[General Article] Star Wars: The Old Republic: 'Rise of the Hutt Cartel' First Impressions

SBFord · April 2013

We've spent a couple of hours with Rise of the Hutt Cartel, the first digital expansion to Star Wars: The Old Republic, and today we're offering our first impressions.

For the uninitiated, Rise of the Hutt Cartel is a digital expansion to Star Wars: The Old Republic, and is priced at $19.99 for non-subscribers or $9.99 for subscribers. The expansion brings with it a level cap bump to 55, new abilities for each of the game’s Advanced Classes, Makeb; an entirely new planet to adventure on, achievements, a new Operation (raid), and more.

Read more of Michael Bitton's Star Wars: The Old Republic: 'Rise of the Hutt Cartel' First Impressions.

Purutzil · April 2013

It does worry me being a 'small' expansion with a level cap raise, if its going to trivialize the old content while giving barely anything worth wild for players to 'advance' with. Could easily cut that 'end game' content down vastly if its going to make an expansion thats very small. Even if its at a cheap price, it could end up tarnishing the game more then helping it if its leaving players with even less to do then before that feels 'worth wild'.

Moodsor · April 2013

Looking forward to trying it myself Sunday morning, wasnt fast enough to get headstart.

ironhelix · April 2013

Originally posted by Purutzil
It does worry me being a 'small' expansion with a level cap raise, if its going to trivialize the old content while giving barely anything worth wild for players to 'advance' with. Could easily cut that 'end game' content down vastly if its going to make an expansion thats very small. Even if its at a cheap price, it could end up tarnishing the game more then helping it if its leaving players with even less to do then before that feels 'worth wild'.

I think you mean "worth while".

SaintWalker44 · April 2013

Whats the point of having a first impression article if you don't even play it enough to gather an opinion?

All you did was give us a background story and a few features...

Once again, here we are with another "journalist" whos afraid to do a real review, and pssyfoots around the issue...

When will we have writers who, when not overtly writing fluff, be TRUTHFULL regardless
Of possible fallout?

Cant upset the sites advertisers, am I right?

Of course this is MY opinion and conjecture.... /ban incoming now?

Moodsor · April 2013

Originally posted by SaintWalker44
Whats the point of having a "review" if you don't even play it enough to gather an opinion?

All you did was give us a background story and a few features...

Once again, here we are with another "journalist" whos afraid to do a real review, and pssyfoots around the issue...

When will we have writers who, when not overtly writing fluff, be TRUTHFULL regardless
Of possible fallout?

Cant upset the sites advertisers, am I right?

Of course this is MY opinion and conjecture.... /ban incoming now?

Whats the point of commenting if you cba reading that it says first impressions?

Greyhawk4x4 · April 2013

I did a first impressions video a couple of days ago on my channel. Here is a link.

http://youtu.be/Rqzcj2aeyWQ

Basically, all of the new content is on the new "planet" Makeb and there are no continuing class questlines.

SaintWalker44 · April 2013

Thanks, will check it out......

tintilinic · April 2013

I like the part of "is it expansion or not? Well its not, its DLC, priced as DLC but still called an expansion, but why go over things established in MMOs for years when we can just disniss it?"

Now we seem to have a new category:

The DLC.

Of course, DLC is nothing but paid content update that most successful games give out regularly for free to subscribers (some MMOs give real expansions for free too). That IS the norm.

Oh, and you give some missinformation too...new operation IS NOT part of this "expansion" its clearly stated that its part of patch 2.0...which is something completely different than ROTH...so please correct that, thank you

ROTH (paid content) contains:

Raised level cap to 55

Faction story quests on Makeb

The end

itchmon · April 2013

apart from the level cap most games would give you this for free, or for the price of subscribing.

Eve, Wow, L2, Aion all give you more than this for free. Only Sony Games would charge for content updates like this. Or our friends at EA.....

Drakephire · April 2013

I hate these xpaks where my money essentially subsidizes raid play. They throw the solo and small group players a few bones and expect you to pony up your dollars to pay for the cadillac raid content that others will enjoy.

Karteli · April 2013

It's pretty much a paid-for patch, like you would get in other games. Except EA doesn't see value in good quality, they see it with dollar signs .. everything dollar signs.

A normal SWTOR player even has to pay for a patch that Blizzard gives away for free. Actually thats not entirely fair since EA was going to give Makeb away for free originally, but then the game tanked, and now they need to charge.

A good faith gesture might have been for EA to give Makeb away for free for the benefit of making a game beyond their imagination. .. but all this large corporation sees is short term gains.

Star Wars fans lose in the end (again).

Drakephire · April 2013

Originally posted by Karteli
It's pretty much a paid-for patch, like you would get in other games. Except EA doesn't see value in good quality, they see it with dollar signs .. everything dollar signs.

A normal SWTOR player even has to pay for a patch that Blizzard gives away for free. Actually thats not entirely fair since EA was going to give Makeb away for free originally, but then the game tanked, and now they need to charge.

A good faith gesture might have been for EA to give Makeb away for free for the benefit of making a game beyond their imagination. .. but all this large corporation sees is short term gains.

Star Wars fans lose in the end (again).

I'm fine with them charging money for quality content since it is no longer strictly a subscription model. What I object to is bundling content I don't want with stuff I might want. If they're going to do the f2p model right, they need to seperate the content into more appealing chunks.

red_cruiser · April 2013

Spent more time defending the game's pricing than talking about the features of the title. This is a AAA title that is in pure maintenance mode one... two years after release. They can't even come up with fun things in the cash shop to entice players to spend money. Instead of trying to do something to get people excited about the game; they 've pretty much decided to hold steady on the same failed policies that led to the game disintegrating after its release.

Karteli · April 2013

Originally posted by red_cruiser
Spent more time defending the game's pricing than talking about the features of the title. This is a AAA title that is in pure maintenance mode one... two years after release. They can't even come up with fun things in the cash shop to entice players to spend money. Instead of trying to do something to get people excited about the game; they 've pretty much decided to hold steady on the same failed policies that led to the game disintegrating after its release.

+1 commendation.

There is nothing really fun in a cash shop. everything costs money, no it is natively unfun. But according to EA, it's fun!

Other games have fun stuff in-game, neat items, pets, mounts .. but with SWTOR you have to buy it to have fun.. there is a problem here

There are no hidden quests to get those dozen mounts .. just hit the cash shop icon.

Sevenstar61 · April 2013

I really like Makeb, the quests are very well written and the urgency of all missions give me goosebumps. I think it's the best story from all planets. Planet is different from others. Achievements from Makeb are coming in nice pace. Level 53 and 54 mobs hitting pretty hard, which makes it a bit challenging... but it's a good thing. All missions are dropping basic comms, which you can exchange for nice armor. Plenty of dailies on mesas.

Overall, I think it is a very good expansion... and the size of the planet and number of quests I would compare to EQ2 expansion Kingdom of Sky.

Wizardry · April 2013

It is soo tough to comment on long articles.

I will pick a couple topics.

He mentions the isotope 5 and i guesss is laying out a sort of storyline.Here is the question that was not answered,do you actually make a difference for your nation in any fashion what so ever?Is there like a war going over for control of it,the way RFO did with it's mining wars?

There is a supposed "sense of Urgency" do you actually do any mining and if so,do you do anything with it besides just report back to a NPC to complete the quest?

Before you crash land on the new planet,did it actually feel like or involve a ship ride or just a warp click?

Has the actual story telling improved in a way that they no longer use those fake looking colored doorways to block your movement?It is important to me,becuase it ruins immersion badly when it looks unrealistic.Those colored doorways are not needed,i have played MANY a storyline in games and never seen it done like that before,ONLY in single player games.

hikaru77 · April 2013

Love the people with a lot of free time, talking about a game that they dont even play, and still they really believe that they know more about swtor that the people who is actually playing.

Hokie · April 2013

Question for you Mike "Bee"-

Did they get the same voice actors back for the cut scenes?

Im looking forward to hearing my male Imps "James Bond sinister" voice again. Or was it like the rakghoul event where my character just stood quietly and listened?

Madimorga · April 2013

I think they missed out by not including a new playable race. But it's expensive and time-consuming so I see why they didn't. Nevertheless, that is what would have sparked my interest in SWTOR Round 2, especially if the purchase price was reasonable and unlocked a bunch of stuff that annoys free to players like I hear skill bar limitations do.

As it is, I have to pass.

tawess · April 2013

I wonder what the green glob of hate will do once SW:ToR shut down and EA goes out of biz/shape up their game... What will be your next target of furey and impotent bile?

Anyway, sounds like a fun DLC but i'l still keep some hope for a bigger expansion down the road.

Sevenstar61 · April 2013

Originally posted by Hokie
Question for you Mike "Bee"-

Did they get the same voice actors back for the cut scenes?

Im looking forward to hearing my male Imps "James Bond sinister" voice again. Or was it like the rakghoul event where my character just stood quietly and listened?

Same voice actors. I was playing Agent today and I can confirm it's the same guy:) And the cutscenes are pretty extensive...

Methos12 · April 2013

Originally posted by Hokie
Question for you Mike "Bee"-

Did they get the same voice actors back for the cut scenes?

Im looking forward to hearing my male Imps "James Bond sinister" voice again. Or was it like the rakghoul event where my character just stood quietly and listened?

I'd like to know if it's once again Simon Templeman: The Game. He was everywhere in vanilla.

tintilinic · April 2013

Originally posted by Karteli
It's pretty much a paid-for patch, like you would get in other games. Except EA doesn't see value in good quality, they see it with dollar signs .. everything dollar signs.

A normal SWTOR player even has to pay for a patch that Blizzard gives away for free. Actually thats not entirely fair since EA was going to give Makeb away for free originally, but then the game tanked, and now they need to charge.

A good faith gesture might have been for EA to give Makeb away for free for the benefit of making a game beyond their imagination. .. but all this large corporation sees is short term gains.

Star Wars fans lose in the end (again).

Well, they had few ways to go around it and my best scenario would be:

Free to subscribers 5-10$ for free players OR if they absolutely wanted to charge for it make it available in Cartel Market at 1000-1500 points.

But naturally, they chose the worst way around it. SWTOR deosnt have F2P option any more.

superniceguy · April 2013

And don’t get me started on the use of the term ‘expansion’. These days, many MMO publishers are referring to your run-of-the-mill content additions as “free expansions” instead of game updates or patches. The term has really lost its meaning. It’s all DLC, folks.

I could not agree more. STO is releasing an expansion soon, and costs nothing. These free / cheap expansions will no doubt have a knock on effect for LOTRO and EQ2 and maybe other MMOs too.

STO is going great guns at the moment. It had Season 7 added at the end of 2012, which was like an expansion too, which brought in a new planet New Romulus and a loads of quests on it, much like RoTHC expansion with Makeb, and this year it is getting Season 8 and Season 9, PLUS the expansion Legacy of Romulus too, plus other updates too which included the Winter event, and a special event for its 3rd Anniversary which was done with the help of Denise Crosby, and other stuff

Considering people are mostly paying and paying to SWTOR, SWTOR is getting very little done to it, compared to STO, where you can play the game mostly for free. The only time you may feel a need to buy something is to compete at max level, but if you have managed to play the game by the time you are max level then you have more likely fallen in love with the game, and willing to spend some money on it., and keep spending money on it but only because you feel you want to, as opposed to feeling you have to like with SWTOR.

SWTOR is the better game than STO, but STO is just better value, and there is plenty being added to STO to keep you coming back for more. EA/BW need to step up and take notes from PW, and evevnSOE who recently reduced restrictions in EQ/EQ2. SWTOR is losing pace fast.

In STO, people are talking about how great STO is, but in SWTOR nowadays people talk about how bad SWTOR is and how good it could have been, and people are just waiting for Elder Scrolls Online and FF XIV ARR. Last year in SWTOR people were poking fun of WOW and its panda expansion, and how great SWTOR is, but things have changed a lot in the year.

evot · April 2013

its a DLC that should have goten for free..!

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