Oh my, 38 pages. Didn't really expect that many. Reading through has also reminded me of a few other elements that I disliked about the game, but I did think the Warzones were okay, even if apart from Huttball they are complete rip offs from two WoW battlegrounds - Strand of the Ancients (but without the vehicles.. thank god?) and Arathi Basin. One thing I want to address is the fact that people are commenting that SWToR is a new game, that I can't expect it to have all the content or the features that WoW does, because WoW has been running for eight years. This argument is, in my opinion, fundamentally flawed. The simple facts of the matter are *That while WoW is an old game and has been able to build that kind of content over a long period, there is also the simple fact that SWToR is missing things WoW had at launch in 2004. E.g alternative leveling zones, a game that could handle more than fifty people on screen at once, and the ability for the UI to be resized. These are basic things that need to be in an MMO. And graphics options that actually worked. and * SWToR was announced in 2008, at a time when WoW had innumerable quality-of-life improvements over four years, but they were improvements to the base of the game that affected everyone. For example, guild banks. Guild banks were implemented in WoW Patch 2.2, which was released in 2007. SWToR has been in development for over five years, and can't even have features that WoW had in 2007. Its a new release game in 2011, there are some things that I'd expect as standard to the genre the game is in. Guild/corp/clan 'banks' are one of them. I'd also expect a built-in threat meter for a game that relies on a threat-based system of combat. For example, I ran Taral V. I have no clue on my TPS, or the DPS who is doing the most TPS. I have no clue who to give Guard. I can wait to see who pulls mobs off me most often and make a guess, or I can have a threat meter that will tell me on the first pull. Or I'll be able to ask if the other people have a threat meter. WoW had its own built in threat meter in 2008, the year SWToR was announced. There is no excuse. There's no combat log or damage meter either. So I have no clue if my spec is any good, how much damage I'm actually doing, whether I using the right skills or abilities, or anything about what I'm doing, actually. Its basic stuff like this that annoys me. And the UI isn't moddable, so I can't fix it. If it was moddable, I'd probably ignore the UI element altogether, because the devs would have given me the opportunity to fix it. There are a lot of basics for themepark MMO's that are missing in SWToR. I'd also like to share my opinion on the sound. Now I can understand that they need to keep the size of the game down, but what most annoyed me is that they spent so much on the voices - yet with semi-decent audio gear, they sound bloody awful. The compression artifacts are obvious here. The music too, suffers from this. The music is also extremely repetitive. Maybe a lot of people don't have music on in games, but I like to have it on because music can set the tone of the game. The game appears to use tracks solely from prequel movies, especially Revenge of The Sith, KOToR 2 and a few extra game-only tracks thrown in. And its all done at horrible compression ratios, so it sounds awful if you've heard better quality versions of the tracks used, or even have experienced a decent pair of headphones. I'm not expecting FLAC-like wonder here, but I am expecting something better than an MP3 from 1997. I like Star Wars, and I'd have loved to enjoy the game. But I'm not. And I liked BioWare too. They've made some great games (The BG series is a favorite of mine), but this isn't one of their best.

I've added a spoiler warning to the top. Sorry for forgetting it.

Addressing this point here WoW had alternate levelling zones at release, and I'd expect the same of SWToR. I am not running through the same quests over and over again, I'd rather have alternate zones to level through. Alas, that was not to be.

Like I said, I really wanted to enjoy this game. I want to come back in a year perhaps, and be able to enjoy this game. But right now, it is just simply not worth my money. Thank you!

I posted this as an Amazon review, but felt like I should share it here. Have fun. NOTE: There are spoilers for the JK class story. Please be advised. The Old Republic was very much a hyped game. Announced in 2008 to much anticipation, it promised a revolutionary gaming experience that would create a new standard in the MMO genre. Not only were the great development team at BioWare behind it, but it was based on a very good license and on a series of single-player RPGs - Knights Of The Old Republic and its sequel, Knights of The Old Republic 2 : The Sith Lords. More than a few fans of those games (I included), were disappointed that we were not to have a sequel but nevertheless, we were looking forward to this game, to see what it could be. Perhaps the first warning sign though, is that Rich Vogel, former lead on Star Wars Galaxies and Everquest, is working on the MMO, and that BioWare are using an untested prototype engine - the HeroEngine. Flash forward to 2011. The Old Republic nears release date, after being pushed back a few times, but pre-order numbers are huge and the hype machine is working even harder than it was in 2008. Anticipation builds, ignoring the cries of beta testers who are commenting that the game might not be as good as made out. The game is released, and I pick up a copy for both me and my younger brother, as we eagerly await an MMO that would replace World Of WarCraft, which was quit a year before in frustration at dumbed down game mechanics and a serious stale feeling. The first twenty levels I found fun and engaging. The game shines here. I picked a Jedi Knight, and began playing the story on Tython. The dialogue over all seemed relatively good, and the voice acting in the MMO (much vaunted in previews), was relatively impressive compared to similar games, such as WoW, which often left me cringing. However, skills felt sluggish, and my character seemed oddly blurry. I blamed my own connection for the sluggishness (I live in New Zealand and was played throughout with 200ms ping), and perhaps a bug for the textures, that would hopefully be quickly fixed. The first twenty levels, that ranged from the planets Tython, Coruscant and the first chunk of Nar Shaddaa were generally interesting quest wise. The planet Taris was very much a low point, and later, I realized, a sign of things to come. However, after about level 18, the game begins to slow down. Enemies took longer to burn down, and my droid companion T7, rapidly became very useless, very quickly. The sluggishness in my abilities became even more noticeable to the point my connection couldn't be possibly to be blame, and one thought that went constantly through my head was 'didn't I quit this game a year ago?'. I dismissed this and continued to soldier through. I reached level 24, and immediately shipped off from Nar Shaddaa to Tatooinne, the next planet in my quest, after completing my class quests on Nar Shaddaa two levels before reaching the minimum level requirement for Tatooinne. This would become a much bigger issue, which I will elaborate on later. I worked my way to Alderaan, the next planet after Tatooinne, and then levelled to level 33 on the planet Balmorra before quitting in complete and utter boredom. Generally the class quests post level-20 still remain as fun and engaging as ever. They are usually a step-above other quest lines in terms of writing, and more or less kept me interested as I ploughed through enemies. However, generally quest design was just that - plough through enemies. Or plough through enemies and take their stuff. Or left click a chest to collect an item, or disable a turret. That's it. That's every quest in the game, all fifty levels worth. They might have voice-acting in an attempt to disguise this, but generally, every quest feels more or less the same. Sometimes an interesting environment or enemies will distract the player from this, or an interesting plotline tying the quests together. Because that feels like what all the voice acting is for, not to give character, but to hide the fact the quests are all the same. The same could be achieved with the old quest dialogue box from WoW with 'Accept/Decline' available. Heck, WoW even had dialogue options! This is fundamentally behind the times in terms of theme park MMO's. Even WoW, the old mainstay, has quests that are more than that, even going back to its first release in 2004. In WoW, many of the quests would be variations on the 'kill this theme', but there were also such quests where I could bomb an enemy fortress, seek assistance for a dying crusader, throw parachutes to falling warriors in the air, or even compete in racing orcs on dragons. You could even reveal the royal adviser to be an evil dragon, and trigger a city wide event that could involve dozens of players (sadly, this quest is long gone.). The Old Republic, as far as I saw it, does not do this. It is simply two types of quests, repeated ad nauseam, with voice acting to cover it up. It is simply unacceptable for an MMO to have this design in 2011. It is even beat by WoW in what should be most important in a story-driven game - the permanence of your actions. For example, on the planet Balmorra, I was ordered to take an Imperial base for the resistance on the planet. I cleared out the base, and reached what the game calls a 'group phase' - essentially, a walled off area that only you and members of your group, if you are in one, can access. I wiped out the base, and watched the cutscene where the resistance establishes itself in the base. Then I left the group based phase. Now I am no longer allowed in the interior of the base, and furthermore, the outside of the base was still covered in Imperials. It was if I'd done nothing at all, except turn a bunch of green lines in a door into red ones saying I could no longer enter this door and explore that part of the game world. In WoW, this would have been handily carried out by phasing. Instead of entering a 'group phase', the whole world would have phased, from being an Imperial base into a Republic one, with generic Republic NPC's instead of Imperial ones. There is even a quest line like this in WoW, in the second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, where you build the Crusaders Tower, and add a new town for yourself to the map, along with the quest hub. In The Old Republic, the world does not change with your actions. The base is still the same as if you had left it. Also to take issue with the quests is the writing of the game. BioWare have long been trumpeted as the masters of RPG writing. I would argue this point very much (my vote for that would go to Obsidian Entertainment), but generally find BioWare to be tolerable at worst to rather fun and interesting, even if it follows an obvious formula. I should perhaps have seen warning signs in Dragon Age 2, released earlier in March 2011. The games share writers (Jennifer Hepler, for example), and I generally found Dragon Age 2 one of the most intolerable games I have ever had the misfortune to play, with flat, boring and stereotypical characters to often cringe worthy writing. Dragon Age 2 reaching a blinding crescendo of 'barely tolerable', writing wise and game play wise, and did nothing to go beyond this. WARNING : SPOILERS FOR JK CLASS STORY. I also have several issues on how game lore was done. I may disconnect with some readers on this (if you ARE still reading), but Revan, the great big hero of the first game in Knights of The Old Republic, is a straight white dude with stubble. Like every video game hero, including the recent Galen Marek of the Star Wars franchise. It also completely rewrites a previous fan favourite, Knights Of The Old Republic 2, to advance a boring storyline that ultimately feels tired and generic,. It was at this point, I stopped playing. I can find better writing in Dragon Ball than in BioWare. This depiction of you as the Big Kahuna, the Next Big Thing in the class quests, also completed conflicts from how every other quest in the game sees you. Sure, I'm addressed as 'Master Jedi', but then I'm asked to go punch ten guys in the face because they're shooting at the quest giver. Or shut down three turrets. Or collect cat teeth. Or beat up three guys and take their guns. I don't even remember quests in much detail any more - they all mashed together into one big generic lump, because they are all the same. Space combat also suffers from being overly generic. You get a ship at the completion of your second planet, that lets you fly around the galaxy at will. The same ship that everyone else gets in your class. Wanted to craft ships and sell them to people in this game? Go back to EVE Online. Space combat could have made up for this, but it is literally the same four missions repeated over and over again, with little variation. Station Attack 2 is the same as Station Attack 1, except the hard points you need to destroy have SHEILDS! And everything hits twice as hard, so you better buy upgrades! Oh, and you've got to shoot two more hangars! But otherwise, Station Attack 2 is identical to Station Attack 1, even down to the on-rails flight route. Overall, the writing felt like a concentrated attempt to make the player feel special in a game where 50 other people are probably saving the planet all at the same time as you. To facilitate this, group phasing and story phasing are used to split off areas of the zone/planet from other players except you, which makes The Old Republic feel like a solo game. As aforementioned, the problem is that changes to the world brought about by your actions only appear in these phases - nowhere else. Characters in the phase will talk about how they are making the area their own, and then the area, outside the phase, is uh, not their own. Phasing areas of the game like this also does not contribute to the MMO experience. I am playing an MMO to play with other people, not to play a single player game with a subscription. Which brings me to The Old Republics MMO experience - simply put, there is none. Planets are sharded (meaning they are hosted on different servers), which means it can be hours before you see other players on certain planets. Phasing off areas also does not contribute to the experience of playing a Massively MULTIPLAYER game. Grouping with a player is not necessary, you merely need to whip out a companion and kill the elites with them instead. Chat channels in game are near dead, even in the most populated areas. I saw a grand total of five guild recruitment ads while playing for over twenty hours. What is also detrimental to the MMO experience of the Old Republic is not simply the empty feeling of the game, but also the simple fact that as an MMO, it is very much behind the times. The UI is cumbersome and overly flashy. It is not there to be usable first, but to look cool first. What is also terrible about the UI is the fact that it is missing industry mainstays that have been around since 2007. You can form a guild, but this provides no appreciable benefit beyond a green coloured chat channel. There are no guild banks, no guild achievements, no guild anything. There is no default threat meter, or target of target, or even a combat log to track your damage or what killed you whilst tanking a boss. Nothing. The UI also does not have the ability to be modded, to have these added in (as WoW did in 2005!), but is completely unable to be customized. BioWare have not made up for this by, perhaps, paying attention to excellent player UI's created for WoW since 2005, or even the default WoW UI itself, which has all I mentioned above as defaults since 2008. The Old Republic was announced in 2008. Surely they could have learned? Instances, outside of the first one you run, are standard generic fare with the chance to gain light side or dark side points. If you've played WoW and run dungeons, they are more or less exactly the same thing. This is not to speak of the abominable Auction House (GTN) interface, which does not even have the option to name filter what you after. You have to pick the category of item, the subcategory, and then search, and then use the name filter. There is no general search to perhaps see the most expensive items of the day, or browsing by name because you want a specific item. Again, WoW had these options in 2008 (though present in 2005), the same year as The Old Republics announcement. The Looking For Group interface is even worse. It consists of marking yourself as 'Looking For Group', but not what dungeons you are interested in, or even your role that you wish to play. You also have to type /who to find these players, then whisper them to find out what they want to do, and then either invite or decline. This is far cry from even the system used in WoW in 2007, or even in 2009. Other options include sitting in a major center spamming for three hours. Simply put, The Old Republic has a worse interface than WoW in 2007. And you can't modify it, so you're stuck with the flashy blue UI that doesn't do what you need it to do. The UI is possibly the worst element of The Old Republic - it fails to even measure up to an eight-year-old game based on an even older RTS engine. Technically, The Old Republic appears, on the surface, to be okay. Environments are gorgeous, and everything but the character models looks great on high settings. Because the character models are stuck at low texture forever, because of a bug. This was later justified by a BioWare employee to actually be a feature - high resolution textures on player characters would stress systems too much. Except for the fact that beta testers report that high resolution textures were in the game before, worked fine, and did not cause any noticeable lag on decent computer systems. However, for what the graphics are, they should not require a heavy system to render. In essence, the game is badly optimized, and it shows. Low FPS will randomly occur, before shooting up again. This is not my system - my GTS 250 flew through Skyrim on Ultra High with no issues whatsoever, at around 60 FPS - but rather the game. The level of graphics in The Old Republic should not require what they do to display. Furthermore, bad graphics on characters are possibly the worst move by an MMO, as the characters are what we build and should care about. I was rightly impressed when my gnome in WoW went from a level 1 wearing crappy chain mail into a juggernaut of destruction with an enormous shield that was so big it clipped through the ground. In contrast, The Old Republic will have your character left with muddy textures forever, because apparently you can't handle it. Except in cutscenes, where they magically appear. Companions were also supposedly a revolutionary innovation that would sweep us off our feet. In reality, it's like every class has a hunter pet from WoW, except the hunter pet can sometimes use a lightsaber! You also can't use them in dungeons, and some companions are very much worse than others, especially tank companions. Companions are also trite, and boring. Romances are included, but because my Jedi Knight was female, she couldn't romance the only standable NPC in the party who wasn't a droid. After level 50, you don't even need your companions with you, so what was the point in them? I cannot comment on endgame, but from what I have heard, the boss design is terrible, heavily bugged (loot chests cannot be opened by players), and very easy and quick to complete. PVP at endgame has also suffered from a World PVP area where before Patch 1.1, the way to win was win-trading flags, and now it is Empire camping the Republic base and gathering inordinate amounts of PVP rewards for doing so. Republic and Empire population is heavily imbalanced also, with a 1:10 ratio on some servers. This is not to mention the treatment of the community by BioWare. Threads criticizing BioWare are locked, or consolidated into one big thread where not a voice can be distinguished from the crying masses - an informative post can be drowned out by 'QQ RAGE QUIT' -type posts. The forums are, more or less, a cesspool. Recently, players asked for server forums - a standard in sharded MMO's. BioWare responded with a thoroughly inadequate system and then said 'this is the best you are going to get'. The patches also don't fix anything. Ability lag was a major problem in the game, causing the sluggish controls I mentioned earlier. It is still a problem, despite apparently being 'fixed', and appears to be an issue with the engine, rather than anything else. Anti-aliasing was also added in the patch. Except enabling did nothing and the tool tip read 'not implemented yet'. But according to the patch notes, anti-aliasing is in. Outright lies around the patch have also been sighted - James Ohlen, lead designer says that the Auction House interface was apparently fixed in the patch. Except it wasn't! Huzzah! This isn't to mention that the bugged endgame is still not fixed. The design team also puff up around the game, insisting it is the most revolutionary game ever released while the actual game insists this is not so. I wonder, have the developers played another MMO released in the last five years, or even looked at a screenshot? Because their game says they haven't. Their game is stuck in 2005, rotting with vanilla WoW, a game that was ever more interesting than this one, even at its lowest points. In short, don't buy this game. Maybe get a trial account when they release them to see the class stories. But do not play this game. If you want an MMO, play something else, because this game is simply not worth your time when it can't even do MMO right when so many others can. This is not the revolutionary game promised, it contains one new innovation - voice-acting to hide the fact that all the quests are the same and the quest designers are extremely lazy. What I want to ask, is why did they hire Rich Vogel, the man who wrecked another Star Wars MMO, to have another go. Because that is the most confusing element of all. ADDENMUM : The music is also an issue, because the same twelve tracks are repeated over and over with no real difference. And its in really bad compression rate, so it sounds like crap on decent headphones, as do the voices. tl;dr I am disappointed in the Old Republic and you shouldn't buy it.

Speaking as an ex-WoW player, server forums really do make the community, and the community makes the game. So far I've seen hardly any chat in any chat channel, apart from Tython and Coruscant. Fleet chat is kinda dead. There really isn't much community feeling (and somewhat exacerbated by the fact planets/zones are themselves sharded). And I play on a high-pop server (The Harbinger). Server forums would go a long way into improving this situation.