Darth Hater

Star Wars: The Old Republic News, Interviews, Media & Podcast

Republic Closed Beta Media Event



BioWare recently held a closed beta event for the press involving Republic Classes. With the embargo now over, the press sites that took part can discuss details involving general gameplay, storyline, Companions, Crew Skills, worlds, quests, NPCs, Flashpoints and PVP Warzones. In an effort to make all of the information easy to find, this post will serve as a roundup of all of the coverage from the press sites that attended.

A full listing as well as highlights from the individual articles is available after the jump.
Coverage





Highlights


More than Alderaan, Huttball makes every single class feel valuable. It also never feels like a stalemate, which is something other capture-the-flag modes almost always boil down to. Huttball is a mode that, come launch, I will be playing a lot.

The game opened up a lot more once I left Ord Mantell (where I only saw other Troopers and Smugglers) and made my way to Coruscant. Before arriving on Coruscant, I traveled to the Carrick space station in the midst of the Republic fleet. This is the Republic social hub shown off during the TOR main panel at New York Comic-Con last week. The station is indeed filled with vendors, a cantina, class and crafting trainers, and a jump off point to launch Flashpoints. It was a pretty neat spot, but felt sort of inorganic. It almost felt like a bit of a shopping mall in space. Everything is neatly placed and organized in an intelligent and convenient fashion, which is great for gameplay purposes but really not much else.

As if that wasn't enough, the Trooper can swap between different firing modes. Called 'Cells', only one of these modes can be active at a time to give the Trooper added bonuses to all blaster shots. I favored the Plasma Cell over the Armor Piercing Cell, because it added a percent chance to ignite targets for a short while, inflicting damage over time. It also lets me use High Impact Bolt, a single high damage shot only usable against targets taking damage over time or who were incapacitated.

You'll be traveling on foot until you ding 25, and I spent a good four hours or so just getting to level 7 (all without straying far from the very obvious beaten path between one quest hub and the next

In conversation they (companions) are less active and more reactive. Depending on which dialogue choices you make during a conversation sequence, your companion may gain or lose "Affection."

The story (as much as I saw) is every bit as good as I'd hoped. Whether I was smack talking across the bleak wastes of Ord Mantell on my prissy smuggler or pontificating as a holier-than-thou Jedi Consular over the wooded paths of Tython, SWTOR pulled me into its world like no other MMO has pulled me before.

Once you have a crafting skill, items that you can theoretically craft -- say, lightsabers and bracers for Force users as an Artificer -- can be "Reverse Engineered."...This is significant because you can break down items you create, and each self-created item you Reverse Engineer has a chance to teach you a recipe to create a better version of that item...It makes item-crafting somewhat of a slot machine, and gives you a reason to craft the same item a dozen times that isn't strictly for skill-ups, sell back to vendors or put on the Auction House

Comments

Page 1 of 7
  • indusan's avatar
    Jawa Trader
    • Posts: 73
    #93 indusan Posted 10/27/2011 7:56:20 PM
    some sites have updated today.
  • ArsonRapture's avatar
    Nerf Herder
    • Posts: 7
    #85 ArsonRapture Posted 10/22/2011 8:06:55 PM
    What happened to every.single. day?
  • thehateisstrong's avatar
    Nerf Herder
    • Posts: 21
    #91 thehateisstrong Posted 10/24/2011 1:16:03 PM
    IGN's "full" beta preview which seams a little light on content.

    http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/367/feature/5716/Star-Wars-The-Old-Republic-Full-Beta-Preview.html

    "There is something seriously satisfying about pumping unrelenting high speed blaster bolts into some poor guy's chest and watching him convulse like Chunk doing the truffle-shuffle in The Goonies."

    I hope they do release more info/new stuff throughout the week.
  • Doorofnight's avatar
    Jawa Trader
    • Posts: 143
    #88 Doorofnight Posted 10/22/2011 10:12:03 PM
    that is next Monday-Friday
  • ArsonRapture's avatar
    Nerf Herder
    • Posts: 7
    #89 ArsonRapture Posted 10/23/2011 6:05:43 AM
    gotcha, thanks for that.
  • ArsonRapture's avatar
    Nerf Herder
    • Posts: 7
    #92 ArsonRapture Posted 10/24/2011 6:38:59 PM
    its monday....WHERE ARE THEY!!
  • Neutral's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #78 Neutral Posted 10/21/2011 11:22:20 AM
    BTW. Spoiler warning on gamereactors readup for the bounty hunter class. since i will be playing Trooper first and sith warrior after. I will most likely not remeber it if and when i play bounty hunter. But thay did cover alot of the start story for the bounty hunter. But got to say i enjoyed the read about the story.

    Would be great if you got some spoiler alerts in just to make sure that some one wont get angry about it. thou people should understand what the read is about when thay start reading. If someone has not already covered it. THanks
  • Krato's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #73 Krato Posted 10/21/2011 6:45:56 AM
    One more. Spanish site: http://www.meristation.com/v3/des_avances.php?id=cw4ea004c8eb481&otro=1&pic=PC&idj=cw48fe5b082dd02
  • flem1's avatar
    Jawa Trader
    • Posts: 861
    #59 flem1 Posted 10/21/2011 4:15:54 AM
    I haven't read even half of the links -- no point, given my own beta participation -- but it's funny how many seem to leave out the "In the early part of the game..." that should preface every single generalization in every single article. Of course you aren't getting epic developments in your class story -- they didn't even let you finish Chapter One!

    It's good that the reverse engineering mechanic is getting aired now. Study up, people! ;)
  • theunwarshed's avatar
    Jawa Trader
    • Posts: 358
    #83 theunwarshed Posted 10/21/2011 8:38:55 PM
    i found in my own play-test that the class story was appropriately engaging (at every level), turning what would otherwise be a generic mmo experience into something...more.

    this just adds to my frustration with the decision to allow "real press" to publish their impressions of the game, while restraining beta testers and fan sites by holding them to the NDA. there's no way these reviewers can give a comprehensive, much less accurate, review of the game with their limited hands-on.

    it's a crap shoot, some things they get right, others they're just plain wrong.
  • DarthSerious's avatar
    Jawa Trader
    • Posts: 251
    #77 DarthSerious Posted 10/21/2011 9:16:08 AM
    Yes, they should also consider that they are playing through early parts of the game when commenting on pvp. Sure pvp is still pvp if it is player vs player, however saying not good things about pvp gives a misleading impression when pvp will be a lot better with more open world pvp elements.

    It would be more a lot more accurate to compare the pvp to other earlier versions of pvp in other games, which is quite limited as well. Therefore if it is all a limited early experience, how can that be something different and thus categorized as something bad.
  • flem1's avatar
    Jawa Trader
    • Posts: 861
    #76 flem1 Posted 10/21/2011 7:56:13 AM
    To follow up my own comment, I liked some bits of the Gamespy editorial.

    "In all honesty, though, I don't think I've grouped so much since classic World of Warcraft, and the lack of a dungeon finder does much to instill a sense of community."

    "If anything, my time in Huttball turned me off to the idea of playing Sith come release since almost every Sith player played a lightning-flinging Inquisitor. "

    These two things were entirely predictable, but it's nice to get confirmation of a sort. ;)
  • Kaiser's avatar
    Jawa Trader
    • Posts: 642
    #66 Kaiser Posted 10/21/2011 4:56:30 AM
    Agreed. My own experience with the crafting system had me getting excited to have it finally aired to people who were worried about it. Glad they covered it in most articles in a positive light, as it is a very intuitive system.
  • agentwred's avatar
    Jawa Trader
    • Posts: 298
    #58 agentwred Posted 10/21/2011 3:28:59 AM
    "It also appears that Light Side and Dark Side points for choices made during the conversations are only awarded to players who voted for the conversation option that was ultimately given. So if you want a criminal to destroy a shipment of illegal goods but the rest of your party votes to profit from them, your choice won't be honored but at least you won't suffer Dark Side points for it." --Mr. Butts at the Escapist

    Have you heard about this DH team? Speculations? Feelings?
  • Jeffro3000's avatar
    • Posts: 0
    #84 Jeffro3000 Posted 10/22/2011 1:13:49 PM
    Thats BS, you should suffer points based on your group decision. Its about immersion, and sometimes in life you have to go along with things you arent crazy about
  • To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Page 1 of 7

Most Commented Articles

Go to Articles

Tag Cloud

More