Star Wars: The Old Republic Previews

We have rounded up a handful of previews for BioWare’s highly anticipated MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, slated for official release on December 20th, and believed by some to have the potential to be World of Warcraft’s fiercest contender so far.

ABC Technology:

Bioware has hinged everything on the story with SWTOR, and succeeded. Each class has its own very distinctive storylines and there are many interesting branching conversations with NPCs. For instance, an NPC gives you information then you are presented with three choices for your response, usually ranging from eager acceptance of the task, to ambivalence and then outright indifference. From that the next phase of the conversation occurs.

The multi-choice progression is enjoyable although I remain to be convinced that the majority don’t lead to the same outcome. That said, there are certainly key conversations where your choice has a direct impact on your journey to the light or dark side, but understandably that can’t occur with every quest. So with some conversations it can seem a little like a going-through-the-motions exercise.

Overall though, the story is the best I’ve seen in an MMO and definitely outstrips WoW’s, not least because of the voice acting – it certainly lends a lot of strength to the interactions.

Swtorhub has a piece dedicated to the Sith Inquisitor class:

The Sith Inquisitor’s resource pool is, of course, the Force. Force points power all but your most basic attacks. Additionally, the Assassin has a secondary power pool called Recklessness. The Sorceror has no comparable pool; in fact, you play the class pretty much like your 1-10 experience with some added heals and direct damage abilities.

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In combat, the Inquisitor is unparalelled in the early game and is especially dominant in PvP. Much of the Inquisitor’s superiority comes from a bevy of instant attacks. Even after I gained the stealth ability as an Assassin, I barely had use for it – it was easier and faster to just cut through swaths of enemies, especially since stealth seemed to break fairly easily.

Damage dealing aside, much of the Inquisitor’s class dominance can be attributed to Khem. If you can put up with his constant grumping, Khem Val is a kickass companion, able to deal as much damage as all but the toughest enemies you’ll face at your level and take plenty of damage in return. If you choose Sorceror, you can simply heal Khem as he tanks for you, working the class just like a crowd-controlling pet-based class. If you go the assassin route, you can either have Khem tank for you as you position yourself for backstabbing attacks, or just split up the group encounters, slicing and dicing away.

Finally, DualShockers has two pieces, one dedicated to the Empire and one dedicated to the Republic, here’s a couple of listed negatives from the latter:

It is very much a themepark MMO. You’re basically there for the ride. At times it feels linear, at other times you might have freedom. The story is very linear, as a matter of fact, regardless of class. The big clash here is between the current juggernaut, World of Warcraft, and the new kid in town, Star Wars: The Old Republic. The latter is actually the first game I can see even having a chance at ousting the king. However, if you’re thinking of jumping from one to the other, keep this in mind if you are tired of the themepark atmosphere of WoW, you might as well just keep playing it, because you’ll get the exact same thing in SWTOR. However, if you just want a change of scenery and all your friends are coming over, you’ll likely find an overall better themepark experience in SWTOR.

Sometimes it’s almost too linear. The questing in the first 20 levels or so goes like this: You hit a quest hub, pick up quests (including one story quest), go to a location, do all the quests, return to the hub, turn them in, pick up follow-ups/more quests, go to another location and repeat this process over and over.and over and over.and over and over again. There is room for exploration, but sometimes it seems too shoehorned into going on one path and sticking to it. This is somewhat offset by the many dialog and morality options you have, however.