SWtOR: the Big Damn Review
My first intent was to post this right after the NDA was lifted shortly after Thanksgiving. However, I decided to wait until I could actually play the game 'for real' first, to see if my initial impressions were correct. So- here they are.
I. Overview
I pre-ordered SW:tOR the week that pre-orders were offered. Normally, I don't jump into a new MMO until at least six months after release, but this time I took a chance. After following the developer notes for months, I saw a lot of potential. And, quite frankly, I was Jonesing for a sci-fi MMO anyway, and I was absolutely done with World of Warcraft and getting a bit burned out from Lord of the Rings Online. And, miracle of miracles, I actually had money set aside for a pre-order.
I decided to play in the Imperial faction after release, and I decided to play bounty hunter. For the playtest, I chose trooper so that a) I could get a feel for a ranged DPS/tank class before release, and b) I could see what the Republic quests were like. I played from level 1 to 12, speccing into the commando prestige class at level 10 and going down the Gunnery talent tree.
The Republic trooper and smuggler quests begin on Ord Mantell, where your character is part of an effort against a separatist movement. As a trooper, your character is part of an elite commando unit called 'Havoc Squad', and Ord Mantell is your first assignment out of Academy. I don't know what hook brings the smugglers to Ord Mantell, but for the playtest at least smugglers and troopers started in a separate area than the Jedi classes.
II. UI and Appearance
Yes, SW:tOR is a WoW clone. You have a task bar at the bottom of your screen filled with class abilities. You also have a health bar, energy bar (for abilities), and XP bar. Each ability has various effects, ranges, and cooldowns. You have a world map in the corner and a menu bar at the top of the screen. Through this bar, you can access your character sheet, inventory, talent tree, crew skills, etc. With the exception of a local HUD map that you can pull up and goes transparent when you move, there's nothing particularly new or innovative about the UI. If you have played WoW, or LotRO, or CoX, or just about any other MMO that's released in the last ten years, you will instinctively know how to play SW:tOR. Let's face it: if there's a better way to do an MMO's UI, it has yet to be invented.
III. Quests
Here's where SW:tOR differs from most MMOs. First, Bioware brags about how this MMO will be fully voice-acted. And, damn if it isn't. Every quest has a short, fully-animated cinematic when you start the quest and when you turn it in. Even random NPCs chat in the background when you get near them. The best thing about these cinematics are that your character gets to participate. Each cinematic has three dialogue choices; generally, it is a dutiful/humble/patriotic choice, an arrogant/mercenary/cocky choice, or a neutral/questioning/general agreement choice. What you choose affects how NPCs react to you, and it affects what companions you can get. The first companion my dedicated, honest, morally upright trooper picked up at level 10 was another morally upright, dedicated, honest Republic trooper. Once you get a companion, how you answer NPCs affects their opinion of you. I don't know if a companion will leave you if his/her Affection drops low enough, but it is affected. Occasionally they will even ask to speak to you about the story arc in private, and your dialogue choices in these instances may help or hurt their impression of you. Some 'crew quests' will yield gifts that you can give to your crewmembers to make them like you even more.
About the crew quests: these are side quests completed off-screen by whichever crewmember you choose to send that yield some kind of reward if successful. Your character isn't involved, but early crew quests at least only take 6 minutes, so you can go on to do other things while they're away. Anyone who ever played Final Fantasy Tactics should find this concept familiar- remember the taverns you could visit to look for jobs?
There's another important distinction that SW:tOR makes over other MMOs. Bioware took a page from Bethesda's Fallout play book- some quests give you Light Side or Dark Side points depending on your answers. Usually this happens in important story quests, but other random quests may also do this. Do you follow orders and kill people who might commit a terrible crime in the future, or do you release them and suffer a serious dressing-down from your CO? Do you turn a blind eye to a gambling ring run by corrupt soldiers that preys on refugees, or do you report them? Do you force a now-adult child soldier to return to his family against his will, or do you let his parents believe he is dead? Personally, I enjoyed making these kinds of decisions as part of becoming immersed in the setting and my character.
Most of the quests are very objective-oriented. You will still see the 'kill x number of y mob' type quests, but generally these are optional requirements that just yield more xp. You are rarely if ever required to do this to complete the quest, and usually you'll end up killing x number of y mobs in the course of the quest anyway. Main quests update on the fly- you might start out by meeting with an undercover agent, then upon completing that quest you may be instructed to go to a safe house and recover certain contraband based on what the contact tells you. These can be considered individual quests in a chain, but the way that additional steps are revealed as you complete objectives make it seem a bit more natural and organic (as opposed to returning to the same quest giver again and again).
IV. Gameplay
One big concern I had about tOR was combat. How do you make melee and ranged combat work in a sci-fi game? While tOR's system isn't perfect, it really isn't bad. Cover makes a difference: if you hide behind something large and solid, you dodge more and get hit less. If an enemy can't see you at all, they will move just enough so that they can see you. If they have melee attacks only, they will engage you as quickly as possible, and they will sometimes try to get behind you. More significant mobs with class abilities will use those as opportunity presents itself. My favorite moment of the playtest is still the fight where both my trooper and a trooper-type mob jumped up from opposite sides of a boulder too big to shoot over and simultaneously executed a buttstrike attack! The game does need more abilities that aren't broken by movement to make it feel more exciting and cinematic. And, it would be great if characters could kneel or drop prone in combat (the smuggler at least can do this, but it's a class ability). Overall, Bioware did a pretty good job of making combat interesting, dynamic, and fun. The fact that there's no auto-attack helps, actually: in absence of an auto-attack you have to pay more attention to the cooldowns while deciding which abilities to use. The lack of an auto-attack, even with ranged characters, is actually a lot less annoying than I thought it would be.
I was also concerned about having only four classes per faction: judging from the website, it seemed that each faction had the same four choices with different names. The similarity between classes isn't as great as I suspected, though: the bounty hunter is not exactly the Empire's version of a trooper. They're more similar than different, sure. But there are small tweaks that make them feel and play a bit differently.
There's some nice-to-have features, too: instead of binding to a specific location, fast travel allows you to select and go to any location on that planet that you've previously visited. If defeated, you may choose to revive right on the spot or return to the nearest healing station. You can also modify your weapons in the field- and there is a TON of socketed gear available. You can even give your hand-me-down gear to your companions if they meet the class requirements. All classes have some sort of self-heal/recovery ability, but some classes can become strong healers, too. Crafting is done by your crew; you can even dispatch them to gather a resource for you.
Between level 1 and 12 at least, tOR is also a bit less forgiving than most other MMOs that I've played. If you are not careful, you can and probably will die quite a bit until you get your first companion. Not all companions are created equal, of course (if you're playing a trooper with a trooper companion things just kind of die in front of you). The learning curve is noticeable. It is also slightly more difficult to level than WoW (then again, what isn't), but not as difficult to level as some other MMOs. SW:tOR is still a casual MMO, so hardcore gamers that love to grind will probably be disappointed.
I haven't yet tried PvP, just because I am not a big fan of PvP. However, during the playtest I loitered in the zone containing the first flash point (PvP battlefield) access just to hear what people were saying. There was a lot of chatter about PvP on the General Chat channel and the majority of it was very positive. If the classes are as balanced as they seem to be, and given the pace that combat moves in, I can certainly imagine that PvP is really exciting!
V. The Setting
There's not much to be said here: you would expect Bioware and LucasArts to do a great job with a Star Wars setting. They can't afford not to. And, they did. But the best part about the way the setting presents itself is in the details. On Ord Mantell, you fast travel via speeder bike (and man, those things haul ass). On Coruscant, you fast travel via taxi. And what trip to Ord Mantell would be complete without fighting a few Mantellan savrips? And what fun would fighting Mantellan savrips be if they were pushovers? Keep your eyes out for datacrons that permanently raise your character's attributes- they turn up here and there. You'll see ugnaughts, zabrak, Rodians, Trandoshans, gran, Ithorians, nautolan, cathar, duro, arcona, and houk NPCs before you hit level 15. And yes, there are scantily-clad twi'lek dancing girls (in fact, the twi'lek PC social skill is a special dance that no other race does). Everywhere you look, you'll see attention to detail that makes the background graphics feel truly “Star Wars”- even if the game takes place 3,000 years before the movies. I found myself following a solo Jedi knight around in Coruscant just to watch him in combat. It looked awesome, just like lightsaber combat should look. After getting a bounty hunter character to level 18, though, I realized that what my character does looks just as awesome- but whereas the Sith warrior looks precise and fluid in combat, bounty hunter combat is dominated by pure chaos- blaster bolts, explosions galore, and mobs being knocked every which way (I really enjoy bounty hunter).
There is one thing I am puzzled by, though: the relative lack of playable species. In a galaxy with dozens of different species, players can choose from maybe 10, total. I understand that there are limits to what can be done in an MMO, but what really puzzles me is why certain very iconic if not mainstream species aren't playable. You can't play a Rodian, Wookiee, or Trandoshan- all creatures that are very well-recognized by even the general public. If you mention Trandoshan to someone who's not a huge fan of the lore, then explain that the dinosaur-looking bounty hunter in Episode V was a Trandoshan, they remember. Still, this is a minor criticism- and other playable races may be added with future expansions.
VI. Conclusion
Is Star Wars: the Old Republic the much-anticipated WoW-killer? No. Does it have the potential to be? Maybe. It's only moderately innovative and cutting-edge gameplay-wise, but it is light years ahead of WoW when it comes to the little things that make the experience more immersive. It is an overall enjoyable game that manages to stand out in the MMO market, through not only genre and setting but also through the experience. If you love MMOs and you are a big Star Wars fan, then you will probably enjoy it. So far, I am enjoying it immensely.
Rating: 8.5 of 10
I. Overview
I pre-ordered SW:tOR the week that pre-orders were offered. Normally, I don't jump into a new MMO until at least six months after release, but this time I took a chance. After following the developer notes for months, I saw a lot of potential. And, quite frankly, I was Jonesing for a sci-fi MMO anyway, and I was absolutely done with World of Warcraft and getting a bit burned out from Lord of the Rings Online. And, miracle of miracles, I actually had money set aside for a pre-order.
I decided to play in the Imperial faction after release, and I decided to play bounty hunter. For the playtest, I chose trooper so that a) I could get a feel for a ranged DPS/tank class before release, and b) I could see what the Republic quests were like. I played from level 1 to 12, speccing into the commando prestige class at level 10 and going down the Gunnery talent tree.
The Republic trooper and smuggler quests begin on Ord Mantell, where your character is part of an effort against a separatist movement. As a trooper, your character is part of an elite commando unit called 'Havoc Squad', and Ord Mantell is your first assignment out of Academy. I don't know what hook brings the smugglers to Ord Mantell, but for the playtest at least smugglers and troopers started in a separate area than the Jedi classes.
II. UI and Appearance
Yes, SW:tOR is a WoW clone. You have a task bar at the bottom of your screen filled with class abilities. You also have a health bar, energy bar (for abilities), and XP bar. Each ability has various effects, ranges, and cooldowns. You have a world map in the corner and a menu bar at the top of the screen. Through this bar, you can access your character sheet, inventory, talent tree, crew skills, etc. With the exception of a local HUD map that you can pull up and goes transparent when you move, there's nothing particularly new or innovative about the UI. If you have played WoW, or LotRO, or CoX, or just about any other MMO that's released in the last ten years, you will instinctively know how to play SW:tOR. Let's face it: if there's a better way to do an MMO's UI, it has yet to be invented.
III. Quests
Here's where SW:tOR differs from most MMOs. First, Bioware brags about how this MMO will be fully voice-acted. And, damn if it isn't. Every quest has a short, fully-animated cinematic when you start the quest and when you turn it in. Even random NPCs chat in the background when you get near them. The best thing about these cinematics are that your character gets to participate. Each cinematic has three dialogue choices; generally, it is a dutiful/humble/patriotic choice, an arrogant/mercenary/cocky choice, or a neutral/questioning/general agreement choice. What you choose affects how NPCs react to you, and it affects what companions you can get. The first companion my dedicated, honest, morally upright trooper picked up at level 10 was another morally upright, dedicated, honest Republic trooper. Once you get a companion, how you answer NPCs affects their opinion of you. I don't know if a companion will leave you if his/her Affection drops low enough, but it is affected. Occasionally they will even ask to speak to you about the story arc in private, and your dialogue choices in these instances may help or hurt their impression of you. Some 'crew quests' will yield gifts that you can give to your crewmembers to make them like you even more.
About the crew quests: these are side quests completed off-screen by whichever crewmember you choose to send that yield some kind of reward if successful. Your character isn't involved, but early crew quests at least only take 6 minutes, so you can go on to do other things while they're away. Anyone who ever played Final Fantasy Tactics should find this concept familiar- remember the taverns you could visit to look for jobs?
There's another important distinction that SW:tOR makes over other MMOs. Bioware took a page from Bethesda's Fallout play book- some quests give you Light Side or Dark Side points depending on your answers. Usually this happens in important story quests, but other random quests may also do this. Do you follow orders and kill people who might commit a terrible crime in the future, or do you release them and suffer a serious dressing-down from your CO? Do you turn a blind eye to a gambling ring run by corrupt soldiers that preys on refugees, or do you report them? Do you force a now-adult child soldier to return to his family against his will, or do you let his parents believe he is dead? Personally, I enjoyed making these kinds of decisions as part of becoming immersed in the setting and my character.
Most of the quests are very objective-oriented. You will still see the 'kill x number of y mob' type quests, but generally these are optional requirements that just yield more xp. You are rarely if ever required to do this to complete the quest, and usually you'll end up killing x number of y mobs in the course of the quest anyway. Main quests update on the fly- you might start out by meeting with an undercover agent, then upon completing that quest you may be instructed to go to a safe house and recover certain contraband based on what the contact tells you. These can be considered individual quests in a chain, but the way that additional steps are revealed as you complete objectives make it seem a bit more natural and organic (as opposed to returning to the same quest giver again and again).
IV. Gameplay
One big concern I had about tOR was combat. How do you make melee and ranged combat work in a sci-fi game? While tOR's system isn't perfect, it really isn't bad. Cover makes a difference: if you hide behind something large and solid, you dodge more and get hit less. If an enemy can't see you at all, they will move just enough so that they can see you. If they have melee attacks only, they will engage you as quickly as possible, and they will sometimes try to get behind you. More significant mobs with class abilities will use those as opportunity presents itself. My favorite moment of the playtest is still the fight where both my trooper and a trooper-type mob jumped up from opposite sides of a boulder too big to shoot over and simultaneously executed a buttstrike attack! The game does need more abilities that aren't broken by movement to make it feel more exciting and cinematic. And, it would be great if characters could kneel or drop prone in combat (the smuggler at least can do this, but it's a class ability). Overall, Bioware did a pretty good job of making combat interesting, dynamic, and fun. The fact that there's no auto-attack helps, actually: in absence of an auto-attack you have to pay more attention to the cooldowns while deciding which abilities to use. The lack of an auto-attack, even with ranged characters, is actually a lot less annoying than I thought it would be.
I was also concerned about having only four classes per faction: judging from the website, it seemed that each faction had the same four choices with different names. The similarity between classes isn't as great as I suspected, though: the bounty hunter is not exactly the Empire's version of a trooper. They're more similar than different, sure. But there are small tweaks that make them feel and play a bit differently.
There's some nice-to-have features, too: instead of binding to a specific location, fast travel allows you to select and go to any location on that planet that you've previously visited. If defeated, you may choose to revive right on the spot or return to the nearest healing station. You can also modify your weapons in the field- and there is a TON of socketed gear available. You can even give your hand-me-down gear to your companions if they meet the class requirements. All classes have some sort of self-heal/recovery ability, but some classes can become strong healers, too. Crafting is done by your crew; you can even dispatch them to gather a resource for you.
Between level 1 and 12 at least, tOR is also a bit less forgiving than most other MMOs that I've played. If you are not careful, you can and probably will die quite a bit until you get your first companion. Not all companions are created equal, of course (if you're playing a trooper with a trooper companion things just kind of die in front of you). The learning curve is noticeable. It is also slightly more difficult to level than WoW (then again, what isn't), but not as difficult to level as some other MMOs. SW:tOR is still a casual MMO, so hardcore gamers that love to grind will probably be disappointed.
I haven't yet tried PvP, just because I am not a big fan of PvP. However, during the playtest I loitered in the zone containing the first flash point (PvP battlefield) access just to hear what people were saying. There was a lot of chatter about PvP on the General Chat channel and the majority of it was very positive. If the classes are as balanced as they seem to be, and given the pace that combat moves in, I can certainly imagine that PvP is really exciting!
V. The Setting
There's not much to be said here: you would expect Bioware and LucasArts to do a great job with a Star Wars setting. They can't afford not to. And, they did. But the best part about the way the setting presents itself is in the details. On Ord Mantell, you fast travel via speeder bike (and man, those things haul ass). On Coruscant, you fast travel via taxi. And what trip to Ord Mantell would be complete without fighting a few Mantellan savrips? And what fun would fighting Mantellan savrips be if they were pushovers? Keep your eyes out for datacrons that permanently raise your character's attributes- they turn up here and there. You'll see ugnaughts, zabrak, Rodians, Trandoshans, gran, Ithorians, nautolan, cathar, duro, arcona, and houk NPCs before you hit level 15. And yes, there are scantily-clad twi'lek dancing girls (in fact, the twi'lek PC social skill is a special dance that no other race does). Everywhere you look, you'll see attention to detail that makes the background graphics feel truly “Star Wars”- even if the game takes place 3,000 years before the movies. I found myself following a solo Jedi knight around in Coruscant just to watch him in combat. It looked awesome, just like lightsaber combat should look. After getting a bounty hunter character to level 18, though, I realized that what my character does looks just as awesome- but whereas the Sith warrior looks precise and fluid in combat, bounty hunter combat is dominated by pure chaos- blaster bolts, explosions galore, and mobs being knocked every which way (I really enjoy bounty hunter).
There is one thing I am puzzled by, though: the relative lack of playable species. In a galaxy with dozens of different species, players can choose from maybe 10, total. I understand that there are limits to what can be done in an MMO, but what really puzzles me is why certain very iconic if not mainstream species aren't playable. You can't play a Rodian, Wookiee, or Trandoshan- all creatures that are very well-recognized by even the general public. If you mention Trandoshan to someone who's not a huge fan of the lore, then explain that the dinosaur-looking bounty hunter in Episode V was a Trandoshan, they remember. Still, this is a minor criticism- and other playable races may be added with future expansions.
VI. Conclusion
Is Star Wars: the Old Republic the much-anticipated WoW-killer? No. Does it have the potential to be? Maybe. It's only moderately innovative and cutting-edge gameplay-wise, but it is light years ahead of WoW when it comes to the little things that make the experience more immersive. It is an overall enjoyable game that manages to stand out in the MMO market, through not only genre and setting but also through the experience. If you love MMOs and you are a big Star Wars fan, then you will probably enjoy it. So far, I am enjoying it immensely.
Rating: 8.5 of 10