I quit playing the Star Wars Beta months ago because I didn’t want to spoil the game for myself. I think that statement alone says a lot about the sort of MMO Star Wars is. Now that the game has launched Kara and I have jumped back in and we’re having a great time. We have not experienced any of the long queue times or crazy lag that so many people seem to be complaining about. I understand that there are plenty of people having technical issues with the game but I can’t speak to that.
I’m playing a different class than I did in the beta and so I’m getting a brand new experience. I’m just amazed at the quality of the class specific story-lines. The mission objectives and dialog choices really help you develop a character and not just an avatar. I mentioned this when I talked about the Beta a while ago and to me it really is the defining difference between SW:TOR and other MMO’s. While playing last night with Scott he explained that his bounty hunter was all about completing her contracts and getting credits. She didn’t let her feelings get in the way of the job. He was thinking about this before his character was even level 10. I’d be very surprised if he had any idea what sort of “person” his Troll Shaman was in WOW.
Kara is playing a Sith Inquisitor. A couple nights ago she was complaining that being bad was difficult and she was struggling with some of the dialog options. Last night she was volunteering to help torture people and was actually pissed when we accidentally gained light side points. Bioware has always done an incredible job of putting you in your character’s shoes and making you care about them. The fact that they have managed to transfer that into the MMO space is a fucking triumph in my opinion.
-Gabe out
