1. Dominii

   7

   In many respects The Old Republic is identical to WoW: its static battle mechanics, the levelling system, uninteresting skill trees, equipment durability, crafting without player customization. In some respects, improved: character alignment, companions, crew skills. Its triumph is the story. Unlike any other MMO, The Old Rebublic, gives players a reason to listen to and follow every quest, even the minor quests. The main arcs take you across each world. They branch into other stories, create relationships with NPCs who update you from time to time with their goings on reminding you that had you not done or said something that they'd be in jail, in the dumps, or in a ditch. The dialogue options, albeit a feature familiar to BioWare and its players, force you to choose between being true to yourself, or sucking up for favors. Every choice has the possibility to impact your companions' favor of you and the reward outcome. Suck up and garner favor and fortune. Answer genuinely, and watch all of the other Jedi wave their enhanced sabers at you and your basic training blade. The story is why I play and will continue to play. This game could be great, it could rival WoW in popularity, players, and South Park parodies, but it needs to be the next step in MMOs, and not what WoW should have been when it launched. What could make this game great? The battle system is likely too large and too complex in code to receive an overhaul. Instead, we should hope and ask for skills that require thinking and tactics; no one likes every battle following the same sequence, no matter who you're fighting, of 3-5-4-1-2. The crafting system needs to allow real player customization. Not recipes, but the ability to take raw ingredients to make whatever you want, with the stats you want in the colors that you want (granted you meet the level requirements). It could also do with more interactive, though please not mindless WoW gathering, crafting missions where player input during a companion's crew mission affects the outcome, your alignment, their affection, and possibly the availability of quests. "Hey, Dominii, I found the treasure, but it's guarded by a local tribe. Should I destroy the village if they get in my way, or should we abandon this one?"… Expand

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2. Jinzouningen

   5

   If this game came out as a single player game (which it is) with a co-op option my score would be different. I actually played one character to level 50. People who review should play to the max level. I had to force myself to just to say that i had. Story is a plus, voice acting is a plus but this isnt an MMO. Team fortress 2 is more of an MMO than this. If I only had to pay $60 for the game and no monthly I would have played all the class story lines. Nothing in this game atm and i mean nothing is worth paying a $15 monthly. If you buy it, dont worry about upgrading your hardware. It wont help anything or add any benefits visually. Heres a warning i wish i had before hand. The game is heavily instanced not going to guess why but it is. You'll be able to run around a whole planet and see no one else. Background (mountains, buildling etc) are just that backgrounds. You cant explore them or even get close to them. Its like a painting back there for decoration. if you buy this choose a server that has a heavy / very heavy population. Even if it has a queue youll be glad you did. As empty as the game will seem atleast maybe with a H VH server youll have a chance to group with someone for flashpoints. Servers with Low or so called standard pops make it almost impossible to get a group without a hours worth of spamming for one. It says Star Wars on the box which hooked alot of people, but be ready to be extremely disappointed or pleasantly pleased.… Expand

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     6 of 7 users said yes
3. Valladria

   4

   This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Ordinarily, I also advise patience with new MMOs but the poor implementation of new content and the often flawed, or non-functional, nature of technical remedies does not give me faith for the future. I would also like to praise the game for utilising such immersive class quests and for successfully evoking the simplistic fun of arcade games via space combat missions. Whilst some reviews praise the lower reliance on co-operation in The Old Republic, I find the emphasis on single player content tedious and counter to the essence of an MMORPG. My complaint in this domain is derived from the fact that the game has limited repeatability value despite claims to the contrary by Bioware. In truth, only a small proportion of the levelling experience is related to class-specific content thus you must either tolerate conversations with generic quest NPCs whilst levelling new characters or must skip them, thereby rendering the experience rather hollow. Moreover, any sense of choice in conservations is limited by the need to make choices that boost your companions’ affection or alignment ratings. Equally, the linear nature of the game means that no choice has a truly important, permanent impact on your character(s). It may introduce cursory fights or change a few NPCs but there are no tangents that I can discern. Flowing from this, the voice-acting and cinematics become pointless as any sense of choice is either determined by necessity or feels like a thin veneer. Naturally, the above wouldn’t be an issue if the game had launched with properly functioning, interesting end-game content. Regrettably, PvP and PvE have been, and continue to be, filled with issues or are devoid of challenges in any mode (and I regard myself as a rather incompetent player). As a consumer, I begrudgingly accept games launching with issues as, sadly, MMOs are held to lower account for failures. However, it is the fact that new content has often been pointless to play due to frequently occurring Boss bugs and the fact that many of the worst bugs were identified far prior to launch that irks me. This may have been acceptable upon the release of older games due to the youth of the genre, but developers and illogically deferential players cannot insist on ‘patience’ over issues that should have never arisen in the 2012 market. Additionally, PvP is excessively reliant on incapacitation abilities that prevent a consumer from actually playing for significant windows of time. Sadly, the ‘Resolve’ system does not control this as the brief window of immunity does not apply to many forms of crowd-control or interruption ability. Above all, PvP is utterly boring since items are very easy to acquire and rising through the Valour tiers is a matter of relatively minor time investment rather than ingenuity or dedication. Having said this, the Z axis elements of Hutt Ball and environmental hazards are innovative and entertaining. In the past, I’ve been able to avoid frustrating experiences by becoming involved in the Crafting system of a game. Unfortunately, The Old Republic caters to shallow transience in this area. The items generated are easily replaced ~immediately~ upon reaching level 50 and the player has minimal involvement due to the process exclusively utilising companions. Personally, I fail to see why time was devoted to this area of the game at all since there is no gratifying sense of complexity or achievement upon completion of items. Ultimately, this lack of vision brings me to my main complaint. I have limited faith in the foresight or skills of those responsible for development or administration. For me, the existence of a Public Test Server without the capacity to create or transfer characters rendered the server moot since no testing of content could occur. Whilst Bioware are remedying this in the near future, it was foolish of them to persist in implementing content without the ability to test. Additions made to Flashpoints or Operation(s) have been woefully buggy and many players informed Bioware of the asinine nature of their Ilum modifications prior to implementation even without testing, yet Bioware implemented the laggy, grossly imbalanced changes none the less. They were then forced to reverse this blunder but not to the original, more tolerable state. Instead, they made Ilum a pointless, hollow PvP world devoid of any actual PvP. Now, players circle in the hope of completing interminable daily/weekly quests. There are many other issues related to foresight too, such as having to fundamentally adjust class or statistic balancing within the first two months or the stubborn climb down of the Community Management Team over the exclusion of server specific forums in favour of a disjointed forum structure. Obviously, this is highly personal and I wish the game and its players luck. I may return after a minimum of six months as the present game is a Beta, and I resent paying for that and fail to see why it is acceptable.… Expand

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     14 of 16 users said yes

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