a stranger to skill systems with combinations.
As a general children’s illness the PvP matching system is completely unbalanced. Updates are coming continuously, so there is hope it will be repaired sometime, and in a duel we won’t have to face opponents twice or four times more experienced than our own character.
Anyway, quests are very conventional. There is a typical “kill a number of this, and a number of that” mentality. It almost hurts that big companies cannot step over this deathly boring element when smaller games are trying to eliminate this for years now.
I found one mor error of inconsequence, and it is the senselessness of mobs. I mean, they don’t use their senses. They are standing as if being blind and deaf while you grind their pals some yards away. Should I mention Champions Online, in which you just go near an enemy mob and half of the local staff starts chasing you?
So, all in all, this is a good game, but it deserves only four points from the five. It has a long way to go.
—Dedalus—
Title: Star Wars: The Old Republic
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: BioWare
Homepage: http://www.swtor.com/
Style: MMORPG
What I liked:
advanced class system
lot of conversations, interactivity
atmosphere
companions
What I didn’t like:
economy
conventional quests
PvP matching engine
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