This weekend I got to play in the beta for Star Wars: The Old Republic. I thought I'd take a moment and tell my readers who didn't get the opportunity what I thought about it. My first experience with The Old Republic was basically what I expected, I got on around 11:00 on Saturday and was told that I was approximately 500th in the queue to get into the server. Fortunately, I occupied myself with designing a lightsaber I've been thinking about building and the queue only toke me about 20 minutes. After that point I only had one other time all weekend when I was in the queue, so I was pretty happy about that.
First, a note: If you are worried about spoilers, don't be. I only got out of the starting zone with one character so I really don't have any spoilers to reveal. The only story-related points that I'm going to talk about are things that you either can guess without too much trouble, or will learn within about 10 minutes of playing the game.
The first thing that I noticed about Star Wars: The Old Republic is that it is Star Wars. I mean it really IS Star Wars. They got the feel, the atmosphere, the stories, the music, everything just right to make this game really feel like Star Wars. As far as I can tell, here's the storyline setup for the game: Once upon a Time there was an empire ruled by the Sith. Eventually the Sith Empire was destroyed and the Republic was formed. 20,000 or so years later (sounds like a long time for any government to last in my opinion) the Sith returned, destroyed the Jedi Temple, and started seizing power across the galaxy again (that part is in the opening movie). Some time later (seriously, I can't find anything that says exactly how long it's been since the opening movie) the game starts and your character arrives on the planet you will be spending your first several levels on.
The first thing you do in any MMORPG is create your character. Star Wars has two factions, The Republic and the Sith Empire. The first time you pick your faction you get a fully rendered movie detailing a bit about how things are going for your chosen faction. Later characters that you make for that faction won't trigger the movie, but you can view it at any time from the server select or character select screen.
Next you select your class. Republic players have access to the Jedi Knight, Jedi Counselor, Republic Trooper, and Smuggler classes. Empire players have access to the Sith Warrior, Sith Inquisitor, Bounty Hunter, and Imperial Agent classes. Once you reach level 10 (the current level cap is 50), each class has two options for Advanced Classes. My experience was that after gaining their advanced class, most players stopped referring to their character by the base class name all together. They became Snipers, Guardians, Scoundrels, and Commandos.
The class you chose affects the races that are available to you. I did not go through all of the options to check them out, but I found that some races were only available to Force wielding classes. Some of the races available for play are Humans (who seem to be able to be just about anything), Cyborg (again, can be anything but only on the Empire side), Twi'lek (the people with the head tails you see in Jabba's palace in Episode IV. I don't think I saw them as an option for the Empire), Miraluka (a race that looks exactly like humans except they have no eyes. They perceive the world through the force and thus are only available as Jedi), and Sith Pureblood (turns out that the Sith got their name from a race that has been exterminated. The name Pureblood is not really true, they are of mixed blood, but they show the characteristics of their ancient ancestors. Sith Purebloods are only available as Sith characters). There are other races, but I did not check them all out. Each race does have a unique ability, but none of them seemed to be combat related or really have any in-game use, only a bit of flavor.
Finally you chose your gender and start working on your appearance. Unlike most other MMOs that I've played (City of Heroes being the notable exception) SWTOR actually allows you to change your character's body size. There are only 4 or 5 preset models, but I was impressed by the options because it can make gear difficult to attach to the model. There are several choices for face, which actually change the character's head model, so they will have differently shaped noses or jaws instead of simply having different shading. most characters have scars that you can add. They range from cuts to claw marks, to burns, and not all of them are pretty. It's an important reminder that the galaxy is at war and there are consequences for that. Many races also have tattoos as well as different hair colors and styles. One perplexing slider is complexion. It's not skin tone, there is a slider for that. Complexion actually alters how your character's face flushes in different places and is a very, very subtle effect.
After you finish creating your character you get the iconic Star Wars logo and a block of flying text that is tailored to your class followed by a short cutscene showing your decent to the planet. Every time you log into your character from the character select screen you will get a few paragraphs (that won't fly across the screen) that will update to follow your character's progression through the storyline.
I've stated from the beginning that I'm a casual gamer. That means that I don't have anything resembling the latest hardware for my computer. In fact, my laptop is four years old and it wasn't top of the line then. This technical limitation definitely affected my play experience. I turned all of the graphics options to their lowest settings and still the game was choppy and difficult to control. Other people online reported that they had no problems, so I feel pretty confident that it was my computer that just couldn't keep up. Even with the graphics turned down I was impressed with how the game looked. It's no Skyrim, but it was amazing. not only were the visuals were exactly what I wanted from a Star Wars game, but the environments were beautiful for any setting.
As I said before, my limited computer resources affected my play experience, but I still had a blast. By level 4 my Jedi Knight was flying across the countryside pouncing hostiles with his practice sword. My Bounty hunter felt appropriately cool firing off rockets and barrages of blaster fire as soon as I started playing. Every storyline that I experienced started out by telling me how I was special in some way, and the game did a great job of making it feel that way.
I simply can't get out of this blog without talking about the storytelling and missions in this game. The class stories are great. They are specifically tailored to the motivations and characteristics of each class and you start the game in a series of missions that are custom tailored to your class. Even though most (maybe all) of the classes start in the same area as another class, the majority of the missions are completely separate. Every mission start and end is a voiced interaction with conversational choices that sometimes can give you Light Side or Dark Side points based on what you choose. This method of giving quests has a way of pulling you in and making the quests more interesting than just a block of text that doesn't end up meaning very much.
It's very difficult to find much to complain about with Star Wars: The Old Republic. I had a blast playing it and would recommend it to anyone who is interested in Star Wars, or who has gotten bored with World of Warcraft or Everquest. I've already pre-ordered it and I know that I will be upgrading my computer so that I can play Star Wars to the limit.
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