I know I could add more to both lists but I'll wait until the next big update.
I would agree that KOTOR1 did look more realistic but SWTOR is not cartoony at all. Maybe from screenshots it seems that way but once you play that thought will vanish.
I agree with the OP. The story was addicting. After I got out of the newbie area that was the only quest series I took because I wanted to find out what happened next. Sad thing is I wasnt playing attention to my level in relation to the quest level and when I got so far I went splat trying to get to the next story update. Was really funny I was so into the story I didnt realize the quest was 5 levels above my current level. Needless to say the area I needed to be in ate me alive
I totally lost track of time while playing and that hasnt happened to me since EQ1. I realize this game will get old just like all the others but the voice acting just makes all the quest better. I'm not talking about lame voice acting either. It was so very good. I found myself getting upset, happy, sad with the characters depending on the story (jedi councilor and tropper were my first characters). In some of the quest different npcs will tell you contradictory things and you must decide who to believe. Some of the quest make it very hard to decide. I tried not to notice if the quest gave light side or dark side points and just picked the ones I thought I would do. Many times I got dark side points for something that wasnt evil, atleast I didnt consider them evil .
I am worried though about the endgame since I hate raiding. I only made it to 13, 10, and 8 on the three classes I tried. Also I didnt realize that Republic and Empire had mirror classes. This makes me sad too because I was wanting to play a Sith Inquisitor and a Jedi Councilor. They have the exact same skills just with different graphics and names ;(.
-Graphics look and feel great - not like BF3 amazing or Skyrim OMG crazy look and feel, but VERY Star Wars, very Bioware, VERY KOTOR especially. Animations are great, add SO much to see the game moving and playing.
This is where i stopped reading its obvious that you never watched or played any SW game or movie coz artstyle and gfx in this game are more like WoW than KOTOR, actually KOTOR is visually completely different than TOR.
Seems to me you are just too big ''fan'' of this game.
I've read every book from A New Hope to something like +20 years after ROTJ and have seen all 6 movies hundreds of times and have played EVERY star wars game ever made - pretty much, I think I missed a few on Super Nintendo as I never owned one of those.
So you belive that KOTOR and TOR have same artstyle? Coz if u compare ss you can see they are very different. Kotor used realistic artstyle while TOR is using cartoony WoW style, dont know how you cant see difference.....
How in any way was KOTOR a realistic art style? it's stylized as well...
Ok, let's compare for the sake of comparing. 3 pics in total. One realistic, KOTOR and TOR. Random pics.
I do not know what the art style is, other than it isn't like WoW. It is more 'Animated' than 'Realistic' though. It leans towards a gaming scifi look for the interface elements and they do not strike me as particularly 'Star Wars', but then my view of SW is probably grittier than the newest movies would suggest. The initial environments also did not strike me as SW, more 'Generic SciFi'.
However, the closer you get to level 10 the more the game opens out or the environments open up or something and the game becomes Star Wars. The game goes from 'meh' to pretty phenomenal.
Seems to me that SWToR is stylized and WoW is cartoony.
The first relies on abstraction whilst the second relies on exaggeration.
We are the bunny. Resistance is futile. ''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\ ( o.o) ( o.o) ( o.o) (")("),,(")("),(")(")
-Graphics look and feel great - not like BF3 amazing or Skyrim OMG crazy look and feel, but VERY Star Wars, very Bioware, VERY KOTOR especially. Animations are great, add SO much to see the game moving and playing.
This is where i stopped reading its obvious that you never watched or played any SW game or movie coz artstyle and gfx in this game are more like WoW than KOTOR, actually KOTOR is visually completely different than TOR.
Seems to me you are just too big ''fan'' of this game.
I competely disagree they look far more like KOTOR to me than WOW..
I replayed KOTOR recently (well tried to, didn't get very far) and I can see that comparison. It also seems similar to the clone wars cartoon look.
One of my gripes with the design choice of the game was the use of the trinity gameplay. How pronounced is that really? Is it standard like in most mmos or is it more flexible. From some of the instance videos I've watched it looked very standard with the tank, dps, and healer standing in the back healing. I was kind of sad about that.
Couldn't agree more with your post, BadSpock. The game feels epic from the get go. The story completely captures you and makes you feel like the class you chose. The voice-overs are of exquisite quality with the exception of a minor akwardness of alien voices that have to pause every now and then since they speak in a more condensed way. The game is definitely not easy-mode aggro everything on sight. If you are in the open world and aggro more than one group of monsters, you will probably die. The Esseles without a healer and a tank was really hard. Even with a tank and a healer, some bosses like that huge droid had to be kited with aggro switching between the party members.
Quests in general are amazingly fun. I am a PvP fanatic, but I just couldn't stop questing. I always wanted to learn what would happen. Multiplayer dialogue is extremely fun especially when your buddies impersonate their classes. Animations are silky smooth and the combat feels really active and fun. Coruscant is super epic and beautiful. The game's graphics are excellent and really feel like Star Wars. The classes are very fun to play. I chose to go with the Jedi Consular as I thought I would not play him at release, but damn he is super cool and I will definitely have one at launch.
All in all, very cool and addicting game. The negatives I would say that there are some bugs like characters not opening their mouths while speaking or masks moving up and down. Still very minor. Also, when you begin dialogue, there are texture pop-ups. Finally, performance-wise, the game is more demanding than WoW but looks way better. I will be upgrading, however, to run it smoothly on max settings.
If you have a GTX 280, you will not be able to max this game out @ 1920 X 1080 without lagging a bit. I will be getting a GTX 580 and a 2500k on Christmas, so all is good.
all games when they get older get old. im gonna play all 8 classes to max level so shoudl take me a while the story alone is worth it. I may wish to skip the world arc quests but the class story will be worth it for all 8 classes to make them to max.
One final negative and a big WARNING sign to anyone:
-If you are even THINKING of skipping the VO for a quest at any given time, you probably shouldn't waste your money on this game.
The VO and the dialogue choices and story is what really seperates this game from the rest - without the VO and story it would still be a very, very good MMO but it wouldn't be anything special not unlike WAR/RIFT/AOC etc.
But with the VO and dialogue choices/conversations that is what REALLY makes TOR what it is.
The characters and story just suck you in and and doesn't let you go.
I fell in love with a character I made because I didn't want to ruin the story on any other class or world, and no I regret even going as far as I did (level 17) on that toon!
So if you don't care about story or characters or have any desire to skip through dialogue and conversation...
Do yourself a favor and skip this game, it's not for you.
No one is claiming this game is 100% for everyone.
But if you like Bioware games and you like MMOs, you will love this game.
I replayed KOTOR recently (well tried to, didn't get very far) and I can see that comparison. It also seems similar to the clone wars cartoon look.
One of my gripes with the design choice of the game was the use of the trinity gameplay. How pronounced is that really? Is it standard like in most mmos or is it more flexible. From some of the instance videos I've watched it looked very standard with the tank, dps, and healer standing in the back healing. I was kind of sad about that.
Playing through instances w/o a tank or healer is definitely a challenge. However, you can always use your tank companion to fill out that role. Also, most advanced classes can fill out any role based on their spec (DPS, Tank, or Healer).
Especially good to hear that the pacing is spot on. It's something that just seems missing from so many MMOs and something Bioware in my eyes simply gets.
Take a look at this if you want to know what I'm talking about.
I do not know how you did this but you somehow actually hyped me for GW2 more with this lol (Thought of Tutorial Big Bosses)
But lets talk SWTOR:
Well I am actually positively surprised by the reception after the NDA Drop it was well... positive...
Whatever, the point is from what I would expect of all the GW2 vs swtor Discussion, regarding that last one that appearded just by the middle of this week (More negative SWTOR criticism than 4 GW2...), I would have expected to see a negative NDA-Drop Review to appear just now which exponentionally spams the Realtime Forum Overview with Headless Flame... Well this one was quite unexpected for me...
Whatever No.2: So I think your Review is really nice, it is constructive and flawless and does not try to force an opinion. I like appreciate those more than discussion about GW2 vs SWTOR. "GW2 and/or SWTOR?" would sound much more fair than trying to find a winner.^^ Ultimately both have different mindsets in terms of design and structure and thus as considering SWTOR as a standard MMORPG I would even say it is quite innovative AND polished within the borders of the "Standard MMORPG-Genre" (Not including Next-Gen, because I think that Standard and Next-Gen might co-exist next to each other, thus looking at both of them as seperate Genre types within MMORPG)
I agree with most of the OP. Star Wars is SOLID GOOD.
I didn't get as far as he did but I enjoed the ride. I did notice that if you strayed off the missions and you whacked something, sometimes you would get a mission to go whack those things you just killed. After watching Paul Barnetts PR videos for WAR I am more attuned to it. Anyways, causal gamers will love it. Hardcore sandboxers not as much.
Well.. looks like Wow will soon have a lighsaber in its back. It may not kill it, but it will hurt it for sure.... and in its current condition it hurts even more.
But Im glad that the user critics are so good, looking forward to cristmas.
i agree this isnt a sandbox gameers dream game. It may be as well done a themepark ride though that ive ever had. The worlds are huge compared to wow zones.
The way if u wander and they want u to kill 10 of this just pops up is cool and u dont waste time usually doing them as most of those quests are able to be doen as u follow your class or world arc quest.
The pacing was fun alot slower then wow but that made me happy id of hated to be alevel 20 in 2 hrs like i did in forsaken world. The story though drew me in.
If u dont like bioware story or themeparks u might not like this game. If u liked wow ,lotro , perfect world eq and like bioware story this game may be just the game u are looking for for a few months at least.
ive been playign wow for 7 yrs and tor is just better. So ill probably stick with it till it dies.
It doesnt change the mechanics of mmos. It still has the tinity and it still has all the instanced things themeparks have. but the worls for most part are huge and wide open with very little phased area. The quests dont make u feel like u are grinding and i lost myself in the story.
i felt dark side choices were better on jedi knight at start but still found myself totally engrossed in game.
Especially good to hear that the pacing is spot on. It's something that just seems missing from so many MMOs and something Bioware in my eyes simply gets.
Take a look at this if you want to know what I'm talking about.
I do not know how you did this but you somehow actually hyped me for GW2 more with this lol (Thought of Tutorial Big Bosses)
ANet is by all means a very good developer so likely they understand this as well.
But comparing past titles as well as the available information to me personally it's clear who the master is. For me that pacing practically defines a Bioware game.
The initial build up with the Reaper visions, building down to the council meetings, building back up to finding saren and discovering his plans, after each mission building back down with crew conversations and side-missions, building back up again to losing a teammate, building back down with either a romantic encounter or thoughtfull introspection, building back up by riding through extensive protean ruins not knowing what you'll find till finally fighting your way through a ruined Citadel to confront Saren and then finally building back down in the epilogue as you emerge from the wreckage.
I've yet to see such masterfull pacing done by any other developer and I fully expect to see it again in SWToR.
We are the bunny. Resistance is futile. ''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\ ( o.o) ( o.o) ( o.o) (")("),,(")("),(")(")
I replayed KOTOR recently (well tried to, didn't get very far) and I can see that comparison. It also seems similar to the clone wars cartoon look.
One of my gripes with the design choice of the game was the use of the trinity gameplay. How pronounced is that really? Is it standard like in most mmos or is it more flexible. From some of the instance videos I've watched it looked very standard with the tank, dps, and healer standing in the back healing. I was kind of sad about that.
It's a pretty standard take on the trinity. Which is a downside for me as well, I prefer a hybrid approach to skilling up and cross dependancy.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I suggest people get to at least level 40 before they get overly excited. I was hooked for the first 20 levels but it just got dull after. Maybe i'm just bored of this model because i'm already playing one, i dunno. I do agree the questing is done so much better with VO's but i guess the novelty of it being SW has wore off for me already.
Game worlds are large and amazing and easily the best part of this game.
Another question here, how was the cover mechanic? Was it Mass Effect or Deus Ex like? It looks a little clumsy from the videos but that can be deceiving.
Having played the beta and gotten a general idea of what leveling is like across a broad level range (1-42) I can tell you that levelings alts may not be as bad. I mean, sure, you have tons of the same quests, but heres what you can do if you are an "alt-aholic". You can choose to just work on the story quests and warzones to progress. You can just do story and flashpoints. You can just do story and heroic daily quests each day. Hell, you could do just story quests and the daily space missions. I would say through all those you could get some nice variety for leveling.
Yes, you will have to repeat a ton of content, but in reality its pretty common pace is MMOs. I would say Bioware does what WoW does with a little more to it as far as alts. In WoW alts can be leveling using the dungeon finder or pvp mainly,ect. It far exceeds Rift's alt leveling though. In RIft you only have one starting zone for each side, in SWTOR you have two. Honestly that may seem minor, but I can tell you right now it makes a pretty significant difference. Most of the lowbie variety in WoW zones comes in short bursts (1-5) (1-10 in some cases) some zones have a zone with simular level range,ect. The problem is that they mostly feel the same because you rarely pay attention to the zone since you are in and out in a few hours. The best leveling content in the game also offers little alternatives to the linear paths they give you. (particularly in expansion zones)
Alt replay value also depends on how they iterate on the leveling process in the future, if they added a new LFG system,lower level activity,ect. So that part of it is pretty 'up in the air' I would say.
I didn't play Agent or SMuggler but my bro did, he was confused/had some difficulty at first but then he figured out how/when to use cover effectively and simply said-
"I freaking love cover-based combat."
He is very much like me, so if he approves, I bet it's pretty awesome.
One final negative and a big WARNING sign to anyone:
-If you are even THINKING of skipping the VO for a quest at any given time, you probably shouldn't waste your money on this game.
The VO and the dialogue choices and story is what really seperates this game from the rest - without the VO and story it would still be a very, very good MMO but it wouldn't be anything special not unlike WAR/RIFT/AOC etc.
But with the VO and dialogue choices/conversations that is what REALLY makes TOR what it is.
The characters and story just suck you in and and doesn't let you go.
I fell in love with a character I made because I didn't want to ruin the story on any other class or world, and no I regret even going as far as I did (level 17) on that toon!
So if you don't care about story or characters or have any desire to skip through dialogue and conversation...
Do yourself a favor and skip this game, it's not for you.
No one is claiming this game is 100% for everyone.
But if you like Bioware games and you like MMOs, you will love this game.
^THIS
I wouldn't even think of skipping the VO's. To me this is what would pull me in as an actual character in a story. But a story I can control and manipulate. And in my opinion Bioware is very good at story telling. Good stuff...
Nice try, but that shot was from E3 in 2010 dude. That's almost 2yr.s old. If you can;t see the difference by now, then there's no hope for you. I have already posted some comparison shots on this, in this thread.
At times I found myself wishing for something to happen in the story then being totally suprised or shocked, even brought to feelings of "oh no you didn't you son of a bitch!"
Also experienced a very tender moment where characters I had barely just met brought about some strong emotional response due simply to the quality of the voice acting.
Also to being giddy with excitement like "are you f@cking serious I get to _____ that is so bad ass."
When I got my ship, I was pretty much crossing my fingers in anticipation HOPING that what was being told to me in the quest dialogue was about my ship and when it turned out to be true I was truly excited.
No MMO has ever done that...
Few single player games can still do that.
I honestly think the best writers at Bioware made Mass Effect one then focused all of their brilliance on TOR because ME2 and DA/DA2 story were kind of "meh" compared to ME1.
Comments
Good list of postives and negatives
I know I could add more to both lists but I'll wait until the next big update.
I would agree that KOTOR1 did look more realistic but SWTOR is not cartoony at all. Maybe from screenshots it seems that way but once you play that thought will vanish.
I agree with the OP. The story was addicting. After I got out of the newbie area that was the only quest series I took because I wanted to find out what happened next. Sad thing is I wasnt playing attention to my level in relation to the quest level and when I got so far I went splat trying to get to the next story update. Was really funny I was so into the story I didnt realize the quest was 5 levels above my current level. Needless to say the area I needed to be in ate me alive
I totally lost track of time while playing and that hasnt happened to me since EQ1. I realize this game will get old just like all the others but the voice acting just makes all the quest better. I'm not talking about lame voice acting either. It was so very good. I found myself getting upset, happy, sad with the characters depending on the story (jedi councilor and tropper were my first characters). In some of the quest different npcs will tell you contradictory things and you must decide who to believe. Some of the quest make it very hard to decide. I tried not to notice if the quest gave light side or dark side points and just picked the ones I thought I would do. Many times I got dark side points for something that wasnt evil, atleast I didnt consider them evil
.
I am worried though about the endgame since I hate raiding. I only made it to 13, 10, and 8 on the three classes I tried. Also I didnt realize that Republic and Empire had mirror classes. This makes me sad too because I was wanting to play a Sith Inquisitor and a Jedi Councilor. They have the exact same skills just with different graphics and names ;(.
Ok, let's compare for the sake of comparing. 3 pics in total. One realistic, KOTOR and TOR. Random pics.
Seems to me that SWToR is stylized and WoW is cartoony.
The first relies on abstraction whilst the second relies on exaggeration.
We are the bunny.
Resistance is futile.
''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\
( o.o) ( o.o) ( o.o)
(")("),,(")("),(")(")
I replayed KOTOR recently (well tried to, didn't get very far) and I can see that comparison. It also seems similar to the clone wars cartoon look.
One of my gripes with the design choice of the game was the use of the trinity gameplay. How pronounced is that really? Is it standard like in most mmos or is it more flexible. From some of the instance videos I've watched it looked very standard with the tank, dps, and healer standing in the back healing. I was kind of sad about that.
Couldn't agree more with your post, BadSpock. The game feels epic from the get go. The story completely captures you and makes you feel like the class you chose. The voice-overs are of exquisite quality with the exception of a minor akwardness of alien voices that have to pause every now and then since they speak in a more condensed way. The game is definitely not easy-mode aggro everything on sight. If you are in the open world and aggro more than one group of monsters, you will probably die. The Esseles without a healer and a tank was really hard. Even with a tank and a healer, some bosses like that huge droid had to be kited with aggro switching between the party members.
Quests in general are amazingly fun. I am a PvP fanatic, but I just couldn't stop questing. I always wanted to learn what would happen. Multiplayer dialogue is extremely fun especially when your buddies impersonate their classes. Animations are silky smooth and the combat feels really active and fun. Coruscant is super epic and beautiful. The game's graphics are excellent and really feel like Star Wars. The classes are very fun to play. I chose to go with the Jedi Consular as I thought I would not play him at release, but damn he is super cool and I will definitely have one at launch.
All in all, very cool and addicting game. The negatives I would say that there are some bugs like characters not opening their mouths while speaking or masks moving up and down. Still very minor. Also, when you begin dialogue, there are texture pop-ups. Finally, performance-wise, the game is more demanding than WoW but looks way better. I will be upgrading, however, to run it smoothly on max settings.
If you have a GTX 280, you will not be able to max this game out @ 1920 X 1080 without lagging a bit. I will be getting a GTX 580 and a 2500k on Christmas, so all is good.
all games when they get older get old. im gonna play all 8 classes to max level so shoudl take me a while the story alone is worth it. I may wish to skip the world arc quests but the class story will be worth it for all 8 classes to make them to max.
One final negative and a big WARNING sign to anyone:
-If you are even THINKING of skipping the VO for a quest at any given time, you probably shouldn't waste your money on this game.
The VO and the dialogue choices and story is what really seperates this game from the rest - without the VO and story it would still be a very, very good MMO but it wouldn't be anything special not unlike WAR/RIFT/AOC etc.
But with the VO and dialogue choices/conversations that is what REALLY makes TOR what it is.
The characters and story just suck you in and and doesn't let you go.
I fell in love with a character I made because I didn't want to ruin the story on any other class or world, and no I regret even going as far as I did (level 17) on that toon!
So if you don't care about story or characters or have any desire to skip through dialogue and conversation...
Do yourself a favor and skip this game, it's not for you.
No one is claiming this game is 100% for everyone.
But if you like Bioware games and you like MMOs, you will love this game.
Playing through instances w/o a tank or healer is definitely a challenge. However, you can always use your tank companion to fill out that role. Also, most advanced classes can fill out any role based on their spec (DPS, Tank, or Healer).
I do not know how you did this but you somehow actually hyped me for GW2 more with this lol (Thought of Tutorial Big Bosses)
But lets talk SWTOR:
Well I am actually positively surprised by the reception after the NDA Drop it was well... positive...
Whatever, the point is from what I would expect of all the GW2 vs swtor Discussion, regarding that last one that appearded just by the middle of this week (More negative SWTOR criticism than 4 GW2...), I would have expected to see a negative NDA-Drop Review to appear just now which exponentionally spams the Realtime Forum Overview with Headless Flame... Well this one was quite unexpected for me...
Whatever No.2: So I think your Review is really nice, it is constructive and flawless and does not try to force an opinion. I like appreciate those more than discussion about GW2 vs SWTOR. "GW2 and/or SWTOR?" would sound much more fair than trying to find a winner.^^ Ultimately both have different mindsets in terms of design and structure and thus as considering SWTOR as a standard MMORPG I would even say it is quite innovative AND polished within the borders of the "Standard MMORPG-Genre" (Not including Next-Gen, because I think that Standard and Next-Gen might co-exist next to each other, thus looking at both of them as seperate Genre types within MMORPG)
I agree with most of the OP. Star Wars is SOLID GOOD.
I didn't get as far as he did but I enjoed the ride. I did notice that if you strayed off the missions and you whacked something, sometimes you would get a mission to go whack those things you just killed. After watching Paul Barnetts PR videos for WAR I am more attuned to it. Anyways, causal gamers will love it. Hardcore sandboxers not as much.
Well.. looks like Wow will soon have a lighsaber in its back. It may not kill it, but it will hurt it for sure.... and in its current condition it hurts even more.
But Im glad that the user critics are so good, looking forward to cristmas.
i agree this isnt a sandbox gameers dream game. It may be as well done a themepark ride though that ive ever had. The worlds are huge compared to wow zones.
The way if u wander and they want u to kill 10 of this just pops up is cool and u dont waste time usually doing them as most of those quests are able to be doen as u follow your class or world arc quest.
The pacing was fun alot slower then wow but that made me happy id of hated to be alevel 20 in 2 hrs like i did in forsaken world. The story though drew me in.
If u dont like bioware story or themeparks u might not like this game. If u liked wow ,lotro , perfect world eq and like bioware story this game may be just the game u are looking for for a few months at least.
ive been playign wow for 7 yrs and tor is just better. So ill probably stick with it till it dies.
It doesnt change the mechanics of mmos. It still has the tinity and it still has all the instanced things themeparks have. but the worls for most part are huge and wide open with very little phased area. The quests dont make u feel like u are grinding and i lost myself in the story.
i felt dark side choices were better on jedi knight at start but still found myself totally engrossed in game.
ANet is by all means a very good developer so likely they understand this as well.
But comparing past titles as well as the available information to me personally it's clear who the master is. For me that pacing practically defines a Bioware game.
The initial build up with the Reaper visions, building down to the council meetings, building back up to finding saren and discovering his plans, after each mission building back down with crew conversations and side-missions, building back up again to losing a teammate, building back down with either a romantic encounter or thoughtfull introspection, building back up by riding through extensive protean ruins not knowing what you'll find till finally fighting your way through a ruined Citadel to confront Saren and then finally building back down in the epilogue as you emerge from the wreckage.
I've yet to see such masterfull pacing done by any other developer and I fully expect to see it again in SWToR.
We are the bunny.
Resistance is futile.
''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\
( o.o) ( o.o) ( o.o)
(")("),,(")("),(")(")
It's a pretty standard take on the trinity. Which is a downside for me as well, I prefer a hybrid approach to skilling up and cross dependancy.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I suggest people get to at least level 40 before they get overly excited. I was hooked for the first 20 levels but it just got dull after. Maybe i'm just bored of this model because i'm already playing one, i dunno. I do agree the questing is done so much better with VO's but i guess the novelty of it being SW has wore off for me already.
Game worlds are large and amazing and easily the best part of this game.
Completely agree with the OP.
I literally had goosebumps and couldn't stop smiling during the cinematic scene where I receievd my lightsaber as a Jedi Consular.
I felt truly depressed and sick to my stomach when I assassinated a character early on in the Bounty Hunter storyline.
I haven't had that kind of reaction to an MMO since first taking the elevator to the top of Thunder Bluff during vannila WOW.
Can't wait for launch!
Find me smth like this in KOTOR
Another question here, how was the cover mechanic? Was it Mass Effect or Deus Ex like? It looks a little clumsy from the videos but that can be deceiving.
Having played the beta and gotten a general idea of what leveling is like across a broad level range (1-42) I can tell you that levelings alts may not be as bad. I mean, sure, you have tons of the same quests, but heres what you can do if you are an "alt-aholic". You can choose to just work on the story quests and warzones to progress. You can just do story and flashpoints. You can just do story and heroic daily quests each day. Hell, you could do just story quests and the daily space missions. I would say through all those you could get some nice variety for leveling.
Yes, you will have to repeat a ton of content, but in reality its pretty common pace is MMOs. I would say Bioware does what WoW does with a little more to it as far as alts. In WoW alts can be leveling using the dungeon finder or pvp mainly,ect. It far exceeds Rift's alt leveling though. In RIft you only have one starting zone for each side, in SWTOR you have two. Honestly that may seem minor, but I can tell you right now it makes a pretty significant difference. Most of the lowbie variety in WoW zones comes in short bursts (1-5) (1-10 in some cases) some zones have a zone with simular level range,ect. The problem is that they mostly feel the same because you rarely pay attention to the zone since you are in and out in a few hours. The best leveling content in the game also offers little alternatives to the linear paths they give you. (particularly in expansion zones)
Alt replay value also depends on how they iterate on the leveling process in the future, if they added a new LFG system,lower level activity,ect. So that part of it is pretty 'up in the air' I would say.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I didn't play Agent or SMuggler but my bro did, he was confused/had some difficulty at first but then he figured out how/when to use cover effectively and simply said-
"I freaking love cover-based combat."
He is very much like me, so if he approves, I bet it's pretty awesome.
^THIS
I wouldn't even think of skipping the VO's. To me this is what would pull me in as an actual character in a story. But a story I can control and manipulate. And in my opinion Bioware is very good at story telling. Good stuff...
Nice try, but that shot was from E3 in 2010 dude. That's almost 2yr.s old. If you can;t see the difference by now, then there's no hope for you. I have already posted some comparison shots on this, in this thread.
At times I found myself wishing for something to happen in the story then being totally suprised or shocked, even brought to feelings of "oh no you didn't you son of a bitch!"
Also experienced a very tender moment where characters I had barely just met brought about some strong emotional response due simply to the quality of the voice acting.
Also to being giddy with excitement like "are you f@cking serious I get to _____ that is so bad ass."
When I got my ship, I was pretty much crossing my fingers in anticipation HOPING that what was being told to me in the quest dialogue was about my ship and when it turned out to be true I was truly excited.
No MMO has ever done that...
Few single player games can still do that.
I honestly think the best writers at Bioware made Mass Effect one then focused all of their brilliance on TOR because ME2 and DA/DA2 story were kind of "meh" compared to ME1.
I see why now.