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SWTOR another Beta review from long time player
Fugutaiten
Member Posts: 15
I will play NOTHING before I go back to WOW though.
Let me start with, I have played MMO's since EQ, the list includes:
Eq1, Vanguard, AOC, Warhammer, DAOC, Final Fantasy, Tabula Rasa, COV/COH, EQ2, AION, Rift, Fallen Earth, WOW, LOTRO, EVE, DarkFall and even Silk Road.
My PC, is an AMD Athlon Quad Core, 12 gigs of RAM and an ATI 5770 graphics card.
For the amount of time and money put into this game, I have been very disappointed.
-first thing you experience in any game is character creation. They failed miserably here. No arguing this, no need to even explain when you can't make a "short" "built" character because height and weight are tied together. The faces are blocky, the hair texture options is lacking...etc etc
-the character movement is not fluent, he runs stiff, and seems to be "souless" missing the little fluid things that add to immersion. It really feels like an avatar that you are controlling as opposed to a character within an environment. No immersion.
-the graphics are terrible...I had everything on Max, I readjusted over the default beta high settings and maxed everything out, and again its the little things they missed the boat on that would contribute to immersion. It feels like a game, not a world. Immersion aside, graphically speaking I would have it on par with WOW. In this age of MMOs and PCs there is no reason to use cartoon textures.
-which leads to Collision...again a WOW creation, that ruins immersion...but I can understand removing collision between PCs...but to remove Collision between PCs and NPCs, again ruins immersion and realism.
-Combat Is pretty well designed, nothing pioneering though, for example, (Conan had combos that you could execute and location of the body of attacks also cause different damage amounts.) The combat in SWTOR seems standard...but the sounds seem to be shallow. The clash of the sabers, the sound of shooting...are Pew Pews and seem dinky. In addition, there doesnt feel like there is any real "impact" when weapons hit targets. Rift sufferd(s) from the same concern. LOTRO did as well, but they overhauled their combat system, and resolved some of that issues.
-Overall sound, is disappointing, granted they want to stay in context of Lucas...but the overall sounds do not seem "epic", this includes background Music, Enviormental sounds, combat sounds...I will say the voice overs were done well. Fallen Earth had epic sounds for the context of the setting, same with Vanguard and sadly to say WoW early on.
-For an MMORPG, the multiplayer part really seems missing. People had said it before...I honestly cant put my finger on it, for a game that actually rewards grouping it still doe not have the MMO feel. Closer to a FPS Hybrid...(See Tabula Rasa). Something just seems to be missing with the multilayer feel.
-Pvp...tired of WoW copy battlegrounds...nuff said.
-Questing seems too linear and too dumbed down....which actually may contribute to the lack of MMO feel. MMOs past, there would be a community chat as to where quest objectives were, not a yellow arrow on your map walking you there.
-The new gen will complain about this but leveling seems too fast. Again I said seems because this is beta and I did not reach max. But ANY MMO where you can reach max in 1.5 -2 months after release is bound to fail and will not have longevity. Call me crazy but I come from an era where it took 6 months to reach max level...and once there it truly meant something, you felt epic and accomplished. In fact anyone who was within 10 levels of max was looked at as a great achievement. It should be more about the journet and less about the destination.
In summary, the game feels OK...I am not excited about it nd will not be pre-ordering...The fact that there is nothing else out now worthy to play may have me dabble in this once its released. But until these MMOs take a couple of steps backwards instead of trying to build on Warcraft ideas they will continue to come up short, the problem lies with the player base...has been warcrafted. Any type of deviance is often looked down upon...example are collision, everything be BOE, instanced BGs, Quest trackers...The most recent game to truly be epic was Vanguard...but between peoples PCs not being able to run the game and Sony completely destroying it that has been lost years ago. For now I will continue to sit and wait for the next immersible fun unique MMO.
Comments
I agree with everything you have said. After this beta weekend I will not be playing swtor any longer.
I read what someone else wrote on a forum somewhere, and I noticed this cryptic message and smiled:
"also clop clop clop clop clop clop clop clop clop clop clop clop clop clop clop clop clop clop clop clop clop clop clop clop clop"
I am thinking that he was referring to the sounds that the characters in SWTOR make when walking. I could be mistaken though, but it sounds like what I have heard watching the videos from SWTOR.
Agree 100 percent.
Btw, how are characters skinned in SWTOR? Does one get to fit boots separate from trousers or whatnot?
When I look at SWTOR characters, their clothing seem to have a "greeble" look.
I noticed that a belt buckle on a character had some tiny detail detail to it, which looked nice, but found it odd that the clothing with its shape and colors seemed to have been made to match the figure in its entirety. I have also seen a character with what appear to be almost completely white clothing, which seemed nice exepct for the colored elbow patch.
I think it would be a good idea for having players modify the colored areas, this way, it could dampen the impression one get from the greeble like shapes, or even have it blend it with the associated clothing by having the colors match perfectly.
For the most part each piece of equiment can be visible, but because the models are so poor, there is not to dramatic of a difference or detail in the gear...as far as the clop clop clop clop...that is exactly correct....that is how they sound when running. And also I found it kinda weird that the clops are not out of both speakers...in other words when you turn left, you hear clops from your left side...and vise versa, kinda based on the general direction you are running. kinda odd to make directional echo sounds on running. I know when I run left right forward or backward it sounds the same out of both my ears...its not like a waterfall off to my distant left where the sound may be sronger from that side. but it may be a beta thing.
Someone should parody this, showing someone playing SWTOR getting annoyed over his friend beside him sitting there with two coconus making clop clop sounds for fun, and then the friend with the coconuts would stop on request and the video would show the gamer turning up the volume and you could still hear the clop clop clop sounds.
Silent Hunter 5 is known for having the ridiculous "high heel" tip-tap sounds that the nonexisting captain character makes when walking inside the submarine.
I noticed that a SWTOR video showed they added an immersive echo sound to dialogue inside a room which seemed nice, but I wonder if this attention to environmental effects is persistent thoughout the entire game . I would expect the dialogue to be echo free when being out in the open, with houses nearby diffusing the sounds.
Please do not try this at home
Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom
The more reviews I read the more it seems SWTOR focused too much on the story and too little on the actual gameplay and graphics.
That is a good point
It seems to be a good solid game to me. If I was just starting out in mmo's it would be great. It ran smoothly, the graphics were sharp, no disconnects, no lag, combat as fluid as any mmo. I liked the voice acting it allowed me to follow the quest lines more closely then just reading them. I played several different classes and they all seemed good. I really had doubts about the combat , but it's as good as any of the other mmo's I have played....actually I preferred the smoothness of the melee combat a bit more than most. I didn't get that annoying, "You are facing the wrong direction." warning like one game out there. Collision I find totally annoying and don't miss it in this game. All in all a very solid game but after playing many mmo's, I didn't see anything earth shattering about the game to really make me say "I have to play this."
you said the other day you thought the game was brilliant, make up your mind.
Swtor is as good as any mmo on the market right now, thats not saying much but there really isn't anything better out.
It's a polished mmo, and I think will do well. Very accesable and playble. I guess a matter of taste whether you dig the story content, but if you do a real treat as so much of it. Graphics are better than WoW so that's fine for MMO in 2011. In MMORPGs a big thing is the social gaming factor and this seems to be a winner as there is a lot of content and the game is fun. Compared to AoC and WAR this is likely a game to hop aboard.