Star Wars: The Old Republic anticipation thread.

Discussion in 'Gaming' started by Chaos Descending, Jun 10, 2011.

  1. Reverend

    Reverend Admiral Admiral

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    Yeah, even when I did the free weekend I had trouble finding anyone to group with and free weekends are supposed to be when servers are crowded with freeloaders! ;)

    I never did get to that extra mission that gets you from the fleet to the capital world. I tried soloing it, but didn't even make it out of the first scrap alive.
     
  2. Timelord Victorious

    Timelord Victorious Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Guys, don't worry... the next big patch will introduce server transfer for characters. :techman:
    I bet a lot of servers will then go from life support to flatline, but the remaining ones will flourish.
     
  3. O'Dib

    O'Dib Commodore Commodore

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    Hopefully one can transfer an entire legacy. Wouldn't wanna lose some of the perks of leveling 5 50s, so far.
     
  4. Satyrquaze

    Satyrquaze Vice Admiral Admiral

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    My population level is "light", but I've never had a problem finding a group to team up with. I joined a "casual" guild on my third day with the game.
     
  5. CorporalClegg

    CorporalClegg Admiral Admiral

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    I logged in last night for the first time in weeks.

    Every server was Light. :sigh:
     
  6. Skywalker

    Skywalker Admiral Admiral

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    "Huh, maybe we should have just made KotOR 3 after all..." :p
     
  7. CorporalClegg

    CorporalClegg Admiral Admiral

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  8. Reverend

    Reverend Admiral Admiral

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    ...I have to wonder, how hard would it be to mod the game to work as SP? I mean all the content files are on your HD, no? What can a server do that your own machine cannot?

    Honestly, the only thing that's stopping me from getting this game after trying it out is the damn subscription fee. If it was a SP KotOR 3 then I wouldn't hesitate to buy it...but it's not and I don't like the idea of buying a game which I must continue to pay to in order to keep playing it. I mean you wouldn't buy a coin operated book would you? It wouldn't be *quite* so bad if it was just a subscription, but they insist that you "buy" the thing as well.

    At the moment I'm inclined to just wait until LucasArts gives up and converts it to a F2P game. From what I've read, between dwindling server and an increasing number of inactive subscriptions (most of which will probably lapse by the end of the month) and the news that Bioware is sacking a substantial portion of the support team, that'll probably happen before the year is out.
     
  9. O'Dib

    O'Dib Commodore Commodore

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    Well let's say you want to play more than just the canonical Jedi Knight story which ties into the recent Revan novel. With a purchase and 1 mo subscription you get 2 months of game-time, which should be more than enough to finish 2 class storylines, preferably in dif factions so as to maximize the diversity of the experience. Group content is important because unlike most flashpoints, the Maelstrom Prison (pub)/ Foundry (imp) series are entirely different for both factions, and when played in that order, also clear up a lot of Kotor 1 & 2 loose ends. Therefore one could argue that you paid 40 bucks each for 2 lengthy sequels to Kotor, and you really can play solo for most of it and still fully unravel what's there in terms of sequel-content. Sure, you don't exactly own the game in the sense you can boot it up months later and redo a storyline (given the time commitment, why would you want to?), but hey, pop in another $15, and behold, yet another story set in the same timeline, just with less saber action!
     
  10. Skywalker

    Skywalker Admiral Admiral

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    At this point I think I'm going to wait until it goes F2P, too.
     
  11. Reverend

    Reverend Admiral Admiral

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    You say that like it's a good thing. The time limit and the necessity of paying extra if I want to play the game a few months down the line is *exactly* what I don't like. Not everyone can afford to keep spending money like that, nor would everyone want to keep playing the same game for a solid month just to make sure they get as much value for money as possible.

    Let's be realistic for a second. This is very much a single player game masquerading as an MMO. The main plot concerns only your own PC, most of your character interactions are with your companions and from a plot POV, having a friend tag along in your story phases adds *nothing*.

    Indeed, from what I can tell, the only value in grouping is that it allows you to deal with tougher than than usual enemies (and more of them at once.) Since the toughness of the enemies is just down to their basic stats being fiddled with by the dev to create high reward grinding, it's an entierly artificial motivator...which, to be fair I suppose, sums up most MMOs in general.

    Also, once the novelty wears off, the group conversation system isn't nearly as immersive as it first appears. You're basically rolling a dice to see who gets to speak. Then there's the fact that the NPCs you talk to in this mode speak as if there's only one of you. Neither the NPC nor the PC dialoge even acknowledges that there's another person standing right next to them.

    It would have been a bit better if there was more interaction. Say for example if one PC picks a LS response while the other picks the diametrically opposite DS response then they *both* voice and argue their positions and it's the dice roll decided who wins said argument. If they both pick the same one then the higher score chimes in first with the other(s) assenting, or just make their neutral/snarky comment last. As it stands it just feels very shallow.

    If you play it for the PVP then I still don't see the value. Last I checked, MP games, or SP games with MP modes don't require you to pay to play (not yet at least!) You buy the game and either get free access to pub servers, pay for a private one or start your own. Sure, pub servers aren't always conducive to the best gaming environment, but the option is there and realistically, it's the one most gamers opt for.
     
  12. Noname Given

    Noname Given Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Considering SWToR was made using a diffent game engine then KoTOR 2; no, I'm not surprised one would run fine and the 'newer' SWToR would not. That said, I'd need to know your laptop's CPU, GPU and motherboard and GPU memory; as well as the version of GPU drivers you're running currently.
     
  13. Reverend

    Reverend Admiral Admiral

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    ^They looked so similar, I guess I just assumed they both used the same engine. Indeed, the only real difference I noticed was in the style of the GUI.

    Regardless, the only relevant variable would be my desktop PC's graphics drivers. As I said already, it worked fine on that machine just a few months ago and the nvidia drivers are the only thing that changed in the interim. No clue which version it was running back then, but it's on 295.73 now (and asking to be updated again.)
     
  14. Satyrquaze

    Satyrquaze Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Anyone else notice that they merged several servers. My server just more than doubled in population.
     
  15. PsychoPere

    PsychoPere Vice Admiral Premium Member

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    May 25, 2002
    Character transfers from and to select servers started a week or so ago.
     
  16. Satyrquaze

    Satyrquaze Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I took a week vacation, I must have missed the great migration.
     
  17. O'Dib

    O'Dib Commodore Commodore

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    I transferred all my toons from Namadii Corridor to the Harbinger. I would've considered staying but most everyone else had left, and PVP was just not happening, at all. Turns out they dumped a bunch of low-pop servers into that one, though it had a decent enough population to begin with. Now it has wait-times on booting, which I was hoping to avoid when getting into a low-pop to begin with.
     
  18. O'Dib

    O'Dib Commodore Commodore

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    1.3's landing Tuesday morning, the 26th. Social gear that adapts to your class, the ability to purchase augment slots for everything, and a new group finder tool that will help eliminate any productive chatter on the fleets are some of the features it boasts.

    The sound of bounty huntresses fapping to themselves in imperial dancer outfits has just grown exponentially.
     
  19. CorporalClegg

    CorporalClegg Admiral Admiral

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    Aug 23, 2001
    I'm thinking about re-rolling on Harbinger and just starting from scratch. Mine was the only west coast server to get moved to an east coast one and I've been experiencing the occasional latency jump.

    About 90% of the time, things are okay. The average jumped from about 30-40ms to 100-110. It's not great, but the reality the difference is hardly noticeable. But the last few days I've been experiencing some serious spikes. Last night, about half-way through a VS match it jumped to over 400ms. A half a second is just unplayable in any pvp.

    The other thing is, these days being on a pvp server pretty much just means pvp. I still haven't experienced half the content yet, but finding a group for anything is becoming increasingly difficult. The finder will probably help some, but if people are simply not interested in the first place, it really won't matter.

    I'd hate to do it. Starting completely over just sucks. And Jung Ma is actually doing organized world pvp events that look a lot of fun, but if I'm having latency issues, I won't be able to participate anyways.
     
  20. Whizzer

    Whizzer Commander Red Shirt

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    Well I have good latency to my new server (Red Eclipse) but still lag spikes.
    I would point at a severe overcrowding of the server for that.
    There were 60 people in my Explosive Conflict instance, and another 40 in instance two.
    My guild died a lot at Kephess HM, just because we got server lag at times where movement or quick actions were mandatory to survive.
    I hope Bioware gets their server load under control, OPs are far less fun if its like this :(