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Questions about game....Might buy for xmas...
Greymantle4
Member UncommonPosts: 809
My wife and I have been playing MMO's a long time. I started back with UO while my wife started with EQ. The games we have played the longest is UO, EQ, SWG, Wow. What we like about MMO's is crafting and fun quests / level game. Were not in to end game to much for it all seems to be about raids these days. After much talk we have been thinking about buying this game even though we said we would pass for a few months after past experiences with new MMO's.
My first question is how is crafting? If you gather yourself over your companions do you gather faster? How does crafted gear compare to quest gear? What concern me about crafting is it all seems automated to the point why bother.
My next question is the pace of the game. In modern MMO's the pace to end game is way to quick for us. I have read that people are all ready at the end game which is way to fast in my book. How fast are you going in this game? Would like to hear a few posts on how you play and where your at level wise?
My next question is exploring. Does Star Wars do a good job with this? I know from what I read it seems early on this is not true. How about later in the game?
My last question is housing. I understand you get a ship for this. How does this work? Anyway to customize the ship in anyway?
Thanks for any replies.
Comments
1. if you go out and collect nodes in the world, it is much faster way of gathering than just sending companions out on gathering missions. its also a money saver since those gathering missions cost credits. most quest reward gear is either green or blue(green being the lowest and blue the next up). if you do alot of crafting and then reverse engineer the gear, you can get recipes for the next tier of that gear. so if you do it alot, then yes you can get better gear. however you will either need to get the mission crew skill that goes with your craft so you can get the mats for the blue and higher crafts or you need to buy those mats from the Galatic Trade Network, or GTN(basicall the AH).
2. cant speak on the pace of the game for you. however i will say it is unlikely you will complete all quests by the time you hit cap. and those the lvl cap mostly skipped through the story, so if that is something you plan to do, it will likely go quite quick. personally im going fairly quic(quicker than i would have thought) but that is because i am very excited to see where my story is going.
3. as you get higher lvl, the planets open up more. by the time you hit tattoine, make sure you have 48k credits to get your mount as you will likely be sorry without it. by exploring and not following where the main quests guide you, you can find side quests you wouldnt have otherwise found, lore items that add entries to you codex, and datacrons which are items that give a small stat boost and codex entry. the early datacrons are pretty easy to find and get, but they get much tricker very quickly. you also get a small amount of exp for finding areas
4. your ship isn't really customizable yet. the only thing you can do for it, is give it upgrades to help in the space game which dont change the look of the ship
hope some of this helps
* Crafting in SWTOR is in my opinion a solid system, but by nature of its design works a bit in the background, so do not expect something like Vanguard crafting. Can wear stuff you make on leveling, it works, but you'll need to really keep doing it to keep it up with your quest rewards. It has a good sense of progress, though, and ties in pretty smoothly with the companions aspect of the game. Some crew skills (that's what crafting is called in this game) play a part in instances. Using them you can open a shortcut or tame a beast in an instance to aid you, for example.
* Exploration is not exactly charming but is somewhat rewarding. Some of the environments are a bit too guided (think corridors), some cut up and closed off (this is mostly for cities, though)... There's the Datacrons, of course, that you get to find... They give permanent boosts to your attributes, so that's the game encouraging you to explore. In Nar Shaddaa there's this speeder that'll fly you to a datacron somewhere in the city - if you can get to said speeder, which is way down somewhere!
Still, SWTOR's universe feels much fragmented (which makes sense, it consisting of planets), that's a bit of a turn-off to an explorer like me. And the worlds themselves do not feel as alive as they could have, so I seldom thought "Let me go and see what's up there, it looks cool!", like I do in Skyrim or Vanguard or, I don't know, even Everquest. Though planets do open up more as you level and Tatooine is a solid change in that regard.
* The pace is honestly how you want it to be. Listen to the quests, do side quests, throw some PVP and space missions in there and I don't think you'll level up too quickly. It felt right to me, though I did keep on outleveling my class story because of getting into warzones (instanced PVP battlegrounds) everytime one came up. The warzones give a load of XP and money, by the way, by the time I could train for a speeder I had the money to do it 3 times over - and it's supposed to be very expensive!
* Housing... Well, having a ship is nice, but it's a bit like theKOTOR ship, to be honest. Can't decorate it. It's just an instanced place you keep your companions and access your cargo (bank). You do get combat upgrades, but it's not visual customization. Frankly Bioware should really work on this.
But here's the most important part:
Despite my reservations and annoyances with the game, I have to say this is the perfect story-based MMO for duoing. You'll constantly get multiplayer dialogue, which to me is the single most brilliant invention Bioware did with this game... You'll also keep getting social points for it, with which you can buy some really fun gear (such as Sandman outfit or Slave (Leia) outfit). Here and there an NPC may respond to two players being a group, which was fun and unexpected to me. Also, you will be able to duo some flashpoints using both of your companions when you outlevel them by a few levels.
So I say: Don't take it on your usual MMO terms, and give it a go if you like a story-based experience. Duoing works very well with what it is.
I have to say, I loved discovering this. It was really awesome seeing the Biochemist in the group able to harvest some anti-toxin and apply it to the group so we could go through a toxic tunnel to get some bonus loot. Or the powertech in the group fixing some machinery which caused the drill to open up the wall for a shortcut.
Its not necessary or anything, but its cool stuff like that which really gets you into the game. The game has been full of interesting moments like that, which has really got me hooked. Ooohhh look, a mysterious skull.... lets click it!
Just a question, have u tried Vanguard? This sounds like it would be a good game for u both.
Thanks for the replies. One question I forgot to ask if anyone can take the time. How is the challenge in the game as you level? Would you say it is harder then Wow? If it's pretty easy like Wow how about if you drop your companion and go solo how is the challenge?
The question about Vanguard. The problem I had with Vangaurd was I never saw anyone. This made the game boring to my wife and I for it's missing the social part of a MMO.
if you are soloing definetely hard with out a companion. again pretty easy in the begining but you may find your self dying more around mid cap. although that probably also depends on how good of a player you are
If youre planning on buying it for xmas and playing it on xmas day. I would buy it now and start downloading it. Ive been downloading the client for the past 12 hours. Its taken me four hours to download 1 gig....yes 1 gig... 100kb/s right now. Extremly unimpressed with that. Great game though
. Also for the record I have an extreamly stable and the fastest internet money can buy. The forums are going crazy with some people that have been downloading for 2-3 days already.
Aside from a few quests here and there, it isnt overly challenging below level 30 (keep in mind that I am a MMO vet, newer players might not have the same experience).
Once you get to about level 30 the mobs start getting more challenging. My tank companion dies fairly often, and thats with using crowd control, interrupts and throwing some wards / heals on him. You cant just run in and AoE everything to the ground, and mobs rarely exist by themselves, its always groups.
Thankfully you can use your environment to your advantage, blowing up nearby pipes and setting large groups on fire, blowing up crates of dust and making them choke (crowd control) giving you some time to pick them off.
In the beginning, it is way too easy. You'll probably get bored of combat and it will fall upon the story and dialogue to hook you through the initial stages of the game. Especially if you duo, it'll be a walk in the park, though definitely more fun because of multiplayer dialogue. Of course, you can ramp up the difficulty manually *by pulling more than one group*, this is what I did whenever I duo'd with a friend.
(You don't get companions till you're close to level 10 anyway)
The first flashpoint is also quite easy. If you want to make it challenging, two players + 2 companions will do that, given you've not outleveled it. Though you'll get fewer social points (social points are: number of players in group x 2 if you win the dialogue dice roll and get to be the one that does the talking, number of players in group x 1 if you lose the dialogue dice roll and listen to another player talking).
You also have "heroic quests". This is basically group quests. If you get fewer than 4 players for a quest that says 'full group required", you're going to have a hard time.
From level 30 on, the game becomes noticably harder. If you dismiss your companion, you'll have a really, really rough time, even a silver mob (standard, which is the second weakest type of mob) may make you reach for a medikit if you're without a companion and not careful (though duoing, it'll still be easy). Even with your companion, some "strong" mobs will give you a really hard time. I routinely see people asking for help for doing their end of act encounters.
I downloaded the game in just over 1 hour and that was for beta but i decided to change my win7 to 64bit ( which btw made a huge diff to the game) and i downloaded the patchs after installing the game from discs in less than a hour so i not sure why you guys are haveing problems DLing it.
But back to the topic yes i would buy this if they not sold out i went to my local game store and i was talking to the owner and she told me they have sold over 700 copys since launch and are getting another 700 plus in the next few days. She also told me the best selling/ordering item atm is SWToR game cards . It wasnt a seles pitch btw cause the owner is a relation of mine and she knows i allready own two copys of it.
I live in a small city with a pop not much over 30k in Ireland so i find 700 sales huge for a game
this game is bent rp yes even on pvp server!this might sound bad but it is actually well done,a bit too fogriving tho.like if you dont chose the proper path for your companion to have affection for you you can press excape and chose differently(might be harsher on rp server (like you chose and your stuck with it (dont know)and the way it is made is fairly emotional there are very sad moment andvery funny moment in the quest try to have a group that arent bent on doing quest in 1 second flat and you ll enjoy this game it is like playing a movie or close to it .dont get me wrong this is a la guild wars but insanelly well synced and acted.
this make a huge difference.and so far it seams the world are huge it is instanced but very seemlessly you get loading a bit more then wow.but you wont notice!i think it is a great game!is it worth the money?mmhard to say for other but if you re into rp with very different kind of pvp (in pvp it isnt the most deadly player that win cause in there the goal isnt to kill to win the goal is to play ball!a lot forget this and loose!(cause it take too long to kill someone by the time you kill him ort her your team lost(i love this insane idfea that even if you pawn the other you almost always loose lol)ya for me this game is worth its penny i wish the quality had been put up a not or two.i dont mean the style it is painted style i dont mind that i main the granularity like they put the game pixellation at the highest possible size you see the freaking pixel.if they supply setting to correct this (wich isnt a very big thing)this in my book is the best game in its own genre that have been released in years