This weekend I was able to get one of the one million+ Beta Keys that Bioware handed it out to many MMO websites. I originally had no interest in the game what-so-ever even with all of the hype it was receiving. I still felt extremely hurt with the way Rift turned out and didn't want to be hurt that way again. I pre-ordered Rift, played it for a month and found out how generic and boring it was and then stopped playing. I was not going to be sucked into this time. And then one of my guild mates began talking to me about the game after one of our raids. When an officer in your World of Warcraft guild that writes about WoW for a living is talking about another MMO you listen. He told me about how everything in the game, every quest, every cut scene was voiced was the first thing that caught me. I love voice acting in games and was happy when WoW started putting it in a little when Cataclysm was released even though it was still minimal.
Then he started telling me about the Choice System, in quests you have a choice between two and three options as voiced replies to quest givers. And then there is the Light Side Choices and the Dark Side Choices. In some quests you have a choice to do something Nice or Naughty and those choices can come back at later points in the game. He gave this example. As a Level 10 Jedi Knight. you come across a Sith Lord and you have a battle, at the end of the battle you have a conversation and you have two choices. You can either choose the Dark Side Choice which is to kill him. Or you can choose the Light Side Choice which is to allow him to live to seek Redemption. 40 levels later, you can be questing and come across a life threatening scenario, that Sith Lord that you let live can come back and save your life, impacting your story in the game.
This was something that interested me a lot. I have always loved the World of Warcraft Lore but find it extremely confusing to follow. I also feel that questing in WoW is extremely boring because of how linear it is. Nothing every changes aside from going between different faction or the zones you decide to quest in. So I decided to take a look into the game to decide for myself. And boy... was I surprised.
Anyone who says that SWTOR is WoW in space is on crack and the statement still boggles my mind. The games are so radically different in so many important ways. Yes, they both do quests to get experience and there's PvP and Dungeons. I heard that WoW was that first game to do these radical things in an MMO (give me a break).
The Questing Experience should honestly be the reason why you try out this game and this is the primary reason I am buying the game. The Questing Experience has basically made this game such a radical change from all other MMOs on the market today. Every single quest in the game is voiced and the voices are absolutely amazing. I did the beginning of each side (Republic and Empire) and they were extremely compelling. I was so immersed in my characters because I could go from my Jedi Counselor and be curt and polite to my Sith Inquisitor who was snarky and ruthless. Not only did the voice acting make Questing immersive but it was the actual quests themselves. In the twelve levels I got through on my Sith Inquisitor I think maybe four of the quests involved Kill 10 of X and Gather 6 of Y.
Almost of the quests involve you going from Point A to Point B, finding some mystical item or artifact or exploring the depths of a tomb while fighting off the enemies inside. And there was ALWAYS a reason. No, kill 10 of these boars because we need to clear them out, and they just keep re-spawning anyway so what you did really does nothing. It kept the world extremely immersive and I absolutely loved it. I generally absolutely cannot stand questing in games. It's the most boring part for me and yet I spent 20+ total hours over the weekend doing quests. I did nothing else in the game and I wanted to KEEP doing it. Even though I told myself I shouldn't because I'd just have to do it all again when the game released, I wanted to know how my story continued. I wanted to know if Ffon and I would get into a large battle, I wanted to know if Khem Val would eat someone, I just wanted to know! Even if you don't want to play the game like an MMORPG I would encourage you to buy it and play through it for a month like it was a single player console game if only to experience the amazing story they have put together for this game.
Oh, and some little awesome thing. When you quest and you do have to collect things from corpses, not all bodies drop loot, and if it drops a quest item, the body will send off a Yellow beam instead of the usual Blue beam so you don't have to loot something useless to find it doesn't have a quest item. I found that pretty awesome!
I tried out both of the healers. The Jedi Counselor and the Sith Inquisitor. Both of these classes are the exact same thing except they are on opposite sides. They use the exact same attacks but with different names so you don't have to choose a specific Allegiance because you want the healer only they offer. However, this is where the game kind of lacks. They both don't get heals until Level 10~12 when you get the quest to choose your calling. The healers only have two or three total healing spells and they are your Flash Heal, Greater Healer ext. I feel like the niche of dedicated Tank, Healer, Damage has been broken in this game. Many classes can spec into a heal but still be damage. The Sith Sorcerer has a spell called Dark Bind (your Heal) but it's three Talent Trees are Healing, Damage, Damage. I feel like the game wants everyone to be able to DPS and throw out heals on each other if someone gets low but you shouldn't have some one dedicated outside of the group to standing there and healing. Until I reach end game level I won't really know for sure.
I got to go through the first Flashpoint (dungeon) and it was a lot of fun. Unlike WoW the Flashpoints are 4-player groups that you can technically 2-man (with 2 Real People and 2 Companions). Again, they are completely voiced from the beginning to the end and extremely immersive. Black Talon, the level 10 Sith Empire Flashpoint, takes place on a spaceship where you face to clear out the rebellious crew and the oncoming Jedi droids from your ship then get on the Jedi Ship and kill/capture it's captain. And this is where I discovered Group Conversations. Group Conversations are when you and your party members are all on the same quest/Flashpoint. It synchs up your cut scenes so that you both hear the same things and have the same options. If you choose the same option of speech as the person you're with you gain Social Points and your character has the ability to speak instead of the group leader. But if you choose differently the group leaders speech prompt is selected and you get a few less Social Points.
As a WoW Player who has no plans of quitting WoW for pretty much any game ever, I pre-ordered the Digital Collectors Edition the moment I got through Level 3 of the Jedi Conselor. I have absolutely fallen in love with this game and I would suggest that you do the same. I do not currently plan on Raiding or PvPing in Star Wars: The Old Republic. I am buying the game solely because I want to play through the Jedi and the Sith Story Lines until their conclusions because I want to know how they end. My current plans are to play until I have completed every quest on either side and then ending my subscription until more content is released. And as someone who generally hates questing and buys a game for it's end game content that should tell you something. I may change my mind and continue playing casually but as of right now I will be playing the game as if it were a Console game. Personally, I feel as though SWTOR would have made more money if they had actually made the game around their questing which is pretty much single player for the most part. But I suggest you at least check it out in an upcoming Beta Weekend. You won't be sorry!
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