Star Wars: The Old Republic

[Vampyr]

Anyone else playing this new MMO from Bioware?

For a long time I never thought I would be too interested in it, especially since most of the videos were pre-rendered cinematics.

However, I did receive it for Christmas and having been playing with a group of about 7 other friends.

The game is really fantastic. I can't remember the last time I was this addicted to a game, I've spent every free minute since Christmas playing it.

The obvious thing to do is compare it with WoW - and that's fair, there are definitely plenty of elements that the two share. The main objectives of quests are mostly the same (kill X things, collect X items, destroy X objects, etc). However, the difference is all in the presentation. In WoW you enter a new quest hub, accept a ton of quests without reading them, do them, turn them in, get another batch without reading them, and continue until you hit the level cap.

In SWTOR, everything is fully voiced, and the story behind the quests is actually really interesting and engaging. In addition, during every conversation you have, there are branching dialogue trees where you can choose a "light side" or "dark side" thing to say, or just chime in with a response that fits your character's RP but isn't necessarily good or bad.

This has led to me actually enjoying the journey of getting to the level cap. It feels like I'm playing a BioWare RPG like Mass Effect, only multiplayer.

Which is actually the most fun part - doing quests with other people. When you have 1 or more people in your party when doing a quest, each time a dialogue option pops up each person chooses the one that fits their character, and then a die roll determines who gets to respond. It's a really unique role playing experience that you don't really get anywhere else - having your characters morals and values pitted against another in your group.

I can't really speak for the endgame. WoW has raids, but it doesn't look like SWTOR has much in that department (yet). I'm thinking that they spent a ton of time and money making the journey to level 50 as entertaining as possible, and more content will be patched in later for people at 50.

I would say that if you're a big fan of Star Wars and Bioware RPG's (especially if you liked KotOR), then this game is worth getting just to play for the first free 30 days.