Look, Mom, I'm a Jedi!

So I recently decided to try out Star Wars: The Old Republic, since it has gone free to play. I played back in the BETA, and wasn't overly impressed with the game as a whole. It felt a lot like other, more popular MMOs, and overall gave me little reason to play it over the others. However, I had heard they added some new, unique features, and since it was at no cost to me, I figured I would give it a shot.

I'll likely add several more entries as I play, and I'll try to express the good, the bad, and the ugly about this game. You know, for science.

I'll be looking at this from a few different viewpoints: both as a player, and as someone who wants to get into game developement. Hopefully, after a few weeks of playing, I can figure out exactly what I think works and what doesn't work in the game, for me, and uncover some truly unique features about this game with such an awful reputation.

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First Impressions

From loading up the game and creating my Sith Warrior, I could tell the game changed very little from the BETA. The interface was still the same eye-sore of a neon blue, but was very nicely stylized. The game opens up to a small introduction sequence that introduces your character, and gives you a minimal backstory. As a story freak and roleplayer, I like this approach.

I immediately started digging through all of the key-bind and interface options as soon as I could. One new feature stuck out to me I liked a lot: the interface editor. You can move, manipulate, and modify any of the default UI elements, which is always a welcome feature. I at-first tried to make the UI resemble something I was more familiar with, but in the end, I decided to just suck it up and get used to the default.

I also hit my first brick wall with being a free-to-player: you only get two action bars. Now this may sound like a minor problem, but I knew that later on, those weren't going to cut it. I was eventually going to be starved for skill-bar space. Now, I could pay real money to get more of them, but I have sworn to ONLY pay money if I deem the game worthy of the cash. Otherwise, as my friends say, "the terrorists win".

The story for the Sith Warrior was quite excellent. I loved the characters you meet, and they all were just flushed out enough to keep interesting. Most of the minor characters you meet are truly one-dimensional, but that's alright considering you only see them once, at most. The voice acting is also fantastic, and I think really adds to it in the beginning.

It does make me a little sad that every other Sith Warrior in the game has my same voice, but it doesn't break the game for me. Just would have been nice to make my character a bit more unique. Plus, why do all of the Sith have British accents? I've never understood that in games, making the "bad guys" have British accents, but I digress.

Game-play is static and kind of boring. My force charge ability is cool, and it's fun to see my character literally fling himself across the landscape of Korriban, but the rest of my abilities are boring, and the icons all look the exact same: a lightsaber being swung. Just the blade. It makes it impossible to tell what an ability is at a glance. Most of them look the same, too, just different flavors of "hit thing with red glowy stick".

You also move slow as Christmas, until level 15 when you unlock "sprint". If you pay for the game, you get sprint at level 1, and can pilot speeders at level 15. They make free-to-players wait until level 25, and raise the price for them.

That seems to be the overall theme of this exercise, really: EA makes you feel like scum for being free-to-play. It's easy to feel like you're some kind of villain for having fun without paying, as the game reminds you at every turn "content locked for subscribers", or "you're suffering an XP penalty for being free-to-play, subscribe today!". If you want my money, EA, you're going to have to earn it. Charging me for the privilege of hiding my ugly-ass helmet isn't going to win me over.

I am impressed with how many features they lock for free-to-players. Here is a list of them from the top of my head. Most of these are unlocked by either paying "cartel coins" which cost real money, or subscribing to the game:

• You cannot show titles.
• You cannot show your last name.
• You cannot hide your helmet.
• You cannot color-coordinate your armor.
• You cannot use 2/3 of the in-game emotes.
• You suffer a 25% XP and Legacy XP penalty, which can be offset by buying an XP boost from the store.
• Many quest rewards are locked unless you subscribe.
• You cannot customize the appearance of your companions.
• You cannot access your bank tab.
• Prices for all in-game items are increased for free-to-players.
• You are limited to winning only 3 items out of dungeons per week, unless you pay for more.

There are more features locked and changed, I'm sure, but these are all I could think of off of the top of my head. This doesn't sound too awful, but these literally break your game in places, and make you struggle if you want to progress farther in the story, which is the entire selling point of the game.

 

The Good

The game looks pretty good, and the voice acting is spot on. The worlds and environments are nice to look at, and they are filled with interesting creatures. It's fun to fight packs of mobs, versus only one or two at a time like most MMOs, and the game is balanced around that fact.

Dungeons in the game, called Flashpoints, are fantastic. It is the closest I have ever come to playing a table-top styled roleplaying experience online, which is incredible, because I played the dungeons without other roleplayers.

The dialogue system is fun, and doesn't really feel out of place. It adds a bit of depth to your character, and makes it feel like you have a real choice in the world, compared to other MMOs.

 

The Bad

Combat can get boring and repetitive, and it doesn't really try to do anything new. Literally every other MMO ever made plays the exact same, and the allure of two Jedi dueling is completely lost because of it. Companions are neat, but they often feel mismatched, and their abilities don't really compliment your own in many cases.

Many of your choices boil down into Light and Dark side options, which are completely inconsistent, and it feels like many of the unique moral choices are lost because of this. At the end of the game, you need to be completely devoted to one side or the other, and because of that, I feel like I lost a lot of the neat options I could otherwise take. A good example comes in the Jedi Knight quest, where you get two choices: murder and entire tribe of locals, or tamper with their weapons to make them mistrust them and stop using guns. Murder is the LIGHT SIDE option here, and the tampering is the DARK SIDE option. How stupid is that?

At level 16, I'm still not really sure what my character is supposed to do. I'm wanting to build into being a tank, but many of my abilities seems counter productive. With a limited space on my tool-bars, this can be an issue. Plus all the icons look the same, so I often forget what abilities apply what conditions.

The skill point system is outdated. Badly. It's long, and filled with tedious choices that don't really affect game-play all that much. It falls into the trap of having "mandatory" skill choices that leave no choice at all.

 

The Ugly

This is by far the WORST attempt at making a game go free-to-play I have ever seen. The idea behind it should be to make your players have fun when playing, so that they WANT to spend money in order to have more fun. The Old Republic literally tries to force you into buying cartel coins to unlock features that every other MMO just gives out. Some of these features have no reason to be locked, other than trying to get players to waste money on pointless features.

I feel bullied into spending money on this game when I play, and I will not pay a single cent of my money until that changes.

The servers feel more or less dead. I saw plenty of people when I played, but they were mostly other free-to-players giving it a shot. High level players were rare and hard to find, and the ones I did meet seemed to be clinging to the game out of hope it would take off. It actually made me feel really sad. There was some neat roleplaying going on, they just need to give roleplayers more cool places to actually roleplay.

 

TL;DR

The short of it is, The Old Republic is a perfect example of what NOT to do when making an MMO. The sad part is, if they refined it a little bit, took away some of the multiplayer aspects, and focused more on the single-player story, they could have made this into a great KOTOR 3 with multiplayer. Would have been a better game, too. Instead, we get a really bland MMO that isn't worth a single cent of your hard earned cash.

At least I can pretend to be a Jedi.

You Know Not What Hell You Have Unleashed

Fools. All of them.

They have no idea what I've been planning, and how could they? Every step in my plan, every detail, exercised to its full potential, well before being sprung into action. In some ways, I pity them. In others, they had it coming. How dare they question my right, no, my destiny! They have chosen their own paths, and they shall remember the day they chose to cross Tybris Fauler.

I was regarded as my master's top pupal; a true maestro of magic, a connoisseur of conjuration. My skills were never questioned, for they did not need to: they knew my true potential, for it was bore in the stars.

Yet they dared to question my loyalties? They dared to betray me? They should have known this would become their undoing.

But my plan... of yes, one most cunning, if I do dare be so bold. I could see the confusion on their face when I was expelled. I did nothing but smile, bow, and show myself the door. Little had they known that I had already spent the night before copying secret tomes from the most secret of archives, finishing my dangerous research.

Little did they know that I had covered all of my tracks, creating false research to only solidify their theories of my madness. Little did my poor master, my one friend and ally, know that I had poisoned his wines the night before, and stolen his precious staff, and replaces it with a forgery. Little did he know that I know held the key to my final goal.

Little did he know that the answer to all of our prayers would soon be realized. Only a few more small details need be taken care of. Thanks to those fool mercenaries, I was able to retrieve the book with no trouble. Without the help of the Grayman's son, I would have truly been lost. I will then be able to obtain the iris, and move unto the next stage of my plan. My scouts have reported that the mercenary band has tried to raise the alarm, but I feel their efforts shall be in vain. All I need is for the Grayman's son to die, and his line to end: then the seals shall be broken, and the final stages may then begin.

Even if the adventurers seek to stop me, they have no chance. They know now that hell they have unleashed.

Adventure Report - High Seas of Telredar

Date: Monday, April 18th

Time: 7:30 pm

Theme: Martial - Characters created with the martial power source gain a bonus.

"I love being a pirate fer two very, very big reasons... see that lass o'er there?"

            -Captain Goldtooth of the Highrunner

The port of Telredar was once a very, very wealthy port city, but new trade routes threatened to bankrupt the city. The recent trouble in Sancrist has seen an increase in trade, which has saved the city, but a new threat lays on the horizon.

A mysterious blackship, flying torn black sails, has been terrorizing the coasts, and sinking merchant ships leaving and entering the port. Many shipping guilds have refused to trade in the port any longer, for fear of losing more lives - or ships - to these menacing pirates.

Gamal, returning from last week, alongside Orsik the Dwarf Knight and Krixus Fanghorn the Weaponmaster, were sent to stop these attacks, and restore order to Telredar.

Meeting with the Trade Prince

The three quickly made their way to the great mansion on the horizon. There, they were escorted into the dining room, where Trade-Prince Galfax awaited them. He bade them feast as he spoke, jibing and jesting at them with every word.

Perceiving him as rude, Gamal and Krixus rose and left, but a servant bade them return. Upon their return, he proposed a game of liar's dice; if he won, then they had no buisness in his town. Should they win, however, he would give them some help on their quest.

Gamal fell out quickly, but it was Orsik who called the Prince's last bluff. The Trade-Prince explained to them the direness of the situation: the ship was the Highrunner, captained by a man named Goldtooth before his crew mutanied, leaving him, his first-mate and best friend at the bottom of the drink.

The Highrunner wasn't attacking the ships, it was cursing them. Any of his people that see the ship die three days later from a terrible, terrible curse, which the Prince had also become victim of. He showed the heroes the mark, a scar on his arm, bade the heroes to end it.

With haste, the Prince sent two guards to escort them to the corrupted cove where the ship rests.

The Cove

The Highrunner rested within a gloomy tomb; a rotten cove filled with green light and swirling mists. The dock and ship were black with rot, and the whole place smelled like death.

Hammer-hands!

Orsik and Krixus hurried up to the ship, while Gamal took his time. Suddenly, Gamal was ambushed by 4 ghostly crewmen, and hurried to join the others. Orsik and Krixus came to the rescue, teaming up to protect Gamal and beat the ghosts back into their cold, dark graves.

Upon reaching the Highrunner, they began to search for an ancient artifact: one the Prince had told them would end the curse. Gamal inspected one of the ship's cannons, believing it to be the fabled cannon of Griffender, but alas, it was not.

The other two searched the ship's lower decks. They found a pile of treasure, but no artifact. But then, Krixus had an idea...

He climbed to the top of the crow's nest, where he found a small metal box. After managing to get it open, they found that it contained a blackened human heart. This, they assumes, was what they sought.

After departing the ship, they were attacked by another group of crewman, who they easily defeated. After taking a short rest to gather their strength, the heroes set out to return to the Prince, and end their quest...

Trapped!

A black-metal portcullis dropped infront of the cove's exit, sealing them off. Before it, Captain Goldtooth himself appeared, brandishing a fancy purple hat and a large scimitar.

"Come a little closer, and I'll cut off ye heads!" he called and he slowly stepped towards the heroes. "Please... let me carve out their hearts..." spoke another voice, coming from the shadows behind them. "Oh no... " a low voice yelled from aboard the Highrunner, "I'll blow them to 'itty bitty pieces!"

Orsik ran to the ship, inorder to stop the ghostly dwarf from pelting his allies with canon fire. Krixus stayed to fend off the captain, who's bitter cold heart could be felt from ten-feet away. He was quickly overwhelmed by First-Mate Skully, who came forth from the shadows and burried into the human. Gamal, confused, could do little to assist as he fell.

Orsik made his was back through, letting out a loud battle-cry, and quickly subdued the First-Mate. The Captain finally fell, and Orsik was able to revive the fallen soldier.

Conclusion

The three heroes returned the heart to the Trade-Prince, who was most pleased. He offered the treasure found aboard the Highrunner and the heroes' reward, and bid them farewell.

Upon leaving, Krixus stopped. He turned to the Trade Prince, and asked to see if his found had healed. The Prince raised his sleeve, showing that the scar had begun to recede. With that, the heroes went on their way.