Open world PvP, besides the fact that it's possible to attack players of the other faction in a large part of the open world just like other MMO's have, also has areas where you can attack and conquer bases and turrets for factional benefits and areas where it's FFA PvP and you'll be able to attack everyone you want regardless faction. Sounds pretty neat so far to me.
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."
A question: what about inter-player trade? You build purples for your character; was there any incentive/profit/possibility to sell some purples to other classes/people? To buy things you didn't make but others made? Any meaningful trade?
this is all fine and dandy!!! but tell me this recent testers!
IS BALMOORA STILL A DEATH TRAP OF CONSTANT CRASHING?!
when i was a tester a month or two ago my sith jugg couldnt make it past Balmorra or Balmoora, however its spelt, because the server for that system kept exploding every 5 minutes. then when it was up it lagged so much balls i couldnt get him off in time.
A question: what about inter-player trade? You build purples for your character; was there any incentive/profit/possibility to sell some purples to other classes/people? To buy things you didn't make but others made? Any meaningful trade?
Yeah, there is, when you Reverse Engineer your items to get better schematics, you'll often find that to craft the blue / purp, you'll often need some material that you can't gather yourself. As an example, I did a lot of slicing, scavenging and I crafted in the cybertech line. I'd get blue schematics that required items that could only be obtained through Underworld Trading missions, or gathered using Archaeology, so I had to go to the GTN (AH) to get those, or find a player willing to trade them. As far as I know, the other crafting skills work the same way.
Since you can only have one crafting skill per character, if you decide to plump for Armormech (say), then you'll still want to buy your weapons from other players (unless you're happy to rely on drops/mission rewards, and they can be sporadic). I can see there being a decent market in companion gifts too, since the companion gift vendors have a limited (and pricy!) selection.
You also used to get mission unlocks for the mission skills in slicing nodes, but I've seen less of those of late - if it was for a mission line other than your own (I used to get loads of Investigation ones), you can sell them on the GTN to a player that can use them (or just, y'know, give them away, I did that a lot). Those missions usually give really good rewards. I do know that in slicing now, you have a chance to get schematics for ship parts (made with cybertech) and that's really added an interesting potential market to the game.
Item mods were a possible really good source of player trades, but you can get those for commendations now, so there's less impetus there.
One caveat is that the GTN is kinda painful to use, they have done some work on it recently, but it was frustrating as all heck for a long time, and is only slightly less so now. I haven't tried it in the latest build, but I really really want the simple option to search by item name. That wasn't there last time I looked. If they patch that in I'll be a much happier camper.
oh and edited to add - Balmorra is much more stable now.
Pretty high pvp score considering the boring generic battlegrounds in the game and no real reason for open pvp
Give me example of any MMO which has a REAL reason for PVP. And if you mentione a FFA full loot sandbox as an example i am going to laugh.
Territory control, resoure competition, any permanent changeability of the world that would give control to one set of players over another, ect. That's what creates player conflict between different groups of players, and would be a reason to go to war or battle them, not just for points to buy gear later on.
As for examples: eve, darkfall, mortal online, dominus (soon), archage(eventually). Hell, even tera(a pretty carebear themepark by themepark standards) has more reason to pvp then this game.
yes, some of these are ffa full loot, so laugh, doens't mean you know what your talking about
edit: I have no problems with instanced pvp, but the guy you quoted has a point. And it's why I doubt there will be much open world pvp in this game.
Yeah heard that millions time before. Usually hardcore PVP players think that only they know what a REAL PVP really means. Sorry but this still doesn't answer my question because i still see no REAL reason for PVP in all the examples you gave. The reason for doing PVP is so subjective that it is hard to lump everyone into one group. What seams meaningful and real to you could be waste of time for another player.
FYI there are planets dedicated to open PVP so SWTOR is not just about instanced PVP.
If you have heard it millions of times before and if you clearly didn't care what answer the guy/girl gave or wanted to remove an answer because it doesn't match your opinion, then why in the name of God did you ask for an example in the first place?
I asked this question for oneeevry simple reason 'you can not define meaningful or real pvp' since it differs from person to person. The guy i originally quoted just shrugged off PVP as meaningless only because he didn't like it. I thought i amde it quite clear already.
A question: what about inter-player trade? You build purples for your character; was there any incentive/profit/possibility to sell some purples to other classes/people? To buy things you didn't make but others made? Any meaningful trade?
Yeah, there is, when you Reverse Engineer your items to get better schematics, you'll often find that to craft the blue / purp, you'll often need some material that you can't gather yourself. As an example, I did a lot of slicing, scavenging and I crafted in the cybertech line. I'd get blue schematics that required items that could only be obtained through Underworld Trading missions, or gathered using Archaeology, so I had to go to the GTN (AH) to get those, or find a player willing to trade them. As far as I know, the other crafting skills work the same way.
Since you can only have one crafting skill per character, if you decide to plump for Armormech (say), then you'll still want to buy your weapons from other players (unless you're happy to rely on drops/mission rewards, and they can be sporadic). I can see there being a decent market in companion gifts too, since the companion gift vendors have a limited (and pricy!) selection.
You also used to get mission unlocks for the mission skills in slicing nodes, but I've seen less of those of late - if it was for a mission line other than your own (I used to get loads of Investigation ones), you can sell them on the GTN to a player that can use them (or just, y'know, give them away, I did that a lot). Those missions usually give really good rewards. I do know that in slicing now, you have a chance to get schematics for ship parts (made with cybertech) and that's really added an interesting potential market to the game.
Item mods were a possible really good source of player trades, but you can get those for commendations now, so there's less impetus there.
One caveat is that the GTN is kinda painful to use, they have done some work on it recently, but it was frustrating as all heck for a long time, and is only slightly less so now. I haven't tried it in the latest build, but I really really want the simple option to search by item name. That wasn't there last time I looked. If they patch that in I'll be a much happier camper.
oh and edited to add - Balmorra is much more stable now.
Close to what Hopscotch said, but I would be lying if I said I saw a tremendous amount of trade going on. Sure you saw people placing items on the trade network, and a buddy of mine in game would sell random drops, or items he made, but to be honest the only thing I personally ever came close to buying was materials, and even then it was rare for me to do so.
Collaboration is necessary for making the high end items, you will need some materials you do not initially have access to, and as said before you only have 1 crafting skill, so if you want to buy some of the best stuff you will have to buy some pieces from other players. For example, I could craft some awesome boots with high armor rating, lots of strength and endurance and a slot or two, but I couldn't make any mods to put in those slots, so to fully flesh out my gear I needed someone else.
However, I didn't REALLY need anyone else. At the time of my gameplay the beta was much easier than it is now, and the amazing armor I created was overkill. You could get by with much worse armor, and selling my gear rarely happened simply because I either
1) reverse engineered it for the mats so I could craft something else or get a new schematic or
2) traded certain gear for materials which is why I rarely bought it or
3) tried to sell the items for a price I felt was reasonable based on what others were selling (I rarely saw items of my caliber) but there wasn't a big market to spend cash in a beta when people were complaining skill costs was so expensive or they were saving for that new mount, or the mount skill.
I could see the economy being awesome in SWTOR, but it was not my experience in beta.
A question: what about inter-player trade? You build purples for your character; was there any incentive/profit/possibility to sell some purples to other classes/people? To buy things you didn't make but others made? Any meaningful trade?
Yeah, there is, when you Reverse Engineer your items to get better schematics, you'll often find that to craft the blue / purp, you'll often need some material that you can't gather yourself. As an example, I did a lot of slicing, scavenging and I crafted in the cybertech line. I'd get blue schematics that required items that could only be obtained through Underworld Trading missions, or gathered using Archaeology, so I had to go to the GTN (AH) to get those, or find a player willing to trade them. As far as I know, the other crafting skills work the same way.
Since you can only have one crafting skill per character, if you decide to plump for Armormech (say), then you'll still want to buy your weapons from other players (unless you're happy to rely on drops/mission rewards, and they can be sporadic). I can see there being a decent market in companion gifts too, since the companion gift vendors have a limited (and pricy!) selection.
You also used to get mission unlocks for the mission skills in slicing nodes, but I've seen less of those of late - if it was for a mission line other than your own (I used to get loads of Investigation ones), you can sell them on the GTN to a player that can use them (or just, y'know, give them away, I did that a lot). Those missions usually give really good rewards. I do know that in slicing now, you have a chance to get schematics for ship parts (made with cybertech) and that's really added an interesting potential market to the game.
Item mods were a possible really good source of player trades, but you can get those for commendations now, so there's less impetus there.
One caveat is that the GTN is kinda painful to use, they have done some work on it recently, but it was frustrating as all heck for a long time, and is only slightly less so now. I haven't tried it in the latest build, but I really really want the simple option to search by item name. That wasn't there last time I looked. If they patch that in I'll be a much happier camper.
oh and edited to add - Balmorra is much more stable now.
Might be old news now but GTN search by name fix is in patch notes (11/17)
I don't think this will be "The" MMO I was expecting it to be due to it being a little too traditional in its gameplay but it will be my best alternative if the other big titles fail to deliver. It is a great game overall and I think many people will have a blast playing it but people burned out on MMOs will have a harder time getting into it.
What game isn't too traditional? It's an RPG you can't get more traditional than that.
All these new MMO's are bring something new at the same time being familiar.
And how long exactly did it take you to hit lvl 48???
It took me about a whole month playing between 5 - 12 hours a day, though I did spend about 2- 3 days on alts here and there, and there were some days that were cut short due to patches and/or updating the client.
I would say a moderate player could easily get to max level in a month. (if you consider playing consistently, 3 - 6 hours a day moderate). And if you didn't get sidetracked by a lot of side things. I did end up exploring quite a bit, tested space combat..and spent some time filling out bug reports. I was, afterall a tester, so a lot of what I did was break stuff.
I remember this one time I was looking for a holocron.. I think it was alderaan or something, and i made some crazy jump behind a gate, and somehow it created a crazy glitch to where I was walking through buildings. I must have messed around with that for an hour, doing it, repeating it, reporting it.
Wasn't too much of a fan with the Male Character Creation Models, what it is up with their chest sticking out too far.
Bioware Character creation was obviously not thier main focus, maybe over time they will improve it by adding more features. I mean look at what CCP did with EvE.
UI, I at least want a scale feature.
Mouse Support, crossing my fingers on this one. I really love my MX518 and would love to use all my programable buttons in this game.
Wasn't too much of a fan with the Male Character Creation Models, what it is up with their chest sticking out too far.
Bioware Character creation was obviously not thier main focus, maybe over time they will improve it by adding more features. I mean look at what CCP did with EvE.
UI, I at least want a scale feature.
Mouse Support, crossing my fingers on this one. I really love my MX518 and would love to use all my programable buttons in this game.
Completely agree on all points. I'd love to see a lot more than a scale feature for the UI. Why is it I can only have 2 bottom bars? Last I checked you couldn't change the ` in the keybinding menu either.... but I may be wrong about that. Right now it moves the companions skill bar.... I hate that with a passion.
Good read weasel, I am hoping for two additional fixes to the game from my experience. I am hoping that the recent mob AI upgrade is pretty good. Too many mobs would stand there and shoot. The second one is ranged vs melee in pvp. Ranged was pretty much crushing melee the last time I played.
Good read weasel, I am hoping for two additional fixes to the game from my experience. I am hoping that the recent mob AI upgrade is pretty good. Too many mobs would stand there and shoot. The second one is ranged vs melee in pvp. Ranged was pretty much crushing melee the last time I played.
I completely agree with the mob AI. I didn't find melee to ranged to be too out of balance. As a consular Sage I could outheal and outrun most ranged characters, keeping myself alive, but Sith Marauders were more than a thorn in my side, they were the only class that could consistently throw a wrench in my well oiled machine.
I died more to marauders than any other class easy, every time I would knock them away, they would jump right back on me, they attack so much faster then my heals can allow, and no amount of LOS will help.
Can't really speak to other classes though, every inquisitor I fought in PvP went ranged, with only a few Imperial Agents going stealth/melee, which is wasted on a consular sage who can shield themselves from the first crit attack and knock them back once they're revealed making it very tough to take me down at melee range once they have no stealth and no surprise. I think that class definitely needs a melee buff, and for them to remove positional attacks completely (just give crit bonus for backstab if you actually get them in the back).
I heard some of that was supposed to change, but haven't revisited it to check for myself.
This review has at least one major flaw. The one I will point out is that you wrote "final score" when you are really just using the "average score". The only time when the "average score" is of interest is when all categories are equally important, which is rarely the case. Since you used the "average score" and wrote "final score" instead of writing "average score", it shows a fundamental lack of understanding in scoring mechanics.
This review has at least one major flaw. The one I will point out is that you wrote "final score" when you are really just using the "average score". The only time when the "average score" is of interest is when all categories are equally important, which is rarely the case. Since you used the "average score" and wrote "final score" instead of writing "average score", it shows a fundamental lack of understanding in scoring mechanics.
I didn't average the totals, that is my final score. I gave the game an 8.2, weighing the options between what I've played before, and how I felt it all matched up. The game as a total feels like an 8.2 to me in the state it was in when I played it, not an 8.5, not a 9.0 or a 10, but it didn't feel like a 7.5 either.
The complete package was: 8.0 easy for the A+ content even if a lot of the mechanics are traditional. the game to me, was fun, and enjoyable, and it is a definite buy in my book for anyone interested in Star Wars, MMOs, or BioWare storytelling. It had its flaws during my few months of beta time, and is currently still a work in progress.
This review has at least one major flaw. The one I will point out is that you wrote "final score" when you are really just using the "average score". The only time when the "average score" is of interest is when all categories are equally important, which is rarely the case. Since you used the "average score" and wrote "final score" instead of writing "average score", it shows a fundamental lack of understanding in scoring mechanics.
I didn't average the totals, that is my final score. I gave the game an 8.2, weighing the options between what I've played before, and how I felt it all matched up. The game as a total feels like an 8.2 to me in the state it was in when I played it, not an 8.5, not a 9.0 or a 10, but it didn't feel like a 7.5 either.
The complete package was: 8.0 easy for the A+ content even if a lot of the mechanics are traditional. the game to me, was fun, and enjoyable, and it is a definite buy in my book for anyone interested in Star Wars, MMOs, or BioWare storytelling. It had its flaws during my few months of beta time, and is currently still a work in progress.
It is unlikely that the final score exactly matches the average score, but okay, let me assume you are being honest. A new question arises: in the final score why did you abandon the scoring in half and whole intergers that you had implicated to use through the previous scoring when you could have used the same scoring "steps" for both?
Maybe that was a coincidence too? The scores you felt they deserved were actually 8, 8, 7.5, 8, 8, 8, 9, 8.5 and 9, and not 0.1 nor 0.2 above/below those scores?
Anyhow, your review was enjoyable to read; however, since it is a review that chose to use scores, scoring systematically does matter. Maybe next time you should consider to just write a review without any scores at all? Those work fine.
This review has at least one major flaw. The one I will point out is that you wrote "final score" when you are really just using the "average score". The only time when the "average score" is of interest is when all categories are equally important, which is rarely the case. Since you used the "average score" and wrote "final score" instead of writing "average score", it shows a fundamental lack of understanding in scoring mechanics.
I didn't average the totals, that is my final score. I gave the game an 8.2, weighing the options between what I've played before, and how I felt it all matched up. The game as a total feels like an 8.2 to me in the state it was in when I played it, not an 8.5, not a 9.0 or a 10, but it didn't feel like a 7.5 either.
The complete package was: 8.0 easy for the A+ content even if a lot of the mechanics are traditional. the game to me, was fun, and enjoyable, and it is a definite buy in my book for anyone interested in Star Wars, MMOs, or BioWare storytelling. It had its flaws during my few months of beta time, and is currently still a work in progress.
It is unlikely that the final score exactly matches the average score, but okay, let me assume you are being honest. A new question arises: in the final score why did you abandon the scoring in half and whole intergers that you had implicated to use through the previous scoring when you could have used the same scoring "steps" for both?
Maybe that was a coincidence too? The scores you felt they deserved were actually 8, 8, 7.5, 8, 8, 8, 9, 8.5 and 9, and not 0.1 nor 0.2 above/below those scores?
Anyhow, your review was enjoyable to read; however, since it is a review that chose to use scores, scoring systematically does matter. Maybe next time you should consider to just write a review without any scores at all? Those work fine.
I see what you're saying. To be completely honest with you the reason I gave the game an 8.2 is because, my COMPLETE and FINAL review of the released game I anticipate to be an 8.5. I think its almost there, I don't believe the game will reach a 9 for me, but I think it deserves more than an 8.
To me, ratings are
5 - 7 : Game needs work, or is a very niche title:
7 - 8 : Game is good :
8 - 9 : Great Game:
9 - 10 :This game is Perfect:
I have yet to rate a game at a perfect 10, and I don't rate on a curve. I think this is a great game, but its far from perfect. At launch I anticipate it being an 8.5 easy granted they get the final bugs worked out and work on the UI and balancing, which is a given. I don't see them implementing new space combat, adding new races, adding a lot of new PvP content, or anything that would make me think this game is a 9+ score, but it is definitely one of the top MMOs I've ever played.
This review has at least one major flaw. The one I will point out is that you wrote "final score" when you are really just using the "average score". The only time when the "average score" is of interest is when all categories are equally important, which is rarely the case. Since you used the "average score" and wrote "final score" instead of writing "average score", it shows a fundamental lack of understanding in scoring mechanics.
I didn't average the totals, that is my final score. I gave the game an 8.2, weighing the options between what I've played before, and how I felt it all matched up. The game as a total feels like an 8.2 to me in the state it was in when I played it, not an 8.5, not a 9.0 or a 10, but it didn't feel like a 7.5 either.
The complete package was: 8.0 easy for the A+ content even if a lot of the mechanics are traditional. the game to me, was fun, and enjoyable, and it is a definite buy in my book for anyone interested in Star Wars, MMOs, or BioWare storytelling. It had its flaws during my few months of beta time, and is currently still a work in progress.
It is unlikely that the final score exactly matches the average score, but okay, let me assume you are being honest. A new question arises: in the final score why did you abandon the scoring in half and whole intergers that you had implicated to use through the previous scoring when you could have used the same scoring "steps" for both?
Maybe that was a coincidence too? The scores you felt they deserved were actually 8, 8, 7.5, 8, 8, 8, 9, 8.5 and 9, and not 0.1 nor 0.2 above/below those scores?
Anyhow, your review was enjoyable to read; however, since it is a review that chose to use scores, scoring systematically does matter. Maybe next time you should consider to just write a review without any scores at all? Those work fine.
If you have heard it millions of times before and if you clearly didn't care what answer the guy/girl gave or wanted to remove an answer because it doesn't match your opinion, then why in the name of God did you ask for an example in the first place?
I asked this question for oneeevry simple reason 'you can not define meaningful or real pvp' since it differs from person to person. The guy i originally quoted just shrugged off PVP as meaningless only because he didn't like it. I thought i amde it quite clear already.
Except that still misses the fact that you can define "meaningful pvp" if you look at it in terms of the game world impact and not at it from the purely subjective personal enjoyment point of view.
No one is going to say that one form of pvp is more "important" to the individual than another because that is totally down to the individuals personal taste. But when people cite "meaningful pvp" they mean in terms of the game and it's impact upon the game, not in terms of their own enjoyment factor.
That being the case, looking at it in terms of the game world, pvp that impacts upon the game world, the games economy and the players within the game world is clearly more "meaningful and important" to said game world than instanced pvp which provides nothing but a personal/arbitrary "score".
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
I'd give world design a 10 in many places. Funny thing is, you kinda have to pause and take a look around to process everything you're seeing. Like when you first get to Taris and do some missions in the North, you have to stop, look around, and realize, "This is all Hugh Jass space debris! And over here is a toppled over building 'ala 'Fist of the North Star'!". It didn't have that feeling of "random space junk textures" like, say, Force Unleashed; each set piece told a story, via a huge trench a ship created before slamming up against a mountain, or a correllian corvette sized ship in 2-3 separate pieces in different areas of the zone...
On the other hand, I really wish there were day/night cycles, particularly if they cycled at different rates.
Pretty high pvp score considering the boring generic battlegrounds in the game and no real reason for open pvp
Give me example of any MMO which has a REAL reason for PVP. And if you mentione a FFA full loot sandbox as an example i am going to laugh.
Territory control, resoure competition, any permanent changeability of the world that would give control to one set of players over another, ect. That's what creates player conflict between different groups of players, and would be a reason to go to war or battle them, not just for points to buy gear later on.
As for examples: eve, darkfall, mortal online, dominus (soon), archage(eventually). Hell, even tera(a pretty carebear themepark by themepark standards) has more reason to pvp then this game.
yes, some of these are ffa full loot, so laugh, doens't mean you know what your talking about
edit: I have no problems with instanced pvp, but the guy you quoted has a point. And it's why I doubt there will be much open world pvp in this game.
at least bunnyhopper and this guy get it, no need for me to say anything more, they've replied correctly
So the whole point of this exercise was to get soups to concede this game doesn't have freeform sandbox PVP? Something we all knew anyway?
Comments
Open world PvP, besides the fact that it's possible to attack players of the other faction in a large part of the open world just like other MMO's have, also has areas where you can attack and conquer bases and turrets for factional benefits and areas where it's FFA PvP and you'll be able to attack everyone you want regardless faction. Sounds pretty neat so far to me.
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."
A question: what about inter-player trade? You build purples for your character; was there any incentive/profit/possibility to sell some purples to other classes/people? To buy things you didn't make but others made? Any meaningful trade?
this is all fine and dandy!!! but tell me this recent testers!
IS BALMOORA STILL A DEATH TRAP OF CONSTANT CRASHING?!
when i was a tester a month or two ago my sith jugg couldnt make it past Balmorra or Balmoora, however its spelt, because the server for that system kept exploding every 5 minutes. then when it was up it lagged so much balls i couldnt get him off in time.
Yeah, there is, when you Reverse Engineer your items to get better schematics, you'll often find that to craft the blue / purp, you'll often need some material that you can't gather yourself. As an example, I did a lot of slicing, scavenging and I crafted in the cybertech line. I'd get blue schematics that required items that could only be obtained through Underworld Trading missions, or gathered using Archaeology, so I had to go to the GTN (AH) to get those, or find a player willing to trade them. As far as I know, the other crafting skills work the same way.
Since you can only have one crafting skill per character, if you decide to plump for Armormech (say), then you'll still want to buy your weapons from other players (unless you're happy to rely on drops/mission rewards, and they can be sporadic). I can see there being a decent market in companion gifts too, since the companion gift vendors have a limited (and pricy!) selection.
You also used to get mission unlocks for the mission skills in slicing nodes, but I've seen less of those of late - if it was for a mission line other than your own (I used to get loads of Investigation ones), you can sell them on the GTN to a player that can use them (or just, y'know, give them away, I did that a lot). Those missions usually give really good rewards. I do know that in slicing now, you have a chance to get schematics for ship parts (made with cybertech) and that's really added an interesting potential market to the game.
Item mods were a possible really good source of player trades, but you can get those for commendations now, so there's less impetus there.
One caveat is that the GTN is kinda painful to use, they have done some work on it recently, but it was frustrating as all heck for a long time, and is only slightly less so now. I haven't tried it in the latest build, but I really really want the simple option to search by item name. That wasn't there last time I looked. If they patch that in I'll be a much happier camper.
oh and edited to add - Balmorra is much more stable now.
Great review MaskedWeasel. very balanced.
Close to what Hopscotch said, but I would be lying if I said I saw a tremendous amount of trade going on. Sure you saw people placing items on the trade network, and a buddy of mine in game would sell random drops, or items he made, but to be honest the only thing I personally ever came close to buying was materials, and even then it was rare for me to do so.
Collaboration is necessary for making the high end items, you will need some materials you do not initially have access to, and as said before you only have 1 crafting skill, so if you want to buy some of the best stuff you will have to buy some pieces from other players. For example, I could craft some awesome boots with high armor rating, lots of strength and endurance and a slot or two, but I couldn't make any mods to put in those slots, so to fully flesh out my gear I needed someone else.
However, I didn't REALLY need anyone else. At the time of my gameplay the beta was much easier than it is now, and the amazing armor I created was overkill. You could get by with much worse armor, and selling my gear rarely happened simply because I either
1) reverse engineered it for the mats so I could craft something else or get a new schematic or
2) traded certain gear for materials which is why I rarely bought it or
3) tried to sell the items for a price I felt was reasonable based on what others were selling (I rarely saw items of my caliber) but there wasn't a big market to spend cash in a beta when people were complaining skill costs was so expensive or they were saving for that new mount, or the mount skill.
I could see the economy being awesome in SWTOR, but it was not my experience in beta.
Might be old news now but GTN search by name fix is in patch notes (11/17)
What game isn't too traditional? It's an RPG you can't get more traditional than that.
All these new MMO's are bring something new at the same time being familiar.
And how long exactly did it take you to hit lvl 48???
It took me about a whole month playing between 5 - 12 hours a day, though I did spend about 2- 3 days on alts here and there, and there were some days that were cut short due to patches and/or updating the client.
I would say a moderate player could easily get to max level in a month. (if you consider playing consistently, 3 - 6 hours a day moderate). And if you didn't get sidetracked by a lot of side things. I did end up exploring quite a bit, tested space combat..and spent some time filling out bug reports. I was, afterall a tester, so a lot of what I did was break stuff.
I remember this one time I was looking for a holocron.. I think it was alderaan or something, and i made some crazy jump behind a gate, and somehow it created a crazy glitch to where I was walking through buildings. I must have messed around with that for an hour, doing it, repeating it, reporting it.
Wasn't too much of a fan with the Male Character Creation Models, what it is up with their chest sticking out too far.
Bioware Character creation was obviously not thier main focus, maybe over time they will improve it by adding more features. I mean look at what CCP did with EvE.
UI, I at least want a scale feature.
Mouse Support, crossing my fingers on this one. I really love my MX518 and would love to use all my programable buttons in this game.
Completely agree on all points. I'd love to see a lot more than a scale feature for the UI. Why is it I can only have 2 bottom bars? Last I checked you couldn't change the ` in the keybinding menu either.... but I may be wrong about that. Right now it moves the companions skill bar.... I hate that with a passion.
Good read weasel, I am hoping for two additional fixes to the game from my experience. I am hoping that the recent mob AI upgrade is pretty good. Too many mobs would stand there and shoot. The second one is ranged vs melee in pvp. Ranged was pretty much crushing melee the last time I played.
I completely agree with the mob AI. I didn't find melee to ranged to be too out of balance. As a consular Sage I could outheal and outrun most ranged characters, keeping myself alive, but Sith Marauders were more than a thorn in my side, they were the only class that could consistently throw a wrench in my well oiled machine.
I died more to marauders than any other class easy, every time I would knock them away, they would jump right back on me, they attack so much faster then my heals can allow, and no amount of LOS will help.
Can't really speak to other classes though, every inquisitor I fought in PvP went ranged, with only a few Imperial Agents going stealth/melee, which is wasted on a consular sage who can shield themselves from the first crit attack and knock them back once they're revealed making it very tough to take me down at melee range once they have no stealth and no surprise. I think that class definitely needs a melee buff, and for them to remove positional attacks completely (just give crit bonus for backstab if you actually get them in the back).
I heard some of that was supposed to change, but haven't revisited it to check for myself.
Extremely cogent and well written review thank you so much for posting it.
This review has at least one major flaw. The one I will point out is that you wrote "final score" when you are really just using the "average score". The only time when the "average score" is of interest is when all categories are equally important, which is rarely the case. Since you used the "average score" and wrote "final score" instead of writing "average score", it shows a fundamental lack of understanding in scoring mechanics.
I didn't average the totals, that is my final score. I gave the game an 8.2, weighing the options between what I've played before, and how I felt it all matched up. The game as a total feels like an 8.2 to me in the state it was in when I played it, not an 8.5, not a 9.0 or a 10, but it didn't feel like a 7.5 either.
The complete package was: 8.0 easy for the A+ content even if a lot of the mechanics are traditional. the game to me, was fun, and enjoyable, and it is a definite buy in my book for anyone interested in Star Wars, MMOs, or BioWare storytelling. It had its flaws during my few months of beta time, and is currently still a work in progress.
It is unlikely that the final score exactly matches the average score, but okay, let me assume you are being honest. A new question arises: in the final score why did you abandon the scoring in half and whole intergers that you had implicated to use through the previous scoring when you could have used the same scoring "steps" for both?
Maybe that was a coincidence too? The scores you felt they deserved were actually 8, 8, 7.5, 8, 8, 8, 9, 8.5 and 9, and not 0.1 nor 0.2 above/below those scores?
Anyhow, your review was enjoyable to read; however, since it is a review that chose to use scores, scoring systematically does matter. Maybe next time you should consider to just write a review without any scores at all? Those work fine.
I see what you're saying. To be completely honest with you the reason I gave the game an 8.2 is because, my COMPLETE and FINAL review of the released game I anticipate to be an 8.5. I think its almost there, I don't believe the game will reach a 9 for me, but I think it deserves more than an 8.
To me, ratings are
5 - 7 : Game needs work, or is a very niche title:
7 - 8 : Game is good :
8 - 9 : Great Game:
9 - 10 :This game is Perfect:
I have yet to rate a game at a perfect 10, and I don't rate on a curve. I think this is a great game, but its far from perfect. At launch I anticipate it being an 8.5 easy granted they get the final bugs worked out and work on the UI and balancing, which is a given. I don't see them implementing new space combat, adding new races, adding a lot of new PvP content, or anything that would make me think this game is a 9+ score, but it is definitely one of the top MMOs I've ever played.
Nice review, pretty much mirrors my experience / views with the beta.
It looks like this will be one of the smoothest MMO launces as well...like you said, a few 'quirks' but no glaring problems that I saw.
Git of ma weasels back!
*stomps hoof*
My brand new bloggity blog.
Except that still misses the fact that you can define "meaningful pvp" if you look at it in terms of the game world impact and not at it from the purely subjective personal enjoyment point of view.
No one is going to say that one form of pvp is more "important" to the individual than another because that is totally down to the individuals personal taste. But when people cite "meaningful pvp" they mean in terms of the game and it's impact upon the game, not in terms of their own enjoyment factor.
That being the case, looking at it in terms of the game world, pvp that impacts upon the game world, the games economy and the players within the game world is clearly more "meaningful and important" to said game world than instanced pvp which provides nothing but a personal/arbitrary "score".
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
I'd give world design a 10 in many places. Funny thing is, you kinda have to pause and take a look around to process everything you're seeing. Like when you first get to Taris and do some missions in the North, you have to stop, look around, and realize, "This is all Hugh Jass space debris! And over here is a toppled over building 'ala 'Fist of the North Star'!". It didn't have that feeling of "random space junk textures" like, say, Force Unleashed; each set piece told a story, via a huge trench a ship created before slamming up against a mountain, or a correllian corvette sized ship in 2-3 separate pieces in different areas of the zone...
On the other hand, I really wish there were day/night cycles, particularly if they cycled at different rates.
So the whole point of this exercise was to get soups to concede this game doesn't have freeform sandbox PVP? Something we all knew anyway?