After beta testing Star Wars: The Old Republic for nearly 3 months, Bioware has finally lifted the NDA and allowed us Padawan to spill the beans over the upcoming super MMO. Is the force with them?
Before I begin, let me just say that this will not be an objective review. As someone who has played MMOs for nearly 6 years it would be disingenuous to pretend otherwise. However, my time in high-end raiding and top tier PvP allows a much deeper insight into SWTOR’s current design and future within the genre. Because of this, some terms or ideas may seem foreign for someone new to MMOs. If this is the case for you, look out for a more novice preview on SWTOR from LB in the weeks to come. However, if you feel like trying to decipher the many acronyms that MMO’s possess I will attempt to link concepts and ideas to reference material off site.
Strap yourself in, this is going to be a while...
Where to Start?
It’s hard to pick apart every aspect of a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game simply because they are so massive. True to form, SWTOR is amazingly large in scope and for this reason I’m only going to briefly go over the dozens of aspects of gameplay. To start, let’s look at the beginning of all MMO/RPG and talk about character creation.
When you first log into SWTOR you will be greeted with your choice of Empire (dark side) or Republic (light side). Once you decide to go evil like 98% of the beta testers you are tasked with picking a male or female species followed by your class. This is where SWTOR hits its first stumbling block.
In the last few years, MMOs and RPGs have come a long way with making Character Creation a huge priority for gamers. This is mostly due to that fact that MMOs contain a lot of players and without diversifying the look of character models everyone eventually starts to look the same. Unfortunately with SWTOR, the species and models are quite limited. Your choice in body types are essentially tiny, average, kind of chubby, and SHREK. From there you can choose things like hair, eye color, face, and skin tone, but nothing really stands out from the almost miniscule list of options.
Oddly enough, even skin tone has been “toned” down. In previous builds we were granted a ton of options between pasty white and cocoa chocolate, but now the differences are literally night and day. Apparently having a tan Jedi is out of the question and like many of the gamers who play MMOs the all too familiar “lives in his/her parent’s basement” option is the only choice. Of course this could all changed at launch.
Aside from how your character looks you are then left with choosing your species. Again you might be a bit disappointed as all of the characters are esentially humanoids. For Star Wars fans this might come off as a bit of a letdown considering a lot of the attraction to Star Wars comes from all the cool alien species that inhabit the lore. Instead you are left with tiny variations on the same character models that are then slapped with Cyborg or Zabrak names.
In reality these species are just humanoids with some face paint and not the Wookiee or Ewok you probably desire. Since games like World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, and Skyrim allow for vast differences in Race this feels a tad like a cop-out. To be fair, voice acting is a major backbone of SWTOR and having your main character scream like a Wookiee for 50 levels was probably not an ideal story telling option for Bioware. Even still, a difference in body type, size, or bone structure would have been nice.
Class
Next up is your class choice. In SWTOR you are given the option of 4 starter classes. On the Empire side you have Sith Warrior, Sith Inquisitor, Bounty Hunter, and Imperial Agent while the Republic receives Jedi Knight, Jedi Consular, Smuggler, and Trooper. In favor of balance Bioware has mirrored each faction’s abilities to be almost 99% identical. This means that if you play a Sith Warrior on the Empire side, then a Jedi Knight will be roughly identical in terms of skills and abilities on the Republic side. While many have commented this to be a “boring” choice of play style, the truth is balance within PvP combat is essential for a successful MMO. It is much easier for Bioware to inject fair play into both factions when they are working with the same set of tools. In earlier builds this was not the case and while interesting, it made for a terrible experience when fighting other players from certain classes.
As for the classes themselves, each class plays a bit differently in SWTOR. Jedi Knights tend to rush into battle and take the fight to their opponents in either a physical Tanking or DPS format, while Jedi Consulars use the force from both ranged and melee focusing on healing, DPS, and tank roles. Smugglers weave in and out of combat using cover to protect them, while Troopers handle their action with heavy artillery from afar. I don’t want to get into to many specifics about the classes and abilities as there are many other great resources for them already, but this gives you a basic idea of the class, role, and character structure when you first enter the game.
Starting out
When you first launch into the game each class is given a starter planet that they share with one other class. For instance Bounty Hunters and Imperial Agents begin on Hutta, while Sith Warriors and Sith Inquisitors start off their game on Korriban. The time spent on these planets allow the gamer to get a feeling for their class and to learn the basics of SWTOR gameplay before heading off to merge with the rest of the gaming population.
This ends up being a smart move for Bioware because not only does it keep a focused origin type story line, but it also serves as a great way to split up the server load at launch to ensure a stable game environment for the masses. If anyone has played a new MMO at launch or an expansion pack then you know the stress issues that 3,000 people in one city can have on a server’s stability. Even during this past weekend’s beta stress test, starter cities seemed smooth and well-populated.
Smart tech decisions aside, Bioware also uses the starter planets as a precursor to the rest of your main story line. The entire zone should last a player till about level 10 and within that time you will experience new companion gameplay, heroic quest lines, and an introduction to your story line. It’s a perfect set up for people new to MMOs and Bioware does a fantastic job both teaching you how to play and hooking you on the plot.
Advanced Classes
After leaving your origin planet players will find themselves funneled into the space port city of their given faction. These hubs serve as a way for players to access many different instances/dungeons, skill trainers, profession trainers, and vendors. Most of the time hubs like this can be a bit over whelming for new players, but Bioware fills in the gaps nicely by using quests and clear directions to guide players to their profession choices and trainers. Once you finish your first set of quest and reach at least level 10 your character will be eligible to pick its Advanced Class.
The Advance Class may come off as a tad confusing for even seasoned veterans of MMOs. Unlike most RPGs where a class is chosen the minute you start the story, SWTOR doesn’t finalize your choice until the level 10 Advanced Class. This means that each “starter class” is really 2 classes in one. To break it down let’s look at the Sith Warrior as an example.
Once the Sith Warrior reaches level 10 you are given the option to choose your Advanced Class at the hub cities class trainer. The choices available will be either Juggernaut or Marauder and once you make that choice you are stuck with it for the rest of the game. You cannot go back at any point in time to change this choice. Bioware does its’ best to keep you informed during this process, but for a new gamer who has no previous knowledge of the class system, it can be extremely overwhelming.
The main issue is that for a game that lets you practice for nearly 10 levels within a class, it gives you exactly no time with the advanced class that you will use for the rest of the game. It seems a bit counter intuitive to all the hand holding you receive on the origin planets. Surprisingly there is no way to sample the style of both Advanced Classes to see which one you like better before choosing. Instead you are giving a one paragraph break down of the classes roles and what style they are.
To be fair, they have come a long way from the one-click-no-information-interface from mid-June, but for something that is going to be stuck with a gamer for potentially years, they could do a better job in how it is all presented. Of course they could allow you to go back on your choices of Advanced Class in the future, but this would change your entire story line and play style of your class. Doing so would be like allowing a Warrior in World of Warcraft to change into a Mage. Let’s hope that’s not the case.
Roles
Once you sweat through your choice of Advanced Class you will now have access to skill up points with the all too familiar RPG skill trees. Most RPG and MMO veterans have played with skill trees so SWTOR will be no different for them. Each Advanced Class will have 3 trees which vary from Tank, DPS, or healer depending on their chosen AC. Out of those 3 trees one will be a “Shared Tree” that is shared by both Advanced Classes for each given main class. Using the Sith Bounty Hunter as an example the trees will look something like this:
Shared trees usually give each class a bit of utility on top of their main role of Tank, DPS, and healer. Things like the ability to stun a target in PvP or snare a mob in PvE mostly come from the shared trees skill points. This works well for keeping an even balance between classes while adding some flavor to the play styles.
Most trees still have the boring skills like, “Increases Damage by 2%” but every now and then you get something cool. Over all the roles maintain enough variation as to not feel homogenized with each other, but could use a few more inspired abilities not already seen in major MMOs of the past. My hope is that with time Bioware can break the mold a bit more and add some skills that really stand out.
Story
We’ve heard from Bioware over and over that story is the main focus of SWTOR and will be the thing that sets it apart from all previous MMOs. Without letting the cat out of the bag or creating too many spoilers I can say that overall I agree. Creating a believable universe within Star Wars is no easy task and Bioware has done a great job in making you feel like the star of your own movie.
In fact, your main story line spans three Acts not unlike the major arcs of a feature film. Of course some Advanced Class story lines are better than others, but for the most part the plots are worth the time and effort you put into them. The only complaint I have for the design choice of a story driven MMO is the lack of, or better yet the illusion of, choice.
Since the story line is already planned out for you, a lot of the quests and choices you make on those quests don’t actually matter to the overall story arc of your character. In fact, if you wanted to close your eyes and click randomly during quest choices I would venture to say the outcome would be no different. While I understand that it would be impossible for Bioware to write a new story line for each choice you make, it does begin to feel pointless after a while. This becomes especially true around the mid-way point in leveling when gameplay and story hit a slow pace. The gap only gets worse as the time between the next level grows
Gameplay
SWTOR doesn’t do a lot to change the basics of MMO gameplay, but it does attempt to refine the systems of MMOs past. As such, SWTOR follows the essential “Holy Trinity” of MMO class design. That is to say that each class can become a Tank, DPS, or Healer. These paths allow all players to gain new abilities and skills with each passing level until the level 50 cap. During this time, players must also hunt, quest, PvP, and instance grind for gear and equipment to improve their characters potency. Eventually your character will reach level 50 and max out on its potential for abilities and skills. By then your only chance to improve your character will come from “end game” gear and equipment which is found in Operations or Heroic Flashpoints.
In order to do this, you’re going to have to kill a lot of things. This is where the SWTOR combat system comes in. You battle by using a number of abilities laid out by your characters action bar at the bottom of the screen. You can add and remove abilities as you see fit as well as bind these abilities to different keys on your keyboard or mouse. Each ability does something different and will depend on the situation at hand, but for the most part you will find yourself going from mob to mob spamming the same buttons over and over again.
Although SWTOR gives you a lot of buttons to press early on in gameplay, none of them truly feel all that epic or different from one another. Add this to the fact that combat can sometimes get laggy or choppy and you might start to suffer from that all too familiar “grindy” feeling of other MMOs. This isn’t to say that all combat is repetitive; however there seems to be long spans of time where new abilities dry up and you’re left with nothing to look forward to. This becomes even more apparent in the later stages of game play where the time in between levels becomes exceedingly long and drawn out.
Finally, the combat in SWTOR leave a bit to be desired in terms of reactionary abilities that most MMOs of the past and present have. For instance, in most MMOs a class will fire off an ability that has the potential to cause a weaker ability to hit even harder. As an example let’s pretend I’m playing the iconic mage class of most RPGs. Maybe I’m given a Fireball spell that has a chance to grant a spell called Pyroblast to be cast instantly. Each time I cast Fireball I have a greater chance of being allowed to cast this instance Pyroblast that will do a lot more damage so long as I react to it.
This type of game play creates dynamic combat where the player must read the situation based on whether their ability is ready to be used or not. This also allows the more hard core players to master combat based on reaction time, awareness, and knowledge of all classes. For some reason, SWTOR seems to follow a more linear type of combat and while there are some reactionary abilities, the interface does a poor job of displaying them.
User Interface
Not unlike the combat of SWTOR the UI or user interface can feel a bit lacking. MMOs, tend to send a lot of information to player at once and a good UI is the only means in which to decipher that information. Current MMOs like World of Warcraft, Rift, and Everquest 2 have all done well in giving the power to the user and allowing them to configure or even extend the function of their games User Interface. They understand that what might be great for one player is terribly frustrating for another, and so choice becomes extremely important factor in how well a gamer can play.
However, in SWTOR the UI is bare bones. You have no way to scale down, move, adjust, or add any new display items. The “what you see is what you get” interface means a lot of information goes unseen. For instance there is currently no way to see who a player is targeting on your UI. This means in a combat scenario it is impossible to know if a mob is coming after you until you see the animation. That causes all sorts of issues with tanking, assisting other players, and watching for incoming damage.
It isn’t all bad for the UI however. You can get the feeling that Bioware is only getting started and even after the last few builds many issues with maps, question locations, and player bars have been significantly improved. Let’s just hope we see a big change in the months to come after launch because in its current state, the UI is probably the biggest issue with SWTOR (aside from space combat). That’s saying a lot when games 7 years older can excel so much more in such a forward facing design choice like UI.
Content
Content is really the last line of defense for an MMO. This is the reason most people choose to subscribe every month and keeping that content flowing is paramount to the success of any MMO. The good news for SWTOR fans is that Bioware has done a lot to pack as much content into the game as possible. While the personal story lines can become a bit redundant for multiple play-throughs you have several other alternative routes to take on your way to the level 50 cap. For the most part this comes down to Crafting, PvP, Light Side/Dark Side choices, Ship quests, Flash Points, and heroic side quests.
Heroic side quests vary in difficulty and unlike your personal story, are shared among all classes. For the most part these quests fill in a bit more of the leveling gap between personal quests and side quest, but also allow gamers to get comfortable in groups. Almost all of these quest need at least 2 people to complete with some “world bosses” needing as many as 16. They are a great way to break up the monotony of leveling grinding and some manage to really bring out the feeling of team work that’s vital to group play.
The second type of content comes by the way of aligning your character with either the Light or Dark side. Sith can align with the light or dark as well as Jedi with dark or light. The issue with this type of content is that as discussed before, choice in SWTOR is a bit of a façade and any major decision you make in the game will ultimately not change your outcome. What is worse, is players who currently make all light or all dark choices are awarded by how evil or good they can become throughout the game. This means that even if you think choosing to save someone during a quest would be fun or interesting; it would ultimately harm you if you had previously been building up dark side points from before. Instead you are better off simply sticking with either Light or Dark from the beginning as it will ultimately benefit your character much more in the future. Let’s hope Bioware can figure out a better way to choose a neutral path at launch.
Flash Points in SWTOR are just like Dungeons in most popular MMOS. A group of 4 (consisting of Tank, Healer, and DPS) venture into their own group encounter that consists of a separate story line, upgraded gear, and interesting bosses. This type of content is generally what a seasoned MMO player looks for in an RPG and luckily Bioware understands this. From the beginning of my time in Beta SWTOR has gone from only two Flashpoints in June, to over nine for launch. This is a great indication of their dedication to group content and commitment to growing the group environment of SWTOR.
Most of the Flashpoints deliver on extending storytelling while providing a much more challenging place for people to level up their character. As such players are rewarded with better gear upgrades and more items then they might find out in the quest planets planets. For convenience sake Bioware has also taken a page out of Warcraft’s book and made these Flashpoints easily accessible from a centralized location. Players merely need to meet at their faction’s hub city and walk through the entrance of their desired Flashpoint. Each few levels a new Flashpoint will become available to you until you reach level 50.
PvP or player versus player is another major piece of the MMO puzzle. SWOTR combines both world pvp and battlegrounds (called warzones) as a way for players to engage in combat with one another to help level up and earn more gear. A player can enter the queue for battleground anywhere in the galaxy and within minutes they are loaded into a warzone scenario. These scenarios are generally filled with around 20 players with 10 on each side. Some follow mechanics most gamers are used to like territories, capture the flag, and Rush while others are fairly inventive like Hutball.
Bioware has taken steps to allow all levels to play with each other by boosting the power of lower level characters through something they call Bolstering. For example, this grants a level 15 player to have roughly the same damage output and health as a level 50 player. While this may sound fine on paper is does still mean the lower leveled players are at a significant disadvantage from the level 50 counterparts. This is because a max level character in SWTOR will also have a ton more abilities at their disposal. This can cause a player to become completely out matched and my hope is that Bioware looks at these issues in the future.
Professions are one of the final pieces of content SWTOR has in its arsenal. Like almost 99% of all MMOs before it, Star Wars allows players the ability to gather materials and create their own armor, weapons, transportation, and upgrades through crafting. There are currently over 14 different types of Professions to choose from. In my time in the game I sampled only a few, but little is usually known about how these skills pan out until level 50. For the most part you level your Professions right alongside your normal quests as most of the materials you need will be right there on the planets. You can even send you companion off to gather for you while you’re doing a quest solo. Over all its a fairly innovative way to dumb down the repetitive nature of gathering in an MMO.
Finally, you might have noticed I didn’t talk a lot about the space battles that SWTOR has been hyping since this year’s E3. That is because, space combat comes off as one of the most uninspired features in the game. As it stands now, Space Combat is nothing more than an on-the-rails shooter that feels more like a bad arcade mini game then a full blown feature. Missions consist of highly repetitive linear space combat where the player’s only freedom is to spam a mouse button until carpal tunnel sets in. It was my hope that Bioware would have pulled the plug on space combat in order to focus more on the pressing issues like UI and combat mechanics, but unfortunately we saw no indication of this during our time in Beta.
This isn’t to say that you won’t have any fun on these missions, as sometimes mindless button mashing is a great stress reliever. However the issue is simply that the space combat in SWTOR simply doesn’t fit with the rest of the game. In fact it almost feels like it was slapped on by a completely different developer other then Bioware. I still hope that it will be cut before launch, but from the looks of things someone over at Bioware has a soft spot for early 90’s rail shooters. I’m just not sure what its doing in a AAA MMO title.
Conclusion
SWTOR does a lot right and fills the deep void that games like KTOR and Star War Galaxies left behind. However if you are looking for innovation within the MMO genre, I would suggest you look elsewhere. Aside from the fantastic voice over work and compelling story line, SWTOR won’t bring anything new to the table. This isn’t to say that Bioware doesn’t have a success on its hands. In fact, I think SWTOR will do amazingly well especially if they keep up with the amount of content they created within my 4 months of beta.
Comparing it to other MMOs SWTOR is often called World of Warcraft in space, which for some reason comes off as a bad thing. At its peak WoW secured over 12million subscribers and still is the greatest MMO success in the history of the genre. Not unlike SWTOR, World of Warcraft didn’t innovate within the industry. Instead, it took the good ideas from games like Everquest, Asheron's Call, Ultima and cut out the fat. In this same vein, SWTOR seems to be headed down a similar path. They have taken a lot of what WoW does right and tried to improve upon it. Even as a beta the game is extremely polished and filled to the brim with content. I'm fairly certain that Bioware won't be disappointed if there game is consider to be the same as WoW; at least not from a financial stand point. In any case I can’t wait to see how it turns out 6 months down the road. See you in the galaxy.
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