The Fear and Loathing on Tatooine

"We can't stop here! This is Probot country."

Star Wars: The Old Republic. This game has been on my list of "Most Anticipated Games", right underneath Half-Life 3, or Half-Life 2: Episode 3, or Half-Life 2 for the Wii!

Sorry I had to put a fire out on my keyboard for typing that last one. Where was I? Ah, yes, The Old Republic. As a huge Star Wars fan, I love 100% of this game when it comes to the story, and the story for all the characters. I have not played any character yet on that game which the story sucked. I honestly get so into it I start ... role-playing. Not to the point where I will start yelling at people in General Chat on the Fleet to not say certain things cause they lead to the Dark Side. As I will role-play in all my choices. I will choose what kind of character this class will be and I go with it. Sometimes a Dark Side choice will come up that I personally do not agree with but that is who my character is. So, I sit there and murder a whole base of force sensitives, I shed tears and continually mutter, under my weeping, "I'm so sorry..."


After going on the saddest killing spree known to man kind, I move onto my next quest. I need to collect things. Right about now is where anyone who played World of Warcraft shrieks and backs into a dark corner whisper to themselves, "No... Never... Never again..." In The Old Republic it has a nice twist. Bonus missions! Holy crap, what a minor detail but makes the player feel like they accomplished something. What makes it even better is we get rewarded with currency AND XP! It's like having divorced parents ( Two Christmas'!). So now when you see this item crowded by a mob, you don't look at it and feel this looming sadness. You now know if you kill that mob, it will add to something rewarding. Not just +5 XP for each NPC killed. For me this made questing fun and quick. Which is SO nice due to games before this one, *cough*WoW*cough*, gave me PTSD when it came to even thinking about leveling from 1 to level cap. So if you throw in fun quests, great story, great rewards and choices, it makes for a seriously fantastic leveling experience. And that is exactly what it is.

The companion system is something that really helps change combat as well as the crafting system. For combat, you can choose if you would like a tank, DPS or a healer for leveling. Now if you want to level as a healer, before, in THAT game, it took a while to level as a healer versus being a DPS. BioWare now comes along and gives you a companion that will take aggro AND do DPS as you heal it and throw in some damage. I'll give you a minute to regain normal thought. To some it's not a big deal to level as a healer and be solo. As for the rest of us we enjoy being able to keep up with our DPS guildies and friends when leveling on our own.

The crafting system is like a wet dream to me. I was never a big mats farmer and didn't enjoy hours, upon hours of crafting items to reach cap. With the companion system being integrated into crafting, it makes it easier and still enjoyable.  You can send a companion on a mission to go get mats or a lock box of some sort. I like the fact that the end result is random, kind of forces people to look for mats that they need in the open world. If you have a crafting skill, like Armormech for example, if you reverse engineer something you made you have a chance of getting a schematic for a better item of that type. Now that motivates me to create anything and everything as much as possible. How could you say no to that? Plain and simple, the crafting and companion system make life simple in an MMO so you can focus on other things, like the story or PVP/PVE.

Now to the vast, opinionated and "any-class-that-isn't-me-is-overpowered" world. PVP! I have always kind of sided with PVE when it comes to the MMO universe. When I started my trooper I had that idea in mind. So I rolled tank. When we all started hitting 50 we found ourselves doing PVP, a lot of PVP. My first reaction to being a tank in a PVP world was, "Crap." But in The Old Republic, they made it incredibly viable. In PVP the general consensus is usually :

PVP Kitteh needs moar Deeps.

But with this new idea of making a class that protects your allies makes the tables turn, just a little. I like the fact that in a Warzone I can "Taunt" players so that their damage is reduced to other players, other than myself. Instead of DPS just going up to a healer and blowing him/her up, they have to factor in tanks coming in and mitigating damage. This gives players a chance to help the team without having to just heal.

When I hit 50 on my Sith Warrior, I am hoping to do a plethora of PVE. So for now, my opinion will remain in limbo until I have experienced more.

Overall The Old Republic has really impressed me. Yes some will say (even the developers) that the game was released way to early. I loved Knights of the Old Republic as I played the whole games as full light side, full dark side, then with personal decisions. With The Old Republic I get to do such a thing but with 8 characters, each with a vast story which will just continue to evolve and always suck me in. The future is bright for The Old Republic and BioWare has some very big plans coming to it and I am excited to see what they are.

As I wrap up this personal review, I get to finish off my Koko Brown Ale brewed with Toasted Coconut. And it is exquisite.

-EF