This weekend was exciting for a lot of people. All over the country, millions of families sat down for Thanksgiving dinner and enjoyed the fellowship only horrible sweaters and 40lbs of turkey can bring to their lives. However, I was patiently awaiting 10:25 am for my first chance to log into the SWTOR beta weekend.
Super Serious Business
When I could convince my self to finally wake up at the crack of noon, I was able to log in to the game after about 10 minutes of updates, and relatively no wait for a virtual que. What follows are the trials and tribulations of Srsbizniz, Sith Warrior and future conqueror of the galaxy. I chose the Sith Warrior, or Main Tank arch-type. This character focuses on HP and STR and is equipped with heavier armor than the other characters. My attacks are almost all melee with a few exceptions and my action currency is “rage”. Rage basically means: the more damage I do, the better attacks I can use in combat. Rage depletes very slowly when out of combat so you can “preload” your sith warrior for an incoming battle by fighting something weaker, thereby allowing you to waylay your new foe with a heavier attack from the start of the fight.
I really enjoyed the map overlay in this game. Your cursor moves in real time and the map turns transparent (ala RIFT) and green arrows indicate what area you need to enter for your quests, be it upstairs, downstairs or a whole other building. I found the map to be highly detailed and well constructed. It was easy to learn even for the general chat dwellers that abound in these types of games. Barrens chatters, you know who you are!
Give me muh loots!
I really like how loot is done in this game. As you can see there are two corpses with beams projecting from them. The color of the beam indicates what kind of loot is on them. Light blue being complete junk, green is superior quality, darker blue is rare quality, and then I assume you will later discover purple and orange beams, as this is consistent with most current mmos.
Bring you what and how many?
Every quest icon is this nice little triangle shaped hologram. Reminds me of the Predator’s laser sight but yellow. Upon completion, the icon will display a green symbol inside the yellow to tell you who you need to see to receive credit for your quests. Loot for the starting area seemed appropriate in that it was all green quality gear to get you started on your adventure.
Dis box mayk me smurt!
You will randomly find throughout the game Datacrons which offer a permanent upgrade (at least to my knowledge) to your personal stats, in the form of Strength, Stamina, Willpower etc. Each one can be used once, so happy hunting!
She bakes, the dark side really does have cookies!
Ok. So now that I have given you an overlay of the game, I wanna talk about character design. Overall the voice acting is great, even if EVERYONE speaks with an English accent in the ENTIRE GALAXY. Nothing sounds forced. But I did notice something weird….WHO LETS THEIR GRANDMOTHER GO OVER TO THE DARK SIDE?! I mean really….but maybe that’s her deal. She looks weak and unassuming, causing you to lower your defenses, then BAM! She’s force choking you with her knitting or something. I don’t know. Which brings me to the next target of “WTF”.
Should install a treadmill on Korriban.
I thought the Empire had some sort of strict recruiting process. Apparently being strong with the Force allows one to keep his belt buckled under the strain of his gut. This character is the so called Overseer of the little training area’s “dark side school” of the dark side. Granted he has a cool one eyed mask, fat people are not intimidating to me whatsoever. And he’s not the only one!
Vader circa Comicon 2011
I mean come on! Does the Empire just recruit out of the locally owned Krispycream?! “Hey fatty, here’s a Vader suit, get to work!” Even when you start the game the first character model that greets you in selection is a skinny attractive female and a morbidly obese male. Either that, or SWTOR is catering directly to their demographic!
Anywho, stay tuned for more updates as we get closer to launch and check out a couple demo videos I threw up on the Youtubes! One is the Sith Warrior combat and the other is the flight path taxi service they use.
and
Srsbizniz
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