Wednesday, March 21, 2012

As I mentioned a bit ago I've been getting lost in the Star Wars: The Old Republic.  The question is, With all of the cloned MMO's out there what makes SWTOR worth playing?

The Answer is:  The Story. 

Bioware actually broke the mold on this one and made a story driven MMO.  On the upside it gives a level of immersion rarely seen in MMO's and via a medium no major MMO has tackled.  Cinematic cut-scenes  guide you from Mission to Mission as you travel through the Old Republic universe.  Each character Class has it's own unique story shared between their two advanced classes, and none of these stories feel dry and drawn out. 

Crafting in the Old Republic is handled by Companions.  NPC's you have limited control over (you can turn on and off abilities), who follow you around (1 at a time and hot swappable out of combat) and assist you as you progress through the game.  As you travel you can gather resources which non-active Companions can transform into items.  Currently there are issues with Crafting that need to be addressed.  Currently most Top Tier craftables are inferior to easily obtainable Mid Tier Raid gear, they are very much in need of being rebalanced for the long term good of the game establishing a player driven economy. 

In reality there are only 4 character classes, each class has a Mirror class in the opposite faction.  Sith Warriors are more or less equivalent to Jedi Knights, Bounty Hunters to Troopers, Imperial Agents to Smugglars, etc.  While there are minor differences they are mainly in damage types, damage application (instant vs animation triggered), and animation types.  Sith Inquisitors for example gain Force Lighting, while their mirror the Jedi Consular gains Force Project (a hail of stones).  All these differences are minor in first regards but can lead to quite a difference in overall effectiveness and tactics.  Unfortunately currently the favor seems to lead towards Empire Faction characters leading to a large imbalance of Republic to Imperial characters on most servers. 

Advance Classes are mirrored as well, if you don't know what advance classes are let me explain.  At lvl 10 you get to choose between 2 paths for a character.  Jedi Knights can choose between Jedi Guardian and Jedi Sentinel, each has different strengths, weaknesses, and roles.  Guardians for example are Tank Classes for the most part, while Sentinels are Melee DPS. 

I will have to say SWTOR is a very enjoyable game, and worth the time to check out.  It's still a very immature game as it has only been live for a few months, so don't go into it expecting everything to be flawless. 

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to RSS Feed Follow me on Twitter!