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I got Sith Inquisitor to 10, Imperial Agent to 11, Bounty Hunter to 10.

So far.. im amazed on how fun Imperial Agent was, i really didnt care about the class till i played it. Now i might keep it as a main.

Well at least we can play next weekend. From what I hear its a stress test every week till launch

Spyder68 wrote:I got Sith Inquisitor to 10, Imperial Agent to 11, Bounty Hunter to 10.

So far.. im amazed on how fun Imperial Agent was, i really didnt care about the class till i played it. Now i might keep it as a main.

I have yet to find a class that I did not enjoy, and that's getting most things to the third planet.

This is also the first MMO i do not want to rush through.

I went through the inquisitor story.

After that i started spamming spacebar through the other classes. I dont want it spoiled for release on my main character.

Id go through it more, but i only got invited for the weekend (stress testing), so could care less.

I'd be very cautious about what you say concerning the game (as far as reviews/previews) because of the NDA. If you ever want to have a shot at future Beta tests, be careful. You've been warned.

(That being said, I'm glad it sounds like a good game!)

Wyte, although there's a NDA, once they start opening things up as much as they do for the weekenders, NDA is basically out the window.

Agreed. Not to mention, pretty much everyone that has posted, has left it pretty vague as far as whats in the game.

Woot! Check your mail guys anyone that tested before should have another invite for the long weekend

Yeah I got in as well, just finished the 20something gigs download. Looking forward to it, it'll be what decides my preorder.

NDA is out btw.

dont forget from what i read.

This weekend is NOT unlimited access.

They are letting so many start testing on Friday, adding more Sat, adding more Sun adding more Mon.

Then its over.


They are simulating pre order logins with this.

But so far once your in your in.

Supposed to be another email coming when you can start.


btw, got to 16 vanguard, 11 shadow, 11 Sage, this week.

So far the game is great.

Downloaded the Beta client a couple of days ago, allowed to play from around 5pm Sat afternoon, looking forward to giving it a go.

Will be interesting, as of right now I am not getting it, not sure it is going to be that different from WoW to warrent a second MMO.
A bit of luck, allowing me to somehow get a Beta invite will allow me to decide if that intial feeling is correct or not.

Eitherway, as with other Beta's I will test as much as I can, report any issues, bugs etc.

Going to have to think on what to try, although I have no real idea what class combos/races are, will be interesting just to get on the creator screen.

Disappointed, I am, this game makes me.

juraigamer wrote:Disappointed, I am, this game makes me.

Because? All the other posters that got to try it a weekend or two ago had positive things to say about it.

I am in the 10am Friday start time and this will be my first chance to try the game.

I've played the beta, I've played all the classes to level 5.

It just feels stale. The combat, the skill usage, the questing, hell even the star wars theme is stale. Personal story doesn't cut it.

Granted, if it lacked a monthly fee, I would be happy playing it. As it stands, this is a game I will completely pass up, which is a shame as it had so much promise.

Level 5 is about 3/4 quests done in the tutorial area, with hordes of new players, competing for spawns etc. Not to mention it's extremely linear and cramped. As an agent I went from 5 to 8 in a group for the heroic area and once I got back to the trainer my number of abilities had doubled. I think if you went a bit further in the game you might get a better view. That's why I am still undecided on the game. I also went the way of multiple classes but then I realised the tutorials were more or less the same and I want to see the actual game beyond the newbie area.

The game runs great (but then again I knew it would, the computer is a beast, 100fps on average with full details, although AA is off) and while completely Wowish the gameplay seems to have a few things added over.

As an example, while running with the group I mentioned we ended up completing the main quest and headed back to turn in. I took down a few stragglers then helped a duo that aggroed 2 packs and fell behind. The rest of the group had returned and talked to the npc. I got a window asking me if I wanted to join the conversation through holocom and when I did I witnessed and participated to the dialogue through a holographic image of myself. The same system is used for most questlines progressing outside of quest hubs. It's nothing new, Wow also allows to go through questlines "in the field" but instead of the questbook just popping in front of you witnessing the actual discussion adds alot to the immersion (to me that is).

Of course this also means that the pace is much slower. These conversations take time (but are simpler than say Mass Effect, I have yet to have more options than the standard Up/Mid/Low answer, no options to try to get more informations on any subjects..Maybe later in the storyline?). I doubt it will be a problem for me, but I guess not everyone is into it (I still rarely if at all skip any parts in Mass Effect 2 despite finishing it 3 or 4 times).

I also like taking on groups of enemies instead of single pickings every time. Combat as an agent took a bit to get used to, the cover mechanic being a bit weird at first. Once I understood that I needed to target the enemy in order to have valid cover positions show up I started rolling from cover to cover unleashing sniper fire and grenades onto anyone foolish enough to stand before our group. Some abilities are usable only when in cover, but if there's none available you can still just crouch wherever you are and use them, you just won't get any defensive bonus against the target.

This went on a bit longer than I first intended, but I'll say one last thing : the atmosphere seemed to me a bit too tame for a galaxy at war. Even as a sith the first few quests I made were pretty basic both in content and feel. Then one of the first secondary quests of the agent ended with me shooting a man in the face at point blank in front of his kid, in order for his mother to ship him off to Korriban to become a sith (or die trying). That wasn't unexpected as the option clearly said "Kill him" but the actual execution was very explicit.

More later after I add a few more hours into my agent

Just as a point of fact:

What we're seeing right now isn't "a galaxy at war". It's "a galaxy at cold war".

The Old Republic novel "Deceived" illustrates this well.

Really enjoyed it, had a strong feel of Mass Effect, for obvious reasons, which is a big positive in my book. The fully voiced quests in the same style as Mass Effect is also a huge boon. (As in you don't just repeat what you are clicking on.)

Quests are fun, and the characterisation from having full dialogue really helps maintain your interest while playing, felt much more like I was playing a single player RPG, with blue names running around on occasion, which was nice. The Individual instancing for quests was a genius move by the way, as it allows you to feel the story is focused on you, and you are not just in a queue behind thirty other fellas waiting to speak to the large Hutt.

Combat seems smooth, and tricks you into thinking there is more going on than repeating the same button clicks, with plenty of attack and parry animations. In General very polished, although that really is something that needs to be the case.

I've seen folks say it again and again with MMO launches, its not fair to comapre it to 7yrs of WoW polish, its only just out, and its never saved any MMO from a bad launch. Nope, its not fair, but thats what's flexing up on the other side of the room, you can either make certain the game is as good as it can be, or hope a few patches will solve your problems quick.

From my brief introduction, if TOR can maintain that level of performance on launch day, and doesn't crash and burn like other high profile launches in reccent years due to horrying bug issues and lag. Then I can see it doing well, its seems if nothing else the launch of WaR has shown EA 'potentially' what not to roll out in the first week.

Hopefully with a Star Wars licence, and a game thats seems polished as this, more folks will come into the MMO genre. The more the merrier, as there is nothing as sad as a empty MMO.

As to me purchasing it, damn now I'm torn. I'd really like to give it a go, but alot will deend on if Aurelia likes it as we tend to play MMO's together. At this moment, I am thinking there is enough in it that I would consider a CE if I was to go in, going to have to have a think over the next few days.

The biggest problem they had for Friday and Saturday early on was that you couldn't Log Out or Exit Game without Alt-F4ing.

That's okay, I wasn't planning on it anyways.

Yea, you cant honestly give an opinion if you only played the classes for such a short time period. The quests get alot better, and the skills multiply fast.

Just in case it was missed, the NDA has been lifted.

With that said:

I'm pretty happy with this game. My Trooper is 20 at this point, and I've been playing the Commando. I'm kinda sad though, as Commando isn't as fun entirely as I had hoped--the Vanguard is a surprise hit for me though.

The Good: Full voice-acting is fantastic. I quite enjoy the fact that Tim Omundson of Psych is the voice for the Trooper's first companion.
The crafting system is pretty nice as you do not actually have to sit down and do it yourself. After I got my ship and my Robobutler, I just send the droid on gathering and crafting missions--no downtime there.
The Space Missions are quite fun. They play very arcadey.
You do very little in the way of autoattacking, which is again awesome.

The Bad: At points, it feels like you're playing a Single Player game with multiplayer options.
FPS can take a major hit in some locales.
Gathering can be very hit or miss. Quite often you'll get a huge excess of stuff that you do not need/want--and very little in terms of the other.

So i have a Level 42 Jedi Shadow, and a Level 42 Jugger.

The Jugger was bugged so i could not load in with him.


Now for the shadow (of course my least favorite class)

I took the time with her and went to see the other planets..

Sooo Wide open.. i went to Hoth, and i loved it at first sight.

With this being stress test weekend. I rolled new characters to play.

I took BH to level 20, and then Jugger to 14

I was thinking, this is going to suck with mass players this weekend, every server setting at full.

But.. i had no issue getting my quests done, i also never once found myself fighting for Mobs to kill.

The only issue i could have seen is Republic Jedi starting zone freeing people from cages could have been a tad cramped.


The Alt-F4 bug to exit came up last week during closed beta. Its not a long standing one, just one that popped up.


I had Zero Lag this weekend on top of it all.


As for crafting/Gathering.

I love it. Having your companions do it for you is good stuff to me.

I cant wait for all 5x Companions, you can send all 5 gathering.

So who else pre-ordered?

The day it came up for preorder.

Now that some personal friends of mine got into this past beta weekend, I'm definitely going to pick it up. They enjoyed it as much as I have been for the duration of the tests and I had even more fun questing around with everyone (as well as seeing the other classes' story missions).

I absolutely love the dialogue options and the way quests can change slightly depending on what you pick and when you're in a group it can be decided by any party member.

Here is my prediction of SW:TOR.

First month out they will see huge numbers of players in the game, so much so they will add additional servers to keep up with the capacity after the servers crash. After a few game play tweaks and bug fix patches, the devs start working overtime to get more content in the game and to squash gold-sellers. Estimated players are 3 - 4 million in US alone.

Second month out 75% of players have hit max lvl on main toon and are working on alts, grinding pvp or finishing mastering the raids. The devs have a massive hiring frenzy to help complete additional content and features. The game gets negative reviews on a few of the hardcore MMO sites, with complaints ranging from "It doesn't feel like Star Wars","Its a WOW clone with spaceships"," This isn't an MMO, Its a co-op with PVP" to other complaints ranting about how it was doomed from the start and EA just wants your money. Estimated players are 5 - 6.5 million world wide with an increase in china due to gold farming.

3 to 4 months out the first "major" patch comes out with some interesting features and new "dungeons". 500k players have left because to them it was an ok game but it really wasn't for them or they've seen or played something to similar to it or just game burn out. EA start to get worried because most of the profits are going to LucasArts and they're just making enough to keep up with the server fees and dev staff support. The hardcore MMO sites start reporting horror stories of awful customer service, accounts getting deleted because they players were mistaken as being bots and or gold farmers, videos detailing bugs that have been in the game since release and youtube rants of people with anger issues just ripping into the game and Star Wars in general. Estimated players are 4.5 to 5.5 million.

6 to 7 months out the "Off The Rails" patch hits, offering players total space freedom to fly around in, servers crash and remain down for 5hrs to 6 days, angering MANY players. Servers are back up but no compensation (free days) is given on order for either EA or LucasArts. 300k to 560k players rage quit, 9.5 out of 10 reviews on MANY gaming websites drop down to 7.5 of 6 due to negative responses from players. Lay-off occur due to cut backs or re-organizing, many sites record this as the beginning of the end for TOR. Estimated players are 3.25 to 4 million

9 to 11 months out EA and/or LucasArts tweak to game a bit to appeal to a broader (younger) audience, alienated the hardcore Star Wars fans and leading to massive rage quits. EA starts to consolidates servers and merge player groups due to costs. Estimated players are 1.5 to 3 million.

14 to 15 months out LucasArts sues EA/Bioware for botching everything up, wins the case and sells the game rights to Activision/Blizzard. Estimated players are 350k to 700k on two of the surviving servers.

24 to 36 months out after some TLC and a few mini expansions the game sees a modest resurgence. Estimated players are 2.5 to 3.75 million and remain stable.

Kanluwen wrote:With that said:

I'm pretty happy with this game. My Trooper is 20 at this point, and I've been playing the Commando. I'm kinda sad though, as Commando isn't as fun entirely as I had hoped--the Vanguard is a surprise hit for me though.

The Good: Full voice-acting is fantastic. I quite enjoy the fact that Tim Omundson of Psych is the voice for the Trooper's first companion.

My desire to get this game just went from a 0 to 9.5 after I read this sentence.

Kanluwen wrote:The day it came up for preorder.

Same

Coolyo294 wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:
I quite enjoy the fact that Tim Omundson of Psych is the voice for the Trooper's first companion.

My desire to get this game just went from a 0 to 9.5 after I read this sentence.

Lassie!

mondo80 wrote:Here is my prediction of SW:TOR.

First month out they will see huge numbers of players in the game, so much so they will add additional servers to keep up with the capacity after the servers crash. After a few game play tweaks and bug fix patches, the devs start working overtime to get more content in the game and to squash gold-sellers. Estimated players are 3 - 4 million in US alone.

Second month out 75% of players have hit max lvl on main toon and are working on alts, grinding pvp or finishing mastering the raids. The devs have a massive hiring frenzy to help complete additional content and features. The game gets negative reviews on a few of the hardcore MMO sites, with complaints ranging from "It doesn't feel like Star Wars","Its a WOW clone with spaceships"," This isn't an MMO, Its a co-op with PVP" to other complaints ranting about how it was doomed from the start and EA just wants your money. Estimated players are 5 - 6.5 million world wide with an increase in china due to gold farming.

3 to 4 months out the first "major" patch comes out with some interesting features and new "dungeons". 500k players have left because to them it was an ok game but it really wasn't for them or they've seen or played something to similar to it or just game burn out. EA start to get worried because most of the profits are going to LucasArts and they're just making enough to keep up with the server fees and dev staff support. The hardcore MMO sites start reporting horror stories of awful customer service, accounts getting deleted because they players were mistaken as being bots and or gold farmers, videos detailing bugs that have been in the game since release and youtube rants of people with anger issues just ripping into the game and Star Wars in general. Estimated players are 4.5 to 5.5 million.

6 to 7 months out the "Off The Rails" patch hits, offering players total space freedom to fly around in, servers crash and remain down for 5hrs to 6 days, angering MANY players. Servers are back up but no compensation (free days) is given on order for either EA or LucasArts. 300k to 560k players rage quit, 9.5 out of 10 reviews on MANY gaming websites drop down to 7.5 of 6 due to negative responses from players. Lay-off occur due to cut backs or re-organizing, many sites record this as the beginning of the end for TOR. Estimated players are 3.25 to 4 million

9 to 11 months out EA and/or LucasArts tweak to game a bit to appeal to a broader (younger) audience, alienated the hardcore Star Wars fans and leading to massive rage quits. EA starts to consolidates servers and merge player groups due to costs. Estimated players are 1.5 to 3 million.

14 to 15 months out LucasArts sues EA/Bioware for botching everything up, wins the case and sells the game rights to Activision/Blizzard. Estimated players are 350k to 700k on two of the surviving servers.

24 to 36 months out after some TLC and a few mini expansions the game sees a modest resurgence. Estimated players are 2.5 to 3.75 million and remain stable.

And where did all this come from?

KingCracker wrote:


And where did all this come from?

He's just guessing. He is describing the same format WoW had in terms of how it has run, the only problem is... TOR is far too over hyped. Too many people will pick it up, just to put it back down. His prediction doesn't even factor in other games that will come out in the future.

TOR is just going to be a stepping stone for mmo players, and the first step on the road to redemption for wow players.