Monday, November 28, 2011

Played Lately: The SWTOR Beta Test

  • Despite what I've said in the past, I found myself wanting to try out the best test for Star Wars: The Old Republic. So as is required to keep my MMO Blogger membership in good standing, I must record my thoughts about the game.

  • It was not bad. I may even have liked it, had I the time to play longer.

  • It is not really fair to SWTOR to talk about it when I had so little play time. I rolled a Sith Warrior (the opposite of the class I would want to play when the game goes live) and, across three short play sessions, I made it through the opening quest zone to the Sith Academy on Korriban and achieved the grand level Three. And half the time I was playing one handed because I was holding a baby. It was not, I'm sure you would agree, the ideal testing situation.

  • For all that, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the game in such little time. I am not afraid to admit that I like themepark MMOs. Even playing as a Sith (woo, evil chick with a lightsaber), I enjoyed fighting things, running around, and questing. I did not get a handle on the UI, though I suspect more time with it would help. Being able to use two hands would also help.

  • And, although I was a wee bit skeptical, I actually enjoyed the talky bits. Bioware pulled off a conversation system like their single player games. Unfortunately, I was only able to take part in a few of these. But avoiding the wall of quest text was huge improvement.

  • I still doubt that I will be playing at launch. As long as I can avoid spoilers, I see no reason to subject myself to the massive crowds the game is likely to see. But I am much more likely to eventually play it instead of skipping it entirely.

  • And I just might try a character on the Sith Empire side.


© 2011 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.

5 comments:

  1. Spoilers are going to be a major problem for this game.

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  2. I think it's far more likable than people had been making it out to be before the NDA dropped.

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  3. I'm glad you enjoyed your brief time with it. And yeah, what Blue Kae said. Even for those of us playing at launch spoilers are going to be a big deal. There are eight class quest story lines, and I don't want any of them ruined for me.

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  4. Hopefully people will be considerate about posting spoilers. But I do know how difficult it is not to just spill your guts, since so much of the excitement is tightly tied to your class story. Even now it's hard for me to express my love for my smuggler's story without having to explain why, because so much of what made it great is in the plot!

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  5. That's really what I was referring to, GC. It'll be very difficult to talk about the game like we're used to with other MMOs since so much of what happens is story-related. Similar to the issues people have now with Skyrim.

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