Lost in Space: Adventures in the Old Republic
Outside of quest and combat issues, far and away the worst aspect of the game is simply how damn terrible it looks. I realize much of this is my computer’s fault, but I was pretty proud when I learned my new desktop was able to run Starcraft II on decently good settings. But here? The game defaulted to “High,” and it was completely unplayable as the screen jerked around and characters popped in and out of existence. I had to switch it to low, but graphically, there wasn’t even much of a difference. The fact, is both modes running on my computer looks like this game was developed alongside World of Warcraft, not ten years after it.
I don’t mind the more cartoony animated style the game employs as much as I thought I would, and I actually really like the simplistic character creator. But the textures in the game are just horrendous on any setting I can muster. Characters like my sidekick droid or Hutt employer sometimes abandon all pretense of texture, and often appear slick and black like they’re made out of tar. It’s truly bizarre to behold in a game that supposedly cost $250M to make. I hear that the “ultra” graphics settings were simply removed from the game entirely, as the engine simply couldn’t handle it. And frustratingly, the game stutters so much, all the lip-syncing doesn’t line up, making it even harder to concentrate on the already laborious dialogue.
Yeah, it doesn’t look like this in any way shape or form.
The real tragedy of the visuals however is that even on low, the framerate is so bad that this is one of the only games I’ve ever played to actively give me a headache after an hour. Yes, if I’m glued to League of Legends or an Xbox game for a four or five hour session, my head might start to hurt, but the fact that it’s happening after such a short span of time really discourages me from playing this game at length, even if I wanted to. Which I really don’t.
Quite simply, I find myself often wishing this wasn’t an MMO. I would MUCH rather have had Bioware just make a Mass Effect -style single player game with Star Wars characters. There, an attempt at a plot would actually pay off, and all this voicework wouldn’t be wasted on one-off NPCs who almost never have interesting stories to tell. The graphics would be infinitely better, as you wouldn’t have to support thirty people running around a world map at the same time (and my $300 console would play it gorgeously while my $1200 desktop can’t, but that’s an argument for another time). There could be actual levels, instead of endless fields of respawning cannon fodder, and it would be an all-around better game. But you can’t charge $15 a month for that I suppose.
And that’s what I don’t understand about this game above all else. The game, despite its many issues, isn’t horrendous, but to pay $15 a month to play it? I can’t imagine why anyone would want to do that for a prolonged period of time. Granted, I haven’t gotten to higher levels, and I haven’t gone on raids with other people to “heroic” areas yet, but is five people hacking away at a monster really more fun that one person doing it?
“Cannot…handle…the teamwork. Does not…compute.”
Fetch questing and grinding doesn’t necessarily make for a bad game by definition, as much as I hate either concept. Look at a game like Borderlands. The entire game was an elaborate series of fetching and loot drops with barely a hint of plot, but it was just so FUN. The visuals were unique, the action was intense, and it was a blast to play with your friends. But there’s something about The Old Republic that just feels so joyless, that despite a similar concept, it isn’t a fraction as fun.
Maybe my opinion will evolve as time goes on, but right now my head hurts, I’m bored and I’m paying $15 a month for the privilege.
In general, the video game side of Star Wars has been feeling a bit lazy to me as of late. The Force Unleashed was a letdown, this apparently isn’t all that, and it just feels like they’ve started riding the Star Wars brand name and reputation instead of maintaining it.
Because at the time, games like Rogue Squadron and Jedi Outcast were actually pretty awesome (at least I’d say they were). But the gap between those games and contemporary ones is way smaller than it oughta be.
A PC game reveiwed by a so called game reveiwer that does not even have a decent graphics card = Irresponsible & not credible.
I’ve been playing it on High with a computer that’s over 3 years old and don’t experience any frame rate or hitching issues. Only annoying tech-thing to me is the obnoxiously long load screen times when you go planets via your ship.
I agree with a lot of the complaints in this review, but I was surprised to hear about the graphics issues such as missing textures or bad framerate. Just hasn’t been my experience on somewhat dated hardware.
The game is pretty much bad, its world of warcraft in space made by idiots. Go pick up Knights of the old republic 1 for original Xbox, that game is fun and good. I have a 50 trooper, a 33 shadow a 31 sentinel and a 22 sorcerer and im pretty tired of the game after 41 days.
The story aspect is poorly done and doesnt interest me that much anyway. The trooper story act 2? yeah ive seen a new hope thanks. PvP is wildly imbalanced its like playing during seasons 5 and 6 in wotlk. The lack of cross realm grouping for instances means finding a dungeon run is just painful. The game on high looks almost the same as low, shadows is the biggest difference, which i will give them credit are really well done. Every dungeon i have managed to do has had at least 1 pull that breaks, usually its just trash but for instance i dont even bother with cademinu because the lost boss just kills the group at 50% by lighting all 4 rockets.
Maybe in 3 months the game will be decent, but by then D3 will be out and theres a decent chance gw2 will be as well.
Dont give up on MMOs most of them are stinkers but there are good ones
Yeah, I know what you’re getting at. Every time WoW came out with a new expansion, people were ready. So ready that they crowded the areas and you had to do stake outs and be damn quick with that mouse in order to get the boss about to respawn. THAT was no fun. So, what did they do? They make the respawn rate faster. So fast that I’ve had to kill them more than once just to get my ass out of there. They pretty much dropped the 5 man quests, which were horrendous in WotLK, especially with the phasing in and out so that no one not on the quests could just help you out. But, I enjoy the grind a lot more than I enjoy the end content. In fact, none of my characters are as of yet Raid worthy, and I honestly don’t really even care that much. However monotonous it is to grind -especially when it’s the same area and quests for several characters, I still like it. And sometimes the stories/quest chains are good. And yet, I still don’t give a damn about reading them because I don’t know Warcraft history so none of it really makes any sense anyway. Maybe if I did, it would mean more to me.
It’s interesting which part (if any) of an MMO will ultimately attract a player. For some it’s the questing. For other’s it’s pvp. People will agonize over spending a few talent points to perfect their character’s spec and others will stay up nights deciding the best strategy to kill a dungeon boss. Some people just want purple [epic] gear. I knew a guy who played WoW solely to play the auction house!
Paul, it sounds like MMO questing isn’t your thing. SWTOR is unique in that it pays a lot of attention to the questing. All the voice acting, the illusion of choice, and companion affection aren’t the norm in MMOs. But if you just want to slice up some sand people or clear dungeons for loot or join a game of huttball, then who cares how much voice acting there might be.
It sounds like you won’t quite make it through the grind to experience the endgame, and I’m guessing you haven’t done anything with guilds, pvp, crafting, or trading. And I don’t really blame you – who wants to suffer through 100+ hours of fetching to *see* if you like the other stuff.
This is one of the most biased and unprofessional reviews I’ve ever read. Can’t play the game on normal settings? What crappy PC is that?
Also, the point about the sidequests: There are only 3 things RPG quests can do: Escort, Kill, Gather. The rest is story. So bitching about that you have to kill stuff in an RPG is simply pointless.
Think hard about what you are doing in Mass Effect: You go somewhere, kill stuff, push some buttons, have cutscenes. Repeat ad absurdum.
I pre-ordered, was in one beta test, got early start, played my Jedi Sage up to 33, my Jedi Guardian up to about the same, had a whole swag of alts… but after paying for an extra month, I quit.
While my computer had no problems with the game, the game itself is dull. Until Tatooine, it’s all very repeating corridors and platforms and tunnels. And the side quests, as you say, are frustrating – several minutes of dialogue to just go somewhere, pick something up and come back? That sort of quest is a staple of MMOs but to pad it with so much cutscene?
Even when you hit Tatooine, it’s not really worth exploring the “open worlds” as they… aren’t. While out questing I tried to skirt around a collection of enemies (to avoid having to fight through them to get to my objective) and hit an invisible wall – well, an area that if you continued going you’d lose health, much like open water in WoW. But at least WoW does that for open water. This was land. I wanted to just ride around on my speeder and check things out, but I kept being funneled into questing areas.
Also, the instanced planets, stations and ship made for a very lonely experience. Bioware seem to have forgotten the “Multiplayer” part of MMO. While there were often other players around, most worlds did not feel “alive” with people. And if a guildie asked for help on another world, you’d have to spend a whole heap of time just getting to them – most of it in loading screens or dead, useless stations that existed only as a space to run through to get to another loading screen.
In the end, to me, the game is not worth the $15/month they want us to pay to play it. Some people get fun out of it, and good for them, but I don’t think it’s worth it.
I can agree with a lot of your criticism here but I’m still enjoying it a lot with 2 mates.
Re story and fetch quests, that’s not just an MMO thing…Skyrim and Mass Effect both focus on that mechanic almost exclusively and both are broken by urgent storylines that are ‘end of the world plots’ then ask you to go and run errands for meaningless characters while technically the world should be burning around you. At least up to where I am in the old republic it feels like I’m simply existing and going about my own business with my class quest.
The whole genre needs a shakeup. Until then I’ll continue enjoying the old republic until I’ve exhausted myself or it’s content.
The only other MMOs I’ve tried are Dungeons and Dragons Online when it first came out which had superb dungeons and EVE online which I intend to return to and try properly.
Guys, to say the quests in a game like Mass Effect are comparable to the ones here is just flat out not true. And even if some objectives are the same, the level design, character interaction and story integration are leagues beyond what’s found here. Skyrim’s similarity? Perhaps, but that open world is a hundred times more gorgeous and rich than this one, which doesn’t allow for anything like true exploration. As I said, the inclusion of fetch quests alone don’t make for a bad game (I mentioned Borderlands as my example), but SWTOR feels stripped of all the other elements that make those games fun.
I don’t care if you think I’m not “professional.” I’m just a guy who likes Star Wars who wanted to give this game a shot and try out a genre I’d mostly avoided. I’m quite glad I didn’t spend another decent sum of money on a graphics card just to play a slightly better looking version of SWTOR, because even if I had, it’s still the same game.
I’ve officially cancelled my subscription as of late (though I paid for the 6-month deal, so I’ve still got four months of play left) because the game has honestly gotten a little stale. I currently have a level 50 Jedi Guardian, and I absolutely LOVE the story (partly due to the many connections to the SW:TOR book series, especially Revan (your character is actually seen in a vision by a later companion, who was the main character of Revan)), and a swathe of alts, including a 30 Sorcerer. I don’t mind the questing, nor the mechanics, or really anything about this game, but it definitely feels like something is missing. I can’t put my finger on it, though.
If Bioware had simply released a Mass Effect-style Star Wars game (which I’ve actually mentioned in wishful-thinking talks with friends), it could’ve done this game much more justice, graphics-wise, gameply-wise, and whatnot. While I’ll play out the last four months of my subscription, I probably won’t re-sub until either an expansion pack comes out, or perhaps a huge update (like the upcoming 1.2, though I think I’ll still be subed by then).
I would urge everyone who doesn’t like the repetitive mechanics of questing to look up guild wars 2…
This game is my thing. I always thought WoW was amazing and SWTOR topped it. I’m blown away.
Mind bottling