So I was invited to the past weekend beta, and felt I can't really complain about it unless I actually did try it. Pretty sure over the weekend I put a solid... 8 - 10 hours into it, even to get to level 11 or so. I'm sure I could have hashed into it more than that but eh, it was enough for a first impressions. Now mind you have haven't been a fan of Star Wars since Lucas murdered all sense of the Force with midi-chlorians. Funny though, how after the bad second "filaogy" midi-chlorians are rarely (if ever) mentioned again and seems more or less replaced by "Force sensitivity". Lucas and his typical backpedaling, lucky for him the universe can sustain itself through more creative minds.
The feel... Let's be honest they very nearly copied and pasted WoWs keybindings and hotbar in. But I suppose that is part of the point, attempting to take a chunk from the WoW playerbase (usually Star Wars and/or Bioware fanboys) to sustain their release. Which is all fine and well, the MMO scene is not really shown innovation any favor so you go with what works and WoW has worked for years. It was easy to pick up and play thanks to that, so there's a lower initial learning curve figuring shit out.
Story? To be fair the only bioware game I played was half of Knights of the Old Republic and I thought it was pretty good. I was a little miffed how boolean the ethics system was, but it was one of the first so you can't really complain. I'll respect them for trying to bring their ideals of unique adventures and individualized storylines to MMOs, and in that they did a much better job of it than anyone could. But this is an MMO, this rather large content on release is nice but it is only a matter of time before it gets boring. And it will, it always does because that is how MMOs are. What they have right now will work for a good time, but I hope they have a better plan for end-game and providing content because it seems really infeasible to sustain this initial quality.
Gameplay was more or less expected. It played well, abilities were interesting and helped in controlling fights and it didn't feel clunky or awkward. There were some jerks, but it was a stress test so those little hiccups will be forgiven assuming they don't happen on release. I liked how the recall would let you pick between any area in the zone, but getting from zone to zone felt encumbering. Not sure when you get your first ship but it feels like a bear having to go through shuttles and spaceports just to get to a new zone. The "advanced classes" were nice, but it felt a tad cheap. I mean the cap being bounced around was something around 50, and you get the advanced stuff at 10? And even then class shares two of its three trees with it's counterpart, the whole system felt like it wasn't completely thought out. Like they wanted to be different from WoW but couldn't figure out how exactly. But I should go on about the things I thought were good.
Companions were an interesting addition. I enjoyed the fact you can make them sell your vendor junk while you continued to quest, alleviating the need to go back to a vendor. Giving them gear gives a bit more customization in how you want them to function. Though it was irritating when it came time to craft you had to make them do it rather than do it yourself. I didn't see a button to do that, and never bothered to dismiss them. As I felt, conversation choices that were not linked to Light/Dark ultimately seemed to be there to affect companion affection.
As well the gear modification systems were very nice. I dabbled briefly in Artifice as a Sith Sorceress, and I enjoyed the re-useability of weapons by crafting/finding/buying new parts for my lightsaber.
From a per game standpoint, I'd give it 4/5 despite my distaste for what has become of the franchise. It has reasonable potential to unseat WoW and hold dominion for some years, provided Bioware doesn't make the same mistakes Blizzard did. But let's be honest, it may be less about the developers and more about the stockholders at this rate.
Oh, and flame on.
The feel... Let's be honest they very nearly copied and pasted WoWs keybindings and hotbar in. But I suppose that is part of the point, attempting to take a chunk from the WoW playerbase (usually Star Wars and/or Bioware fanboys) to sustain their release. Which is all fine and well, the MMO scene is not really shown innovation any favor so you go with what works and WoW has worked for years. It was easy to pick up and play thanks to that, so there's a lower initial learning curve figuring shit out.
Story? To be fair the only bioware game I played was half of Knights of the Old Republic and I thought it was pretty good. I was a little miffed how boolean the ethics system was, but it was one of the first so you can't really complain. I'll respect them for trying to bring their ideals of unique adventures and individualized storylines to MMOs, and in that they did a much better job of it than anyone could. But this is an MMO, this rather large content on release is nice but it is only a matter of time before it gets boring. And it will, it always does because that is how MMOs are. What they have right now will work for a good time, but I hope they have a better plan for end-game and providing content because it seems really infeasible to sustain this initial quality.
Gameplay was more or less expected. It played well, abilities were interesting and helped in controlling fights and it didn't feel clunky or awkward. There were some jerks, but it was a stress test so those little hiccups will be forgiven assuming they don't happen on release. I liked how the recall would let you pick between any area in the zone, but getting from zone to zone felt encumbering. Not sure when you get your first ship but it feels like a bear having to go through shuttles and spaceports just to get to a new zone. The "advanced classes" were nice, but it felt a tad cheap. I mean the cap being bounced around was something around 50, and you get the advanced stuff at 10? And even then class shares two of its three trees with it's counterpart, the whole system felt like it wasn't completely thought out. Like they wanted to be different from WoW but couldn't figure out how exactly. But I should go on about the things I thought were good.
Companions were an interesting addition. I enjoyed the fact you can make them sell your vendor junk while you continued to quest, alleviating the need to go back to a vendor. Giving them gear gives a bit more customization in how you want them to function. Though it was irritating when it came time to craft you had to make them do it rather than do it yourself. I didn't see a button to do that, and never bothered to dismiss them. As I felt, conversation choices that were not linked to Light/Dark ultimately seemed to be there to affect companion affection.
As well the gear modification systems were very nice. I dabbled briefly in Artifice as a Sith Sorceress, and I enjoyed the re-useability of weapons by crafting/finding/buying new parts for my lightsaber.
From a per game standpoint, I'd give it 4/5 despite my distaste for what has become of the franchise. It has reasonable potential to unseat WoW and hold dominion for some years, provided Bioware doesn't make the same mistakes Blizzard did. But let's be honest, it may be less about the developers and more about the stockholders at this rate.
Oh, and flame on.
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