Does The Old Republic hold up to the weight of expectation from millions of fans across the world? James Pinnell slots the last Kaiburr crystal into his lightsaber and sets off to find out.



While the ill-fated Star Wars Galaxies drew its final breath on the official launch day of Star Wars: The Old Republic, I wondered if LucasArts took some kind of sick pleasure in destroying one world at the same time it birthed another. Witnessing the traditional Star Wars opening to my own “epic adventure” as Bioware called it, I thought of the thousands of bitter, ex-SWG players doing the same thing, cursing LucasArts on one hand while they unwillingly moved across to the new, much more linear, title on the other.

For SW:TOR is not the revolution many may have expected, although those who had played the beta or seen gameplay footage may have realised this already. It does not take enormous risks, like its spiritual predecessor, in changing the way players interact with the world and each other. It does, however, drastically shift the onus of focus from traditional combat and exploration to rolling out an epic story, providing one of the most enthralling, tight, and character defining experiences I’ve ever had in an MMO.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

The first 10 minutes of SW:TOR will not shock a stalwart veteran of the genre. You’d most likely already decided if you were going to be a Jedi or not before the hefty (20gb+) client downloaded. What will put a small needle on your noggin is the first story you choose to follow. Like WoW and countless other MMO’s before it, what side you choose and what class you select decides your starting location and rough heritage.

The difference here is that each one of the 8 classes, from the heroic Jedi Knight to the dastardly Sith Inquisitor, has a 60+ hour individual story to tell. While many side quests will be identical regardless of what class you choose, the class line will define everything about your character and is essential to define who you are as a player. This is done through a series of instanced quests and missions that range from competing in a galaxy wide bounty hunting contest to preventing all out war between the Republic and the Empire.

What’s more, every single quest, whether story based or an important mission to slaughter a group of men has a conversation tree and professional voice acting. It’s almost completely impossible to ignore or skip dialogue when it’s been written so well, and performed so convincingly, that in some cases I’ve had members of my group whinging for me to skip it so we can continue on with the rest of the instance.

Story aside, where things start to fall down a little is with the content of the side quests. While the story events tend to be fairly interesting, the side quests are generally standard MMO fare. Thankfully, most of them tend to be grouped with the same general area, so getting through them is quick and easy, and many can be claimed remotely, while others require returning to a central point to claim.

But it’s not all bad, questing rebounds in how loot rewards and instances are managed. From the very beginning, each area offers up a “Heroic” quest or two, which requires a group. Some of these heroics can take 20 minutes, others an hour. Completing them is optional but opens up some of the best PVE loot in the game, and they can also be completed at various difficulty levels.

Rewards for completing them, and general quests, are also different; outside of the standard gear, you’re also occasionally offered a “random” lockbox or a “commendation”, which can be traded with vendors for equipment or modifications.

There are almost too many quests, when you take into account space combat (a surprisingly enjoyable set of on-rails missions with your ship) and the “Bonus” series of quests that most planets offer up. I never found myself needing to grind, nor looking for quests. Everything is offered up in such a way that you’ll find yourself seamlessly exploring new areas and racking up victories. Grouping with others is also pretty old school – while there is a rudimentary “LFG” system, most people just drop into General chat and start advertising.

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You will not face them alone.

Since the SW:TOR lineup lacks a traditional pet class, the game has created a system involving companions. At certain points, the game provides you with class specific companions, or pack mules, as I like to call them. They basically do everything for you, from keeping you alive during questing, to selling your trash items. They can even craft and fetch mats for you.

It’s a significantly underplayed feature, and one that I did not expect I would enjoy. On the surface, they are pets, but you do eventually come to rely on them as they save your arse, offer up a bit of advice or an interesting quest. All of the companions who will join you have their own personalities, and their relationship with you is based on how you treat others and well as them directly. In the end, however, I found their company in combat a close second to their crafting and trash selling abilities.

Crafting is in SW:TOR is similar to other MMOs, but things have been graciously simplified here. Instead of the 4-5 various ingredients that need to be disenchanted or pulled from the teeth of mystical dragons on the top of distant mountains, you can simply send your companions on horribly dangerous missions for a small sum. Those mission runs also allow you to increase your skill points in gathering, while sending your minions on crafting runs pumps those stats.

While convenient, it still ends up being ridiculously expensive to level your professions. While you don’t have to strip the auction house dry, higher level gathering missions will blow away most of your credits, so make sure you have a plan to sell or use the gear, since the vendor price isn’t likely to cover the costs of your creations. You can make some great gear, so if PVP and farming instances aren’t your thing, you can still find gear recipes across the galaxy.

Don’t fall to the Dark side... unless you want to, of course.

Warzones are the battlegrounds of SW:TOR, split into 3 different types – “Alderaan”, which is a capture and hold style map, “Huttball”, a pretty interesting take on sports PVP and “Voidstar”, an objective based attack and defend map. All 3 warzones are great fun to play, but, and I know this is going to be contentious, they don’t scale to level and it’s aggravating.

As time goes on, and there’s more of a level spread of players, Warzones may be split into various brackets. But at present, if you’re 23 and you’re up against a 50, you will die - a lot. WAR’s level balancing system was flawed but it allowed for a much fairer fight. What is the point of opening up PVP at level 10 if you are just going to die miserably at every turn?

If SW:TOR eventually creates level ranged brackets I will eat my words, but until then, many experiences in the lower-mid levels will be tough. While the combat system is more suited to skill based tactics than WoW (no auto attack, limited range DOTS), the advantages of ranged force attacks at higher levels make it very difficult to capture or specifically hold a point without a very cohesive and well managed team.

World PVP is reasonably limited, although there are some areas, such as on Tatooine, where players have unofficially congregated to duel. Most areas outside of the beginners are contested, so if you’re on a PVP server, you can look forward to ganking, whether you’re the perp or the victim. That said, death in SW:TOR makes it difficult to camp corpses, since each player gets roughly 10 seconds of stealth if revived at their body, or returns to a friendly camp with no penalty. As someone who thinks ganking is a great way to be an asshole, this move is welcomed.

PVE content has not been forgotten. Outside of the quest based Heroics there are Flashpoints, raids of sorts that can be completed as many times as one would like, making them ripe for farming loot. There are currently 6 flashpoints available, 2 confined to each faction, and they’re all great fun. Long enough (at least for the first time) to be challenging, like Heroics they can be completed with a mixture of companions and PCs.

Many players have complained that while there are quite a few heroics, the lack of PVP maps and Flashpoints (only one currently for End Game) make things more difficult for players who have already hit 50. Personally, I feel that my speed levelling for this review, in which I still managed to read everything and absorb the lore, only provided me with one perspective on the game. I still have 7 classes to explore, and an entirely different faction to investigate.

That said, it’s well known that MMO games live and die by the strength of their end game. The design of SW:TOR does not bode well, honestly, since much of the content is very single player focused by design. The developers have made note of this, and have enticed the fickle player base with more warzones, bigger flashpoints and entirely new features to be introduced down the track. Whether Bioware/EA keep a close eye on the demands is the difference between the last successful subscription MMO or just another F2P to examine on a future Tuesday Timesink.

The Force is in everything.

Where the polish ends, unfortunately, is on the overall graphical performance of the game. It looks rough, frankly, since Bioware have not provided any options for Anti-Aliasing. As a result, there are jaggies everywhere, from grass to shadows. The game locks up or slows to a crawl at times, regardless of how many players are on screen. The developers have made the interesting decision to split areas into various sub-shards to prevent spawn camps on world PVE content, so there is really no excuse for the framerate issues that exist.

Outside of the bugs, I have to say I’m a bit disappointed on the graphics. Considering the hefty client install, which I’m aware is largely content based, everything feels a little low res. There’s quite a bit of pop-in too, and load times could be significantly improved, although they only usually occur when changing zones. All of this is generally ironed out over the first few months of an MMO, and Bioware seem to be providing increasingly larger patches during the maintenance windows on Tuesday.

But where the graphics suffer, the music and audio effects prevails. Everything sounds fantastic, from the “pew pew” of blasters to the soft hum and “swishes” of a lightsaber. Going up against bosses or encountering story twists rolls in remixes of the original Star Wars score we know and love. There’s nothing like using a special force skill that comes bundled with music almost designed to amp you up. Brilliant.

Graphics and bugs aside, there’s really something special under all this hype, legacy IP and anticipation. Bioware have put an enormous amount of work into creating a truly epic galaxy, full of intrigue, heroics, treachery, courage and cowardice. Everything feels “Star Wars”, and the active story elements that surround almost everything you do (even the crafting missions have a blurb) provide a defined sense of purpose. Questing doesn’t feel like work, and crafting doesn’t feel like a chore.

There are bugs, there are faults, and there are obvious issues relating to balance and UI in particular. But these don’t detract from the experience as much as they only temporarily hinder it. I have full confidence that Bioware, based on their record and their work so far, will support this game and provide the extra elements it needs to be perfect. But even in its current form, it’s hands down the most polished and complete MMO experience since World of Warcraft.

We will come back in 3 months for a special follow up report after the official Australian release to discuss how the game has fared over its crucial first quarter.

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