Sangnz Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 So I am 26 so far playing IA Operative, played throrugh Dromund Kass, Balmorra and just started on Nar Shaddar, so I though I would whip up a quick first impressions review. Overall impression (tldr version) very fun, familiar enough compared to other MMOs on market that it is easy to get into with enough unique features to seperate it from the crowd. Visually appealing captures the star wars universe well. Character Creation I would rate this as servicable sitting somewhere inbetween WoW at the low end and Aion at the top end. Enough options to keep you tweaking your toon for a good 5-10+ mins if you care about how you look. Somethings I would like to see added, seperation for some facial features, eg eyebrows/makeup on seperate sliders. Gameplay (UI/PvE/PvP etc) I felt right at home from the get go, from picking up the first mission to completing the starter planet. The UI will be fairly easy to grasp with anyone who has played almost any MMO in the past few years. It could definatly do with a few tweaks and more customisation options like allowing us to move our bars around and UI scaling but it is functional and works. While we see the usual collection of kill/collect quests the relevancy of the quests makes them feel much more appropriate and engaging than kill x bears. The voice acting helps a lot with this having a greiving father ask for vengance against the commandos who raised his house and killed his family has a lot more impact when you listen to it instead of reading it. Heroic missions are good fun and often good practice for running flashpoints, to date I have put together groups for evey heroic on Dromund Kass and Balmorra. The story line quest for my IA has been fantastic fun and I honestly look forward to seeing the other classes story lines. Flashpoints for the most part are excellent so far (Black Talon, Hammer Station, Athiss and Mandalorian Raiders). They have just enough trash to make you work but not feel bogged down, little trigger events such as mobs popping out of elevators add a bit of excitement, destructible terrain items like cryo barrels are handy and a nice little addition. One thing I would like to praise is having certain trade skills impacting the dungeon such as salvaging the the drill in hammer station or slicing the lift Athiss, this adds cool short cuts/alternate routes depending on who is in your party. Finding groups for flashpoints and heroics can be difficult at time mainly because of no dedicated LFG channel and no real tool to help find people looking for a goup. Personally I do not want an automated tool that finds people for me and dumps me in a dungeon, the impact of running with people and forming groups has already been felt by me when I joined an Athiss run as a healer and the first thing I saw was "Awesome Sang is a good healer". I realised how much dungeon finders have really killed the community feel in some MMOs, and I pray Bioware avoids them. PvP feels solid at the moment, I wouldn't say anything new or innovative being introduced aside from huttball which at the same time the most awesome and most frustrating PvP game ever made I like how balanced classes feel at the moment nothing stupidly OP so far and I have yet to be killed without some chance to fight back. I like how all classes have some CC and all classes have CC breakers. Not much more to say on that atm as I haven't been PvPing a lot. Companions defiantly add a really nice dynamic to how the game feels, adding their own comments as you enter new areas and partaking in the quest dialogue really helps you either come to hate or love your companion. Being able to send them on their own missions to gather resources or craft items is pretty neat, it also helps remove a lot of the tedium of grinding out professions. I also have to plead guilty to really liking the rail shooter space mini game, for what it is it's fun and a nice break from the normal questing/pvp, I hope they add swoop racing in from Kotor as well Graphics/Asthetics/Sound Graphically the game looks good, defiantly not as good as say Aion but nice enough not to be offputting and I have to say when I first visited my space ship on Imperial Fleet the vista out of the air lock was pretty impressive. Sound really does fit well nothing amazing but immersive, voice acting is top notch. Aesthetically The Old Republic is great, design wise everything just feels right to me bright colors well used each world has and overarching theme but has multiple environs in it. For example Dromund Kass has the contrast of the lush jungle theme of the planet with the hard edges and whites/greys of the Imperial City with small areas coming in like the Temple Ruin. Even the look and sound of whizzing blaster bolts and swinging lightsabers is well done making you really feel like you are in the star wars universe. This may just be me harking back to playing KotOR but I can feel the visuals from those two games oozing out of ToR and it just feels right Overall I think they really hit the nail on the head with the look and feel of the Star Wars universe. There have been a few graphical oddities that crop up but I haven't come across anything major so far and a couple can be laid at the feet of lag. Ok that ended up being longer than expected and pertty incoherant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cravenid Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 long read, but i agree completely the kotor feel is there and that makes me a happy panda ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eugam Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 I had not much hope for this game. I just preordered mid december because i needed something to play over the holidays. It took me 5-6 levels to get into the SciFi environment/architecture , but then the game is really fun. Much more fun then i expected. As long as the "dungeons" are not crowded by players they are fun. Class and companion synergy is good. At least for my class. Combat is fun so far. Its not one button mashing and not overly complex. Crafting is weird tbh. After crawling though lower Corocust i got enough raws to craft 10 or 20 boots to deconstruct them. Does Bioware really want me to push one button every 1 to 3 minutes for 20 to 60 minutes ? And if so, why cant i send him away to craft 20 boots and then go and do the laundry for 60 minutes ? The crafting isnt interactive anyway. Its also sad that i cant learn as much skills as i want. MMO economy is a myth imho. The different skills dont level equally well and feel unbalanced. Archeology is a in-combat skill and levels naturally, underground trade is another one click every 1-x minutes. Crafting really is weird. Looks are ok. Still i dont get why games release in 2010/11 without a wardrobe. I am able to make helmets invisible in the options but not hoods. Why are such simple functions always underdeveloped in modern games ? And that in a game with helmets, tiaras and hoods. Thats a big -1 dear bioware. The chars head has the most options on creation and you bet i want to decide which tiara i want to have on my avatar. All flight animation, be it a taxi or a hoverbike, are bad. Really bad and not even remotely near the level of quality of the rest of the game. Everything else is 10 times more fun then i thought. Suprise me with your "endgame" bioware Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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