Hey guys!
I have been playing SWTOR now for about 2-3 months. I have 3 level 50s and tried all the advanced classes to some level. I have done most flashpoints in heroic modes and did some pvp. The only thing that I didn't do was operations which I will explain later why.
So why did I decide to start? Well it became free-to-play. I have played wow for a number of years and stoped because i thought i was putting to much time into it. That's why SWTOR seemed nice to me since it had a new aproach to leveling. Basicly up to level 50 it can be played as an MMO or a single player game.
So i said i'll try it out and it was amazing. The stories of the characters are done realy well. I started with the inquisitor and i loved the story line, the twists and development. It also did what i hoped...it made leveling much more fun. the time you need to hit 50 is just right i think and with the stories and quests that bioware does great its a breeze.
After that i tried some more classes since i didnt want to start with raiding again and soon find out a couple of thinks that annoyed me a lot. I knew the side quests will be the same if i level an empire character but it didnt bother me since the character itself will be totaly different. Well it seems that while the classes seem totaly different, they're not. This is my personal opinion but i dont see much difference between the tanks. Same goes for melee dps and ranged dps and the only difference might be the healers which are a bit different from each other. What i mean by that is that there are no key character abilites among classes that give the class uniqnes. Almost all have a 4sec stun, a pushback, some sort of defence CD and a gap closer with either a sprint, leap or pull (this is the most major difference).
So this was a little disapointing but still...not enough. After some time though i (had to) start comparing some stuff to wow. And the first thing that bothered me since i play on a pvp server why are there so little areas where empire and republic actualy quest together. There are aqtualy whole planets that are in 2 different instances. So that sucks.
I did some crafting to put my mind of that to see how it works. Now as the story line this is brilliant. Actualy being able to send others to do the crafting for you while you level or do some flashpoints is the best. You still have the option to gather while leveling but its not necessary. Companions can do everything for you. And having a companion in the first place is an amazing thing. There are some quests/instances/whatever that has to be done with several players. If you dont find them, you can use your companion. Brilliant. Having to chose from either tank, healer or dps depending what you are and need is a great idea that bioware implemented. However there is one setback. While the companions are great, some classes while leveling are actualy dependent on them. I mean imagine...you play a jedi knight sentinel, a bad *** with not one but two lightsabers and you have a huge downtime if you chose to level without a companion (even with one i had a lot of trouble). So while i praise the idea of companions, being able to send them all away and level by yourself would be a nice touch.
Now lets go a bit into the core mechanics, abilites, design and stuff. I was worried how they would do a jedi melee fighter. I mean there is only that many ways you can swing with a lightsaber. However I think they did a nice job here. While there could be a bit less abilites its nice. The downside is that the animation is a bit dull. there is a number of abilites that have the same animation. Even more concerning is that you dont actualy know you get healed in any other way then a small green number that swoops by you with the speed of light. Let me correct that. It's not that it is to fast. The problem is that in combat if you click your basic attack you get between 3 and 10 numbers above your opponent just for that basic attack. I mean...the animation can be 10 gunshots but come on...show only 1 number! In pvp this is even more frustrating since you cant even see your character with all the numbers....yet you can stay alive for ever!
Another stuff is how smooth and sinchronized the mechanics work. They dont. At start I always had the feeling i'm laging. The time your character needs to react to something, to the point he does it and the point when actual numbers appear is amazingly buged or badly made. And speaking of bugs...there are many! Not huge ones...small ones. And I am a person who puts a lot into details so i see this stuff. For instance opening a map and checking where you have to go puts up a nice name on the map. Sometimes this name stays on your screen even when you close the map and you go with your mouse over that same area. And there are many more which i am sure you can check under the support forum or similar.
At this point you all probably think of me as a kid who whines to much. Well I'm not. I'm giving a review of how i felt of the game since i know i was looking for something like this before starting to play. And if you think this is a I'm gona stop playing thread you're wrong again. I'll still play because i think the game itself is amazing. With some patches and bugfixes the game would be superb and even the stuff i complained about wouldnt be that much of a problem since everything else would work.
So this is a short (not) review of what i think of the game. I'm not gona stop playing it since in 2.0 my inquisitor will be the devil himself, but I would really like to get some opinions on what i wrote. I am sure that if many would point out these problems something will change. So if you think i'm right support me so that bioware will be aware of the problems, if you think i'm wrong (or are just ignorant) then flame away, it had to be said.
Regards
Red'rasper
