To the surprise of at least one person, I, an adamant point-and-laugh-at-the-trainwreck bystander in the clusterfuck that was The Old Republic's launch, have begun to play the game.
We've all heard the mess and rumors and stories and stuff, we've heard the undiluted hate and disapproval from the haters, we've seen the delusional fan-boy-defense-system that refuses to acknowledge anything resembling a negative remark. I wanted to find out for myself how it was, because while I do enjoy the combative stance of mocking something publicly, I do feel that a serious position (not just gum-flapping and haw-hawing) should be based on personal experience, not hearsay. It is with this intent, to find out for myself just how the game is, that I began my journey as a Sith Warrior.
I'm going to try my best to be fair. I make no promises.
The game opened with dialogue, my first conversation with the guy who sprung for my inexperienced acolyte to begin his trials to become Sith. The voice acting was sufficient but I'd basically expected that given the size of the budget. My warrior has a familiar sith accent and is certainly snarky enough when I pick those options, which is most of the time.
Bleh, I'm not here to write a review, I'm here to say whether or not it sucks and is worth the hype in either direction. Here's what I've got for 11 levels and one storyline (I think) done.
Combat is satisfying. The animations are good and I have seen the strange ability delay. Leaping into combat lightsaber (or sith warblase) extended and smashing everyone around you feels good. Raising your lightsaber and repeating that stuttering animation because you keep mashing the attack button does not.
Conversations seem sufficient. I've only met stereotypical Sith folks so far that are all "BE EVIL" or "SECRETLY BE GOOD" options. The writing for the player character seems okay, since as mentioned I opt for Snark more than anything. It feels good to get a letter a day later from a group of wannabe thugs saying "Holy shit we watched that guy kill six people, thank you for talking us down." It does not feel good to be forced to kill someone despite the dialogue offering a way out. When "Kill me!" is met with "You don't have to die here," as an option, I do not like the follow-up being "YES I DO" and then me going "Oh, okay. WUBWUB" and killing the dude.
One thing I've had happen a couple of times is facial animations just... stopping, mid-dialogue. We're speaking, we're speaking, everything is okay, wait nope engine broken and now I am stuck with my mouth-half open in some sort of grotesque mockery of the uncanny valley. It ruins immersion.
Something else I've had happen that might be on my end (though I still suspect the engine) is random popping-up. Not failure to load, mind you. I was being provoked by someone who thought I'd killed part of her family and she wanted to fight. Snark snark, combat begins. Her six fully-armed friends suddenly appear. IMMERSION.
I ranted about it on twitter so this should be no surprise to anyone reading this, but holy shit the lack of polish in some places drives me insane. The game helpfully has a dozen or more tutorials for everything in the game. MOVEMENT pops up to tell you how to move. BACKPACK. COMBAT. DIALOGUE. SHOPPING. The sort of things that should be expected of your players to know, sure, I guess. LOOTING. How I loot? Whatever, Bioware, tell me how to loot.
A small point of advice, though: If someone closes the End Quest box without choosing a reward, PLEASE have a tutorial pop up drawing my attention to the inconspicuous faint box in the upper-right of my screen, completely removed from all action and buttons. See, if this was WoW, I'd be able to notice that when I look at my map, or my clock, or my anything up there. But TOR is totally not like WoW and all of that is down in the bottom-right, and the top-right, off the top of my head, is host to nothing I've made use of yet.
The camera is also so tight on my back despite zooming out that the bulk of the screen is (my fault for tunnel-visioning, I suppose) that I don't notice the corners of my screen. The chat box is similarly useless to me in the top-left. All of these things are personal gripes, however, and not actual technical flaws.
What IS a technical flaw is outright-lying tooltips. Control-Click to preview should preview. It should not bring up my portrait and nothing should change. I was annoyed when looking over a slightly-different (loss of 1 min damage, gain of 2? strength) sith sword and being outright unable to know what it looked like before purchase. If you are going to allow someone to preview something, make the preview work.
One other thing I'll point out and then immediately counter-point: I am yet to interact with a single other player. I seem people sometimes, running here and there with their companion, but no one talks or teams up or asks. The opening zone is basically devoid of contact; I spent an entire leg of my storyline without seeing another person, period. I've also outright ignored Heroic quests because of the lack of community in the community. They're not attached to my storyline that I can tell, since they come from signboards and not NPCs. Of course, to counter this, TOR's competition is similarly bereft of interaction when beginning.
Lastly, I think, because I need to cook dinner, companions. I have only met one so far, and I dislike her. Vette, aka TwilekCarth, annoys me. Her "quirky" attitude towards THE JAILOR WITH A SHOCK-COLLAR BUTTON TURNED TO MAXIMUM doesn't cement a positive attitude with me, it just makes her look functionally retarded. She was in no position to be spunky and as such, having her appear with such a typical teenage-girl attitude is ridiculous for a game that wishes to build a believable and good storyline. Mechanically, they are a pet from WoW that also sometimes goes on quests or crafts. I haven't gotten far into the companion mechanics but right now I am very not impressed.
Overall, the game seems like a satisfying experience when it is being pants-on-head retarded. Despite my grievances I am still playing it, and intend to do more tonight in-game. I just am dubious about the staying power of such a bare-bones and clone-like MMO.
Most of all, I'm curious how the fuck 300 million alleged dollars doesn't buy me Display Target's Target or a fucking combat log.
No comments:
Post a Comment