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For anyone that would like to try out SWTOR, they are planning a large weekend beta that will likely take place on Nov 25-28 (Thanksgiving). You need to get a beta key from one of the many sites currently offering them in order to get in.. curse, wowhead, ign, joystiq, and many other game-related websites have them...

EDIT: Also I have a spare key for the weekend beta that I don't need if anyone wants it... you need to go to swtor.com and create an account, then go to https://account.swtor.com/user/codes when you are logged in and should be able to redeem this code: AAS2-5VPS-NPLX-NPJL. Though obviously please let us know here if you do so other people don't try to use it EDIT2: Oh, one last thing, the deadline for redeeming that particular code is midnight tomorrow (Friday), so no slacking if you're interested...

Cool. I used the key code. Thanks a bunch keith. I had received an email that i would be part of this beta event, but never got my code. If I get one, i'll post it here for someone to use.

let me know if you get another. not going to sign up for random website crap to get one Some of them want you to enroll in a fee-based program. screw that.

I got another one from my SWTOR pre-order on Origin: GKHY-PLTW-K7RW-4FXP. It also has to be redeemed by midnight CST tonight...

EDIT: Also, the NDA was officially lifted today so there's a ton of content flooding the 'net from beta testers just now...

Couple of things to mention about the starting experience in general for new players. Feel free to not read any of this if you don't want any spoilers/bias to your gameplay experience at all

You can skip lines of dialog by pressing the spacebar (though why would you?) You can cancel/restart most conversations by hitting ESC, which is handy if you make the wrong dialogue choice or something goes wonky. The very first thing you'll want to do is hit the preferences and turn on area/auto looting, your extra toolbars, maybe subtitles (I always do since it's loud around here), and then obviously whatever other things strike your fancy.

The UI is not currently modable or even moveable for the most part. They have already stated that they plan to add UI features/modability post-launch as a major priority, but I can say up front that Michelle is not going to like the launch UI very much. Some key missing UI features: target of target, threat indications of any kind, any kind of macro system, mouseover casting, "pass thru" casting. Pretty sure there IS a focus target, but you have to enable it in preferences and then, I think, ctrl-click (or maybe it was alt-click?) to set the focus target. There are moveable/sizeable raid frames at least (raid frames can also be enabled for party mode in the preferences).

Starter/tutorial planet goes to level 10. For efficiency's sake you want to be level 10 before heading to the fleet for the first time, so grind out the last quarter bar on mobs or what have you if the quests didn't quite get you there.

The actual mechanics for your class don't really kick in until level 10/the fleet. At that point you can pick up your advanced class. The AC you pick can dramatically alter the gameplay style from the first 10 levels. Once grabbing your AC, this is also where you can run the first flashpoint (Black Talon/Esseles). At the end of which you can zone straight to your next quest planet, which is a nice touch. This FP does not require tank or healer. You just have to pay attention to boss mechanics and avoid the avoidable damage and/or GY zerg. Also, kiting is your friend. Tanks and healers really don't start getting tanking and healing skills of note until around level 16 anyway, which is about the time you get access to the next FP.

(One note... I've heard this initial FP has been re-tuned to a 2-man FP instead of a regular 4-man, though I can't confirm that currently. This is of particular interest because this same FP also has a max-level "hard" mode, but no word yet on if the hard mode will also be 2-man. Would be kind of interesting to mix it up with the regular 4-man stuff)

If you are a force user you get your lightsaber as part of your class quests just prior to leaving the tutorial planet. You get your first companion around level 7 or 8. You get your ship and can do the space combat mini-game around level 12 or so as part of your class quests. You can send your companion to sell all your vendor trash while out in the field, but of course then you lose your companion for about 2 minutes. Crafting (called crew skills) are based primarily on having your ship/companions, so I believe you can start tinkering with those around level 12 too. Some harvesting skills might be available sooner (there are crew-skill trainers at the fleet).

So in short I suggest playing at least one toon into the mid to late teens in order to get a decent feel for most aspects of the game. If you get in for the full weekend duration (I believe it's slotted to run for 4 days) and play a regular amount, it should be easy to attain those levels. If you really put in the hours you can probably get two or even three toons to the mid teens. On the previous 3-day beta weekends a few people have gotten single toons up into the mid to late 30s (max-level is 50).

#5240787 Koe wrote:

I got another one from my SWTOR pre-order on Origin: GKHY-PLTW-K7RW-4FXP. It also has to be redeemed by midnight CST tonight...

EDIT: Also, the NDA was officially lifted today so there's a ton of content flooding the 'net from beta testers just now...

I believe they've extended the deadline for redeeming these to Sunday sometime so if you didn't get around to it yet, still a chance for someone to use this code...

done!

Been dinkin around with it for the open beta weekend. It's...It's WoW. And I like WoW so I'm ok with that. New and prettier locations to explore. Figured I'd throw some words together aboot it if anyone else was mucking about or interested.

Pro's:
Like I said above it takes some of long standing good things of WoW and puts it in a prettier package. Down to the mini map for quests and Icons to follow along with.
Companions - Everyone get's a pet they can sell your gray vendor trash'able items. Some can tank or dps. And from my *Limited* thus far understanding are what all your tradeskilling is done through as well. They make it easy to be soloing at all times so there's no downtime.
And on the no downtime front, out of combat meditation is swell, your never more then 15 seconds away from being back in the action.

Cons:
The talky talky is terrible, I've played maybe 5-6 hours thus far, 2-3 of that has been locked into cutscenes. This game makes Metal Gear Solid look concise and to the point. And if you skip the talking animations it doens't even give you a word wrap to read. You just never know. Kind of a downer there.
Tradeskilling: It takes forever, 60 seconds per combine for the most rudimentary of stuff, I'm not sure if it goes up in time as you progress, but it was designed to be a grind that is for sure.

Even with the negatives though, had some good pvp fights and been enjoyin it. Good chance I'll be trying it out when it goes live and I wasn't really expecting much out of it atoll.

Additional Happy fun edit time bonus info: The 4 person to a group limit is gonna be unique, this is just theorycrafting at the moment it seems like it will force it down some cookie cutter roads. 1 tank 1 heal 2 dps no exceptions, probably going for one of each arch type I'd imagine? Only done 2 instance/flashpoint majiggers thus far.

#5276763 Lunch wrote:

The talky talky is terrible, I've played maybe 5-6 hours thus far, 2-3 of that has been locked into cutscenes. This game makes Metal Gear Solid look concise and to the point. And if you skip the talking animations it doens't even give you a word wrap to read.

There is an "Other" tab in the chat window that will show you all the dialogue history even if you are spacebar'ing through stuff. Also, you can turn on subtitles so you can just read then spacebar w/o waiting for the VO to finish. This is just a personal taste thing I guess though.. I'm enjoying the VO a ton and haven't skipped anything yet really, except for a couple of the most simplistic quest turn-ins.

Tradeskilling: It takes forever, 60 seconds per combine for the most rudimentary of stuff, I'm not sure if it goes up in time as you progress, but it was designed to be a grind that is for sure.

Late/end-game tradeskilling is, as far as I can tell, more of an EVE-like system. You are intended to set your companions to work on long tradeskill operations and mission skills, which can keep them occupied for 30 to 45m of real-life time, while you keep playing. This also gets more relevant as you get more companions I think.

Since Meg & I have had a chance to play together this time around, I was finally able to get a feel for what doing the story/questing stuff is like with a constant partner, and I have to say, it's pretty awesome.

Quests fall into two categories: general and class-specific. For general quests, if someone in your party begins a conversation with a quest giver, the other people in the party are given the option to join the conversation in person if they are nearby or by holo-communicator if they are far away. The social roll system is used for all of the dialogue choices (which essentially means a random roll is done to see whose conversation choice gets shown -- for LS/DS choices, you get the LS/DS points you picked regardless of which outcome is actually shown). This includes quest pick-ups and turn-ins, so only one person has to be near the quest giver for everyone to be able to get and complete quests. If your party members choose not to join your group conversation then it works just like if you were on your own and not in a group.

The group conversation thing is pretty fun, IMO... feels like playing a tabletop D&D game or something kinda.

For class quests, MOST of that content is inside "instance zones". These are little green and red forcefields you see on doors in various places. If you are not actively on the relevant quest, you can't go through the forcefield. Once inside there is no one else in there and mobs do not respawn and are unique to you. These story instance mini-zones are usually pretty small... just a room or two. If someone in your party goes into a class story instance then the forcefield will turn blue and you can enter to help out. Any conversations inside the story instance will put anyone else inside into "spectator mode", which means they can watch the conversation but do not get to make any dialogue choices and are not really "present" in the conversation. Only the instance owner gets to make conversation choices. However, your party members can help you with fights that take place inside the story instances, which is nice (and happens quite often).

And obviously if you don't want to see their class quest stuff, you just don't go into the instance with them and do something else instead (more often than not you probably have your OWN class quest stuff to do).

There is one gap in class quests; occasionally some class conversations happen outside of story instance zones. When this happens the other people in your party don't get to spectate on those conversations at all. They just see that person with the regular conversation icon over their head. Though thiis has been pretty rare so far...

Another handy feature is the ability to look at your party member's quest logs. This lets you read their class quest details and objectives (and how far they are to completing them), even if it's not a quest that you have. Likewise, quest objectives that your party members have but you don't still show up on your minimap, but in purple instead of the usual green. Definitely a handy feature for when one person is primarily driving and directing...

Something else we noticed... click on n of x quests (gathering quest items, getting some quest item out of a chest, things like that) are available to everyone in the party on the same node. So you don't have to compete with each other for that crap, which is nice...

all servers are full i've been placed in the queue...

#5279417 Estelle wrote:

all servers are full i've been placed in the queue...

Yeah they were doing a bunch of "test restarts" this afternoon that was really bogging things down. Generally the estimated queue times are pretty pessimistic... I've gone from 120 to logged-in within 5 minutes or less...

Thanks for the info sir, yeah the eve online comparision makes alot of sense to me. Gave it a bit more time, still not my favorite but the talky talky way of storytelling does help get you to pay a bit more attention. If they choose to go with a ongoing plot then I think it could be used well. Just a stark change that takes a lil getting used to. All in all through the free weekend they have earned my money to give it a go. Me and Adam (Skwish if any of y'all remember him) put in alot of hours on it. He got multiple 20+'s over the weekend. Jedi Sage is awesome.

Another random thing to throw out there... Meg & I had a chance to do the re-tuned entry-level FP (Black Talon) that has been balanced for 2 people, and it was an interesting experience for me since I had run through that story once before. Made completely different choices this time through and it gave the whole thing a very different feel. Of course that would only work 2 or maybe 3 times, but still the potential for replayability, at least for the first one or two alts on a faction, seems intriguing. The different story choices also seem to have affected minor elements of the instance as well, though it's hard to say for certain since they had re-balanced it between runs so these might have just been things they changed overall. But I'm pretty sure they were story related and not tuning related.

One had to do with random trash that popped up from boarding pods which could be avoided entirely depending on previous story choices, and one had to do with a few static reinforcements found in a couple of areas, again depending on previous story choices. Neither of these were more than minor things of course that had very little impact on the FP, but still it was nice to see your decisions reflected at least that much. I've also read that some FPs have shortcuts or alternate paths based on tradeskills (hacking computers or whatever), so just like some WoW dungeons where you needed a rogue or engineer or had to go the longer way, etc. In short, some decent variety and whatnot.

My two biggest concerns are late-game grinding and end-game ops. I've heard that the late-game (40 to 50) can feel like a bit of a slog and grind, with the "bonus" quest objectives not feeling quite so optional and very much a "kill a bunch of these to level" kind of thing. Hard to judge that though since I haven't experienced it myself, and most of those complaints are coming from long-term beta testers who have leveled 4 or 5 characters to max with no new content. This makes me think they are just burning out, especially when they say things like "the first and even second character was awesome, but after that it just started to feel like a grind". Well... duh.

Also will have to see how end-game shapes up of course. It does not seem like they've had a lot of testing of the end-game raids at all, which is a bit worrisome since they obviously plan to wing that at launch. They at least have multiple end-game flashpoints (7 I think?) and 2 confirmed ops, but the ops (especially hard-mode) have barely been tested at all from what I've heard, so I imagine a nightmare of bugs and "tuning" patches once the first groups start hitting max-level. Luckily this probably won't affect me at all since I won't be power leveling. So I'm guessing most of that will be resolved by the time I get to end-game. Still, I expect it to piss off the hardcore players who hit max level in two or three weeks.

EDIT: Oh, one random thing to add about the class quests and shared/co-op experience. If you have two people of the same class questing together, they can turn on an option in their preferences that lets "same class" people into their class story instances. If this is enabled then when you enter a story instance while grouped with someone of the same class, you are prompted with a popup that asks if you want to go into their instance, in which case you end up in spectator mode just like described in my previous post, or go into your own instance. If you go into their instance in spectator mode, you will NOT get credit for you own quest and will have to do it again in your own instance. The only time this would ever be an issue (since you can just both go into your own instances at the same time and avoid that entirely) is if you both actually needed help killing something in the story instance, in which case you'd have to do it twice. But honestly that should never happen; while there is some refreshing variety of difficulty in content and quests, the class story stuff tends to be on the easy end of that scale. And it does mean that even if you are out of sync questing/level-wise with that person you'd still have the ability to help them as a spectator in their story instance even when it's same-class.

A priori info: I am not a SW buff. I enjoyed the movies, but can't even give you a good synopses of the story. I am not a lore hag, as I've never cared much for stories. I'm a fact kinda girl and stories are for people who have creative minds or at least the capacity to remember them a week later.

I started to level a Jedi Knight. Aside from the obvious bugs (lights extending through an entire plane, people missing from their close-up dialogue cut-scenes, terrain that's in my way, but not visible at all, etc...),It plays very much like any other MMO - all the UI elements are in the normal places (or somewhere else really obvious), settings are accessed via the same hotkeys, movement works the same, combat works the same, etc... Nothing new here at all, which will make for a super easy transition for people who've been playing other MMO's. The UI graphics are nothing special.

This game is very talky-talky, as imi put it. I'm normally not one for a lot of talk, but the story is engaging and the dialogue is well-enough thought- and acted - out to merit listening to. It's a good thing too, because if you don't sit through it, you don't get your quests!

I found the sounds overall to be of high quality, but a little annoying and unfitting. When all I'm doing is one-shotting 5 enemies with a single AOE spell, I don't need a dramatic accompaniment. The walking sounds are a little too crisp and often not what you'd expect for the terrain you're crossing. By default, all sounds are at 100%. I'd suggest turning them all way down unless you're truly excited about every step you take in this game, which I was not.

Having been spoiled by Rift's graphics - lighting, bump-mapping, terrain availability (I kept thinking to myself "I could climb that if this was Rift"), and textures, nothing is this game so far is even remotely impressive - not the characters, nor armor; not the environment, nor UI; not anything - it's all pretty sucky comparatively. I wouldn't think it fair to compare this game to Rift if it were not also an MMO. Skyrim, obviously, would not be a fair measuring tool. With all the money and hype associated with this game, I truly expected more and was constantly disappointed.

Gameplay is very similar to other quest-driven games. You talk to this person, who tells you to talk to another person who will either tell you to talk to yet another person, go retrieve or destroy items, or kill x number of bad guys. You walk your ass over to the area marked on your map and easily complete your quest(s), then make your way back to your quest giver.

One thing I did notice was respawn times on the mobs was just about perfect... you could go all the way into the cave to do your quest, then all the way back out without fighting the same mobs twice, which is a welcome change from WoW or Rift where you almost always have to stealth by or fight mobs you just freakin killed. Quick travel makes it much less of a pain to get around (assuming you've gotten all of your travel points, which I did not).

The major difference between the game design of SWTOR and those from whom it hopes to steal market share is, as I've mentioned, that the dialogue is rich and engaging as are character development and story lines - no this is not just some random Night Elf sending you off to waste some time; It is a very important mission given to you by a very important person and here's why... The voice acting really makes you feel like you're part of something and not just some fool with too much time on their hands.

Overall, I'd say it's worth buying, but not worth paying a subscription fee. Good thing there won't be one or they might not make back the money they spent making this game (no... they probably will just in SW geeks alone). It's definitely worth a good spin if you're a SW fanboi or just looking for something to make you feel better about the other games you're playing (like Aion did). You'll have to be willing to overlook their relative lack of beauty, sophistication, and detail in graphics and accept that this is a talky-talky lore-driven game with light sabers.

Edit: A friend of Tab's says that the graphics a week ago looked much better than those over the weekend (even after having tweaked his video card settings). He seems to think they did something to them for the stress test, so my concerns there may be invalidated on live release.

#5288509 Estelle wrote:

A priori info: I am not a SW buff. I enjoyed the movies, but can't even give you a good synopses of the story. I am not a lore hag, as I've never cared much for stories. I'm a fact kinda girl and stories are for people who have creative minds or at least the capacity to remember them a week later.

I can't remember if I said this here or on the swtor forums somewhere, but the non-force classes (trooper, imperial agent, bounty hunter, and smuggler) play out a lot more like a generic sci-fi setting. Actually they mostly make me feel like I'm playing Mass Effect instead of SW (though I've always been of the opinion that ME is a thinly-veiled SW ripoff anyway, so....) Anyone not big on SW in general may find those classes more entertaining for that reason.

As for graphics, I definitely have to agree that they don't show off much with the starter planets. I mean, granted the engine itself is never going to be Skyrim or even RIFT, no question, but of course that's not what they're pinning their hopes on. That said, the engine IS capable of more than they show off with their starter worlds. Running around the fleet looking out of windows onto ships orbiting the planet, or cruising around downtown Dromund Kaas or Coruscant, does a much better job of showing off what the engine is capable of. Multiple light-source/shadows also look really nice, but they aren't making use of that in nearly enough locations either.

Also, it helped a lot to force AA on in your video card drivers, since they still don't have AA enabled in the client as far as I know. I've had that forced on since the first beta weekend and completely forgot about that

As a random and awesome thought before I lurk off to bed... it kind of makes me laugh.

1 Thing beyond all else WoW has over ToR.

WoW never has to fear George "Boy Toy" Lucas coming in and altering, editing, changing, reimagining, or anything else to it.
ToR doesn't have that immunity, given That George Lucas is lending the rights to Bioware to create ToR at his leisure and grubby money gaining ways...


But he retains and owns in total the rights to anything and everything officially licensed or branded with Star Wars name, so at any time ToR comes out with something that doesn't agree with his vision, he can alter it at his discretion up to and including the entirety of the game.

One thing TOR had that was better than WoW was a lack of trolls. I know this will change, but it was nice to have a generally helpful playerbase that wasn't full of self-entitled people who get off on being asshats in public. Sort of felt like Rift in that regard.

Funny note: the only troll I saw was someone named Estelle.

The one thing that drives me bananas about trying any new MMO is the seemingly substantial portion of the playerbase with battered players syndrome. You'd think that WoW beat them into submission on a daily basis and they'd finally managed to escape with the way some of these players discuss the relative merits of whatever game they're trying. The best part is trying to remain impartial and enjoy a variety of games, because that apparently makes you some sort of traitor.

I'm of two minds when it comes to TOR. On the one hand, I appreciate competition in the high production MMO space, as that will usually result in better experiences for the customers. On the other hand, I loathe the path Bioware has chosen with their game design philosophies since... hell, I guess since Baldur's Gate 2. I've enjoyed a few of their games since then, but each one strays further and further from the experiences I loved. And sure, I could ignore them like I do the majority of console-focused developers, but it's just so hard when I think back to what they were. At this point, a not-insignificant part of me wants to see this crash and burn.

Edit: And yes, I know this makes me look and feel like I'm shaking my fist at the Call of Duty/Gears of War whippersnappers. And frankly, I don't care. Not every modern game needs to be filled with conveniently placed waist-high cover.

Wait a tick, but without the advent of chest high walls and regenning health we might need to plan our attack or have any sort of trepidation of throwing ourselves at the enemy! The gal of it all. I miss health packs and strategy =( I miss you Rainbow 6, come back. Not you Vegas, you poser. But on the Bioware front, I did really enjoy the PC release of Dragon Age: Origins, the only Dragon Age game. Shame they did not continue it.