Windows Star Wars - The Old Republic Discussion

Datacron Locations

http://www.swtor-spy.com/datacrons/

Spoiler

-1915,-476 Belsavis, Maximum Security Section, Ancient Prison Approach - overlooking a valley of lava. +4 Presence. Gal History 70. Tunnel entrance -3122,-177 behind black rock, follow cliff right.

(note) There is rumoured to be a datacron on the fleet. It's not up on google yet. Requires large groups of people due to lots of switches, magnetic doors ect.. I've no doubt there are others not yet documented either.

Matrix Shards

http://www.covenantofthephoenix.com/forums/tutorials/article/63-swtor-matrix-cubes-relics-guide/


Skill Tree - Plan out your build, or experiment to see what will suit you best

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#501.1


WIN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wjf_lWxqyI



Find Us!!!


PvE

Corellian Run - East Coast USA - vdbswong

Frostclaw - English~Europe - Fizzban (Vaskaellon)

Kellian Jarro - English~Europe - GravitySmacked

Luka Sene - English~Europe- Trance, Fluidic

Rogue Moon - English~Europe - soviet_ (Bantros)


PvP

Chuundar - English~Europe - el2k (Dekke)

Kai-Kan - English~Europe - blinkieleblind

Trayus Academy - English~Europe - Smellyhead

Legions of Lettow - English~Europe - soviet_ (Bantros)

 

I am willing to put money on the fact we will see some huge wow update will occur on the 19th.

 

A mate of mine actually just got a job in BioWare working for ToR

 

Niiiice!

 

You forgot to add in subscription model .

1 Month Subscription: $14.99 (£8.99/€12.99)
3 Month Subscription: $13.99 per month (one-time charge of $41.97/£25.17/€35.97)
6 Month Subscription: $12.99 per month (one-time charge of $77.94/£46.14/€65.94)

Which IMO is very reasonable, especially since we Brits don't get shafted with a 1:1 conversion rate.

Also, i was so bummed i missed out on attending the actual Press Conference where the announcement happened. I queued up for BF3 and by the time i got to play, the conference was just about to start . All those who attended also got a ticket to put their names in for a beta invite.

However! I did manage to go to the Community Meet and Greet later (in fact, i've only just got back from it) and it was pretty epic. Got to talk to devs, ask a few questions and more importantly, play the game. Also watched quite a bit of the Huttball PvP and participated in one game.

I'll post some thoughts later, but at the moment i'm still trying to take in everything that happened today, both at the event and after walking around Eurogamer Expo for the entire day (been up since 6am - couldn't get back to sleep ).

 

I'm not even going to be playing this (main reason I am posting here is after listening to a couple of the lads on TS go on about it for about an hour yesterday), but they definately got something wrong in their maths when they converted the prices to Euro... Where does the extra €10 come from ?

Why is there always such terrible euro pricing for things?

 

Extra 10EUR ?

My math (which may be wrong) shows a mark up of around 2EUR per month.

As for terrible Euro pricing for things... i'd hazard a guess that's because Europe's financial state isn't really the best at the moment.

Anyhow, i'll get to work on a writeup.

 

Sorry, I didn't specify, I meant the one-time charge prices

 

Very Long Post Coming Up.

I've tried to bold the more important areas to read around and have added in some TLDR's.

Okay so where to start...

Well, the SWTOR booth/place/area ran Origin Worlds for half the day, and then the latter half was Huttball. Since i was playing BF3 and queuing for OnLive at the start, by the time i got around for queuing for SWTOR, i was in the Huttball side of the day.

As for Huttball itself, i found it to be rather enjoyable although i can see there being some flaws (in terms of balancing). However i will preface these comments with the fact that apparently they've reduced the number of skills since you're jumping straight into a character without having "learnt" his skills along the way.

Firstly, i was playing the Sith Assassin and at first i was like... not many skills here (i had around 7). So i arranged all of them in a rough order that i could remember (where CC was, basic attacks) and then set off. However a dev walked by just as the game was about to start and stated that someone had actually removed a lot of my skills from the hotbar. So after some strange hijinxing around he restored all of them and i actually had enough skills to fill 2 Hotbars... and they were all in a different order. So i ended up playing with a load of new skills that i had no clue about.

- Now... the Sith Assassin seems to be somewhat complicated to play and makes me all the more excited to role him as my main Class. He has some (3, i believe) self buffs to his saber (known as charges) and then can "discharge" these for various different effects. Unfortunately since it was PvP and none of the skills were in order, i didn't get to properly see how they worked, in fact, the only skills i used were Basic Attack, Basic Ranged Attack (Lightning) a Ranged Stun and a Ranged Disable (Whirlwind, lasts a long time but is broken by damage).

With regards to Huttball i can see some issues with balancing. I personally can't see the use for any of the pure DPS classes such as the Gunslinger, Sniper, Mercenary, Commando etc. (unless the latter 2 are healing). The main reason is that there are only 3 ways to lose the ball, to die, to throw it and to hold onto it for too long (and it blows up in your face). As such, i'd think that the only classes needed would be Tanks and Healers and the most Essential Class IMO would be either a Healing Sorcerer/Sage or a Tank Assassin/Shadow, simply because in addition to their primary role they also get an AoE knockback great for either clearing enemies around your ball carrier or to knock the enemy (ball carrier) away from your goal, into fire/poison pits off of ramps etc.

- The main reason why i think Tanks + Healers is fairly obvious, since the Healers heal and the Tanks can withstand the punishment of people wailing on them. Also, people don't drop that easily and i would say the majority (and most effective) of kills/deaths were simply due to standing/being thrown/stunned in(to) the Environmental Hazards which could kill you in about 3-4 seconds.

- Secondly, it was fairly obvious that a coordinated team could Daisy Chain "Throws/Passes" across the map and the only way to "Block" these would be to either stun the ball carrier so they can't throw it, or "intercept the throw" by standing where it'd be thrown (it's a targeted area - not a person). This leads me onto my current observations:

> Currently, the best tactic for Teams with the ball is to roughly spread out and Daisy Chain throws.

> The tactic for teams without the ball is to wail on the Ball Carrier as an 8 (the size of a team) so that they drop as quickly as possible. Hence why a Tank ball carrier would be most suitable.

> However the range of the throw is fairly decent and usually the best throws are done across the environmental hazards so they either have to wait or tank it.

> Thus, Daisy Chaining throws can quickly put significant distance between the enemy team and the ball.

> Therefore in order to counter this, you'd have to "Mark" players for interception, the most obvious way would be a 1:1 system. However this causes problems of its own; PvP chars are obviously a lot tougher, and as such they don't exactly drop to burst, 1v1 fights can also take some time (in the region of maybe 30secs -> 1 min). This obviously isn't ideal as it gives time for the ball carrier to advance and/or get in position. Also, since the ball carrier would be a Tank, it'd be hard to drop them as well.

> As such, the most efficient way is to roughly split the marking to around maybe 4 on the current Ball Carrier and 2/4 on the next possible targets. Although this does leave some players unmarked for possible side passes etc.

Obviously there are various caveats to my analysis, the first being that the game wasn't played with experienced players as such i could be seeing a lack of proper focus fire when trying to target an enemy (i.e. damage is higher than what i think it is) and secondly would be that obviously what i played isn't exactly what is going to ship (more skills being the primary thing) and as such, anything can change, ranging from new mechanics on passing or maybe increased damage during Huttball.

Anyhow, overall it was a positive experience and i can see myself having fun playing it since it's a Team based objective game and not just "kill kill kill".

> Clarfication - Yes i only played one game, but i watched the majority of matches from the PvP Tournament at the Meet n' Greet.

TLDR - Huttball was fun, although i can see some balancing issues.

---

And now, onto the Meet n' Greet .

The event was fairly busy and since i got there late (went out with friends for dinner) i had to wait outside for a bit because the place was full (health and safety reasons) . Thankfully one of the devs recognised me from the Expo and helped to try and get me in .

They basically had around 40 or so PCs running SWTOR with 16 of them being allocated for a PvP Huttball Tournament (because i arrived late i didn't manage to get into a team ). The rest of the PCs were running Origin Worlds and you could choose from any class you wanted from around Level 3 onwards, i personally played the Sith Inquisitor and Imperial Agent.

I think i'll also be trying to contrast with some of the things Joe said in his Bit-Gamer Preview since i think it's possibly one of the most negative articles i've read on the game.

First things first, i'll state the most obvious impression of the game: If you're not looking for a Traditional MMO with a Star Wars/KoTOR features, then this game probably isn't for you. However i don't mean that in a negative way, just that i think it pretty much embodies the description of "Bioware's version of WoW in a KoTOR setting", obviously with features tagged on.

Now, onto actual gameplay, my first playthrough was with the Sith Inquisitor as this is the Class i'll be rolling come release day i probably played around 30-40min as her and started at Level 3. I'll side with Joe on this one that the basic gameplay elements (i.e. combat/questing) are pretty much the same as WoW and feel like somewhat of a grind.

- As with most MMOs these days, not all quests are Kill/Fetch quests and can simply be "go talk to this guy". Bioware's take on this was a quest to go interrogate a Prisoner for information and had it's own Lightside/Darkside options (i.e. convincing or torturing). Obviously a very basic quest, but the added dialogue and choices made it more engaging to play.

- The Class Stories and Mass Effect style dialogues (i won't say Voice Acting as it was a busy room and i couldn't hear the Voices properly - subtitles Cheesecake) really changed things up from the traditional "Talk to NPC Quest Giver, Ignore Text, Press Accept, Look at Objectives", you are always asked to choose what type of response you wish to give (Obedient/Kind, Neutral or Aggressive/Confrontational). This did a rather good job of helping you relate to and shape your character more. One of the things i most liked in the SI's story was a "rival" acolyte and his Master who would constantly look down upon you and insult you... it helped create more of a story and made me more interested even if it did blatantly have "I will defeat and/or kill you at some point in the future" stamped across it in true Bioware storytelling fashion (that's a guess btw, i never played enough to find out since the next quest afterwards was miles away and i stopped playing).

TLDR - Gameplay is pretty much like WoW, but the added context from the Voice Acting/Dialogue Options make it more engaging and helps liven it up. To me it's similar to covering an ugly wall with nice wallpaper although you've left a few gaps. You can tell it's an ugly wall, but you don't necessarily mind looking at it because the wallpaper makes it prettier. However those who are overly negative/critical will only see the wall and ignore the wallpaper.

---

Now, onto the Imperial Agent, this character was also Level 3, i played around 10-20min and to put it straight out there: This is why you won't play a Force Wielding Class (same should obviously apply to the Smuggler ofc). I didn't get to play the Trooper or Bounty Hunter, but as i said earlier, the gameplay was very reminiscent of traditional MMOs and without the "action" of being in someone's face and smacking at them, i personally wouldn't find it very engaging and is why i partially think Joe's Preview was so negative.

The Imperial Agent on the other hand was completely different and has made me consider moving them up on my list of "to-do alts". To put this into a more down-to-earth scenario/context, with the SI i ended up focusing on the quests and doing the MMO thing of bypassing mobs, with the IA i instantly forgo the quests and just went out looking for mobs to kill to the point where i only went and did quests because i wanted to level up and get more abilities.

- So if you hadn't guessed, Cover is awesome and completely changed my view on the game. You have a toggle-able ability which lets you see cover points and then another ability to roll into said piece of cover. When in cover, you get a defensive bonus from enemies on the opposite side and if not doing anything, immune to damage from blasters. As such, you get a very rewarding and engaging experience by making sure you time your abilities in between the shots of enemies.

As i said, i didn't really get to play much of the IA (or any of her quest line really) since they started holding a Q&A event right behind the PC i was sitting at so i was more focused on listening in (and asking questions) rather than playing. However i do know that for Beta i'll definitely be rolling a Gunslinger .

TLDR - Cover adds a great new feature to gameplay and made it very fun and engaging to play.

---

The last thing i wanted to state was about level design.

- I was rather impressed with Korriban, one of the main quest areas was a Tomb/Cavern and i felt that it really differentiated itself from other MMOs (i've played some WoW to around Lvl30 and Aion to Lvl 37), it felt much more like an area from a Single Player game rather than your typical MMO locations. It wasn't instanced however, so i can also see it being very crowded on launch day.

- Hutta on the other hand (which is also where the Bounty Hunter starts) was rather bland and more traditional open areas with mobs placed around and in between objectives. Without the attraction of Cover and trying to look for the best cover points to approach mobs, i can see why Joe found it to be somewhat lacking. However i'll put the disclaimer out that i played a very small section of the world and didn't really get to see much more of it.

---

And finally, i'll leave a little tidbit of information that the devs stated during the Q&A.

Supposedly the EU Servers for the game will be hosted in Ireland.

Why?

Not only is it because Bioware are opening an office over there, but because Ireland are upgrading its Internet infrastructure specifically for this game. I assume this means that somewhere along the line Bioware are helping to invest in this and you can obviously take that piece of information with a grain of salt.

---

And feel free to ask me any questions, i'll try my best to answer them.

---

Final TLDR - I really enjoyed my time with the game and getting to meet some of the Devs/Staff. I'm even more excited for Launch now .

Ah.

To that i have no response other than .

 

No SWG2 = no money from me. I am disappoint.

 

Thanks for taking the time to write that up, +rep'd

I have a couple of questions:

Is the chat system looking good? MMOs get boring fast without a good community feel

Are there other kinds of PvP? Like Arena in WoW. Hutball to me just sounds like a battleground, and not really competitive due to environmental effects

 

I didn't really look into the chat options tbh.

Reasons being:

- There weren't really any people, with only a few PCs and since you could play any class and only two classes have shared Origin Worlds i saw around... 5 people?.

- Normally i change chat when it's very intrusive and keeps scrolling like mad in front of me. Here the box is in the top left hand corner and the text was fairly small.

Obviously upon launch there'll probably be hundreds of spammers etc. (which is the main reason why i tweak the chat boxes). I'll be sure to look out for it if i ever get the chance to play it again (hopefully beta ).

Hmmm, i'm afraid to say i'm not familiar with PvP in WoW (or most MMOs bar maybe Eve Online) since as i said i only played WoW to Level 30ish (which is nothing really).

However after a quick google around as to "Arena", to the best of my knowledge i don't remember hearing about a Deatmatch/Team Deathmatch style Warzone.

There are two other PvP Warzones (i think that's what they call them).

One is called the VoidStar although i don't know much about that and last night i believe one of the devs stated that it had been completely overhauled since they announced it.

The other Warzone is Alderaan, set during the Civil War. It's basically similar to Conquest in that there are points to cap and Tickets ("Shields") to lower.

I can't imagine they wouldn't include a basic DM/TDM type game mode.

Also from the forums there have been mentions of "PvP Lakes" i think and it being similar to RvR from Dark Age of Camelot if that makes any sense to you. That may also be entirely inaccurate since i don't really understand the terminology.

 

+ rep and thanks for the write-up, but I think my main problem is still that it's "WoW in space" and no matter how good it is at release, it won't have a community of several million and 6 years of polish.

 

Aye, it's definitely not for everyone. Similar how to i'm not a fan of the Fantasy genre/setting, hence why i'm not that keen on WoW or Rift.

As for community, i think Launch will nab around... hmmm, 3 million players at the very least? That's just a complete guess however. Although it's not as if you really notice WoW's large community since it's more about Server Community after all?

Agree with regards to polish, but then they need to release it before it looks outdated/archaic. Some would say that it's already too late, with the release of Guild Wars 2 and/or TERA etc.

 

Thanks - Arena is not like a deathmatch, it's 2v2 or 3v3 or 5v5 (you have a team for each, not random matchmaking)

No respawning, kill the opposing team before they kill you. Makes for competitiveness with some class combinations working better than others.

If swtor had something similar to this it would be awesome.

 

Ah!

So similar to say Counter-Strike (without the objectives), or the format of the Eve Online Alliance Tournaments .

I'm afraid to say that i think that me hearing about that and the possibility has now dropped more.

However i've always loved that type of gameplay and do hope that they implement it.

 

Anyone else cringe at this?
I loved SWG because it was different and very in depth and i get a nasty feeling KoTOR will be the complete opposite. A WoW clone set in the star wars universe, i hope im wrong as i would kill for a brand new decent MMO but after reading up about it the game offers nothing new that hasnt been done before.

 

It will have 8 different 200 hour (each) Bioware storys to play through. Show me where that has been done before. It's 8 games in one. Even IF the gameplay ends up being a clone, the storyline alone will make it worth it.

 

so a chain of quests? ie go here, kill this. Talk to bob, rinse and repeat?

 

Not at all.

TBH i'm rather tired of people harking on about SWG (I don't mean you bit-tech guys, it's more the people on SWTOR forums who can't seem to accept this game isn't what they want).

For me personally, SWG never appealed on any level. I also find that most people harking on about it being amazing seem to be doing it out of nostalgia (i.e. oh, before SOE ruined it etc. etc.).

And to be realistic (or at least, so i think), there's a reason why SOE changed it and that's just seems to be because it obviously wasn't as popular as some players seem to keep stating.

I've no doubt that SWG was probably a good game and, like most Sony Products, ahead of its time and underappreciated.

However, SWG just wasn't the game that the people wanted whereas i'd say that SWTOR is more similar.