Zero Punctuation: Star Wars: The Old Republic

[strawberrycreme]

Something I haven't seen addressed yet... The SWTOR story lines are the most interesting if you're willing to take dark side hits as a light side character, or light side hits as a dark character. Both light and dark side points are infinite anyway, since you can repeat the flashpoints and heroic quests over and over for points. Not to mention there really isn't all that much stuff in the game that requires Light {insert number here}, and what stuff there is you can get equivalent items that don't require it. Right now I'm at 4600 light points and 850 dark points with my own smuggler.

But it definitely makes the game's storyline a LOT more fun to follow the choices YOU want to pick and go with what YOU would do in the situation, not just what the light and dark side points say you "should" do. For example, on Ord Mantell you get the option to rescue or save a pirate. He called me a republic dog and insulted me repeatedly, so I took the dark side hit to murderface him. It was incredibly satisfying.

Another rather large hit was when I was in a flashpoint where you're in a contest with the empire and you get a chance to slice some controls to take out the competition via some turrets. The two Jedi and trooper I was with all stood back honorably and fairly, but I was like "I am so totally slicing this thing" and the dark side hit was *so* worth it to see the imperials get taken out while I just stood and watched from the other side of the force field.

I also actually think the game gets more interesting, not less, after you get your ship back. Not only do you get to smuggle half a dozen really weird things (like a head in a jar), but the story picks up quite a bit once you're on the individual planets doing Risha's missions. All that aside, though, I think that simply going all one way really cripples your own ability to put your personal input into the story and diminishes the plot significantly.

I did want to shove Corso Riggs out an airlock, though. Dude was not only incompetent at combat, he failed multiple purple slicing missions *and* tried to get in my pants.

EDIT: Also, considering I've had to wait in queue several times because my server was *full*, I really don't think the game has any lack of players.

 

[Orion Magus]

While not really wrong about anything that he said I feel Yahtzee did the review a disservice by playing the Smuggler class. Out of all the classes in the game the Smuggler and Consular have the weakest storylines by far.

I realize that they are still a part of the game and all, but if your just going to give a first impression of the first few hours of play you'll get a much better experience playing any of the other classes.

Also lightside/darkside gear is virtually meaningless so you can "freely" choose whatever dialog you want and not worry about being punished. If anything the character customization (from a statistical point of view) is incredibly limited (easy mode). It's impossible to mess your character up in any meaningful way short of choosing an advanced class and then deciding you would rather have the other advanced class as there is no AC switching.

This game brings nothing new to the genre except really, really engaging story. There is virtually no grind, just follow the story and you?ll hit lvl 50. No farming trolls for hours on end (mission exp is where its at).

If you don?t like WOW gameplay you won?t like SWTOR, it?s a simple as that. A good game to co-op with a friend, but doesn?t really feel like an mmo imho.

 

[Genixma]

I know Yahtzee doesn't do requests but it'd be great if he reviewed Darkness 2 so everything can come full circle as to how he started.

 

[ServebotFrank]

While not really wrong about anything that he said I feel Yahtzee did the review a disservice by playing the Smuggler class. Out of all the classes in the game the Smuggler and Consular have the weakest storylines by far.

I haven't played all the classes (I hear the Sith Warrior story gets really good though) but I feel that the Consuler story flows really well. The Bounty Hunter story I thought was a bit intuitive (One target for each planet, two hunters assigned to kill them. Last one standing wins.) I know I've scrapped the surface of the class storiess I have yet to get far in Imperial Agent though I hear it's awesome, I haven't tried three of the Republic classes.

I'm really liking this game. It's sucking me in and I normally hate MMOs.

 

[SaintWaldo]

"Acapulco Gold" is a (largely outdated) slang term for high quality (also outdated) sensimilla marijuana. It's never "cut", since you don't cut weed, unless you're an asshole. It's also never transported overseas in condoms, seeing as a condom even stuffed full of the highest quality and price pot (which is from the Pacific Northwest of the US or the North Atlantic of Europe, or Afghanistan) would only carry maybe a quarter to a half of an ounce worth about $100-$200. If you had 3 condoms of "uncut" Acapulco Gold, you'd be carrying maximum $600 of drugs. Your international plane ticket surely would cost more than this and you could probably score the same shit at both ends of the trip, unless your destination is Utah. Ergo, failure at Han Soloing.

Yes, I'm nitpicking a video game review on its clueless use of antiquated drug references. I'm still fucking right.

 

[CapitalistPig]

"Acapulco Gold" is a (largely outdated) slang term for high quality (also outdated) sensimilla marijuana. It's never "cut", since you don't cut weed, unless you're an asshole. It's also never transported overseas in condoms, seeing as a condom even stuffed full of the highest quality and price pot (which is from the Pacific Northwest of the US or the North Atlantic of Europe, or Afghanistan) would only carry maybe a quarter to a half of an ounce worth about $100-$200. If you had 3 condoms of "uncut" Acapulco Gold, you'd be carrying maximum $600 of drugs. Your international plane ticket surely would cost more than this and you could probably score the same shit at both ends of the trip, unless your destination is Utah. Ergo, failure at Han Soloing.

Yes, I'm nitpicking a video game review on its clueless use of antiquated drug references. I'm still fucking right.

good god, it must be an outdated term. Who's cutting marijuana these days?

 

[djAMPnz]

"Massively Multiplayer Online Rage Producing Gobbledegook." Hehe, it's funny because it's true. But seriously, other people annoy me. That is why I stick to your run-of-the-mill offline single-player RPGs.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

So apparently even if you chose ranged combat you still end-up spending a good chuck of the game fiddling with your lightsaber.

Ranged characters don't get lightsabers. At all. Unless you're referring to Jedi Sages who use force powers (magic) and happen to be holding a lightsaber they never use. Ever.

 

[Brutal Peanut]

I'm confused as to why this game isn't more popular it's actually very good. I guess it's because it's an MMO *shrug*. Yahtzee is right you can actually play it as a very satisfying single player game, feels a bit like Mass Effect.

This. In reading the comments I was starting to feel very, very alone. I've actually been enjoying my SW:TOR experience as a Sith Inquisitor.

 

[Ponch]

Ha! Nice tanooki reference

 

[DoomyMcDoom]

Not playing this one till I know if its true that you get banned for being in a higher level than you're supposed to, and I'm really hoping its fake.

Fake, like the dancing ban.

Most definately fake.

Also dude... you are so shiny! Always good to welcome a fellow slime!

 

[honestdiscussioner]

Yay! I get the be the douchebag that points out lore errors!

Yatzee asks in the end credits if the people who make red lightsaber crystals get it on with the guys who make green lightsaber crystals.

The answer is . . NO! Only red lightsaber crystals are made. Green ones are found naturally in caves!

Aren't you all much happier and better people because of me?

The answer is "yes".

 

[Adam28]

I'm confused as to why this game isn't more popular it's actually very good. I guess it's because it's an MMO *shrug*. Yahtzee is right you can actually play it as a very satisfying single player game, feels a bit like Mass Effect.

This. In reading the comments I was starting to feel very, very alone. I've actually been enjoying my SW:TOR experience as a Sith Inquisitor.

Another one here. I guess it is in a way a bad thing, but I am enjoying playing this game alone. I see it as my journey towards 50. My Imperial Agent story has also become very interesting lately.

If the end game is terrible, I will just make a new character and enjoy their story until Bioware fixes the game. A problem with these "WoW Clones" or whatever you want to call them, is that they are in no way going to be better than WoW day one, MMOs need a lot of time for improvement just like WoW did.

 

[walrusaurus]

I've played a load of the old republic now. I resubbed after my trial period ended, but will not be continuing my subscription when it runs out in a couple weeks. The biggest criticism i can level at the game is that it is desperately lacking creativity. It really is in so many ways WoW with lightsabers. That wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing: I got years of entertainment out of WoW, and lightsabers are awesome, but its copied wow as it was when it launched 7 years ago. The mmo genre has evolved so much since then, the entire game feels stale. On top of that the visual design of the game is unbearably bland. You go through 11 planets over the course of your leveling and with the exceptions of Tatooine (the desert planet), Hoth (the arctic planet), and Nar-Shaada(the city planet), all of the worlds are virtually indistinguishable from one another. They vary the size of the foliage, the amount of ruined buildings, and the particular shades of brown gray and green, and that's it. 90% of the enemies are humans, or humanoid droids. The entire experience becomes exceptionally monotonous.

The fully voiced quests are novel at first but quickly become tedious, by the time I got to level 30 on my first character I found myself skipping through much of the dialogue that wasn't related to my class quest. I don't need five minutes of exposition and back-story of why you want me to go out and collect 5 bear asses. When the actual gameplay of the quests is banal, the preamble just feel like an obstacle. I've got 2 characters in the high 20s now, besides my 50 and I now play the game like i played WoW, with the sound muted and a podcast going in the background. The class quests are a bit better (i turn the sound back on for them), because there are actual characters to follow. The stories themselves are fairly predictable, but there are enough hooks to keep it interesting.

Bioware has pushed the replay-ability of the game, urging players to play through to experience multiple class stories. The problem is that the game is extraordinarily linear (far more so than any other mmo i've played), and the class quest only comprises -at best- 10% of what you do on a given planet. Repition also isn't necessarily a gamebreaker, as WoW has shown with enough compelling endgame content, players will slog through a repetitive leveling experience several times over to try out the various classes. Here Bioware makes the same mistakes blizzard made with cataclysm, there is absolutely no reason for players to ever leave their capital cities. Sense of immersion in a massive, open world is absolutely vital in an MMO, its what made WoW so successful, and when blizzard sacrificed it in their latest expansion the player base began to collapse. The Old republic is starting out, as cataclysm began.

/endrant kudos if anyone actually read through that lol.

TL;DR I'm very disappointed with TOR

 

[Furtled]

This is where playing a female smuggler is better since they get 'company' a little earlier

I actually found the convo system to be MORE fun when you're in a group.

Agreed, it stops things becoming repetitive as the more people there are the more unexpected a group quest is.

Overall I enjoyed it (ex-WoW player here), you can solo quite happily through the stories, the VA does add something to it, you can send off companions to do the boring crafting stuff, the non-obligatory quest bonuses etc. It's got flaws, getting a group together to do a heroic can be a nightmare, there's too many load screens and I'm not a PvP type so I'll assume that's horribly unbalanced

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

So apparently even if you chose ranged combat you still end-up spending a good chuck of the game fiddling with your lightsaber.

Ranged characters don't get lightsabers. At all. Unless you're referring to Jedi Sages who use force powers (magic) and happen to be holding a lightsaber they never use. Ever.

Not true, if your other instants are on CD and you need to stop someone in VS or Alderaan RIGHT NOW while you're in melee range, either of your saber slashes are useful.

Of course you can use your saber as a sage/sorc., but there's almost no reason to ever do so. You shouldn't be running out of force and there's no way every one of your 'spells' is on CD at once. Unless you're a shadow/assassin speced into balance or something, melee really never enters into a caster's vocabulary. Sort of like an elemental shaman in WoW.

My point was that the person I quoted was wrong--ranged characters aren't running around using a lightsaber. That's all.