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My Beta Review of Star Wars The Old Republic
FateFatality
Member UncommonPosts: 93
Beta Review by FateFatality
So its been about a week since the beta for SWTOR i been reading what others have said what they think of the game in it's beta stage and there is some negative and some positive stuff.
*though things will change the core of game will be same*
So im going to start with performance of the game il post my specs of my PC and tell you what FPS i was getting
Intel Core i5 2500k
Asrock P67 Fatal1ty Motherboard
16GB DDR 1600MHZ RAM
2TB WD Black HDD
EVGA GTX 580 SC 1.5GB Graphics Card
So my FPS was roughly 60 to 150 before the first patch i must say i was getting bad FPS low as 24fps some AMD ATI cards had some major issue ATI solved problem with new drivers
Previous Beta testers have reported that the game runs better when run from an SSD drive as drive access speed can affect performance.
I had absolutely no problems with the performance of the game no crash to desktop problem that people have been posting no lagg and my FPS was clearly fine.
i did do some testing with fraps when overclocking the CPU i found i was able reach even higher frames of 150+ OC from 3.3ghz to 4.1ghz then to 4.5ghz highest i saw was 178 to 180 looking down on floor Vsync off
i had all graphics maxed druing beta i was unable use ANTI ALIASING feature it was disable
So my class of choice was a sith Warrior i got him to lvl 22 not bad i guess in regards of leveling speed so lets start of saying this game from the start was story driven as soon as i log in so lets get to the point what is this game what is it like and how does it play?
STWOR is your typical themepark MMO just like WoW, Rift ect BUT!! theres some elements that change it from others the story and voice acting but is it anygood? well yes it is good. Does it get annoying? it does get annoying sooner or later but for most part its not that bad
Why would i say that? Well i found my self more intrested about exploreing the planets and my class then really the story and i felt like it don't really matter what i say outcome will be same. I did reset few story missions and yes it was the same i think whole point of story was give it less grindy feeling and it does don't get me wrong is truely feels less grindy but what i found is a anti social environment. The main citys feel dead theres no social anything not even NPC's just feels dead i felt like i was alone most of the time with my companion.
Companions... well this is a mix bag lets start of saying they most annoying thing i ever came across one in particaler was ther Droid that would never shut up every 4 to 6 sec you hear him talk and reapeting same thing over and over soon you enter combat it was very annoying i had remove my heal bot and used the smuggler Vette i know it was a bug but a very bad one at that made lot of people get moody using ther droid.
You can give your companions armor weapons ect and make her/he/robot better i found most people in beta took all of the equipment off there companion and clearly sold it from what it seems and left her/him/robot with nothing
Gameplay Well its just like WoW and rift theres nothing new the combat is polish sort of i mean it looks flashy but some bugs are expected but for most people they will feel like they played this game before and it may be reason why lot people are disliking it for that reason nothing more.
I can understand why people are hateing i mean its been since Everquest and WoW days use same core gameplay its getting very old only so much sheeps will do sooner or later sheeps will stop being sheeps and not follow the hype and just not play due to this old over used gameplay style. This is what really doing it for lot people is themepark and it's sad that bioware has used this gameplay style and been more innovative.
I did some playing with the user interface. The default UI gives the player twelve buttons on a single quick bar that can be switched up and down like in WoW. Three more quickbars can be added, one below the standard one, plus one up each side of the screen. None of the quickbars can be moved. Keys can be mapped to any quickbar slot, though right clicking on an object in the environment will always cast the first quick slot on the first quickbar (this can’t be changed from what I could see).
One of the best features of the TOR user interface is looting. Like WoW it has one click looting, but unlike WoW, it also supports area looting. Basically, if you kill a group of mobs, right click on one, and everyone is looted. The range appears to be about 30m which will normally handle most groups of enemies.
Races well they all humanoid races so don't ecpect to play a Hutt or a sand people or anything like that
Sith warrior/Marauder so lets start by saying i do hope they fix balancing of classes on live when game comes out i did find that most overpowerd class was bountyhunter its AOE/nuke with heavy armor was extreamly effective in everything even had a heal bot . It could take up to 6 mobs and almost 1 shot them in 1 skill i was soo suprised when first time i saw one he invited me to a group i was unable to kill anything druing the whole quest.
Marauder was a very fancy class with its skills but was it any good compair to other classes? answer is no it was not that good why? well for a damage class it sucked very hard a Sith marauder is a Meduim armor dual light saber DPS warrior single target one at that. Issue with this class was its clearly underpowerd at the current levels i was at it maybe a end game class i cannot tell but from what i experience it felt weak a healer class was doing more dmg output then me .. V.V
Graphics well its like HD version of WoW thats really what sums it up High Def version of WoW in terms of graphics but texture are lil odd but better then WoW and better then Rift.
i must say when i got my space ship it was very cool i was impressed with effects and how i space warped to another planet and it was pretty nice BUT THE LOADING SCREENS WTF???? ok sorry but yes this game seems have fair bit loading screens.
My Rateing of this game so far in beta is
Personal Rateing
6.5/10
For a themepark MMO its 8/10
a decent game but nothing new to MMORPG genre its all been done before just with a bioware twist this is not a WoW killer but its next step in MMO gaming but its not a big enough step for MMO gaming
it is better then WoW and thats reason why its a 8/10 in themepark MMO's compair rest of MMO's
but for me iv rated it lower due to lack of innovation and same themepark and core gameplay style thats been overused
Will i buy the game? yes. Why? its something to do and its not WoW and thats better then nothing
Tell me what you guys and girls think of game and give me your little review of it 
links below proof of me getting beta
http://imageshack.us/f/804/star2p.png/
http://imageshack.us/f/703/starsm.png/
Comments
and you have? i played the beta this is review of beta mate i don't understand how i did not play the game?
if you want me print screen shot of the tester page with tick on it then i will with my username same as my forum name i can do that sorry my username for starwars was FatalFatality
The game should get a higher score, yet you deduct points for it not changing the genre enough, despite the developers saying that TOR was never going to be a genre changing or defining game? The developers have done a damn good job in creating the game they said they would. You're burned out on themparks and that's fine, but if you're going to review a themepark, it should be graded AS a themepark and not what you had hoped it would or should have been.
ok thanks for the advice
The game gets 6 from me for some of the things you mentioned and more
score is actually very spot on anything higher and you are really giving the game too much credit
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339443/Video-FollowUp-Guide-For-Enhancing-Graphics-and-Performance-in-SWTORSorry-still-Nvidia-Only.html
I tend to agree with most of what u said... the way i see it ( all trolling aside ) the game to be is as you said wow with lightsabers with the brand of "Star Wars" slaped on the cover, if this game was named anything else you wouldn't have all these fanboys coming here and flaming you saying its a average game... i like every quest npc with a convo though and your choice of what to say but thats all i like everything else is been there done that... its a miss for me for this game
The vocal minority really like to write a lot about swtor, just give up guys, swtor is an amazing game.
yes its a great game but not amazing its good its a new and bit of fresh air in MMO's but there is no innovation and they playing it way too safe bioware known to make good games great development company but truth is the flaws of this game will kill it self the over used WoW gameplay style thats been use is a deal breaker for lot of people. It will be one them games called a one hit wonder for first 3months it be good but that be about it .Rift was supose be good but its aready lost heeps of subs due to WoW cloneing no one wants to spend sub money +game purchase for a games thats aready been made WoW
this is major issue for MMO genre is the bad innovation and always looking at WoW as what game should be like but thats inncorrect no one has really experinced a whole super next generation gameplay style for MMO's its been same forever its other Action based or Themepark based 1234567890 and thats your face roll
bump* trying get few my views
general consensus is hte same in every thread
from what we know of, if you had never played this style of MMo you will be blown away, you will not see the woods for the trees
veteran mmorpg playeers who have been there done that find it the same same
i cant comment on the graphics i was underwhelmed a lot of the time, i have heard that release will have more detailed textures however, and obviously the graphics vendors have not optimized the driver profiles as yet
Im tempted to buy for a month jsut ot single player it through, then again at level 16 i got bored and went ot bed
Ok this last part confuses me. because you seem confused and contradictin yourself. SWTOR doesn't bring anything new to MMO genre? by new if we mean non standard features and improvement then yes it does. I will give you three examples for now. V.O, robust companion system, crew skills. i can give you more but i think for now it is sufficent to make my point.
Now you can call it a twist by Bioware to themepark model like you mentioned in your post or call it something new or call it innovative. different terms to define similar thing. Bioware did add new things which could very well become a norm in future MMOS.
However, just after saying that Bioware brins it's on twist to SWTOR you give it low scores because it not innovative? what is innovation then? because i know you are fan of GW2 and even it is not bringing innovation per say but improving on existing features of themepark genre. i can very well say on basis of same logic that ANET is not beinging anything innovative (it has all been done before) and is just adding it's own twist. But i am 100% sure you will disagree. And that is double standards for me.
First of all i loved the game, second i can agree with the note u gave for sure, 6-7 is fine since it is a beta, if they improve UI, alow for better Graphics customization and some other factor it will go to a near 8, but for me since it is Star Wars it becomes an 9
just for that, and while comparing SWTOR beta to WOW beta(played it 7 years beta also) it is way better, so all we can do, is wait and hope they keep adding content and improving the game.
All the other MMO's have no chance of keeping players for as long as WOW did since u need a huge player fan base, to be willing to wait for the companys to improve the game, like it happened to WOW, beta was bad first WOW months had lots of bugs but it was Warcraft so i couldn´t care less, and this will happen to SWTOR, and i dont see it happening to any other mmo for a long time.
But offcourse it is up to Bioware to keep content coming, patchs expansions etc...
il largue the above post
ok the voiced over main story line, yes i cant think of an mmo which does it and this does it well
companion system, really? a selection of pets?
crew skills? a disguised crafting interface
That is way over generalizing. I am an MMO veteran. Started with M59 and EQ, played WOW 3 years, plus every other major MMO release. I loved playing SWTOR. All I care about is whether or not I am having fun and will the MMO sustain for for a long period of time and TOR succeeds at doing that for me.
While it is not ground breaking mechanically it is very solid and one of the more polished games I have played in years. RIFT was pretty solid out of the gate and so was LOTRO but neither had nearly the volume of content that TOR has.
Agreed weather is a major factor also, people wont be as pacient with other games as they will with SWTOR
.
13 days to launch
ok i was over generalizing ill give you that
waht i should have said was that from my point of view it was indeed very good to play but i just felt it was all too familiar, but not to say i wont play it at least for a short while
Guess you didn't even read. i was questioning the word innovation because if go by posts like yours and many others nothing is innovative because all features have been done before in online or single player games. But people often show double standards when they use word innovation for games like GW2 which is also just improvin the existing features but somehow it is a complete no no if use the same word for SWTOR.
That is why i prefer terms like 'non standard' and 'improvements' instead of innovation because there is always someone like you for example to say 'hey it has been done before'.
Well as a veteran MMO player I am not same same... I actually really like the game. And no not because I am a star wars fan either. I like that its based in a sci-fi setting but had it been a original story such as Mass Effect online I'd still play and still like it. Its because something that has been missing from the genre for some time now for me was the RPG. People complain so much about the game because of the mechanics of it. Aww it plays just like X other game. Well if you only play MMORPGs for that reason then yeah you probably won't like SWTOR too much, but to me thats missing the point of MMORPGs in the first place really and it leads back to what often kills games for me, which is community.
People these days seem to play MMos to compete almost like its a first person shooter or RTS. Its all about being the best, but what ever happened to getting involved in a story.. you know .. roleplaying.. like as if it was a roleplaying game? That was the crux of what annoys me the most about WoW .. its not the game, the game is fine, but the source material was a draw to competitive RTS players.. the Warcraft community, and it lead to a feeling in the game that really you were just competing with everyone else and not even really involved in a story. To me this is what SWTOR fixed and yes, it appeals to Star Wars fans, but i don't see that as a bad thing because that means they are going to care more about the story then players of WoW for instance really do. I see SWTOR as a return to the heart of what the genre was intended as in the first place. Players sharing a story together.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
people keep forget wow and swtor build on same game engine going to play alike because its same engine but from playing beta i like it way better then i ever did wow
everyone seems to think he's a critic these days ...
WOW is also using HERO engine? i didn't know that.
Dont get me wrong, i love the game, i think it will do very well, there is nothing wrong with the game
Im trying to be impartial as possible but jsut relying on my feelings from my time in game
Its difficult to call, just like the modern warfare 3 metacritic scores, mw3 is a great game but some people jsut get tired of the same or similar.
Maybe its because of my time "wasted" in other titles eaten up by the artificial time sinks imposed, i started to see similar time sinks, travelling from my ship through massive space stations to a shuttle bay,. to the surface, across the landscape, for a 2 minute conversation and fight then back again. There were other things i saw also as a time sink.
The story part of the game is very very good, and even the combat seemed a little more intelligent towards the end of my time in beta.
I guess im scared that at the "end game" ill find myself in a similar situation as the many titles that have come before.
As others have said its different horses for different courses, and maybe SWTOR doesnt tick all the boxes for what i want to play. Before beta i had an argument with a colleague, my statement was i dont want ot play the rpg storyline, im interested in the mechanics. After Beta all i want ot do is play the storyline, and avoid the mchanics as much as possible. Indeed i found myself deliberately running around/past mobs.
WoW uses Blizzard's own engine, it does not use the Hero Engine. They play alike because that is how BioWare designed the game, nothing else.
I know..i just forgot to add the /sarcasm tag ;(