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Full Beta Review: Long and critical but fair
HoLy_MoLy
Member Posts: 6
I've tried many MMOs but have mainly enjoyed City of Heroes, EVE, Guild Wars, and LOTRO.
I had been following SWTOR for a while, and on a whim decided to preorder it.
This weekend was the first time I've played SWTOR and overall, I'm both impressed and disappointed.
Here is my zero BS, zero PR spin review...
Please post some comments on the game and my review.
Gameplay - 7.5/10
The core gameplay is solid and based on the holy trinity, with no attempt made to alter the formula. If you've played LOTRO, WoW, EQ it is pretty much the same style.
Combat felt a little clunky due to poor animations and it lacks that extra wow or 'engaging' factor, such as a manual blocking/dodging mechanic. The force could've been used in many interesting ways, such as interaction with the environment or being able to apply it with more control, but at lower levels it simply felt like a generic spell.
The cover system for smugglers and agents is decent and a great idea, but again very spotty about when and where you can use it. It didn't feel very natural and I'm guessing most players will either ignore it for a stealth, heal spec or simply use it with their portable shield screen.
Positional play and strategies are very basic, and basically amounted to tank and spank.
(Also, this might be a personal preference of mine, but I dislike the way some MMOs give you multitudes of skills that do the same thing but slightly differently. It just clutters up my bar and makes me feel like I'm fighting my keyboard rather than the enemy. A more immersive system would've been to combine some abilities by making them have different effects by how long you hold down the button. (eg. Champions online)
Character customization is passable but not spectacular. The base classes do not really matter much, so each side essentially has 8 unique classes. Within each class is 3 talant trees (2 unique and 1 shared with the base class).
I got to try out most of the classes to around level 14+ and they offer some nice variation with multiple roles available to most classes, however the talent trees leave you with little room to experiment. You are only given enough points to max out 1 tree and 1/3 of another. With most top-tier talents being so powerful that means that hybrid builds are relegated to being novelty specs.
The companion system is very well done. You can choose and outfit a companion to suit your class and playstyle. They are also a great help for solo/duo players as they can help plug whatever gap you have in your team.
Aesthetics - 9/10 *but currently at 7/10 for the beta due to technical issues
The stylized art of SWTOR is very well done. It is not up to Mass Effect standard, but more like KOTOR level, which still looks fantastic to me. Sound and music are lifted straight from the KOTOR series but are still top notch.
The cutscenes and storylines are the main star. They are engaging and add that extra fun factor to questing. The stories will never be as epic as the single-player Bioware games, but they are a huge improvement from reading text boxes and are THE saving grace of an otherwise generic MMO.
However, ingame animations are lackluster. They all suffer from that disconnected 'floating' feel, commonly found in other MMOs, but in this game its particularly jarring as you go from the fantastically animated cutscenes, to generic combat animations.
Also of minor note, during beta some graphics options were disabled...
I had everything on maximum (High) settings, but was frustated at the lack of any (Ultra) settings.
- Antialising was greyed out but will be back for release.
- Anisoptropic filtering was maxed, but it only looked like 2x which is horrendous.
- Many places suffered from texture pop-in, and also there was a marked difference in the quality of the cutscene textures, and ingame textures. This is likely because we got a 'lite' client for the beta. (It was only 20gb while the release game will apparently be 40gb, so hopefully we get some high-res textures in there.)
I'm quite confident that the technical issues will be sorted out for release, but it was annoying that the graphics were being 'held back'.
Innovation - 5/10
I don't like making such simple comparisons but it REALLY does feel like WoW with lightsabers. The combat is similar, the character classes and specs all have functional equivalents. Same goes for the crafting, items, mission layout/design...
I'm not saying it's a bad thing...it works, it's fun and it is likely to attract many players but it is disappointing that a potentially awesome IP has been boiled down into a generic MMO mould.
Of the 5/10 points, 1 is for the fantastic companion system, 1 for the cover system (even though its not well implemented) and 3 for the high quality presentation that manages make questing and repeated playthroughs a fun endeavour, rather than boring grind.
Polish - 7.5/10
Now being a beta, it's not really fair to judge the polish of this game, however with 1 month left to go I think this is a fair score. The game itself works great, looks and sounds great, however it lacks little details that would make it truly AAA.
The city hubs are large, but not very detailed with most places being empty and vestigial. Mission areas are usually confined to the star wars equilvalent of warehouses and hangars, with lots of space-barrels and space-crates. This may change when you get to the higher levels, but so far it lacks that epic feeling.
Space combat is a nice diversion, but is simply a rail shooter. A good X-wing Vs Tie Fighter or Rogue Squadron style minigame could've made this a major selling point for them, but as it is now, it feels very cheap. On the topic of minigames, they had time to implement space combat, but where is the Pazaak?!! or the 3D chess? I know they play card games in the old republic, we even have a cutscene of an NPC playing someone. Plus, it was in KOTOR, couldn't they just ctrl+C a simple version and implement multiplayer later?
Also, I experienced a few minor bugs and quality of life issues, such as camera/look speed being too high, fuzzy dual-monitor support and not being able to transfer keybind/settings to your alts.
The UI is functional, but outdated with very little room for customization. The guild system is functional but needs a little work. The fact that these simple quality of life issues have not yet been addressed is indicative of an overall lack of polish and that they are rushing this out in time for the holiday sales period.
Value and Longevity - 7.5/10
The game longevity is looking quite promising. There are meant to be 8 storylines, but in truth there is quite a bit of overlap in terms of side-quests etc., but its still a good amount of content to go through.
I'm a bit skeptical about the fully voiced quests, as already at level 20 I've heard a few repeat canned responses from my avatar. In the future, will they really be willing and able to secure the 8 main VO actors and companions for new lines, or will we just get reused lines?
The end-game looks like it will be the standard raiding model. PvP is there as well in the form of zone PvP, world PvP and arenas, with rewards that will mainly affect PvP stats.
The base game is solid and with a subscription model, and EA/Bioware behind it, I am hoping for and will be expecting some major expansions and updates in the future. Being such a major release I'm expecting it will have a massive launch but how many subscribe will depend on the frequency and quality of updates.
Conclusion - 8/10
It is not a revolution, and certainly it's not even an evolution...BUT it is a very good and very fun MMO.
If you are fan of KOTOR, Mass Effect or Star Wars in general, it is worth considering. But if you're playing it as a 'single-player game' for the story, it will no doubt be average compared to the other Bioware games (and expensive too).
As an MMO, the mechanics are getting kinda stale, but it will offer some solid entertainment. The community at launch looks to be quite big and will probably remain so for quite a while. The PvE content is very well done, and I'll be subscribing for a few months at least, to see off my female 'jerk with a heart of gold' twi'lek scoundrel.
Personal Thoughts and Rant
I had read up and watched videos of SWTOR prior to ordering it, so I knew it was going to be fairly generic. Still I had a lot of fun in the beta and will be awaiting and playing on launch day. (Hopefully my copy will arrive in Australia by then). I'm planning to subscribe for a few months to enjoy the story and mainly because of loyalty to KOTOR/Mass Effect and sci-fi mythos in general.
But I'm skeptical on whether it can retain my interest long-term, especially with Guild wars 2 around the corner.
The reason I've been so critical of it, is that this game has a major IP, a fantastic developer Bioware, and an established publisher EA. The potential of the game was huge, and it had a budget to match.
Personally, I think the project manager or whoever was in charge of design take a long hard look at whether their time/money was well spent. Yeah, those cinematics were awesome and we all love fem Shep, but what would've better was some motion capture animations, or a full-blown space shooter or even some freaking Pazaak...
Comments
Quote "The reason I've been so critical of it, is that this game has a major IP, a fantastic developer Bioware, and an established publisher EA. The potential of the game was huge, and it had a budget to match.
Personally, I think the project manager or whoever was in charge of design take a long hard look at whether their time/money was well spent. Yeah, those cinematics were awesome and we all love fem Shep, but what would've better was some motion capture animations, or a full-blown space shooter or even some freaking Pazaak..."
A fantastic Effort from a company that has never delivered an MMO before. It makes me laugh that you believe Guild Wars 2 will be anything other than generic. I have not had so much fun with friends in an MMO let along a Beta forsuch a long time.
I think fopr people who know the deal and are not trying to beat the Game in a week which is what generally ruins the genere and scope for developers. Bioware have done a fantastic job lots and lots of little touches that just make you think, using the WoW with lightsabres is just lazy critique, the game is far better than this.
As for the mini games these can all be easily added but then I guess you have to fovus on something that is not in the game rathrer than the game itself.
Oh and I love the fact you seem to believe you are fair minded, I think you should let others judge that.
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Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
It was a pretty accurate evaluation of what it is so far.
75% of SWG's team are on it many in upper management posiitons, Many of the warhammer team are on it, in fact I'd go as far as say 80% of the team have worked on a triple AAA MMO in the past so its hardly like they haven't deleivered a MMO in the past in fact the majority have delivered 1 or 2 AAA to market.
Thanks for the review. You should take two more points off technical IMO, due to a lack of Dx11 support. For those with cards that support it, the lack thereof basically cripples framerates and details. I am not saying they should go all Arkham City on us, but they should let us use those drivers. WOW, Rift, LOTRO, AOC all do.
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Seriously what does clunky mean, am I the only one getting very smooth animations.
Also please tell me what innovative means, becuase I have not seen an innovative game in about 20 years. there all copies of each other.
As for innovative I do think though that this is the first time in history I enjoy doing questrs and looking forward to see what happens next. But thats not inovative thats just good voice acting and story
Mostly agreed with you....good review of the current state of the game.
Anyone thats been around since the begining of online Mmorpgs have slowly become so used to the "system" that I think we all hope and pray that the next big game will be the "next generation" of Mmorpg. Although most of us have no idea what that is, thats what the devs are for yeah !
I have to keep reminding myself its just a game and its meant to be fun - not life changing. I know this can sound like apathy but truth is when I look back at the last 3 days of game play - I REALLY ENJOYED MYSELF
I suppose thats the real goal - as many peolpe as they can get - all enjoying themselves - paying subscriptions
I think on the basis of what Ive seen os far both Lucus arts and BioWare have achieved exactly what they set out to do.
M
I tested the beta this week-end and i loved everything,i slept like 8 hours max during this beta hahaha
The only thing i didnt like at all was the character creation it needs more options...well i guess Aion still remains the best custom chara creation to date
Imperial Agent story owns xd
Aions doenst hold a candle to Eve Onlines. I kind you not. Real Clothing and Hair, its truly is remakarble all the options
Just because you had fun that doesn't make it a good game.
Anyone with any kind of experience in the MMO genre and with a little exercise at critical thought can tell that SWTOR is just a huge dissapointment considering it had EVERYTHING going for it... money,good developer and an allready amazing mythos.
Oh and try not to blatantly lie on a public forum.... GW2 seems generic?.. it it fails, it will fail because it's trying to break too many rules that people are familiar with. At least it's trying to do something new... which no other genre needs more than MMOs.
..Cake..
Im with the OP
i wasnt aware that the graphics were a low quality version, with hi res textures incoming ,that would certainly boost them, obviously the lack of AA being enabled... and the frame reate didnt feel right for the spec of my machine. These things i had no problem yet as there is no nvidia optomisation etc etc in place...
The game is incredibly geenric, but it doesnt make it bad by any means, im in two minds to buy it now or not (i was put off previously). My main argument is i played solo to level 17, and uit got me thinking, should i be paying a subscription for this?
One of the replies mentioned gw2 not being innovative, well compared to a generic mmo that swtor seems to be at this stage, gw2 is very different. Anyway this isnt a gw2 convo...
Bonus points for not only reviewing the game, but reviewing your own review of it - nothing like an unbiased opinion.
Anyhow. I don't see how you can the game 9/10 for Aesthetics when it has some of the worst character and item customization of any major MMO launched in the past 7 years or so and where every player character of the same class looks virtually identical (not to mention drags along an identical companion). Furthermore, it has a pretty bad UI which - again, unlike the majority of MMOs released in the past 7 years - can't be adjusted at all.
Additionally, the world graphics are pretty plain, I visited most of the planets once i got my ship, but never once during my gameplay did I come across a place that made me stop in my tracks and just zoom out and looks around, think "woah, this looks amazing". LoTRO does at virtually every new location you come across and other games have at least SOME awe-inspiring sights, but with SWTOR, everything is just kinda "meh". The only thing in the entire game that actually looks cool is lightsabers, but honestly, your star wars game would have to suck pretty hard in order to take coolness away from lightsabers.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
you can completly modify your weapons and armor, and its not even close to the worst in the last 7 years, its litteraly on Par with them all.
Also you are one of those people who look at the Mona Lisa and say its ugly, the art direction is great. LOTRO never looked that good to me why not my cup of tea. It not bad graphics. In this day in age it has more to due with there art direction which is very very subjective. there modeling it on the clone wars.
I think the OP nailed it very well as a reflection of my own thoughts on SW:ToR. It's a solid game with some tired mechanics but also contains some very salient aspects like VO and companions.
Played the game and loved it this weekend. Definately keeping my pre-order. The review was fair I suppose. Each person has a different take on what they like and what they don't. Since GW2 was brought up in the original post my feelings on it are I hope it doesn't (IMO) suck as badly as the first one.
Except last i checked, they don't change appearance when you do and they look extremely similar in the first place.
I played crafters on both of my chracters, so i made both new weapons and mods for them, so i understand how the sytem works.
I mean, what better example of terrible customization than lightsabers - here is something that they could easily have allowed people to just "pick a colour", but instead you're limited to like 6 total colours and recently BioWare has nerfed it so that each alignment has 3 colours. WOW, 3 different weapon colours to pick from. Seriously, i dare you to name a major MMO that had less than 3 colour choices for character weapons. (I'm not looking to turn this into a lightsaber discussion either, this is just an easy example).
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
Your "innovation" paragraph has some inaccurancies. I'm stating the most obvious one about crafting. Gathering & crafting have very little in common with WoW's equivalents. People who actually invested time in this activity during beta, like myself, can verify this.
In WoW i played a warrior tank during TBC and in this beta i leveled a trooper vanguard to lvl 22. The two concepts are light years apart. I was sceptical about the ranged tank thing but it works very well and it's a lot of fun. Also, which healer class in WoW can heal and dps at the same time? My resto shaman shurely can't.
Finally, i strongly disagree that items / mission design are like WoW's. The concept may be similar (they are both themeparks after all) but the execution and the presentation are quite different.
Bioware never claimed that they where about to reinvent the genre. From day one they where straightforward and specific about what TOR would be, a themepark MMO with all the relevant core norms and core mechanics. What it does, in my opinion, is that it raises themeparks in a new level regarding content quantity and quality, execution and presentation.
Problem here is that lightsaber colours are part of the original film aesthetics and I can personally see why they might want to limit the range of colours on those grounds.
Caveat Emptor
That's strange. 6 years in WoW and i'm not aware that i can pick my hunters or my shamans weapon color. Must have missed something in the tutorial back in 2005.
swtor give it time...with this world and lore the possibilities are endless with future expansions etc etc its not wise to judge an mmo at this state...look at WoW for example at lanch the game was horrible in every single way infact GW1 had the lead in subs etc etc but with later content etc etc look at it now 10 mil subs...
I agree with the OP and think he was fair. an 8/10 is a decent score and exactly what I would have given it. SWTOR isn't for me but I know a lot of people will enjoy it for a long time.
My theme song.
No arguments about fairness, here. Couple comments, though...
WoW with lightsabers: I don't feel that way. At all.
The canned responses, "sounds like you need a soldier", etc. do continue throughout the game, but they are few and far between.
Having 100% VO in an MMO isn't innovative? 0 load instancing(the green walls) aren't innovative? It has these things while also having most of the new MMO bells and whistles like area loot and item modification. Yes, Item modification, where you have TOTAL control over a weapon's stats. AND ARMOR. Potentially every piece. Imagine LotRO's Legendary item system, except it's a "Legendary EVERYTHING" system.
I'm actually more critical than you regarding the character customization. Body types are just pathetic...
Good job on the review! Thanks for sharing!
I wouldn't really classify 100% VO as innovative. It's not like people never applied VO to an MMORPG before...it's just higher production values. It would be like saying "really good graphics" are innovative.
The item mods are probably innovative, as well as the 0 load instancing though.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Wow you have no idea what you are talking about.. It is confirmed that GW2 is anything but generic.. People have played the dungeons, the PvP has been shown "I've played it as well", there is no questing and it is all Dynamic Events and Personal storyline, as well as no holy trinity, no carrot on a stick raiding model. That is anything but generic.
The problem isn't people beating the content so fast, the problem is us long time MMO fans are getting tired of the carrot on a stick running on a treadmill game model. We want the genre to move forward already, and SWTOR isn't doing that.
Not to mention there are other mmos that are very voice over heavy, so going from lets say..95% to 100% isnt really an innovation, its more a (argueble) improvement. Combining them in cutscenes is cleaver but again its a argueble improvement.
Same as 0second instancing (mind you it sometimes takes 2-5seconds for the mobs in the instance to actually spawn), its a improvement.
And the mods.. other then the cosmetic changes (which to some degree has been done before) its awfully close to the overly known item gem systems , just with more slots, more restrictions and less options.
A hilarious statement from someone praising a generic MMO like SWTOR. In psychology it's called projection, I believe.
My Guild Wars 2 First Beta Weekend "reviewette" : http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/4944570/thread/349125#4944570