Star Wars: The Old Republic..With Kids! - MMORPG.com

System · December 2019

Star Wars: The Old Republic..With Kids! - MMORPG.com

Few games captured the operatic sense of Star Wars as well as Star Wars: The Old Republic. Red Thomas introduces a couple youths to the experience as he takes another look at the game years after setting SWTOR aside. Red explains how he felt about his return and his impressions of the game with kids in tow.

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6stack_Chris · December 2019

I 100% agree here. I went back to playing SWTOR last January and played until roughly April. I ended up enjoying the game MUCH more once I opened my wallet up to the game. But, I too felt like if I really wanted to enjoy it, I had to give money. After a few months of playing, the content went stale, the raids were not fun and the PvP is min/maxed to the fullest.

To the nature of your story, I can totally see this being a great game to play with kid or someone new to the MMO games (I was playing with my GF and it was one of her first deep dives into an MMO). The story and things someone can do who is not initiated into MMORPGS are plentiful, but a seasoned MMO player will run out of fun and things to do quickly.

Po_gg · December 2019

Yep, they've cancelled the dongle a few years ago and now it's only through mobile app.

Red Read Whine - nice one

About "this “Preferred Status” silliness." ; "That’s just… well, petty." and "It feels unnecessary and intentionally punitive, and I really don’t like the experience that creates." part, well, those were all nice and polite things to say about the f2p, but you only could say that, because you play it now, and missed a few years while they've eased up the restrictions of the model.

At the f2p switch it wasn't just silly and petty, it was straight out stupid and harsh. The last observation hasn't changed actually, it was, and still is intentionally punitive.

At least you can play through the class stories without a sub, and that's still the best part of the game. You will be annoyed during the journey with quest rewards you can't equip, or meet restrictions in every mechanic which is not the main storyline though...

ed: or just sub, and all your problems disappear. It's still a subscription-based game, just wears a f2p mask.

Amathe · December 2019

Good article. And ride alongs with kids are always fun.

H0urg1ass · December 2019

Just wondering, but are they still doing the 12x XP thing where you can basically just play your class story and skip all the junk, rat-maze, Ikea planet quests?

Erillion · December 2019

It took me some time to explain to a kid that - alas - you cannot really finish many of the SWTOR missions without fighting in the game. Try to explain to a kid why asking nicely for a Bantha liver is generally not working well with Banthas (insert your favorite NPC mob here).

That is why i have chosen certain story related quests - which are often travel and transport tasks - as the quests i showed to the kid.

Have fun

eddieg50 · December 2019

If you pay for a one-month subscription you can pretty much join a guild have quick bars or anything else so I do not see what the problem is

eddieg50 · December 2019

SWTOR biggest problem is lack of a real space game

Erillion · December 2019

eddieg50 said:

SWTOR biggest problem is lack of a real space game

With the exception of a bit of "rail-guided" shooting in space. ;-)

Have fun

Po_gg · December 2019

Erillion said:

With the exception of a bit of "rail-guided" shooting in space. ;-)

And the GSF, though for those who don't like pvp that might not be an option.

Scot · December 2019

Still one of the best MMORPG's for story, up there with Lotro, TSW (or whatever they want to call it now) and FFIV (I am told).

Valentina · December 2019

Literally every MMO runs out of stuff to do *eventually* SW:TOR is one of my all time favorite games. If you subscribe to the game, there is no feeling of needing to spend more money and while they have loosened up F2P and Preferred restrictions considerably over time, they could still do better in that department. This game was designed as a subscription service, though so there has to be perks for subscribing but I don't think it should come in the form of functionality or features that are considered extremely basic (hiding helmets and color matching dyes). I honestly think if you like story and you like Star Wars, you should definitely try this game and I do think it is worth subscribing for.

Hariken · December 2019

The class stories are thee best thing about the game and to me the only reason to play. And you can do those as a f2p player.

breygon · December 2019

My grandson lived with me for a number of years while his mother was in the US Navy. He used to "ride shotgun" with me when I played MMORPG's . First with LOTRO and then with SWTOR. When he turned 13 I got him a SWTOR account. And, while the guild I was in was 18+, he used to run Flashpoints and Operations with us on a regular basis. (The Guildmaster was aware of what was going on.)

Unfortunately, his college course load limits the amount of time he plays these days. (sigh)

Timby · December 2019

You can STILL Play Star Wars Galaxies.. thru the Emulator People - www.swgemu.com It's all legal, they worked things out with Sony. They've had to rewrite the coding and make no Money off of the Game and Sony Lets them. They Have the 30 Professions up and running and are working on other Bits.. You need to have the SWG Install disc's and then you to to swgemu.com and grab their front end/loader. That will send you to THEIR servers rather than the defunct ones that used to be on Sony. There's still about a 1000 people that play every day... so it's not the Ghost town that SWG became after the CU.... Hope to see you all there!

BlueThunderBear · December 2019

The issue isnt that SWTOR is bad, the issue is that its such a departure from SWG which was, at a time, one of the best MMOs ever made.

BlueThunderBear · December 2019

Timby said:

You can STILL Play Star Wars Galaxies.. thru the Emulator People - www.swgemu.com It's all legal, they worked things out with Sony. They've had to rewrite the coding and make no Money off of the Game and Sony Lets them. They Have the 30 Professions up and running and are working on other Bits.. You need to have the SWG Install disc's and then you to to swgemu.com and grab their front end/loader. That will send you to THEIR servers rather than the defunct ones that used to be on Sony. There's still about a 1000 people that play every day... so it's not the Ghost town that SWG became after the CU.... Hope to see you all there!

I love that you unironically plug the emu which is nigh impossible to even play (many modern gaming pics dont even have a CD drive amd you can't buy the discs anymore) as if it's the same as playing SWG at its height

Tiller · December 2019

BlueThunderBear said:

Timby said:

You can STILL Play Star Wars Galaxies.. thru the Emulator People - www.swgemu.com It's all legal, they worked things out with Sony. They've had to rewrite the coding and make no Money off of the Game and Sony Lets them. They Have the 30 Professions up and running and are working on other Bits.. You need to have the SWG Install disc's and then you to to swgemu.com and grab their front end/loader. That will send you to THEIR servers rather than the defunct ones that used to be on Sony. There's still about a 1000 people that play every day... so it's not the Ghost town that SWG became after the CU.... Hope to see you all there!

I love that you unironically plug the emu which is nigh impossible to even play (many modern gaming pics dont even have a CD drive amd you can't buy the discs anymore) as if it's the same as playing SWG at its height

I've seen the disk copies posted by some folks on google drive for those who don't own the disks, so if someone really wanted to get a copy it's not too hard. I do agree though it's not the same as live back in the day. It's sort of like visiting a museum, just a peek in to the past and only fun for a day or so, then the novelty of playing is gone again. I get more enjoyment reading over the old manual than I do playing the EMU in any form precu/cu/NGE.

Hariken · December 2019

I usually only do class and world stories. You level up pretty good that way.

Azaron_Nightblade · December 2019

Scot said:

Still one of the best MMORPG's for story, up there with Lotro, TSW (or whatever they want to call it now) and FFIV (I am told).

SWTOR, TSW and FFXIV are my all time favorite story driven MMOs, yeah. ESO was really good too.

FFXIV definitely does the best job with the characters in the story though. They take the time to let you get to know them, and many of the familiar faces return throughout the expansions. It's like watching a long running favorite TV show.

SWTOR was great with that at first with the companions, but eventually to save on voice acting costs, they really dropped the ball there...

Azaron_Nightblade · December 2019

H0urg1ass said:

Just wondering, but are they still doing the 12x XP thing where you can basically just play your class story and skip all the junk, rat-maze, Ikea planet quests?

I'm pretty sure they made that a standard feature when I still played, instead of the event thing that it was at first. I think without the extra xp from being a sub, you might still have to do a bit of side questing though. Or do the occasional flashpoint or PvP match to stay on the right level to accept the story quests.

Azaron_Nightblade · December 2019

Gorwe said:

Azaron_Nightblade said:

H0urg1ass said:

Just wondering, but are they still doing the 12x XP thing where you can basically just play your class story and skip all the junk, rat-maze, Ikea planet quests?

I'm pretty sure they made that a standard feature when I still played, instead of the event thing that it first was. I think without the extra xp from being a sub, you might still have to do a bit of side questing though. Or do the occasional flashpoint or PvP match to stay on the right level to accept the story quests.

You do need to do an occasional Flashpoint or a Planetary, true. But it's far from how it used to be when you needed to finish EVERY quest on a planet AND do Flashpoints to keep up with leveling par / tempo.

Oh yeah, it was a huge improvement!

goemoe · December 2019

You say, you really want to like this game. I say; no, you don't. You really want your SWG back and SWTOR isn't. To whine about a payment model is petty. The F2P/preferred offers quite some content. Normal MMO games should all be subbed subbed and this always stupid "I don't want to pay for my fun" discussion wouldn't even arise. Petty article about a not so petty game.

Red_Thomas · December 2019

goemoe said:

You say, you really want to like this game. I say; no, you don't. You really want your SWG back and SWTOR isn't. To whine about a payment model is petty. The F2P/preferred offers quite some content. Normal MMO games should all be subbed subbed and this always stupid "I don't want to pay for my fun" discussion wouldn't even arise. Petty article about a not so petty game.

I don't think you read the article. I did really like the game. I liked it a lot back when it was subscription-based and I have no problem paying for a game.

If they want to be subscription, I have no problem with that. Even encourage it, really. That's not what they are, though. They've switched to F2P, which is another totally acceptable model for revenue. Whatever model is chosen, there are conventions around how it's done, though. If you've elected to go F2P, then almost anything related to saving time or cosmetics are completely fair game. Locking actual functionality behind a paywall, not so much. Even worse is restricting people from being able to join a guild.

I'm not as offended at the latter, as it's just not really a great business position. MMOs are social by nature, and by implementing a system that restricts social interaction behind the paywall, they've probably cost themselves customers. How many people have played other F2P games, landed in a guild they liked, and then decided to stay and throw in some cash after enjoying the experience. Good F2P models pull free players in and then allow them to invest cash into the game. Forcing them to do it just isn't the best idea, in my opinion. People don't like to be forced, and SWTOR's player pop numbers probably supports that point.

I realize this is outrageously outside the box thinking these days but you can like something or be on a given team, and you can still have some criticisms. If you can't find anything you don't like about something or you have absolutely nothing you disagree with when a person says something, you don't have an opinion, you have a dogma.

For instance, Jessica Escort Service is a magical opportunity for a beautiful evening. Classy and elegant, everything one would ever want in a premiere escort service, but I just think they charge way too much for what you get. Doesn't mean everyone has to agree or that I'm not going on my date tonight.*

*Red's opinions do not reflect the opinions of MMORPG.com, it's staff, or it's ownership. His opinions are his own and the company holds no liability for the opinions expressed by crazy rednecks. Also, Red doesn't actually use escorts. He loves his awesome wife.

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