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Some actual gaming site reviews...Guess what they say?
XAleX360
Member UncommonPosts: 516
That the game is very good to great, which is the closest thing to objective yet for those who dig themepark MMORPGs.
Obviously, this is not for sandbox users (although some have changed their stance after playing it). But for the themepark users, save for a couple of flaws (UI and space combat mostly), it has a very solid core with a few unique twists and overall, it can expand into an amazing experience in some time.
The reviews:
http://www.dualshockers.com/2011/11/24/preview-star-wars-the-old-republic-empire/
I started this preview talking about possibly damaging hype and how I joined the beta of Star Wars: The Old Republic with a wary heart. I walk away with my heart full of anticipation for the game, as SWTOR truly has the potential to be one of the few MMORPGs in the genre’s history to truly live up to its hype, or at least get very near to that accomplishment.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s a beta and it shows in several ways. It’s in no way a perfect game, and it will never be (no MMORPG ever is, even years after release). That said, it didn’t launch yet, but it’s already more polished than many games that are currently on the shelves and several months or years into their life spam. It includes so many unexpected features that you often don’t find even in veteran MMORPGs and the amount of content is so large, that it’s hard to believe that something like this has been created by a software house at its first experience in the genre.
The ladies and gentlemen at Bioware aren’t reinventing the wheel, but they are adding to it many elements from the genre they are the strongest in, creating a deeply engrossing, vast and simply charming RPG experience, that also happens to be Massively Multiplayer. And it’s Star Wars. What’s not to love?
http://www.incgamers.com/Previews/360/the-force-is-strong-in-star-wars-the-old-republic-preview
How can any game possibly live up to this level of anticipation?
Um... quite well, as it turns out.
Even in this not-quite-finished form, SWTOR has bags more atmosphere than any other MMO I've ever played. The addition of full voice acting for every line of dialogue, and a degree of character choice in conversation, adds a surprising amount of depth to the experience.
MMOs usually make you feel like a faceless drone in the masses of other faceless drones, and BioWare noticed this. In fact, I daresay that BioWare's chief emphasis appears to have been on making you feel like a special, unique individual, in a world with thousands of other players whoalso need to feel like special, unique individuals - and it bloody works. Black magic, clearly.
So yes, I'm utterly enamoured of SWTOR.
http://www.gamezone.com/previews/star-wars-the-old-republic-beta-impressions
I should start this off by admitting that I'm not the hardest of hardcore MMO players. In comparison to those players, I would almost seem like a very casual MMO player. I tend to hop from one MMO to another, only playing a couple weeks a month, and then usually taking a break for a few months before I jump back in. This is where Star Wars the Old Republic threw me for a loop. I literally could not tear myself away from the Press Beta.
I, along with everyone else at GZ, are amazed at how much of a game changer Star Wars the Old Republic is. Fans won't have to wait much longer to finally jump into the world of The Old Republic since the game launches in little over a month now.
http://geekrevolt.com/2011/11/14/star-wars-the-old-republic-beta-impressions/
As for my actual impressions, I definitely recommend this MMO. I preordered a Collector’s Edition which features some nice in-game items as well as a Darth Malek figurine/statue. I wish I could tell you so much more about this upcoming MMO, but unfortunately, I cannot. (this was written before the NDA lift)
http://www.mmocrunch.com/2011/11/14/star-wars-the-old-republic-beta-first-impression/
I thought the game was being overhyped simply because it has lightsabers, Jedis, spaceships, and Sith. So when I had the opportunity to sit down and play Star Wars: The Old Republic this weekend, I expected to have a few hours of ok fun, uninstall the game and walk away.
I was wrong. Not only did I not walk away, I preordered two copies.
I didn’t play this game as long as I’d like for the purposes of writing about it, so this is really just a quick first impression. But after a few short hours of playing it, I went from knowing absolutely nothing about the game and completely uninterested to preordering it. I can’t say for certain how long I’ll remain subscribed, but I walked away with an overall good impression. The game runs like silk – seriously, I’d have to say hands down it’s the best running game I’ve played in years. It was a stress test weekend, with long queues of several thousand (yes, several thousand – most were between 1 and 2 thousand, although I tried one server where I was 5,347th in line), but once I was in the game it played beautifully. I maxed out the graphics options, and experienced no lag, no hitching, no abnormally long loading times, and I never crashed. That’s right – a beta stress test with servers so jam packed there were queues that took hours to get through – and I didn’t even experience a single crash. I did see an odd flickering once during a cutscene, and there were a few times where the voice didn’t sync with the video, but overall, I am very impressed with how well it ran.
Can I recommend it? Yes – provisionally.
I began frustrated, and wanting to get to the action rather than sit here watching cutscene after cutscene, but after a while, I suddenly realized – this MMO is a single player game that you can play with lots of people. The story is the whole point of playing. The cutscenes became less annoying after that hit me, so while I can recommend this game wholeheartedly, I do have to say that you should skip this game if you don’t want story. If you want the kind of game that I normally look for – more sandbox than themepark, with challenging gameplay – and if you don’t want story and cutscenes interrupting your play, you’re better off giving this game a pass.
http://www.noobfeed.com/preview_infos/view/159
In Star Wars: The Old Republic, BioWare has shown that yes, it is capable of cloistering in the same virtual universe rich with deeply political stories of Star Wars and the elements that make a good MMORRG. Further, the developer still seems perfectly capable of showing the two features without leaving seams to show, as made clear in recent demonstrations of The Old Republic's PvP system (player vs. player). In addition, the developer will further explain how the inclusion of personalization systems works. Like other elements, everything here should be added seamlessly into the fabric that makes up the history of the game.
Star Wars: The Old Republic is already shown signs of what would be perfectly capable of respectfully dealing with the huge legacy of Star Wars. BioWare has also proved they’re able to handle a decent portion of the MMO game - hinting that the sum of the parts can end in something genuine in an already quite crowded genre.
http://thisismyjoystick.com/feature/beta-impressions-star-wars-the-old-republic/
To put it plainly, The Old Republic is the evolution of the MMO as we know it. For the first time, you’re going to care about the lore, you’re going to be more invested in the characters, and you’ll actually want to take heed of the stories. We’re not dealing with needy NPCs who spout out a paragraph of mumbo jumbo, just to get to a point of telling you to pluck an apple from a tree and stick it up your rear end, we’re dealing with people with emotions and feelings. They have their beliefs and thought-process, and you will need to make decisions based on your gut feelings, important ones that will define your character, structure the path you walk, influence people at your side and those who would seek to befriend or kill you.
If you take one thing away from this preview, it’s that Bioware have made an MMO, and they’ve tailor-made it into a style we all know and love, both from their previous catalogue of games, and from Knights of the Old Republic. If this game isn’t on your radar in 2011, it absol-effing-lutely should be! It’s taken over six years, but finally, we have an MMO that engages and wants to suck you into its world in new and exciting ways.
http://diehardgamefan.com/2011/11/21/10-thoughts-on-star-wars-the-old-republic-pc/
So awhile back, shortly after they announced they were forming guilds for Star Wars The Old Republic, I mentioned why I had changed my mind from getting the game outright to not even pre-ordering for lack of any kind of real news, gameplay, etc. That all changed a few weekends ago with a little invite to the beta followed by eighteen hours sunk into the game between six characters. I’m off the fence now, and am pre-ordering
I wasn't a believer in The Old Republic until I spent significant time with the beta. Now I know what's on my calendar for the months immediately following its December 20 release date. The combat may be a syllabus from an MMORPG 101 class, but BioWare's brilliant storytelling is as good in TOR as it is anywhere else.
http://www.reviewsonq.com/2011/11/roq-preview-star-wars-the-old-republic-mmo/
During this time I played a Jedi Knight. EA and Bioware did a great job of making me feel like a Jedi. The story line for my character was amazing, the more I played the more I was hooked. I felt like I made Star Killer look like Jaw-wa scat.
The story telling had me wrapped up in my characters story line, the gameplay had me feeling like a bad-ass, the amazing, detailed, and size of the environments had me sitting and just staring around taking in all of it. I truly felt like a Jedi in the Star Wars universe. I have played my fair share of MMOs and somehow SWTOR made me feel like I was playing one for the first time.
SWTOR had me laughing, had me cheering, had me jumping up and down screaming “Yea bitches take that!”. I never once said that playing World of Warcraft, StarGate Worlds, Eve Online, Lord of the Rings, Rift, Aion, D&D, and many many more. I have pre-ordered, I’m canceling gamefly to support my monthly bill for SWTOR. I’m gonna lose a little bit of my life to this game. I am extremely excited for SWTOR. I’m gonna give my beta experience a 5 out of 5 and i’m even going to go as so far to say day one, SWTOR will receive the same rating from other game review sites. SWTOR 5 out of 5. “Best MMO in years”
Executive Editor (Games) http://www.wccftech.com
Comments
http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/bioware-mmo-project/1212884p1.html
Tiring voice acting?
Too Easy?
No replayablilty?
Um did this guy play the same game as me?
Fuck I wasn't aware that the only MMO where you would want to reroll would have a replaybility problem.
Give me 3 reasons to reroll in WoW or anyother game.
Dude, it's called an exaggeration. Game encourages grouping very much, many testers said they grouped more in TOR than any other game for that matter because of Heroic Quests (something abandoned from WoW, which doesn't have group quests anymore).
There are even Cantinas with jukebox inside to chill...It's better than WoW in this regard, with ALL the added plus of story.
The way I see it, it's WoW + Dragon Age + some unique twists (crafting is great), and it kinda excites me, especially since it can be much more if Bioware releases new content at, say, something along the line of Trion's schedule.
Executive Editor (Games) http://www.wccftech.com
Or you could play it like an MMO and play with people instead of playing as a single player just because you CAN. Don't blame the game for your own unwillingness to play with other people simply because you don't have to.
Not a single one of those links is a premier reviewing site. Go to the real game review sites and see what they are saying Mr. Michael Moore.
See what I did thar...
One could argue that premiere reviewing sites are actually the most probable to be "bribed", as someone said before, whereas the minor ones are basically normal people that get to write on a small website and likely have no reason to tell you that this rocks or this sucks other than their very opinion.
Executive Editor (Games) http://www.wccftech.com
Reason 1. Diffrent classes.
Reason 2. Diffrent starting zones/quests (more for the classes/races after vanilla)
Reason 3. Swapping from Horde to Alliance or vise versa to see there quests.
Just being a smartass btw. Every MMO has its replayability issues including sandbox MMO's.
Just a couple thoughts here though. Any review that calls the voice overs boring or overrated shouldnt have been given beta access in the first place. Its one of the major selling points of TOR. If you arent interested in that stuff why bother with this game in the first place? As far as being to easy? Give me 1 current themepark that isnt easy and soloable for most of the content. As for no replayability all I can do is laugh. If this game is going to have 1 thing going for it, its the storyline for each class which screams replayability.
Well, I always have doubts. The Press can be bought easily to present the game as top of the top. I prefer to read pleyers reviews. Most of the time they are more objective and thoughtful
I prefer to play the game myself and the draw my own conclutions.
Everyone always has an angle whether they are a hater or a fanboy.
There are beta keys still around play for yourself.
Updated with two more reviews.
Executive Editor (Games) http://www.wccftech.com
I honestly don't care if a game has voice acting or not I know how to read and the voices can not help the boring story line.
yes every game out now is to easy
as I said the stories are not that great, I played 2 characters to mid 30s and was so bored of doing the same thing that I have been doing in other mmos for years.
Also moon landing didn't happen and 2pac is alive.
Currently Playing: SSFIV AE, SFxTekken, SWTOR, WoW. Waiting for: GW2, Resident Evil 6.
Well I am not going to write a in depth review because others seem to be doing a great job in that department
. But I will say this, I absolutely love Star Wars the Old Republic. It takes all the great story/rpg aspects of The Knights of the Old Republic and combines it with all the best of a modern mmorpg. The game also ran very smooth for me. No lag and I only had a slight issue with choppiness once during my entire weekend test period.
Being a huge fan of Star Wars since the original movies first came out. I can honestly say that Bioware has once again nailed the Star Wars feel in this game. So if you are looking for a mmorpg that has a great compelling storyline and do not mind a theme park type game you will really enjoy this game.
I just read those 5 reviews and they told me nothing about the game
Nice to see some positive initial reviews/impressions of the games. I am looking forward to playing it next month.
That said, I am going into it soberly...
I don't expect it to be the Second Coming, to remake the wheel , or to slice/dice/julienne my veggies. I do expect that, with an open mind, it will be enjoyable in it's launch interation.
Compared to what we've seen for MMO launches the last 4 years, this is a great start !
How BioWare handles it's updates and etc will be anyone's guess and we can only hope for good things.
Whether the game winds up being a big hit or not is entirely up to BioWare/EA in the first 6 months after launch as opposed to launch month.
This is the period where games seem to lose it most imo.
yah after watching a few streams on twitch.tv im looking forward to playing in the next beta but there are some things that seem so so to me, the space combat looked iffy for one. It really looked like a mini game then an actual part of the game but then again I only watched it for a few minutes so Im just blowing smoke out of my ass.
Hutball seemed gimiky but fun. Looking foward to playing it upon release though.
I remember WAR Online getting lots of pre- and post-release positive reviews, and last I checked, that game was (and still is) a flaming pile of dung.
Of course they have to plug good reviews for the game; it's how they market themselves and establish positive relationships with the developer.
Perhaps you ought to have spent some time reading up on basic marketing instead of combing sites for reviews.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, initial reviews (and impressions!) of MMOs are worthless. I still haven't "played" an MMO - more like tried out for a few days or weeks and found that I hated it. In fact, in most MMOs, everything starts out well and for most people, it stays that way for a few weeks or months.
It's called the honeymoon phase.
Aion got glowing reviews when it debuted - and this was when the game lacked for quests past level 20.
So, in addition to reading up on the basics of business, look into critical thinking as well?
"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
I need to take this advice more.
This is basically a non-argument. WoW and LotrO got lots of pre- and post-release positive reviews as well, and they became very successful with good retention of their players.
Also, you might look up 'emotional bias', 'common sense' and 'objectivity', I feel those would really benefit you.
Basically, it comes down to if you don't like something, not everyone has the same taste in all things as you have and other people might like and really enjoy things you don't. You might hate/dislike classical music or blues while another person might think it's great, same with food, sports, gaming etc.
Anyone using his brains and being objective has seen that the positive impressions aren't only by official sites but also a hell of a lot regular, common folks.
Just face it: not everyone has burnt themselves out on themepark MMO gameplay and has become unable to enjoy most MMO gameplay features. It looks like a hell of a lot of MMO gamers still have the skill to be able to have great gaming fun in SWTOR and themepark MMO's in general.
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."
Simple facts:
Is it a good, quality game that is meeting most if not all of it's own objectives at least upon release? Yes.
Is it a game that will attract the full spectrum of mmo players out there? No ... and honesly, how could any game possibly be?
You stay sassy!
Premier according to whom? You? They are reviewing a product. As long as they review it objectively, who gives a shit if they are a " premier" site. Please tell us some of these "premier" sites so we can all see what they're saying.There is just a lot of people out there who really want to see swtor fail?, and when they notice that it wont happen, they just keep trolling with the hope to make some people to dont play the game. But the Hype about the game is even bigger after the NDA, and at then end nobody really care about what a few haters have to say about the game, 95% of the testers are in love of swtor, but that 5% is writing a lot more in the forums, trolling.
Actually you helped TGSOL prove his point. All games with deep pockets get good reviews. WOW, LOTRO,Aion,Warhammer, AOC, all the big name titles. Game site reviews mean nothing other than the devs threw some money at the site. Is TOR a dog or a winner? I dont know but im not going to take someones word for it who''s bread is buttered by the game maker. As my old buddy used to say, money talks and bullshit walks.
Really? This game sucks and Im not having fun? Im going to unsub right now. Thanks for the tip.
People like you should indeed ignore all reviews posted by gaming sites or in mags, because with that kind of thinking they're indeed completely useless for you.
The argument made is a simple one: sometimes a good review is simply because a game is good and the reviewer thought it was awesome, as enough official game reviews of good games have proven.
People who lack the ability to generally look at reviews in perspective should indeed distrust every single review they encounter by default.
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."