Early Reflections from SWTOR

 

I gotta admit, the SWTOR Beta was one of the very last places I was expecting to find myself mucking around. I'm sure it's some form of sacrilege that a relatively "meh on the topic of Star Wars" person ended up playing in the beta. Now, now, before you go all  gasp, jaw drop, and accusing finger on me, let me admit that it wasn't officially -my- beta >.> I'm staying with some friends for the time being and it was my friend who was in the Beta. He suggested I try it out, and I figured, heck, why not?  I'm usually all about fantasy and epics and faeries and elves and whatnot, so I figured it would be healthy to venture into something else and try it out instead of getting stuck in a… niche… -sigh-… fine, a rut.

It's a rut. I admit it. However, it is mostly due to self preservation of sanity – just like there are just too many books out there to read ALL of them… there are just too many games to play ALL of them so I tend to stick to the ones I feel I have the best chance of enjoying. Needless to say, I was not too sure if SWTOR would grab my attention, much less hold it.

It did.

The first things I noticed were the little things.

–   Area loot is just awesome. It was the first time I'd encountered it. The lights shining off of the defeated people also clue you in to whether there is just average or above average loot. It's a little thing, but a great time saver.

–   The avatar automatically turns to face targets and attack. They will also follow them if they move. I must admit, I love it. It was one of my favorite things about Aion, and when I dabbled back into WoW, one of the things that I found I really missed.

–   I made it to level 10, and I never ran out of bag space. It is a major pet peeve of mine to never have enough bag space, especially at early levels. My first purchases are almost always bags, bags and and more bags… (Yes, I am a pack rat, loot whore and… digital hoarder. >.>) and it was really nice to play a game where I didn't even have to think about my bag space and instead just focus on the storyline and quests.

–   Quests are nicely grouped together. There was no getting 15 quests and running all over the place in some sort of mad happenstance matter. After getting one quest for the storyline proper, it then opened up a couple more in the same general direction. It was very straightforward and made the storyline seem much more seamless.

–   You can create and use multiple bind points. You aren't stuck to just one bind point – which is a major time saver, and convenient.  Pay attention though! I didn't figure it out right away and ended up walking a lot of places I didn't really need to, heh.

–   I love the fact that the map can be viewed full screen and by itself, but if you move your character (before closing out of the map screen) the map will auto fade half out and allow you to move and see the  map. Very awesome for those of us who are directionally challenged and get hopelessly lost.

–   I like the UI. It's a matter of personal preference, by and large, but I really liked it. I especially liked that when one mouses over their powers, it is off to the side and out of the way, not right over the power bar and covering up other things. In the same vein, I love that the quests stay on the screen and are written in a short manner so that they don't run all over the screen. (At least, in so far as the amount of time I played.) The chat being at the top was a bit odd for me, but since I wasn't really using it >.> I appreciated it was out of the way.

 

After noticing all the little things, I realized that I was really into the storyline of the game. I think of games as stories, and I adored the fact that every NPC that one talks to involves a cut scene of dialog and choices. I found it awesome for a variety of reasons:

–   A vareity of choices allows the players to personalize their experience, and for the RP'ers out there it allows them to be more connected with their character. For most dialog choices (that I experienced) there are usually three different choices. Sometimes they are just dialog, and at other times, the choices will move your character farther along on either the light or dark spectrum.

–   For those who are hard of hearing (or just unable to hear the dialog because of a screaming two year old) the cutaway dialog is shown on screen as well in subtitle format. 

– It is possible to click through the dialogs and cut scenes speeding them along. Which is great for those people who may not be so into the whole rp aspect of playing (or just don't care) and want to get back to tossing grenades and blowing things up ASAP without missing the gist of the storyline.This is one of the bits of the game that speaks to the amount of flexibility in how one can choose to play the game.

–   The dialog choices aren't exact. At times this was awesome – I didn't read the entire dialog choice only to listen to my character repeat the same thing back to me. It also makes the talking part quicker. For instance, your response may be "So What," but what your character will actually say is different and longer, but by and large, encapsulates the "So what" sentiment. Great for brevity, but there were a couple times I thought my character was going to say one thing and they said something else. >.>

 

Other than ending up saying something I wasn't intending on occasion, there were only a couple other things that drove me crazy. The first was the map markers created by the quest log. At times, the markers were dead on exact. I began to rely on them. However, there were also times when the markers seemed to be indicating a general area and not a specific point, and there was no way of actually knowing that until one got to where the map said they should be and then one had to look around.  The only time it was a serious issue was when the map marker in the ruins was directly in front of a archway and pathway up, but that had absolutely nothing to do with where I was supposed to go. It was rather misleading.

 

 

 The second thing that drove me nuts was that I had to get used to mouse targeting – as tab-targeting didn't seem to work for me. I'm unsure if it was a option to turn on or off, I didn't get a chance to figure it out (and didn't want to mess with my friends settings too much). It will be quite an adjustment for me if the game does not allow for tab targeting, and I tend to be a mouse clicker for powers instead of using the keyboard.

The last thing I feel I should mention – and a note of caution – as of the beta – when you reset a quest (which is an awesome feature, by and large!) due to whatever reason (bugged, want to try another variance of answers, etc)… it will send you back to the very beginning of the quest line, not the last part of the quest progression you just completed.

Ultimately I am left with a great deal of curiosity about other facets of the game I didn't get to such as the guilds, dungeons (how it works with companions), and crafting. I think the game is a wonderful combination of MMO and RPG that is the most immersive I have ever played. Which could be dangerous >.>