SW: The Old Republic Part 4

[Rosbjerg]

Old thread here.

 

And last few replies.

 

 

A server is definitely a community, and a unique one at that. The best two I've played on were Winterfell in Asheron's Call and Windfola in Lord of the Rings Online. So far I haven't really clicked in on any TOR servers.

 

Now, I'm personally happily retired from all forms of online gaming at the moment, but I can only the imagine the case now, that if I was a fresh faced new starter on WoW, I would in all likelihood level solo to the level cap, grind the group finder tool to get a decent set of starter gear, then hit a brick wall because I know essentially nobody on the server. I know this to be true to some degree because I tried an experiment a couple years ago, creating an alt on a a well-populated Oceanic timezone server, and did just that. Social butterflies may find different of course, but I'd bet that a decent sized proportion of current players are having an experience like that, and thus don't have terribly much incentive to stick around.

 

Eh, I dont know about that. While I agree that there is much less "community" and you do run into a huge pile of tards in LFG I think LFG/LFR is an adequate tool to prevent people from hitting that wall. I mean, I dont have to be your buddy to down bosses. Although I do wish raid finder didnt stick you in those lower difficulty raids. If SWTOR had this tool from the beginning I would probably still be playing.

 

I took a short break from research and odds and bods to jump online today around lunch. Heh, and even though I use an east coast server from the UK, it was interesting to see there were still around 80-100 people populating both Republic and Imp fleet stations.

 

And the assortment of people doing the "hey, I'm originally from x server, who else was on there? " and people connecting their old friends lists again and the massive shift in guilds and wotnot...

[Morgoth]

For a moment I was reading "SW: Knights of the Old Republic 4".

 

Sigh.

[Bokishi]

Can't wait for Star Wars 1313!!

[Hurlshort]

For a moment I was reading "SW: Knights of the Old Republic 4".

 

Sigh.

 

You haven't played it yet? It is KotOR 3-10. The Sith Inquisitor storyline is better than anything in KotOR 1 & 2.

[Guest Slinky]

For a moment I was reading "SW: Knights of the Old Republic 4".

 

Sigh.

 

You haven't played it yet? It is KotOR 3-10. The Sith Inquisitor storyline is better than anything in KotOR 1 & 2.

 

If you really feel that way, you really should try the agent storyline. Should blow your mind or something.

 

I personally found it good enough

[Setzer]

For a moment I was reading "SW: Knights of the Old Republic 4".

 

Sigh.

 

You haven't played it yet? It is KotOR 3-10. The Sith Inquisitor storyline is better than anything in KotOR 1 & 2.

 

If you really feel that way, you really should try the agent storyline. Should blow your mind or something.

 

I personally found it good enough

 

Yeah the Agent storyline was pretty awesome and my favorite of the ones I played. I tried to hook up with Watcher 2 but she shot me down.

[Humanoid]

Now, I'm personally happily retired from all forms of online gaming at the moment, but I can only the imagine the case now, that if I was a fresh faced new starter on WoW, I would in all likelihood level solo to the level cap, grind the group finder tool to get a decent set of starter gear, then hit a brick wall because I know essentially nobody on the server. I know this to be true to some degree because I tried an experiment a couple years ago, creating an alt on a a well-populated Oceanic timezone server, and did just that. Social butterflies may find different of course, but I'd bet that a decent sized proportion of current players are having an experience like that, and thus don't have terribly much incentive to stick around.

 

Eh, I dont know about that. While I agree that there is much less "community" and you do run into a huge pile of tards in LFG I think LFG/LFR is an adequate tool to prevent people from hitting that wall. I mean, I dont have to be your buddy to down bosses. Although I do wish raid finder didnt stick you in those lower difficulty raids. If SWTOR had this tool from the beginning I would probably still be playing.

 

LFR obviously wasn't around back when I did the experiment I described, but I don't see it doing anything at all socially - it merely advances the effectively solo play experience one more step before encountering the same wall. By that note though I'll have to admit my experience with LFR is minimal - I did it for the first two to three weeks of its release but left it because it was neither fun (partly because of the anonymous nature of LFR and partly because Dragon Soul is a terribly designed raid) nor necessary to fuel normal (and subsequently heroic) raid progression. I did not use the tool at all for my last three or so months of WoW.

 

 

Admittedly my last month was literally just logging on for a raid twice a week, bang my head against questionably designed hardmode bosses and logging out straight after, and doing absolutely nothing else. Was good to get heroic Spine on literally the last day of my subscription though.

[Raithe]

Well I've wrapped up the Sith Inquisitor and Smuggler class stories, both had some quite entertaining moments. Although I think the Smuggler's peaked before Act 3.

I'm actually enjoying the mix of competition/revenge of the Bounty Hunter through the prologue and Act 1 as well. The Jedi Knight story in Act 2 seems to get a little wonky, but I've only made it to Quesh so far on that and I'm curious how the whole "Emperor's Moon" thing plays out...

 

I've got to say, the Sith Warrior's storyline seems interesting so far, but I've only just started Act 1. Hm, I have to say the way they have the Sith Warrior's Mentor with the massive intelligence network and a Jedi padawan with the force ability to see "the heart of men" sets up a few potential twists to come. Although I will say, much as I want to explore that further I just can't face Balmorra again at the moment. Considering I ran through it imp side the other week with my BH, and Republic with my Jedi Knight a few days ago...

[HoonDing]

For a moment I was reading "SW: Knights of the Old Republic 4".

 

Sigh.

 

You haven't played it yet? It is KotOR 3-10. The Sith Inquisitor storyline is better than anything in KotOR 1 & 2.

I'm saving up this quote for when I'll be playing the F2P.

[Nepenthe]

For a moment I was reading "SW: Knights of the Old Republic 4".

 

Sigh.

 

You haven't played it yet? It is KotOR 3-10. The Sith Inquisitor storyline is better than anything in KotOR 1 & 2.

I'm saving up this quote for when I'll be playing the F2P.

Why bother, you'll just get bias confirmation that it sucks.

 

Tried some the other day, before had to go to Brussels. Felt fun, even while doing a grindy bonus series, so might still get some mileage out of the game.

[Hurlshort]

For a moment I was reading "SW: Knights of the Old Republic 4".

 

Sigh.

 

You haven't played it yet? It is KotOR 3-10. The Sith Inquisitor storyline is better than anything in KotOR 1 & 2.

I'm saving up this quote for when I'll be playing the F2P.

 

I'm not sure you really understand how f2p works. You pay for content in that system. Each game handles it slightly differently, but you typically don't get to the high level stuff without paying for it. In TOR that would mean paying to finish the individual story lines.

[HoonDing]

More's the pity.

[Spider]

 

You haven't played it yet? It is KotOR 3-10. The Sith Inquisitor storyline is better than anything in KotOR 1 & 2.

 

It really isn't. Personally I think the Sith Inquisitor is the worst storyline. I've only played the republic ones though. It started out great, but after chapter one it went downhill and just kept getting worse. And the sith all just feel like comic book villains...

 

Agent was the best by far though. But I'm still not sure I'd say it's better than anything in Kotor 1 & 2. It probably would be if it didn't get so disjointed through it being a MMO. You go so long between class quests that it's sometimes hard to keep engaged.

[Hurlshort]

That's weird, I feel like I'm always working on a class quest.

[Calax]

That's weird, I feel like I'm always working on a class quest.

I know that the Bonus Series on each planet can get annoying because you don't want to out level, but you want to do your class quest (and usually new planets just start beating you silly if you don't do the bonus series)

[Nepenthe]

That's weird, I feel like I'm always working on a class quest.

I know that the Bonus Series on each planet can get annoying because you don't want to out level, but you want to do your class quest (and usually new planets just start beating you silly if you don't do the bonus series)

I've happily had some leeway in this, since I play so rarely I get the exp bonus practically the whole time.

[Raithe]

It really depends on your playstyle and your level of ocd...

 

If you get in a couple of pvp matches and a few starship missions here and there to break up the play of missions you can easily skip the bonus series, or even chunks of the world missions. I have to admit, I push that myself because I find I loathe hitting Nar Shaddaa and not having (relatively) quick access to a speeder... Here's looking forward to 1.3 and the legacy option that will let you pick up Speeder licence at level 10...

[Spider]

That's weird, I feel like I'm always working on a class quest.

 

Basically every quest hub is something along the lines of 1 class quest missions, 1-2 planet main mission, 3-8 side missions. And most of the time the planet main missions are the longest one, so time spent doing non-class missions is probably around 80% or so. Less if you're doing flashpoints and bonus series. Rough estimates, but still.

[Cantousent]

Now, I'm personally happily retired from all forms of online gaming at the moment, but I can only the imagine the case now, that if I was a fresh faced new starter on WoW, I would in all likelihood level solo to the level cap, grind the group finder tool to get a decent set of starter gear, then hit a brick wall because I know essentially nobody on the server. I know this to be true to some degree because I tried an experiment a couple years ago, creating an alt on a a well-populated Oceanic timezone server, and did just that. Social butterflies may find different of course, but I'd bet that a decent sized proportion of current players are having an experience like that, and thus don't have terribly much incentive to stick around.

 

Eh, I dont know about that. While I agree that there is much less "community" and you do run into a huge pile of tards in LFG I think LFG/LFR is an adequate tool to prevent people from hitting that wall. I mean, I dont have to be your buddy to down bosses. Although I do wish raid finder didnt stick you in those lower difficulty raids. If SWTOR had this tool from the beginning I would probably still be playing.

 

LFR obviously wasn't around back when I did the experiment I described, but I don't see it doing anything at all socially - it merely advances the effectively solo play experience one more step before encountering the same wall. By that note though I'll have to admit my experience with LFR is minimal - I did it for the first two to three weeks of its release but left it because it was neither fun (partly because of the anonymous nature of LFR and partly because Dragon Soul is a terribly designed raid) nor necessary to fuel normal (and subsequently heroic) raid progression. I did not use the tool at all for my last three or so months of WoW.

 

 

Admittedly my last month was literally just logging on for a raid twice a week, bang my head against questionably designed hardmode bosses and logging out straight after, and doing absolutely nothing else. Was good to get heroic Spine on literally the last day of my subscription though.

 

I just popped in to take a look around and noticed this. I haven't played World of Warcraft for about a year now, but LFG was in place for some months before I closed my account. I don't think it had much of an impact one way or the other in terms of group cohesion for most folks. The reality is, if you want to stay in the running for current end game raiding, you had to grind out more dailies at the start of each expansion than most guilds could provide in members. Hell, half the time you were LFG with other guildies. As a healer, I was in demand with guildies, so that might have impacted how I experienced it, but it didn't make any difference, you had to grind grind grind anyhow and lfg just made it that much easier.

[Calax]

Now, I'm personally happily retired from all forms of online gaming at the moment, but I can only the imagine the case now, that if I was a fresh faced new starter on WoW, I would in all likelihood level solo to the level cap, grind the group finder tool to get a decent set of starter gear, then hit a brick wall because I know essentially nobody on the server. I know this to be true to some degree because I tried an experiment a couple years ago, creating an alt on a a well-populated Oceanic timezone server, and did just that. Social butterflies may find different of course, but I'd bet that a decent sized proportion of current players are having an experience like that, and thus don't have terribly much incentive to stick around.

 

Eh, I dont know about that. While I agree that there is much less "community" and you do run into a huge pile of tards in LFG I think LFG/LFR is an adequate tool to prevent people from hitting that wall. I mean, I dont have to be your buddy to down bosses. Although I do wish raid finder didnt stick you in those lower difficulty raids. If SWTOR had this tool from the beginning I would probably still be playing.

 

LFR obviously wasn't around back when I did the experiment I described, but I don't see it doing anything at all socially - it merely advances the effectively solo play experience one more step before encountering the same wall. By that note though I'll have to admit my experience with LFR is minimal - I did it for the first two to three weeks of its release but left it because it was neither fun (partly because of the anonymous nature of LFR and partly because Dragon Soul is a terribly designed raid) nor necessary to fuel normal (and subsequently heroic) raid progression. I did not use the tool at all for my last three or so months of WoW.

 

 

Admittedly my last month was literally just logging on for a raid twice a week, bang my head against questionably designed hardmode bosses and logging out straight after, and doing absolutely nothing else. Was good to get heroic Spine on literally the last day of my subscription though.

 

I just popped in to take a look around and noticed this. I haven't played World of Warcraft for about a year now, but LFG was in place for some months before I closed my account. I don't think it had much of an impact one way or the other in terms of group cohesion for most folks. The reality is, if you want to stay in the running for current end game raiding, you had to grind out more dailies at the start of each expansion than most guilds could provide in members. Hell, half the time you were LFG with other guildies. As a healer, I was in demand with guildies, so that might have impacted how I experienced it, but it didn't make any difference, you had to grind grind grind anyhow and lfg just made it that much easier.

The detrimental effects of LFG have been on the servers themselves. Instead of having to have a list of people you knew were fairly good at the game to run through a dungeon that was assigned by a quest giver... you just sat there and waited. Social interactions on the servers slowed to a crawl and slowly became a troll fest because there was no reason to maintain a "reputation" within the servers community beyond those you played with directly, This allowed the community to become more toxic (while before, it was kept in check by the need of a player to find and work with a team of people for their dungeons).

 

At this point, servers are little more than "sit around and grind mob" zones, while LFG and LFR make everything homogenous and without consequence. You were a **** to another player? Oh well, there's nearly a million people on this battlegroup, no reason you will ever see him again! Although most groups will end up just being five people silently zooming through an instance, only stopping to yell because the tank pulled to much, or the dps didn't realize the rest of the group was 800 yds the other way.

[Cantousent]

I agree with a lot of what you said, Super Cal, but the fact remains that the structure of the game, and the requirements of badges (or points or whatever they're using now) are high enough that you have to have something more than just guildies to grind dailies. I haven't played for a while, but if things have changes significantly, I'm sure you'll let me know. Frankly, I think the game has been a haven for elitist pigs for a long long time. I do think trade channel has been aweful for a good while, but that was true even before the extensive lfg function. Now, I will say that looking for raid was just starting to be functional when I left but, if I read gifted right, lfr still doesn't cover the very latest end game raids. If that's the case, you still can't be a complete and utter ****head or you won't last in a guild. On the flip side, even without lfr, stupid asses fixating on loot drops diminished the game. Frankly, I have still never never fought over loot drops in any game. In defense of folks who have complained about loot drops, I can say that I've seen some punk assed **** in regards to deserving people getting screwed by good ol' boy loot masters in raids. Hell, I've been one of them, but bitching about virtual loot drops is beneath me. I know I'm a little on the lubricated side right now, but that doesn't change a damned thing about the essence of what I've said.

 

EDIT: For my sins, I probablly will try ToR. I think Bioware has had their good and bad moments, but I've heard enough good stuff to give it a chance, even though I expect it will be briefly.

Edited June 27, 2012 by Cantousent

[Raithe]

And of course 1.3 is now live and working.

So they've added some more graphical functionality, and supposedly also made improvements on it so lower-end machines will work even better in handling it.

 

They've added a slew of "Character Options" to the Legacy component, so rather then opening them up for every alt you have on the server, they'll only be available to specific characters. But you can use them to tailor extra xp awards to specific areas. So if you focus on Story Quests beyond everything else, you'll be getting more xp for those, and thus won't need to do so much other stuff to stay levelled.. Or for PvP warzone, or Flashpoint or.. etc. Also a bunch of "convenience" options to improve affection gain from Companions in different situations, the likelihood of getting criticals when crafting.. Pretty much just a few small "goodies" rather then anything too flash.

Although the ability to get a Speeder at level 10 rather then having to wait till level 25 is probably going to be a wee bit useful... I really dislike not having a speeder when I first arrive on Nar Shaddaa...

[Calax]

I agree with a lot of what you said, Super Cal, but the fact remains that the structure of the game, and the requirements of badges (or points or whatever they're using now) are high enough that you have to have something more than just guildies to grind dailies. I haven't played for a while, but if things have changes significantly, I'm sure you'll let me know. Frankly, I think the game has been a haven for elitist pigs for a long long time. I do think trade channel has been aweful for a good while, but that was true even before the extensive lfg function. Now, I will say that looking for raid was just starting to be functional when I left but, if I read gifted right, lfr still doesn't cover the very latest end game raids. If that's the case, you still can't be a complete and utter ****head or you won't last in a guild. On the flip side, even without lfr, stupid asses fixating on loot drops diminished the game. Frankly, I have still never never fought over loot drops in any game. In defense of folks who have complained about loot drops, I can say that I've seen some punk assed **** in regards to deserving people getting screwed by good ol' boy loot masters in raids. Hell, I've been one of them, but bitching about virtual loot drops is beneath me. I know I'm a little on the lubricated side right now, but that doesn't change a damned thing about the essence of what I've said.

 

EDIT: For my sins, I probablly will try ToR. I think Bioware has had their good and bad moments, but I've heard enough good stuff to give it a chance, even though I expect it will be briefly.

LFR only covers the end game raid. It's just that the fights are much easier (having mechanics changed, and life pools/damage dealt lower), and the loot you receive is weaker than you'd find in the actual raid itself. And, anymore, with the LFG/LFR tools in place, you end up only having two "pick up" raids running a week, because of population issues and the general feeling of elitism. At this point WoW is in it's decline as it becomes harder and harder to access by newer players (and far more hostile to newbies) and everyone is sort of scrambling to figure out which game is going to take over it's spot as reigning king of MMO's, with TOR being lined up as one of the top contenders despite it's issues.

[Oblarg]

At this point WoW is in it's decline as it becomes harder and harder to access by newer players (and far more hostile to newbies)

 

Hahahahaha, what? Everyone I know who is jumping ship from WoW (myself included, a fair while ago) is doing so because it's becoming too dumbed-down and new-player oriented.

[Nepenthe]

At this point WoW is in it's decline as it becomes harder and harder to access by newer players (and far more hostile to newbies)

 

Hahahahaha, what? Everyone I know who is jumping ship from WoW (myself included, a fair while ago) is doing so because it's becoming too dumbed-down and new-player oriented.

Yeah, because old grognards are always the impartial judge of that... :D