OKAY, WHAT ABOUT THAT PVP STUFF?
Adam:
I'm putting it out there: Player versus Player sucks in most games. But not this one. I would liken it to being about as enjoyable as ramming a compass into your knee, whilst someone runs around you poking your cheek. In a system of auto-attack and hot bar cool downs, I don't understand the appeal, it just doesn't work, its rubbish, why does nobody realise this? I should start handing out flyers.
What SWtOR does for Player versus Player is that it takes out the purely stabby element of it. With Hutt-Ball, you can simply enjoy a game of tag, with fire-traps, and acid pits: because corrosive materials and things that burn are awesome.
I will concede however, that aside from one or two more inventive match-types, the PvP in BioWare's effort isn't too different from the status quo, but who cares? At least it’s fun.
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Suzie:
All I can do is point to the disastrous Ilum exploit discovered after v1.1 was released. I’m not saying it’s all bad, but… come on. COMPANIONS FOR THE WIN?
Adam:
Since we decided that "we don't have the time to actually play this genre properly" we don't do multiplayer anymore. Group quests are met with scorn, socializing with people will garner the type of suspicion reserved for a child-molester, and if a guild asks you to play for more than 45 minutes a week, walk away and do not look back at the monster kids.
Like EverQuest before it, BioWare have realized that people aren't always going to be able to find others to play with, so how do they deal with this? By adding in your own aid. Having a back-up buddy helps in a manner of ways, making the experience more dynamic, less lonely, and (with the help of a shock-collar) even more amusing.
In a way the companion reflects the direction the genre is heading: an experience in which we can see people all around, but not interact with them at all times… just like real life. Like a ghost from the Sixth Sense, it will only be a matter of time before we are all scampering around trying to find the Haley Joel Osmond NPC so that we can send a message to another actual person - but yeah, I like the companions.
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Suzie:
The companion system is actually one of the better systems that Bioware brought into the genre. It’s really nice to have more than one companion to choose from as the situation warrants. While, as Adam says, it’s not earth-shattering, it’s a fine feature.
However, the companion AI is frustrating at best and downright rage-inducing at its worst. I hate being required to take a specific companion on some quests, particularly when they’re weak and die in about 10 seconds, leaving me to try to take down the boss on my own. I realize there are different settings to try to get your companion to perform as you wish they would but, overall, it needs some work. Think about a typical battle scenario:
Yay! Run into that massive mob of elite monsters because you’re too far afield from your master/friend. Oh please do! Companions horn in and start attacking everything in sight, ultimately dying and leaving you with hordes of monsters to work through. They also tend to have the annoying habit of getting in the way while you’re trying to fight…..which is, as you well know, always helpful. Does it feel like an MMO?
Adam:
We bang on about innovation, moving on to the next step, and when a MMORPG finally comes out and feels, you know, different, we all start kicking up a fuss. Of course SWTOR feels like an MMO, it just has the added benefit of feeling slightly more engrossing. When quests forced us to do that horrible reading thing, and had us told that we are "HERO OF LEGEND!" when were stood around 5 other players receiving the same message, I'd rather revert to this new "strange" feeling game.
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In a traditional sense, the game is more linear, and unlike a game such as Ultima Online it isn't a "choose your own adventure" but then it doesn't proclaim to be so. It is the continuation of the McQuaid/Smedley path, not the Lord British one, therefore we can only judge it on its own merits and what it is trying to achieve - and to be frank it does exactly what it sets out to achieve.
Suzie:
The only way that SWTOR feels like an MMO to me is the fact that I occasionally see others running around the quest hubs. Of course, the Imperial or Republic Fleets are usually fairly populated as the game’s main gathering spot. Still, the game is so heavily instanced as to be beyond belief. Everything is instanced including just about every step in my character’s quest being choreographed down to the last green shiny door. It’s almost a given that every cave you go into, every tunnel you enter, every door you run through is going to take you to yet another place that you’ll be hanging out alone with a bunch of unmoving NPCs with whom you can’t interact. And is it just me or does every cave on any planet and every location on Nar Shaada look exactly the same?
I don’t know if this is just me or not but the worlds in SWTOR simply don’t inspire me to explore them. My character is pretty much on ‘rails’ when it comes to questing and the travel times on several planets (Tatooine anyone?) are so long that I simply don’t want to explore as it won’t yield any quantifiable reward. Besides, I simply want to get where I’m going and continue to progress the best part of the game: the story.
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There are so many features in SWTOR that destroy the feeling of an MMO. Instancing is the biggest culprit, but also consider space combat. You can spend all day long in space fighting your little Sith heart out and never have the opportunity to engage another player-controlled ship. You might as well just get out Rogue Squadron (or Star Fox, really) as the experience is pretty much the same. The space combat on rails thing is a game breaker for me. I mean, come on. This is Star Wars, something that should go in the game’s favor as Adam pointed out. But what the heck happened? If there’s no space combat outside of the rails and you never get to face off against human adversaries, it’s just wrong on so many levels. And it’s not as if you can ignore space combat (such as it is) since the XP gains are too good.
Why is it good, and why is it bad, and can't we call just get along?
Adam:
Star Wars: The Old Republic is a good solid effort at the MMORPG genre. Its stand out feature is that of storytelling, like any good BioWare product. It might not be the Messiah you were waiting for, it might still have nods to games that came before, but that isn't a bad thing. I like the games that came before, and I would pay at least $15 a month to play one that does the same things just better.
And let's not forget it is Star Wars. Any disagreement with my conclusion will simply mean you are a Trekkie "Oh I like Spock and Kirk, aren't they just a bunch of intergalatic dreamboats?" Ggo take your phaser and your Klingons and get the hell out of here - or to put it into your language: jaH DoH Daq Spock mach loD. Yeah, you just got owned.
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Suzie:
I don’t disagree with Adam here. I think that SWTOR is a decent entry into the overall MMO genre and it’s welcome simply because it is Star Wars. But being Star Wars, the game was almost doomed from the get-go since the expectations for it were so sky-high as to be nearly impossible to meet. That BioWare managed to meet any of our expectations is a testament to their determination to bring a Star Wars MMO to gamers everywhere. But the overall fact of the matter is that SWTOR is a slightly better-than-average entry into an increasingly mundane game type. BioWare scores points for storytelling and Star Wars but loses points in many other areas. Enough, in fact, for me to say I’m disappointed.
