Star Wars: The Old Republic anticipation thread.

[Owain Taggart]

CorporalClegg wrote:

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There's a pile of wreckage on top of a mesa in the far SW corner of the Dune sea. You can run up it (the wing?) and the balloon travels right up next to it. You can pretty much walk right on.

Thanks. I just might have to check that out now after I finish the bonus series Man, Tatooine has lots of content. Just when I thought I was done, it's sending me to parts of Tatooine I've never been to.

[Reverend]

CorporalClegg wrote:

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Which one? The Foundry or Maelstrom? They're different.

Make sure you take the balloon ride.

The Foundry. I can only assume Maelstrom is the Republic equivalent since none of my republic characters have levelled up that far yet.

As for the balloon, I did notice it and guessed it's purpose, but had no idea where it stops or gets close enough for you to jump on and wasn't about to spend an hour blindly following it around in order to find out.

[Holdfast]

Reverend wrote:

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As for the balloon, I did notice it and guessed it's purpose, but had no idea where it stops or gets close enough for you to jump on and wasn't about to spend an hour blindly following it around in order to find out.

I was going to do the balloon ride yesterday, but got to the pick-up point about 30s too late. So I went and killed some cyborg zombies instead. Whizzer is right about that quest being fun.

I'm definitely going to miss Tatooine once I finish up the bonus missions. Environment makes such a difference to enjoyment of a planet. Nar Shadda was just too claustrophobic to be really fun, despite some interesting quests (except when riding the speeders through the city from one point to another). But it sounds like Alderaan looks good too, so I'm looking forward to seeing that.

I will say, the quickbar restriction is starting to bug me now. I've had to discard some useful abilities because I just don't have room for them there, and other things (like relics) are slightly annoying to use. I'm enjoying the game a lot, though. Enough that I think I'll end up buying something from the shop to unlock the extra 2 preferred status quickbars at some point.

[Reverend]

I actually quite liked Nar Shadda overall, which says something since I detested Coruscant's dull, endless closed in metal streets. Well, shadow town was a bit of a pain in the arse will all the mobs in tight spaces. Even with a character with stealth it was hard to get around without getting into a scrap every other minute.

At Lv43, the quickbar situation is beyond acute. I'm not looking forward to flashpoints where I can't tank properly.

[Owain Taggart]

Holdfast wrote:

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I will say, the quickbar restriction is starting to bug me now. I've had to discard some useful abilities because I just don't have room for them there, and other things (like relics) are slightly annoying to use. I'm enjoying the game a lot, though. Enough that I think I'll end up buying something from the shop to unlock the extra 2 preferred status quickbars at some point.

Yeah, same here. I'll likely end up doing that soon as it's quite restrictive otherwise. I'll likely end up getting more medical probes to revive myself with. It really does change the dynamic, as you mentioned before, and this way I'd kill two birds with one stone.

And yeah, I'll miss Tatooine too. I kind of wish they'd make you return to some of the planets later on, but I guess the game's a bit too linear for that.

I didn't mind Coruscant so much, but it's more the fact that Nar Shadaa was too similar, so much so that everything could have taken place on the same planet.

Finally made that balloon journey thanks to Clegg's instructions. Even had an Imperial along with me and we had fun dancing around during the trip.

[Rocketeer]

Just started playing and it seems like I got to level 12 pretty fast on my trooper and jedi knight. At what level does the grind start or is it a fast run all the way to 50?

[Timelord_Victorious]

You don't necessarily have to give up on the balloon datacron if you missed the pick up.
If someone else is on the balloon or the crawler a bit of teamplay can get you up there directly.
Some classes have the ability to rush/jump a target from great distances or pull a target. You can use that to your advantage and save at least half an hour of waiting time.

[Holdfast]

Owain Taggart wrote:

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Yeah, same here. I'll likely end up doing that soon as it's quite restrictive otherwise. I'll likely end up getting more medical probes to revive myself with. It really does change the dynamic, as you mentioned before, and this way I'd kill two birds with one stone.

Exactly my thoughts.

And yeah, I'll miss Tatooine too. I kind of wish they'd make you return to some of the planets later on, but I guess the game's a bit too linear for that.

Again, I agree. I liked returning to Korriban briefly to get Kallig's Mask and would like more of that to-ing & fro-ing. It would give the story an even more epic quality instead progressing neatly from one to the next.

Rocketeer wrote:

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Just started playing and it seems like I got to level 12 pretty fast on my trooper and jedi knight. At what level does the grind start or is it a fast run all the way to 50?

I'm on something around 29/30 at the moment IIRC, and on my current planet have taken to stopping to kill random beasts en route to the next mission instead of just speeding my way through without a fight. I'm doing this because I'm starting to notice a slight need to grab a few extra XP here and there to keep up with the curve. I suspect by around 35-40, I'll need to start actually grinding somewhat.

Caveats:
- I'm FTP, so gaining XP at a reduced rate (I did use the Legacy level unlock to mitigate this a bit on class quests and exploration XP though)
- I've only done a few heroic/flashpoint missions so missed out on their XP. I have done all the (non-heroic) bonus missions so far though.
- FTP also means a very low limit on space missions (3 per week), so you can't just do loads of those to quickly boost your XP.

In short, I think if you're a subscriber, you'll probably never have to actually grind but if you're FTP, it's going to start happening about 2/3 of the way through. I might be wrong though; I'll soon find out.

[Reverend]

In short, I think if you're a subscriber, you'll probably never have to actually grind but if you're FTP, it's going to start happening about 2/3 of the way through. I might be wrong though; I'll soon find out.

The bizarre thing about it is that if you're a subscriber, you're essentially paying for the privilege of not having to play the game as much as those that do so for free...a bit arse-about-face if you ask me.

[sojourner]

Reverend wrote:

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The bizarre thing about it is that if you're a subscriber, you're essentially paying for the privilege of not having to play the boring parts of the game as much as those that do so for free.

Fixed it to make sense on why you pay.

Well, I just canceled my subscription. haven't played in over a month and just have no interest at all anymore. It was fun while it lasted.

[CorporalClegg]

Reverend wrote:

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The bizarre thing about it is that if you're a subscriber, you're essentially paying for the privilege of not having to play the game as much as those that do so for free...a bit arse-about-face if you ask me.

This really isn't true.

Like every other MMORPG "the game begins at 50." Subs get to play at 50 all the want to. F2Pers are extremely restricted in what they are allowed to do endgame.

[Reverend]

^From what I've heard, one of the main complaints about the game has consistently been "the end-game content is arse." Indeed, I've heard from countless sources that the only real attraction is the story...which from what I gather pretty much ends when you hit Lv50.

Either way, the fact remains that (depending on how many characters you have) most of you time playing this game will probably be spent on levelling and because of the restrictions, F2P players are likely to spend more time doing this than subs.

sojourner wrote:

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Fixed it to make sense on why you pay.

I'll let that slide this time, but in future you should know I find that kind of thing to be very irritating and extremely obnoxious. Please don't do it again.

[CorporalClegg]

Reverend wrote:

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^From what I've heard, one of the main complaints about the game has consistently been "the end-game content is arse." Indeed, I've heard from countless sources that the only real attraction is the story...which from what I gather pretty much ends when you hit Lv50.

That's really the cry of the vocal minority. And it really has to do more with the quantity over the quality. But it's been my observation that that argument is really fueled by ex-WoWers who expect TOR to have the same amount of PvE endgame as WoW and it's (four?) expansions.

In reality though, if you compare the amount of endgame content to other MMOs that have come out in the last few years (STO, Rift, Aion) TOR has substantially more to do.

As far as the quality goes, I admit I haven't experienced a lot of it as I'm primarily a PvPer, but what I have played has been nothing short of excellent.

Either way, the fact remains that (depending on how many characters you have) most of you time playing this game will probably be spent on levelling and because of the restrictions, F2P players are likely to spend more time doing this than subs.

Nope. I know it seems that way now, but the truth of the matter is, in a typical MMO character's lifespan, he only spends about 10% of his life leveling. Granted this game is the anomaly, but you're still only looking at about 15-20% at most. And of course, more for F2Pers.

But the average amount of time it takes for a sub to ding 50 is two weeks to a month. The lifers can do it under a week. And even casual players can do subsequent characters in much less time with legacy stuff.

The actual fastest way to level in terms of exp/minute is doing space missions. If you take all the exp bonuses, and have an alt with c-tech to ensure you always have the best parts, you can level to 50 in about 30-40 hours of play time. It's the most tedious thing on Earth, but I've done it.

PvP is about the same if you have a premade. Pugging will take a lot longer.

Anyway, once you get to 50 there's so much to do. Obviously, some are only interested in doing the story modes, and you can get those done in a couple of nights.

But if those who really play the game the way it was meant to, have to max their crafting, get BiS gear (either PvE, PvP, or both), get all the achievement stuff, finnish grabing any crons they missed, completing the codex, maxing your social stat, and so on. All that stuff takes months. And that's if you DON'T do dailies every day--and you will. And the dailies and weeklies will go on indefinitely, even once you've "maxed out" a character. You don't do them every day then, but you'll still keep up on them semi-regularly.

And then they raise the cap and you start the process all over again.

[sojourner]

Reverend wrote:

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I'll let that slide this time, but in future you should know I find that kind of thing to be very irritating and extremely obnoxious. Please don't do it again.

Cool, thanks for the update on what you like and don't like! So tell me, exactly what would you have done if you hadn't "let it slide"?

[Owain Taggart]

So, question. If I were to buy something off the cartel, would that also unlock the subscription permissions and allow me to wear purple gear? That purple gear looks sweet, and it's a shame us FTPers can't wear any of it.