Star Wars: The Old Republic anticipation thread.

[Owain Taggart]

Sounds vaguely familiar now. Is that when you get ambushed by sith in the airlock when you return to the ship?

[CorporalClegg]

Yup.

[Holdfast]

Finished playing with my Inquisitor character (bar a couple of companion stories; that can wait until a bored moment), so started a Smuggler Gunslinger.

It's weird how fast it I felt I was levelling the second time around. With my first character, so much time was invested in just getting to grips with the game's mechanics. With the second, you can blast through the early game content much more swiftly, such that after a few, relatively brief, play sessions I'm about 80% of the way through Coruscant.

The Smuggler is certainly entertaining; you have a more charming & less acidic of sense humour than the Inquisitor with more flirt options, and if you play light-sided, you can also talk your way out of some dangerous situations, which is an interesting change of pace. Despite my reservations upthread, the cover/shield system works very intuitively. At this stage, the fights seem a lot easier than the equivalent stage of the Inquisitor storyline. I think it's because the shield means that you're less squishy, and Corso seems to be an even beefier tank than Khem. I do feel like I will eventually need something equivalent to the Inquisitor's Overload spell, to temporarily knock back NPCs that get too close, but it's OK at the moment as I just kick them in the nuts or whatever.

The game designers really made the characters FEEL like they're part of Star Wars. Not just in terms of dialogue & appearance, but also how they fight and move. It just feels appropriate for the setting, graphically and in terms of the mechanics.

There is an annoying cosmetic glitch with the Smuggler though; sometimes your blaster fires while holstered, if you've just finished a fight. And I'm not convinced the Recuperation animation of shooting the coin is that appropriate as it seems weird to shoot stuff to regenerate life while you're skulking about, staying out of the way of the next mob. Breaks immersion slightly to see/hear the shooting and for it not attract a mob. Only a minor niggle though.

[CorporalClegg]

Don't worry. Slingers get a wicked knockback that's annoyance is dependent on spec. I think they get more than one or it has a really short cooldown. I'm not really sure because I've never played one. It's still the one AC I have yet to try because, for one, I never cared for turrets, and if I roll a smug, I just can't convince myself to not be a scoundrel.

[Holdfast]

I'm enjoying the game enough that I really should sub, or at least go preferred. It feels kind of daft that all this great content is free, and I know I'm going to want to roll more character at some point. My innate miserliness is such that I probably won't ever sub, but I nearly certain I'll go preferred when I finish the smuggler story.

Thanks again for all the info over the months; it convinced me to take the plunge and start playing a pretty damn cool game.

[O'Dib]

Have you tried some of the Ilum event on your new 50?

Speaking of subscriptions, I think $15/mo or less is justified when taking into account that you would pay the same to dine out once, or see a movie. As someone who enjoys all aspects of the game to some extent, I gladly pay a one-time low sum (compared to buying access to the same amount of content individually as an FTPer) to have nothing handicapping my progress. But maybe it's just having been subbed before FTP that makes me unable to imagine anything less.

[CorporalClegg]

O'Dib wrote:

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Have you tried some of the Ilum event on your new 50?

Speaking of subscriptions, I think $15/mo or less is justified when taking into account that you would pay the same to dine out once, or see a movie. As someone who enjoys all aspects of the game to some extent, I gladly pay a one-time low sum (compared to buying access to the same amount of content individually as an FTPer) to have nothing handicapping my progress. But maybe it's just having been subbed before FTP that makes me unable to imagine anything less.

Exactly. Even if you only average a 15 hours of month of play time a month, it's still more than worth. I can't imagine many things in the world that offer more entertainment value for $1 an hour.

And let's face it, 15 hours in an entire month isn't very much.

[Owain Taggart]

Yeah, I agree. The Smuggler's very fun to play, and I do get a different sense of play with it than I do with my Jedi Knight. It creates a different kind of atmosphere. I love the snarky remarks you can give and the flirting options.

The only downside is that I feel my skill bar has filled up more quickly. There seem to be more skills associated with it at an early stage. The glitch sounds related to lightsaber glitch that got fixed awhile back.

[CorporalClegg]

^
That's only because Smugglers' skills are front-loaded and Knights (Guards especially) are back loaded.

Heck, at launch, Guardians really didn't get anything besides their level 20 spec skill until 35ish. They didn't even get their basic tanking skills (taunt, guard) until much later than Vans/Shadows. Fortunately, Bio realized it was a huge oversight and quickly remedied the problem within the first couple of weeks.

But yeah, Smugs get a lot of goodies early. This is especially true for Slingers who reach close to 90% efficacy by level 30 (or even 25). For most it's not a big deal, but it has been a point of order in the PvP community.

Even dps scoundrels have to wait until 36 & 40 to get their two best skills.

[Oerdin]

I'm actually glad I didn't buy this game. From what I hear it is rather "meh" with very limited options.

[sojourner]

^Well, that's the great thing. It's free to play now so you don't have to take someone's word that it's "meh". You can form your own more informed opinion.

[Owain Taggart]

Yeah, some of us are enjoying it for what it is

[CorporalClegg]

I was just wondering if (interest provided) we could scourge up enough heads to get a TBBS guild going. I was thinking one of the NA-East would probably be the most encompassing (latency wise) for people around the world.

Just a thought. I have a few low level characters on JC from way back when that I could start running should enough people be interested.

[Owain Taggart]

That would be fun, but I don't think all of us are on Jedi Covenant.

[Jono]

Just came back to TOR after just over 2 months (I think I stopped just as it went F2P) without touching it and have a bunch of cartel coins. What's worth spending it on if you're a sub?