I'm starting to get a bit annoyed with Turbine. It seems that they have somehow abused the code or infrastructure of DDO so badly that they just can't keep it running anymore. It seems like every weekend or public holiday the game tanks as soon as the population seems to increase a bit.

So, I know I'm not going to get anything as customisable or with the depth of DDOs mechanics

Having said that maybe something fun and Star Warsy would make an interesting palate cleanser from the scatfest that DDO has become.

Is SWTOR worth the download?

I played in the beta.  It neither convinced me to buy it, nor to return after it went f2p.

Combat is boring, as was mentioned, and clunky (I may be spoiled by DDO combat) and damned near every quest felt exactly the same.

The novelty of running around with a lightsabre wears off pretty quickly, especially when there are hundreds of other jackholes doing the exact same thing.

Some of the cutscenes were pretty cool, and the look of the game overall is great.

I didn't get far enough to try much of the high-level stuff, and the lower-level group quests I tried weren't quite finished (or working correctly) when I played.

I'm sure it runs better than it did while I was testing.

If you're a super Star Wars fan, your experience may vary.  I lost a fair few DDO friends to it, and they are still playing as far as I know.

KilgoreTrout wrote on Dec 6^th, 2014 at 4:52am:


Depends on what you're looking... it's not a DDO Alternate, But as a Single Player Game it has some longevity. 

5 Foot Step wrote on Dec 6^th, 2014 at 6:19am:


Combat is definitely boring : stand there, cycle through 4/5 powers depending on cooldowns.
Char customization : beyond the look, it's a matter of items and socketed stuff on the items, there's no real customization;
The stories ( one for each class ) is definitely solid, you have hours of gaming just doing your class story.
The alternate quests are not bad too, even if some of them are in the Fedex and the Kill x mob type.
I never had the feeling of F2P hostility... but well since I used prepaid cards at the begining I'm premium.
Grouping is definitely intolerable, no real way to create groups... But it's not really needed, unless you really want to do the Heroic quests.
( you'll overlevel the content without doing them anyway )

Now if you consider SWTOR to be an online KOTOR where you can eventually meet people, it's a nice game.

As a MMO it's not that great, as a Single Player Adventure Game it's a nice one that offer nice replayability
( well you'll end up hitting the same quests eventually when going through the various classes, but you'll have at least 2 full levelling [ one for Empire one for Republic ] before starting to hit again quests ( on a new class ) )

Alex wrote on Dec 9^th, 2014 at 7:52pm:


I only played Jedi Knight.

I guess I should edit my statement though: The story is solid, but the gameplay feels genuinely non-StarWarsy.

I don't remember anyone in the movies slaughtering and looting 100s of gang members just to get to the other side of the neighborhood on Coruscant.

It feels strange.

You need to slash mob multiple time with a fucking lightsaber to kill it. I came with expectation of having cool lightsaber duels styled like in jedi outcast or academy, but instead you have wow style shit, where you spam skills from hotbars.

F2P limitations are one of most retarded I've ever seen- you can't post on forum unless you're vip (yes, need sub, buying swotor points wont help)(its irrelevant to some people, but I'd like to have some question before dumping money on game, especially if payment system fails), vips seem to hate f2p leechers, f2p players got acces to 2 hotbars, yes, even fucking hotbars are limited.

You can't simply buy a quest pack for raids, you must buy a fucking weekly pass for raids, dungeons, pvp, space missions.
Its like a fucking sub, so what the fuck is point for paying $15/month, or paying more on weekly unlocks and beign considered shit class costumer.

F2P is just a solo game demo version.

XP penatly, I don't care, because leveling is too fast for my taste- I tend to do all quets on planet, and I end up finishing a planet and completely over leveling a next one. Even dumb fucks at turbine had idea of selling XP disablers in lotro store, but bioware is dubmer than that, basically saying, fuck you, skip quests.

You can configure your appereance, but no real character customisation, apart from specialisation (f.e. for jedi knight, TWF or SWF)(choice is final at lvl10) and then retarted class trees (retarded, because idea of trees is retarded in general, and I haven't seen a single game where it doesn't suck hard).

Story line, I played Jedi Knight up to lvl30-some, and bounty to 16, JK story is decent, got star wars feel, if you ignore light saber beign as dangerous as stick lorebreak, but beign forever on republic side makes entire ligh/dark side choices irrelevant, as you can't fall to darkside betraying republic and becoming sith, like you should be.

BH I reached not so far, but its story was more personal, and after beign asked 'how do you feel', replying with 'Feelings are for women and children' is fucking golden line.

In both cases story was good. I could say better than DDO, but its like saying that a handgun is better weapon than sharpened stick.
Quests themselves are, like in all MMOs, the same, go there, kill it, return, or go, bring, or go talk, etc, but all are fully voice acted, have some back story added. Presentation of NPC dialogue as huge fucking wall of text no one bothers reading, because its written in a way no one ever speeks from lotro or, for that fact, almost all MMOs is absent here, and having voiced dialouges made quest afterwards something not boring and meaningless as normal quests in normal MMOs.

First group dungeon in game was a voyage on starship that is attacked by empire. That was fucking briliant! Combat sequences are between dialogues, where players have choices presented, that affect how the dungeon is played, and makes it me feel like a part of SW movie.

All dungeons are made in similiar fashion, with dialogues and choices etc. but unfortunately, retards you get while pugging, insists on everyone skipping the only interesting part (dialogues) to start boring combat sequence, where you can't even tell what are you fighting, because you usually watch hotbars for cooldowns more often than you watch enemies and combat moves, and you might even get kicked out of group for enjoying the best feature of the game.

Zandos wrote on Mar 16^th, 2015 at 9:15pm:

I both agree and disagree. F2P limitations that can be permanently unlocked through store purchases - like hotbars and run speed - are perfectly fine in my book so long as they're not outrageously priced.

Zandos wrote on Mar 16^th, 2015 at 9:15pm:

This is where they really fucked up. I reached level cap and wanted to go raiding, but the only way to do so is to buy temporary passes or sub. If they had a permanent unlock option (like DDO content packs), I'd be fine with it - but fuck that temporary pass bullshit (and fuck VIP too, that shit is way the fuck outdated).

As for the group complaints like skipping dialogue, I think you and 5FS aren't looking at that with proper perspective. IMO, watching/reading/whatever-ing the story is something you do when you're playing solo or in a dedicated group. It's pretty unreasonable to expect an entire group to sit around waiting for you to click through the story. If nothing else, this issue applies to pretty much every MMO.

5 Foot Step wrote on Mar 19^th, 2015 at 11:26pm:


Wow.  That's an unfriendly pug.  I've run pugs before in DDO where someone was on a first time run and wanted "the whole experience".  You just kind of bear with it.  It might take an extra 5 minutes to get through the content.  If you don't want to do the next quest that way, then drop out at that point.  But to be a dick in quest with a first time runner?  Get over yourself and learn some patience.

Asheras wrote on Mar 20^th, 2015 at 10:45am:


Yeah, I've put in extra effort being patient in lower level DDO pugs since that experience.

Played this with the wife both a f2p and think we might have spent some cash on inventory space or skillbar space or someshit to be premium anyways game was ok but just got boring at some point and we just stopped logging in.  One thing I do remember was I really hated the movement in game since and had a macro on my naga mouse to lock down camara so I could just hit w or s and move mouse side to side to control my character or something like that.

Honestly the space part of the game was meh which I felt should have been a big part of the game.  Guess that's why I'm busy playing elite dangerous right now.

Which is why mmos are an utter failure right now. Every current mmo seems to be all about the solo till you cap mind set. So boring.

If you're a fan of Star Wars IV, V and VI then you're going to be very annoyed within like 5 minutes of loading into SW:ToR!

This is NOT a Star Wars game!

It's an Old Republic game and Old Republic has absolutely NOTHING to do with Star Wars!


Twi'lek's, Wookies, Mon Calamari etc. shouldn't be in the Old Republic at all - These are all races that hadn't ever even left their Home Worlds till the Empire/Hutts enslaved them! {Yes another Lucas Retcon!}.
And don't even get me started on the Ewok Hireling {2000 or so years BEFORE Ewoks were even discovered!}.

Well, I tried this out, despite myself, and am actually having a pretty good time.

I happened to join up just after what seems to be a fairly major overhaul of the PVP and flashpoint systems, and during a double xp (!!) bonus month (!!!) so I got to 65 in a matter of days, and am stuck playing with hardcore people while having no idea what I'm doing when I PVP.  It's been a lot of fun, getting shouted at and assuming people are tearing out their hair at how much I suck, while offering no help or advice at all.  So much QQ.

The wiki sucks.  Their forums suck.  The group finding system sucks.  The achievement system is probably going to keep me grinding it for quite a while, though.  I enjoy making little progress bars move from left to right, and there are a fuckton of them for me to watch.

Combat is still really boring, but not as clunky as when I tested.

The f2p restraints are just about unbearable unless you just want to play it as a single player story game.  I bought a few cartel points to see if "premium" was any better, but it's not.  So I subscribed for a few months.

I haven't tried out the new episodic content yet (been doing stories in order) so I have that to look forward to.  I should probably join a guild or something but they certainly don't make shopping for one easy.

I think I like the rail shooter starfighter missions best. They made up probably half of my XP getting to 65, which is likely why I have no PVP skills.

Epoch wrote on Dec 31^st, 2015 at 7:01pm:


Yeah, I'm not usually much for PVP, but I'm having a good time with this one.  The different maps, objectives and warzone styles keep it interesting.  I do have pvp gear, but I'm still getting aced pretty frequently. 

Did you try PVP Starfighter at all?  That's a steep fuckin' learning curve.