MMOs and SWTOR flashback
Saturday night's WoW played out about as "normal." Performance wasn't as good as last week, probably due to some slight shuffling in our raid roster and assignments. I have nothing against our "new" shaman, but she hasn't had much raid involvement previously. Also, as much as I respect our guild leader, it seems an arcane mage is a poor choice to send skyward after Alysrazor due (I presume) to the burn-and-regen techniques they use. Our usual death knight can see the big firebird down in two cycles, but this stretched over three and was rougher in general. Staghelm finally coughed up the druidly-desired staff and a paladin/priest/warlock shoulder token. We're largely back at square one for Ragnaros, struggling at the first transition a couple times before calling it. And I've been trying to push through getting materials for making enough flasks to get the cauldrons - blar!
Guild Wars went okay, driving through 3 more Winds of Change quests. We're now at 12/26, with half of that done just in the last couple weeks. I'm happy we're out of the 'hordes of afflicted' phase for the moment. But when I was asked later how it was, the best (honest) answer I could come up with was "it's something to do." Quest text and the occasional pre-battle text dialogue hasn't drawn me in, so I really don't feel very involved. It's not as compelling as the campaigns and there really aren't any advancement benchmarks (like new gear) to look forward to, so even when it is progress, it doesn't feel much like progress.
Well, apparently Bioware's lifted the NDA for SWTOR testing, so I can say some things there...
All the intro cinematics I've seen are good - but stuff I've seen released on various websites before.
Race/species selection feels almost stifling. Humans and near-humans. Twi-lek is about as alien as it gets. Cyborgs seem like an odd addition, too. As much as they technically exist in the setting (Anakin/Vader and Luke, naturally), making them a race seems bizarre. Not all the races can be all the classes, too, which strikes me as oddly arbitrary in a couple cases. The racial abilities that I saw all seemed pretty minor to me. I ran into one or two cathar NPCs (more Juhani-style than Sylvar-style), but no PC option there.
Customization is decent. I believe there were body types, including huge. Hair types, faces and skin tones seem reasonably normal. There's a lot of options for facial scars. More than most MMOs, you should probably pick something you want to see, because you'll be seeing a lot more of your character in cut scenes.
Classes have been listed - four on each side, with a high degree of mirroring between the factions. Picking a class, however, does more than just determine what you can do in the game. It is the choice of what story the game is going to be telling you. The primary quest(s) you will be involved in follow a story based on class.
Movement and combat are all about normal for the genre. It was responsive enough, but something about it still didn't feel as fluid to me as WoW - something I see a lot, but have trouble really figuring out. There doesn't really seem to be an auto-attack... uhh... I could be wrong on that, but between two classes it always felt to me like I was pushing buttons for effect, even if it was often the basic non-resource-using attack. Due to few channeled effects, ranged combat felt liberating being able to run-and-gun. I did not test a class that uses the cover system (and wonder why only one or two classes use such a system). There doesn't seem to be swimming - the only place I found to try, you seem to walk into about waste-deep water until you get to a map border that starts fatiguing you until you go back. There are more abilities than fit on one toolbar, though I get the feeling there probably aren't as many as in WoW.
Zones seem reasonably-sized, but are somewhat stifling with their borders. I didn't feel it so much on Ord Mantell (where you're on an island), but the valley on Korriban seemed arbitrarily hedged in with impassible hills. There are taxi speeders between hubs and shuttles to get off-world to (at least on the Imperial side) a faction hub that has shuttles off to other worlds - "realistic" but a little clunky. Perhaps that gets smoother when you have your own ship. They layouts are too two-dimensional for my taste, though. It's not as bad as Guild Wars (where trying to judge a path via the map is hit-and-miss, and can lead you into dead ends), but there were places I wanted to be able to jump down and could not (then again, I saw someone fall down off a platform I would have thought would have a barrier). Quest destination markers are pretty standard.
Sounds in general is fair, but I have to say the voice acting does add something. None of the voices struck me as bad, though they may not all be great either. It's more possible to miss a detail in something if you're not paying attention, to my experience, but I still liked being able to listen to dialogue rather than just read it.
Instancing... has its ups and downs. Most of the downs, I think, come into play more at lower levels. So first one big positive: they're virtually seamless. You see the instance "door," but there is zero loading time when you run through. You can't see people in the instance from outside, but you can see people standing outside from within. Slick. We took a group of three people and three active companions into an instance at one point and two companions poofed away down to the party size limit of 4 without any manual tinkering.
Most of the instances I saw at low level were keyed to class-specific quests. There's a couple "issues" with this. These tend to be limited to 1 of that particular class - so only one Sith Warrior will be in an instance talking to his mentor, though he may have friends of other classes potentially with him. It sort of makes sense from a story point of view, because each Sith Warrior is playing the same storyline.
The other problem is any friends you have along (who are other classes) may or may not be involved in the cut scenes. Really, it seemed roughly a 50/50 split. Either they show up in the scene able to watch (in non-specific cut scenes, everyone in the party rolls off for responses) or they get to watch you standing there with a dialogue bubble while you're in the scene alone - there seems no telling which way the scene is built until you try it. In the former case, I felt like I was watching a friend go through formative experiences. In the latter, I twiddled my thumbs and waited for it to be over.
Most of my experienced were limited to the starting zone, so I suspect/hope that there's more party-wide involvement in cut scenes later on in the game.
I experienced little or no lag and no disconnections save when they took servers down on Sunday. I did see some login queue time, but that was minimal after being directed to a lesser populated (though PVP - not that it mattered in the areas I did) server.
Companions make the solo content much easier once you get one. I got to see a non-combat "pet" droid at one point. Nothing special there, just like most in-game vanity pets.
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I started off playing a Sith Warrior. You're brought in by an intructor as his chosen tool in a plot against someone else, more or less. The story is filled with plenty of opportunity for Sithy self-importance and to act like an ass to those around you without any serious ill consequence.
I played through a lot with a friend doing a Sith Inquisitor, so I saw some of his stuff and vice versa. As a pair, we rocked through most challenges. Korriban included more backtracking into tombs than I liked, though. And there were times when our class quests got out of sync: "wait, I just got something from that tomb and now you need to go there?" We ran into some Heroic (2) and Heroic (2+) quests a level or two low and got our tails kicked, but came back later (with a friend and companions) and did them handily enough. I do sorta like the companion, a twi-lek named Vette, and actually felt somewhat compelled to be nice to her.
Overall, the first 10-12 levels of Sith Warrior struck me as decent, but nothing special. Very mediocre. I guess if you're more into being all Sithy, it might appeal more, but it didn't really click with me.
---
Then I played a Trooper on the Republic side. A new sergeant to join the elite Havoc Squad, you're shipping in to fight rebels on Ord Mantell. I didn't expect much of this storyline, but actually got sucked in immediately. A Trooper helps out in the conflict and goes tracking stolen bomb material across the island.
The run-and-gun gameplay was more enjoyable to me. The story made me feel like I was participating in something and actually being sort of a badass commando - especially the endgame for the island where you're running alone into an enemy base. That had me healing/reloading after pretty much every pull and getting in way behind enemy lines. It was tough solo, but enjoyable still. Your companion doesn't come until after the hardest parts of the starter zone, but it makes sense and works well story-wise.
I don't want to spoil anything else there, but I think anyone who plays the game should go through at least the start area of the Trooper story. This is, out of the weekend, what made me sit back and say "okay, maybe I really do want to play this game."
Guild Wars went okay, driving through 3 more Winds of Change quests. We're now at 12/26, with half of that done just in the last couple weeks. I'm happy we're out of the 'hordes of afflicted' phase for the moment. But when I was asked later how it was, the best (honest) answer I could come up with was "it's something to do." Quest text and the occasional pre-battle text dialogue hasn't drawn me in, so I really don't feel very involved. It's not as compelling as the campaigns and there really aren't any advancement benchmarks (like new gear) to look forward to, so even when it is progress, it doesn't feel much like progress.
Well, apparently Bioware's lifted the NDA for SWTOR testing, so I can say some things there...
All the intro cinematics I've seen are good - but stuff I've seen released on various websites before.
Race/species selection feels almost stifling. Humans and near-humans. Twi-lek is about as alien as it gets. Cyborgs seem like an odd addition, too. As much as they technically exist in the setting (Anakin/Vader and Luke, naturally), making them a race seems bizarre. Not all the races can be all the classes, too, which strikes me as oddly arbitrary in a couple cases. The racial abilities that I saw all seemed pretty minor to me. I ran into one or two cathar NPCs (more Juhani-style than Sylvar-style), but no PC option there.
Customization is decent. I believe there were body types, including huge. Hair types, faces and skin tones seem reasonably normal. There's a lot of options for facial scars. More than most MMOs, you should probably pick something you want to see, because you'll be seeing a lot more of your character in cut scenes.
Classes have been listed - four on each side, with a high degree of mirroring between the factions. Picking a class, however, does more than just determine what you can do in the game. It is the choice of what story the game is going to be telling you. The primary quest(s) you will be involved in follow a story based on class.
Movement and combat are all about normal for the genre. It was responsive enough, but something about it still didn't feel as fluid to me as WoW - something I see a lot, but have trouble really figuring out. There doesn't really seem to be an auto-attack... uhh... I could be wrong on that, but between two classes it always felt to me like I was pushing buttons for effect, even if it was often the basic non-resource-using attack. Due to few channeled effects, ranged combat felt liberating being able to run-and-gun. I did not test a class that uses the cover system (and wonder why only one or two classes use such a system). There doesn't seem to be swimming - the only place I found to try, you seem to walk into about waste-deep water until you get to a map border that starts fatiguing you until you go back. There are more abilities than fit on one toolbar, though I get the feeling there probably aren't as many as in WoW.
Zones seem reasonably-sized, but are somewhat stifling with their borders. I didn't feel it so much on Ord Mantell (where you're on an island), but the valley on Korriban seemed arbitrarily hedged in with impassible hills. There are taxi speeders between hubs and shuttles to get off-world to (at least on the Imperial side) a faction hub that has shuttles off to other worlds - "realistic" but a little clunky. Perhaps that gets smoother when you have your own ship. They layouts are too two-dimensional for my taste, though. It's not as bad as Guild Wars (where trying to judge a path via the map is hit-and-miss, and can lead you into dead ends), but there were places I wanted to be able to jump down and could not (then again, I saw someone fall down off a platform I would have thought would have a barrier). Quest destination markers are pretty standard.
Sounds in general is fair, but I have to say the voice acting does add something. None of the voices struck me as bad, though they may not all be great either. It's more possible to miss a detail in something if you're not paying attention, to my experience, but I still liked being able to listen to dialogue rather than just read it.
Instancing... has its ups and downs. Most of the downs, I think, come into play more at lower levels. So first one big positive: they're virtually seamless. You see the instance "door," but there is zero loading time when you run through. You can't see people in the instance from outside, but you can see people standing outside from within. Slick. We took a group of three people and three active companions into an instance at one point and two companions poofed away down to the party size limit of 4 without any manual tinkering.
Most of the instances I saw at low level were keyed to class-specific quests. There's a couple "issues" with this. These tend to be limited to 1 of that particular class - so only one Sith Warrior will be in an instance talking to his mentor, though he may have friends of other classes potentially with him. It sort of makes sense from a story point of view, because each Sith Warrior is playing the same storyline.
The other problem is any friends you have along (who are other classes) may or may not be involved in the cut scenes. Really, it seemed roughly a 50/50 split. Either they show up in the scene able to watch (in non-specific cut scenes, everyone in the party rolls off for responses) or they get to watch you standing there with a dialogue bubble while you're in the scene alone - there seems no telling which way the scene is built until you try it. In the former case, I felt like I was watching a friend go through formative experiences. In the latter, I twiddled my thumbs and waited for it to be over.
Most of my experienced were limited to the starting zone, so I suspect/hope that there's more party-wide involvement in cut scenes later on in the game.
I experienced little or no lag and no disconnections save when they took servers down on Sunday. I did see some login queue time, but that was minimal after being directed to a lesser populated (though PVP - not that it mattered in the areas I did) server.
Companions make the solo content much easier once you get one. I got to see a non-combat "pet" droid at one point. Nothing special there, just like most in-game vanity pets.
---
I started off playing a Sith Warrior. You're brought in by an intructor as his chosen tool in a plot against someone else, more or less. The story is filled with plenty of opportunity for Sithy self-importance and to act like an ass to those around you without any serious ill consequence.
I played through a lot with a friend doing a Sith Inquisitor, so I saw some of his stuff and vice versa. As a pair, we rocked through most challenges. Korriban included more backtracking into tombs than I liked, though. And there were times when our class quests got out of sync: "wait, I just got something from that tomb and now you need to go there?" We ran into some Heroic (2) and Heroic (2+) quests a level or two low and got our tails kicked, but came back later (with a friend and companions) and did them handily enough. I do sorta like the companion, a twi-lek named Vette, and actually felt somewhat compelled to be nice to her.
Overall, the first 10-12 levels of Sith Warrior struck me as decent, but nothing special. Very mediocre. I guess if you're more into being all Sithy, it might appeal more, but it didn't really click with me.
---
Then I played a Trooper on the Republic side. A new sergeant to join the elite Havoc Squad, you're shipping in to fight rebels on Ord Mantell. I didn't expect much of this storyline, but actually got sucked in immediately. A Trooper helps out in the conflict and goes tracking stolen bomb material across the island.
The run-and-gun gameplay was more enjoyable to me. The story made me feel like I was participating in something and actually being sort of a badass commando - especially the endgame for the island where you're running alone into an enemy base. That had me healing/reloading after pretty much every pull and getting in way behind enemy lines. It was tough solo, but enjoyable still. Your companion doesn't come until after the hardest parts of the starter zone, but it makes sense and works well story-wise.
I don't want to spoil anything else there, but I think anyone who plays the game should go through at least the start area of the Trooper story. This is, out of the weekend, what made me sit back and say "okay, maybe I really do want to play this game."
Maybe your trooper and my smuggler can meet up then ;) I liked the feel of the voiced quests, if not the substance. I even feel somewhat jealous as an Inquisitor that my lightsaber is effectively just handed to me by my master before we embark for the next planet, instead of compared to the warrior's quest into an old Sith Lord's tomb to acquire theirs. Naturally bounty hunter is high on my list of "want to see" quest chains, and I tried Jedi Guardian, but did -not- sync in with the gameplay style of it.
ReplyDeleteWell, smuggler and trooper seem to start at the same place. - Side note: There seem to be four starting worlds, each shared by two classes. And yes, I noticed about the lightsaber. ;) Interestingly, the quests were almost reversed as far as companions. Vette got handed to my Sith Warrior: "here's a thief we caught trying to break into the tomb, use her to get into the tomb, and here's the control to her shock collar." Whereas the Inquisitor has to quest into a tomb to release (and beat into submission) a deshade. I find myself wondering if human (and sith) Inquisitors have the same "you start as a slave" story as I was seeing in your play. In a more general sense, I wonder how much (if any) variation there is on how the class stories play out. I can't imagine too many branches in the story just due to all the script changes, but... I don't know. I think I somehow expected auto-attack functionality out of melee (Warrior) more than I did ranged (Trooper). Not sure why. I might also note it felt a little strange that damage was inflicted when I pressed an attack. So the enemy health bar decreased even before my Force-leap attack was completed.
ReplyDeleteI might also note it felt a little strange that damage was inflicted when I pressed an attack. So the enemy health bar decreased even before my Force-leap attack was completed. I've seen similar in other MMO's where the projectile chasing a character in motion doesn't land but the damage registers and health bar shifts and hit point damage number appears accordingly. Seems something to fine tune out if it's too much an issue.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I don't actually know which way is better. As a Sith Warrior, I saw it a lot with that leap attack. If they changed it, though, to match the strike rather than the use of the ability, it would be like effectively adding a one second (or so) casting time. That might have certain balance issues. Dunno.
ReplyDelete