Star Wars: The Old Republic Overview Continued

Combat

republic-shipThe combat in TOR is fast and furious. At no time do you feel like you are just sitting there, hacking away, even while fighting Elite and Champion creatures. The combat animations, sounds, effects, and fluidity of combat make it a lot of fun.

Your powers all have unique animations that help you to see when they are executed so you can line up your next strike. Monsters have tells to alert you when they are using their big and nasty attacks.

Like most MMO’s, TOR uses a click-and-wait style system. The powers look good and are fun, but they still fall within a turn based system with cool down timers, resource management, and a specific order of use.

bounty-hunter-002The combat is eye-catching, but it doesn’t take too long to learn the most advantageous combinations of powers, making combat very repetitive. Click 1, Click 2, Click 3, loot. Combat looks great, but it doesn’t take much thought once you figure out what your powers do. Grouping helps this repetitiveness some and playing with friends always makes a game better.

There does seem to be some line of sight enforcement but for the most part, you jump into battle, plant it, and mash the keyboard until things die. I know they did it because it is “easy to play” but I would love to see an active combat system much like DDO. Dodging, flanking, line of sight and more strategy in battles could make TOR wholly entertaining.

One thing that does spice up TOR combat some is the companion system. Starting at level 10ish you will get a companion to help you on your journey. The exact time you get your companion depends on your specific class storyline but most players get to that point around 10th. This companion will help you in battle through a variety of means. You can also have your companion sell your junk loot, craft items for you or go on companion only missions.

Worlds

codex-002For the most part, TOR utilizes large open public areas to access most of the game world. Open wilderness areas and ruined command centers allow many players to wander about together. TOR utilizes instances, and each instance seems to have a low population limit. This means even during off hours there can be hundreds of instances of a single area. This choice aids in keeping lag down and camping to a minimum. A few people can explore the area instead of hoping you will be the lucky one to actually be around when a Flesh Raider spawns.

There are private micro instances spread throughout the game. These are all attached to your quests, especially your class quests. This is great as it allows you to fully enjoy and explore the most vital parts of your story. There is nothing worse than finally getting to that big bad mean guy you have been hearing about, go through the dialog or finally make it through the lair, only to have it ganked by a high level griefer 2 seconds before you hit attack! This won’t happen in TOR, thank the maker!

flashpoint-002Flashpoints are Star Wars: The Old Republic’s versions of private, instanced, story-based quests. These are very exciting and can be a ton of fun! The stories are well written, the dialog fits well and the dynamic events add to the fun of playing through these. If you play DDO you will be quite familiar with these as most quests in DDO are very similar. I would say that the Flashpoints in Star Wars: The Old Republic are on par with the most intricately scripted DDO dungeons. They are lots of fun, don’t pass these up!

Star Wars: The Old Republic Overall Review

There is no doubt I will be playing TOR when it goes live. I am a huge Star Wars fan and love the universe and the mythos.

The graphics are great.  Even on my old machine they are fantastic and smooth (8800GT SLI). The worlds are beautifully crafted and there is a mystic feel to the variety of locations they have created in TOR.

The combat, which is always a huge part of any MMO, is lacking and can get quite boring once the flashiness of it wears away. I have always loved trying different things in combat with DDO and the ability to really shine just by tactics and not just by gear is one of my favorite things about active combat.

rancorThe lack of character customization is going to be hard for me to swallow. In Galaxies, I loved the details behind character creation in that world. DDO has such a complex and fun character creation system; I could spend years just playing though more builds. Unfortunately Star Wars: The Old Republic is severely lacking character building. Effectively, everyone is a clone with the same stats and abilities, slightly tweaked by gear and skill trees.

What will keep me playing in the long run is going to be the deep, rich, character storylines. Star Wars: The Old Republic forces you to get into your character at a personal level, investing not only time but a real interest in the character’s successes and failures. The quality of the stories and the crispness of the voice acting makes you part of the world and the events that unfold around you. Having the choices in these cut scenes to pick the light side, dark side, or something in the middle is great!

warzones-003The choices and actions of your character have lasting and real effects on the game world. These effects stick to your character and this makes you carefully consider your choices and where you want your character to go. There are no do-overs in TOR and this keeps you in the game and caring about each step.

The few problems I have with TOR, are diminished by the quality of the character interaction and the breadth of the universe. It’s already a rich and full world which will take most average gamers some time to explore. Hopefully the developers can get many more Flashpoints and raids into the game. I would love to see them add more quests, especially repeatable Heroic 2+ quests that would foster more grouping and a better feeling of working and playing together.

In closing, Star Wars: The Old Republic kicks some serious butt. It is finely tuned and in much better shape than many MMO’s at this late beta stage and even some live games! Its main push, a deeply interactive personal story, hits the mark dead on. The core of Star Wars: The Old Republic is sound and a blast to play.t7

See you online in a month!

Play smarter, not harder!

~Karranor aka Meriki on TOR