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Mike K gives his impression on June 23rd
whilan
Member UncommonPosts: 3,472
Okay so a thread on swtor.com came up and here was the original post
READ THIS FIRST:
Mike K. from Penny Arcade will be writing a fully-sanctioned Beta Impression story on penny-arcade.com sometime tomorrow.
He has been given permission to do so by BioWare
Link To Penny Arcade Beta Impressions Story: (Will be here when it is posted on June 23rd.)
**************************************************
Original Tweet from Mike of Penny Arcade, retweeted by Stephen Reid:
Quote:
Originally Posted by cwgabriel retweeted by Rockjaw I have a secret. I've been playing SW:TOR. I'm working on writing up some of my impressions for a post that will go up tomorrow. #swtor |
This is NOT E3 impressions:
Quote:
Originally Posted by cwgabriel Mike I'm in the beta and yup they have given me permission to write a post for you guys. |
And then this happened:
The last two were jokes, obviously.
************************************************** **************
BioWare, I applaud you. People have been clamoring for more info, some want it so badly they even listen to people who have been making all sorts of wild claims.
Your response? Top them all.
I, for one, can't wait.
Apparently tomorrow (thats uh thursday if your in the states) Mike is suppose to give his impression of the game. SR (thats mr Reid) said that this is true and that he (Mike not reid) got permission to do this and the team gave him the Okay, they don't know what hes going to write though. So it will be interesting. Thought i share.
For those curious here is the thread:http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=351520
Check it out for yourself if you want.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Comments
So...everybody is expecting him to post something marvelous. I can feel the hype, the expectations sky high...
Edit: Meh, not sure he will announce anything new but I Am looking forward to seeing how a beta tester felt the game is. Tired of people forming opinions based on their 15 minutes E3 gameplay. Or no gameplay at all.
"To be a rock and not to roll..."
reid made a post in the thread:
StephenReid General Discussion -> Beta Tester: I have a secret. I've been playing SWTOR
Hey everyone! It's quick-fire-quote-and-comment time! Let's go!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zomeguy
I have to agree it seems like it will be an early release for the friday update.
It's not! Thanks for playing!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaellen
Know what would be awesome? If this is their way of announcing the release date.
Give it to a big name in gaming to "leak" and then confirm it later.
If it was a 'leak' don't you think we'd stop it? Oh. Wait. I see what you did there.
Well, thing is, it's not a leak. Mike's playing. He called up and said he'd like to talk about his experiences in The Old Republic. We thought for a bit, talked about it, and then said "Sure!"
Quote:
Originally Posted by Steppin_Razor
Doesn't this kind of event, if it's happening, come with Reid telling us to watch X place tomorrow for a big reveal? Just seems like on his tweets he's talking to people talking to him, not announcing something into the wind for any TOR fans that may be watching.
Believe it or not, this isn't a highly orchestrated and cunning move to push traffic to Penny Arcade (who, frankly, don't need it). For the full and complete story on how this happened - see above!
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrJuliano
If you think SR has no clue about this thread, you have got to be kidding yourself.
You're right! I totally have a clue. Hence, posting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mavian
Well from the sounds of it, it's his impressions. As in, what it was like to play whatever class. How did the worlds feel. Etc.
Gabe is a pretty stalwart Star Wars fan, so I imagine his views will be positive overall.
I have no idea what he's going to write, but from talking to Mike, I think it's fair to say he likes what he's played so far.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrSoup
I'm still very confused...is this legit or just a joke?
It's legit! Although knowing PA, there may be a few jokes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AislingKerrigan
If it doesn't sound like a train... than I don't really care tbh.
Sorry to hear that. It's cool! Train will be along eventually.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PlacidDragon
They are running CLOSED beta, and have been for a long time. Closed beta is essentially game testing. You are referring to OPEN beta (which ToR will not be doing). Bioware is ramping up its closed testing instead, with an increased number of players (in late june), which will essentially replace an open beta.
Actually, no. We've been ramping up our Game Testing numbers for a while. Put the whole 'late June' thing out of your mind. /waves hand
Quote:
Originally Posted by guilemaster
Lots of hype around this thing, fingers crossed here.
I wouldn't call a few tweets and a Forum thread a 'lot' of hype.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sternschrei
Could also be something new and exciting, its 50/50 people need to stop being so damn down all the time.
Well, that'd be nice occasionally. I will say this isn't some stealthy plan to get Mike to reveal some cool new feature. He's just going to write up what he thought of what he played. I think.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AislingKerrigan
Dont get your hopes up. It's more failed hype-building. Just release the darn game already.
Didn't we just cover...? Okay. Got the picture.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lunablade
If game is polished enough and if they are confident to have enough of content for start they should release it.
They can always add some major patch with content update later
Uhhhh... no. We only get one chance to launch. We're not going to leave anything to chance. And polish, by the way, takes a while. You really don't want a unfinished game do you? C'mon.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ConcreteAcorn
One of two scenario's is taking place here.
Scenario one is that he actually enjoys the game, and out of excitement, has gone out of his way to be able to tell us how awesome it is. He seems to be happy with it, and the write-up seems to be motivated by positivity.
Scenario two is that BioWare is just throwing some money at him to get him to say some stuff that will keep the community busy for a few more months (try minutes, BioWare, these people are rabid). Though I'm a huge fan of Mike, it wouldn't surprise me a bit that they contacted him and asked him to give a positive write-up for some cash.
Either way, we'll see I guess.
And the answer is... scenario one! (Cue flashing lights and sirens)
Given that it was Mike's idea to write a post, and we had no hand in it, for all I know it might be a paragraph or two... I mean hey if I was going to pay him for something I'd demand a few thousand words, at least.
DISCLAIMER: PREVIOUS STATEMENT MAY HAVE BEEN MEANT AS HUMOR.
Quote:
Originally Posted by krakken
So you are going to beleive a company sanctioned review? Are we so dense that we are going to swallow this? I am sure that bioware will be blacking out lines all over the place or at least editing or coaching what will be released. I am sure it will be a bunch of rosey, perfect game for the ages review. It's always good that a company has a game plan but to fabricate a review or even set them selves up to look like staging a review makes the company look realy bad.
You know what, it does make a company look bad if they do that. Lucky for us we have had zero input or control over what Mike chooses to say. <gulp>
Although part of me likes the idea of seeing [CENSORED] tags all over the piece. Maybe he'll add them in himself just to confuse me.
Just to be clear, too - Mike's not reviewing the game. I doubt he'd even call it a full-fledged 'preview'. He just asked to write up his impressions. We said "Yes".
And tomorrow, we'll all get to read them.
well he has posted it:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/
So I was actually able to get into the current friends and family beta for Star Wars: The Old Republic. It wasn’t too hard since technically I do have a friend over there. The tricky part is that Bioware, like a lot of places thinks of PA as “media” and they don’t want media playing it yet. I explained that we aren’t media, we prefer to think of ourselves as “enthusiasts”. They let me in but I had to pinkie swear that I wouldn’t talk about the game here on the site, or anywhere else for that matter. I’ve been playing it for a little over a month now and last week I asked if I could share some of my impressions with you all. It took some begging but finally they agreed and to their credit they didn’t ask to see what I was going to write first. Honestly they had no idea what I was going to say which must have been a little scary considering this is PA, but lucky for them I actually really like their game. So this isn’t a review or anything even close. What I’m playing is the beta and honestly changing all the time. I just wanted to share some of my impressions.
First of all, a lot has been made about the new “fourth pillar” of story telling. Is it really all they are making it out to be? In my personal opinion, yes, it really is a big deal and let me tell you why. In the short time I’ve been playing SW:TOR I have already given more thought to my character than I ever did in all the years I played WOW. I’ve had to make hard choices with my Bounty Hunter that have made me honestly think about who he is and what he’s like. At first I intended to play him as a real asshole but some of the moral quagmires these quests put you in just aren’t that black and white. Do I do what gets me the most credits? Do I stay loyal to the person who gave me the job even it means hurting Innocent people? As a result of all this I have a character that is a hard ass bounty hunter who has a soft spot for people in trouble and children. The only thing I could tell you about my WOW character Dudefella is that he was a mage and a hell of a good dancer.
Of course all MMO’s now are going to have you taking quests but I think the big difference here is that I tend to care more about these quests. I will admit I am not a quest reader when I play an MMO. I click and click until it’s accepted and then read the breakdown on my way out to wherever the wolf bladders are. Playing a class in SW:TOR is like playing a single player Bioware game. People are talking to you and you’re deciding how to respond and making dialog choices. Turning the quests into an interactive experience makes me care a lot more about them. A quest is still a chance to get XP, money and loot but it’s also an opportunity to advance your character towards the dark or light side based on your decisions. In most MMO’s taking quests is what you do so that you can go play. In SW:TOR, taking quests is playing.
Obviously the setting is a big draw for me but I played the last Star Wars MMO and hated it. So just setting a game in the Star Wars universe isn’t enough for me. With that said I was curious if the Old Republic would be “Star Warsy” enough. I mean, we’re talking about 4000 years before the movies. Would that world look anything like the three films we all love? The reality is that I think it’s almost too much like the movies. It turns out that 4000 years before Jabba, the Hutts were still crime lords surrounded by Twi’lek dancers and had a habit of feeding people to exotic beasts. For the most part everything you expect to see in Star Wars is there and it hasn’t changed much if at all. I guess the idea is that the Star Wars universe has sort of plateaued. I could hazard a guess that the constant battle between the Jedi and the Sith have kept the universe in a perpetual state of either war or re-building...but if I said that I would be a huge nerd.
Anyway I can understand why they did it from a design stand point. They want people who are fans of Star Wars to feel at home here. The result is that it’s easy to forget that all this is taking place thousands of years before Luke Skywalker kissed his sister.
I’m hesitant to talk too much about the mechanics since like I said they really are changing all the time. I can say that coming over from WOW, it feels very familiar and I don’t mean that in a bad way. I’ve checked out the basics of most of the classes and they each feel unique. Dropping into cover with the smuggler gives you a whole new action bar similar to popping stealth with a rogue. At level 1 a Jedi Consular can tear a chunk of debris from the earth and hurl it at an enemy. Zapping the shit out of someone with force lightning is just as fun as you think. Firing up into the air with your jet pack and then raining missiles down on enemies does not get old. I will never get tired of slicing a guy in half with my lightsaber and then watching as my character lifts the blade over his head to block a blaster shot from behind without looking.
I don’t want to drill down into too much little stuff about the game but there is one feature I have to tell you about because I think it is really cool. If someone in your party is off grabbing quests while you’re selling junk at a vendor you would have to wait for them to share the quest with you later in any other game. In SW:TOR you get a little message that someone in your party is taking a quest and do you want to join via holoprojector. The first time I saw this I actually said out loud “Shit yeah I want to join via holoprojector!” and sure enough your character appears there in all his or her shimmering blue glory. You can interact with the NPC right alongside your partner. It’s a little touch but believe me when I tell you the game is full of smart little bits like this.
I honestly think they are making something unique and fun here. I’ve enjoyed my time in the beta even more than I expected and it just continues to improve. I’m excited to see what the final product ends up looking like and how people respond to some of its ideas.
-Gabe out
Looks pretty positive to me. I can't wait to play!!
Oh how I wish I had friends or family at Bioware...
great post from gabe. makes me want to try the game right now. i can't wait.
Currently Playing: SSFIV AE, SFxTekken, SWTOR, WoW. Waiting for: GW2, Resident Evil 6.
Very general stuff but it sounds positive. I can't wait till they release it.
Just remember what ol' Jack Burton does when the earth quakes, and the poison arrows fall from the sky, and the pillars of Heaven shake. Yeah, Jack Burton just looks that big ol' storm right square in the eye and he says, "Give me your best shot, pal. I can take it."
The only opinions I trust are mine and my friends. Any posted on the internet are pretty worthless (and those that arnt are drowned out by those that are).
We shall see.
I found the forum post accusing Bioware of "buying" a good review from Penny Arcade amusing.
Nothing new, but again it tells me that this is the game I am looking for. A BW game in a MMO setting. Just what I thought the game would be a couple years ago. It is just nice to see it confirmed by many different impressions from those that have actually played the game.
And Mr Reid's coments are always entertaining.
How many people long for that "past, simpler, and better world," I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them?
R.A.Salvatore
Eh...was a very pve oriented post, which continues to scare me. I'm getting the vibe that the pvp will be very little open world, a total dagger for me if thats the case. I hope ssooooooooo much that I'm wrong.
Incognito
www.incognito-gaming.us
"You're either with us or against us"
Thanks for posting this, I would have missed it!
SithWarrior.com
With all the video footage and gameplay impressions, I feel I may not even need to play the game at all.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Nice to read, though indeed, very general information.
Also loved Stephen Reid's replies. Text book example on how one should deal with a tough crowd.
My brand new bloggity blog.
They ruined SWG chasing pvp crybabies........
Why are you scared?
They've talked in other places about the PvP, PvP servers, and how it is pretty open. That other than starter worlds, captial cities and perhaps some other small areas (a neutral hub or something) that it resembles pretty much any other game.
"In SW:TOR you get a little message that someone in your party is taking a quest and do you want to join via holoprojector. The first time I saw this I actually said out loud “Shit yeah I want to join via holoprojector!” and sure enough your character appears there in all his or her shimmering blue glory."
This made me lol! Sounds awesome, I can't wait to play it myself now!
Always read the small print.
Okay my favorite quote so far is:
"In most MMO’s taking quests is what you do so that you can go play. In SW:TOR, taking quests is playing."
That is what I expected, so it's good to read it from someone who is known for stating their mind.
Because flying a Minmatar ship is like going down a flight of stairs on an office chair while firing an Uzi.
Interesting beta impressions. Not much new as some said, it's along the line of the other impressions and handson reports of the Jedi Immersion Day event and the demo weekend where people got to play respectively 6 and 15 hours, overall positive.
He was excited in the things that I expected a player to be excited about. There was one comment that jumped out:
This is indeed the impression I got myself as well, there's a lot of little additions and tweaks.
From the remote participation in quests via holocom, to your Companion that can be sent off while in the field to sell your items a la Torchlight, to 'kill x of y' quests where only a flimsy quest text explanation is given for in other MMO's but which in SWTOR are presented as Bonus Quests that you happen to gather in the field, to how you don't have to run back and forth to the quest NPC to update your quest but instead update the quest via holocom in the field, to how the cover system uses actual ducking and standing up to determine whether you're in cover or not so you can time your shots with the pauses of the enemies' shooting.
Each by itself doesn't seem much, but take all of those little convenience enhancers together and they provide a solid boost to smooth and engaging gameplay.
edit: I didn't know this 'Mike K' though but it seems that he's known to other people. What kind of article writer is he, and is it because he writes frequently for Penny-Arcade (I've heard of it but never visited that site) that he's familiar to other people?
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Well, as a fan I am obviously happy any time I can read a positive impression considering I haven't played yet. However, after reading the OP and then reading the actual response I was a little disappointed only because he really didn't share anything we don't already know or have been preaching to the haters here for months on end. Sure, some reinforcement is great as it continues to show things are heading in the right direction, but I really would have liked to have learned ANYTHING new. Especially about PVP or info on some of the other planets...maybe Impressions of the graphics, animations, group chat, difficulty in finding someone to join while in game, social hubs, does it feel like an MMO versus KOTOR 3-11 single player game, etc. Regardless, another great post so thanks as always Whilan.
There Is Always Hope!
Have some faith man. This is bioware. They know what they are doing. There are haters for every game. Just go to the WoW forums all i see is complains....yet 10 million+ people still logs in to play that game everyday.
Currently Playing: SSFIV AE, SFxTekken, SWTOR, WoW. Waiting for: GW2, Resident Evil 6.
You have to remember as well that he got the go ahead from Bioware to post his impressions of the game, not to divulge game mechanics they haven't revealed yet. At least that's how I read it, it more or less confirms what I've been thinking about the game as well.
That even though it may share some mechanics with WOW it will feel as different actually playing the games as Mass effect 2 does from Gears of War. They both share mechanics as well but Bioware's story telling and companions lifts Mass effect 2 onto a whole different level.
Actually at this point in the games development i'm not worried about features anymore. I'm just wanting to see what people think of the game so far. I was very interested in seeing what he would have to say (hence me sharing it). But for me outside of maybe one more thing they really should announce, i'm just looking for feedback on how they viewed the game.
Overall i'm pleased, i'm glad he liked it and that chalks another positive impression into the pile. Hopefully the game comes out soon or i get that blessed E-Mail.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Interesting still too bad the review is centered on the single player experience.
How about a multiplayer review now?
1. It wasn't a review and not even a preview like he said so himself, merely his impressions.
2. Didn't you read the multiplayer preview and handson reports when people described their Flashpoint, War Zone PvP and Heroic Quest experiences of 7-17 hours of gameplay? They were pretty elaborate in them.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
From what I took away here is, this is what you will be experiencing on a single-player as well as Multi-player front. He discussed combat, the story elements and presentation as well as neat little features like being able to be in a cut scene as a holo if you are not present at the time.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson