Star Wars: The Old Republic (2011)

I can't help myself. I tend to get really bored after a few hours playing MMORPGs. Do not get me wrong, I like most of them. Me getting bored does not mean that the games are bad. It means only that it is not Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Having an MMORPG that has a good futuristic setting and also gives you the freedom to visit many Star Wars worlds is unbeatable. And you can choose from 8 roles, each with its own main story. Every conversation is auditory and offers multiple dialogue choices.

No other game of this genre comes close to this game. When I play other MMORPGs, I think of SWTOR and want to switch to it.

Maybe someday the servers will be shut down, and I will be able to play other MMORPGs again.

Thank you for reading my review and may the force be with you. 💛

Ricci

Time brings entropy to all things but it's far more potent in the MMO space.

Gilded memories of pre-launch hype, PAX 2011 demo lineups and the fever dream launch week are mere echos in memory now. My biased nostalgia aches towards the past and yearns for an alternate timeline where swtor successfully took on the world of warcraft.

Swtor has 4 servers now. Its population, I can only guess (and fear), is sparse. The main hubs still bustle but lower level zones can be unnervingly quiet. Mobs once fought for, stand untouched, looking at their feet. The story and all the veracity it tries to muster is made doubtful by the lack of human presence. Large swaths of communal space, empty. These places were alive once.

I've spoken before how mmorpgs make me feel lonely. Lost in a dopamine drip and belonging nowhere in two worlds at once. This time, the loneliness is from rarefied air.

Canonically, The Old Republic falls. However, only the heroes of that galaxy know its not from Darth Malgus but the inevitable unplugging of a server.

While my memories will remain of swtor, its my youth I worry for. Its now reflected back and time is forcing me apart from it.

Steam Curator

As a non MMO-enthusiast I can't really tackle this review from the perspective of how it stacks up to most other MMOs.

As a Star Wars enthusiast, I can confirm that this is a Star Wars fans Star Wars games. There's dozens of hours of (mostly) meaningful story content to jump into here; it may not be Kotor 3, but parts of it definitely evoke that feeling.

The Old Republic is a standing monument to the old Star Wars canon; a massive game that pulls from decades a lore.

If you're into Star Wars enough that you had an opinion on Disney ret-conning the old canon, you're into Star Wars enough to put some time into this game.

Having dipped my toe into the nostalgic whimsy of Everquest, the itch to return to an MMO met a moment of weakness. I reinstalled SWTOR after leaving it in 2015.

Bleary eyed confusion met with glossy nostalgia as I dug through my imperial agents ill gotten gains. I remember having a great time and would certainly do so now if it weren't for the unsettling anxiety of the genre.

I've described in the past how MMOs inevitably leave me feeling lonely and unfulfilled. I am both ashamed of how they 'waste my time' while also obsessively spending as much time as possible in their worlds.

All other games fall to the wayside when I play an MMO. I'm thankful to have the self control to make sure responsibilities do not. That isn't to say I wouldn't think of the game while not playing.

I've felt this emotional rollercoaster before. Time to get off the ride before it starts.

I've logged over 2000 hours into this game, and I don't regret a second of it. There is so much free quality content in this game, I honestly wish other games would adopt this method. The voice acting is stellar and almost everyone involved does a damn good job (and there is a lot of voice overs in this game, so that's saying something). I've played through every class, every expansion, every purple planet arc, every flashpoint and some Warzone PVP. The only mode I cannot comment on is operations, since I've never been able to complete one (long-time Legendary players are dicks to noobs). This is the ultimate Star Wars/sci-fi experience. There is so much to do, explore and uncover in this mmorpg. The class stories themselves are also very well written and feel like nice additions to the Old Republic canon (no i don't care about disney's canon crap, in my heart all kotor content in canon), with the standouts being the Jedi Knight and Imperial Agent's stories. Sith Warrior, Smuggler and the second half of the Jedi Consular are also really well devised. With the low point perhaps being the Republic Trooper, although it starts strong, it eventually loses steam. The bounty hunter and Sith Inquisitor, whilst is a lot of fun to play, is lacking in terms of narrative and story-telling. They do provide some awesome companions though, so there's that.

The soundtrack composed by Mark Griskey is also a standout in this game. The main menu theme is simply awesome and gets me excited every time I hear it. To add, the game also wisely uses cues from the prequel films which may have gone unnoticed in the films (for obvious reasons). This allows John Williams' score to really be acknowledged and admired, outside of the the film universe. Don't believe me? Type in "Anakin is Free" from the phantom menace ultimate soundtrack on YouTube and try to tell, which scene it is from in the film.

Look there's a lot to complain about in this game, but the truth is, the positives vastly outweigh the negatives. Yeah, Revan wasn't treated very well and neither was the Exile. Sometimes missions can feel repetitive and a lot of patches have ruined fundamental elements of the game. Heroics are meant to be attempted with a group, but now they can be done on solo. The same can also be said for certain flashpoints. Leveling is now the easiest thing imaginable, (especially if you're premium/subbed or preferred status), to the point where picking up side quests almost feele pointless, (I actually had to buy a module to slow down my gain of XP). Also many npc questgivers have been removed from certain spots like the imperial and republic fleet. This may not be noticed for some who only play the game occasional, but as a die hard fan, it's noticeable and can make for a jarring experience.

Despite these flaws, I can honestly say that this is one of my favourite games, and easily my favourite MMO of all time. It's sad this game always gets compared to KotOR, a game that is completely different in genre, style and tone to this game. But hey, like the saying goes, no one hates Star Wars more than Star Wars fans. Despite this, I still feel BioWare should have made a KotOR 3 and made SWTOR a spin-off. Similar to Elder Scrolls: Online. Yet, I can't deny my love for this game. The music, sound design, stellar voice work, graphics (yeah I don't mind the cartoonish look), fun sense of exploration and adventure and the general Star Wars feel of this game (especially in the Knight class) makes this one of, if not the greatest Star Wars video game experience of all time. Oh and did I mention you get a spaceship? Yeah you get a spaceship that you can travel the galaxy with. And a space station/social area (Imp/Pub fleets) where you can dock and kick back with your mates. Then you can take a shuttle to one of two capital ships and pickup flashpoints and ops and other cools things like holocrons and CHRIST THERE'S JUST SO MUCH TO DO IN THIS GAME. Seriously, if you've never played this game and you like Star Wars, download the game for free, and jump in. Don't listen to the whiny naysayers, you won't regret it. LONG LIVE SWTOR!

I've logged over 2000 hours into this game, and I don't regret a second of it. There is so much free quality content in this game, I honestly wish other games would adopt this method. The voice acting is stellar and almost everyone involved does a damn good job (and there is a lot of voice overs in this game, so that's saying something). I've played through every class, every expansion, every purple planet arc, every flashpoint and some Warzone PVP. The only mode I cannot comment on is operations, since I've never been able to complete one (long-time Legendary players are dicks to noobs). This is the ultimate Star Wars/sci-fi experience. There is so much to do, explore and uncover in this mmorpg. The class stories themselves are also very well written and feel like nice additions to the Old Republic canon (no i don't care about disney's canon crap, in my heart all kotor content in canon), with the standouts being the Jedi Knight and Imperial Agent's stories. Sith Warrior, Smuggler and the second half of the Jedi Consular are also really well devised. With the low point perhaps being the Republic Trooper, although it starts strong, it eventually loses steam. The bounty hunter and Sith Inquisitor, whilst is a lot of fun to play, is lacking in terms of narrative and story-telling. They do provide some awesome companions though, so there's that.

The soundtrack composed by Mark Griskey is also a standout in this game. The main menu theme is simply awesome and gets me excited every time I hear it. To add, the game also wisely uses cues from the prequel films which may have gone unnoticed in the films (for obvious reasons). This allows John Williams' score to really be acknowledged and admired, outside of the the film universe. Don't believe me? Type in "Anakin is Free" from the phantom menace ultimate soundtrack on YouTube and try to tell, which scene it is from in the film.

Look there's a lot to complain about in this game, but the truth is, the positives vastly outweigh the negatives. Yeah, Revan wasn't treated very well and neither was the Exile. Sometimes missions can feel repetitive and a lot of patches have ruined fundamental elements of the game. Heroics are meant to be attempted with a group, but now they can be done on solo. The same can also be said for certain flashpoints. Leveling is now the easiest thing imaginable, (especially if you're premium/subbed or preferred status), to the point where picking up side quests almost feele pointless, (I actually had to buy a module to slow down my gain of XP). Also many npc questgivers have been removed from certain spots like the imperial and republic fleet. This may not be noticed for some who only play the game occasional, but as a die hard fan, it's noticeable and can make for a jarring experience.

Despite these flaws, I can honestly say that this is one of my favourite games, and easily my favourite MMO of all time. It's sad this game always gets compared to KotOR, a game that is completely different in genre, style and tone to this game. But hey, like the saying goes, no one hates Star Wars more than Star Wars fans. Despite this, I still feel BioWare should have made a KotOR 3 and made SWTOR a spin-off. Similar to Elder Scrolls: Online. Yet, I can't deny my love for this game. The music, sound design, stellar voice work, graphics (yeah I don't mind the cartoonish look), fun sense of exploration and adventure and the general Star Wars feel of this game (especially in the Knight class) makes this one of, if not the greatest Star Wars video game experience of all time. Oh and did I mention you get a spaceship? Yeah you get a spaceship that you can travel the galaxy with. And a space station/social area (Imp/Pub fleets) where you can dock and kick back with your mates. Then you can take a shuttle to one of two capital ships and pickup flashpoints and ops and other cools things like holocrons and CHRIST THERE'S JUST SO MUCH TO DO IN THIS GAME. Seriously, if you've never played this game and you like Star Wars, download the game for free, and jump in. Don't listen to the whiny naysayers, you won't regret it. LONG LIVE SWTOR!

155 hours of playtime; 155 fucking hours lost because of this deep-seated completionist syndrome.

To be honest, Star Wars: The Old Republic is probably the MMORPG with the best single player story; complete with 8 different plots for the 8 different characters, fully voiced dialogues and a plethora of cut scenes to enrich the experience. In fact, it is a long-drawn-out massively multiplayer version of what Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 3 (KOTOR 3) could have been (and still isn't as EA is a money-grubbing evil empire [which is a very reasonable thing to be for any business]).

Nonetheless, the game remains a sub-par MMORPG at heart, and that's the primary concern here. Every quest other than the main quest is practically identical, mostly following the, "Kill A number of B, find C number of D, and return them to E" format, with the humanoid enemies having different coloured helmets to indicate that they are not the same as the ones you killed on the previous planet and the non-humanoids expressing their individuality by flaunting their different skin colours over replica character models. The aggravating part is that you have to tolerate these torturous side quests to prevent being under leveled for the main quest. The forward movement of the experience bar is comparable to that of a moribund, physically handicapped sloth and the amount of grinding you have to forcefully indulge in for each level gain is atrocious and downright exploitative.

To rub salt into the wound, all of these disastrous issues are further accentuated by the fact that I am a free player, which, according to this game's sadistic free to play model, stands for a bloodsucking barnacle, which should be deprived of any semblance of enjoyment for daring to not subscribe to the tediousness that is SW:TOR. EA is clearly saying, "Give us your money, or hell will start looking like a trip to Disneyland compared to what we will turn your life into." The experience gain is slower, you can't use a large subset of items, you can't carry more than 200,000 in cash, you can have only one crew skill, you cannot store anything in the cargo hold, your inventory space is tiny, you cannot send messages to other players, you cannot re-specialize, you cannot have more than two characters in each server, there are limits imposed upon the number of warzones or flashpoints you can visit per day, you do not gain rest experience, and the list goes on and on and fucking on.

And then come the technical issues. The fuck is wrong with the launcher? I may have spent several hours (in addition to the fuckload I spent actually playing the game) watching the game stuck on the loading screen. The loading times get increasingly ridiculous as you get to the later planets and the game randomly logs out for no fucking reason (technically, it logs out because of certain reasons, which are extremely hard to pinpoint, the game being so unstable).

But, I persevered. Whether due to some innate masochistic tendencies I have developed over the years or by reminded myself again and again that this was like playing the game in frustration mode, I pulled through. I made it from level 1 to level 49, with 50 being the highest possible level in the vanilla version and finished the storyline with a Sith Marauder. I wonder what the opportunity cost of spending over 150 hours on SW:TOR is.

Oh, well!

Fuck EA! Fuck Star Wars: The Old Republic! Fuck MMORPGs in general! Fuck Mark Suckerberg, for old times' sake!

I really need to stop playing games.

Actual Score: 2.5/5

Okay. I don't really know how to even start writing a review for SWTOR. There are so many feels involved, not to mention the game is constantly evolving.

I started playing in 2012 and subsequently failed all classes I was currently enrolled in. Those were the days of the basic skill tree, no sprint until level 10, doing ALL the missions and still under-leveling, and a single story pack.

Now, with Knights of the Fallen Empire out, the game has changed so much, but definitely for the better.

With Rise of the Hutt Cartel, it took me a little while to figure out what that actually meant - more storyline to play. I'd finished my BH storyline, wept an inappropriate amount of tears (I've said before that I get overly attached to games, also this meant saying goodbye to Johnny Yong Bosch as Torian Cadera) and then started my Sith Warrior storyline. Eventually, after hearing about RotHC, I went back and played it again.

But by then, I was way attached to my SW, who I'd skilled as a tank (instead of a healer like my BH, I found I was more likely to be invited on Heroic missions if I was heals), and I was kicking arse. It felt so weird to be attacked and not die in less than a minute.

When Shadow of Revan came out, I subscribed for the download and the 12k XP bonus. Once it ran out, my interest waned. I'd played roughly six different storylines by then, which meant doing the same side-missions for every character. I did my best to stay interested in my SW class storyline, but diluted as it was by the side-missions, I just couldn't.

And then Knights of the Fallen Empire came out and changed everything.

Someone at Bioware finally realised that their levelling was shite. I mean, major shite. For people like me, who didn't like doing Heroics or Flashpoints as it meant interracting with other people, levelling was constantly a big worry in the back of my mind. I found I couldn't enjoy the story because I felt guilty if I skipped side-missions, knowing that the lack of XP was going to come back and bite me in the arse.

Now, everything has changed. The amount of XP needed for the next level has reduced, while the amount of XP gained from missions in general has been increased exponentially. It is now possible to basically bounce from class mission to class mission and it's awesome. While a few missions are required here and there just to stay on top of things, it's nothing like before. That being said, it's a little weird to go from mission to mission, skipping over whole chunks of planets while you do so. I feel pretty old when I run past somewhere previously used for levelling and have the urge to say to anyone near me, "Back in my day, you'd spend a week in there trying to gain a level!"

In addition, quick travel is down to a 6 minute respawn time, the legacy unlockable for immediate travel to your ship is 6 minutes, sprint is available from level 1, as is speeder piloting with the right unlocks. The game can be played so much faster now, and as an experiment I restarted my Jedi Knight quest on Sunday night. By Wednesday, I was level 44. Mind you, that was some hardcore hours I was putting in, but I think it demonstrates how fast and streamlined this game is now.

Knights of the Fallen Empire, as well as having some amazing story, also added to the companions. I don't want to spoil too much, but I just have to say that I'm a fan of the improved interractions, like "*blank* will remember this" or "*blank* is amused". It feels a lot more real than before. However, just gotta say, I don't like the later cutscenes, which seem to hark back to KOTOR (I think). I've never played it before pleasedonthitme. I will get around to it, promise.

Getting back to the main story of The Old Republic, the writers at Bioware at just... incredible. I can't express how amazing these stories are. I'm constantly on the edge of my seat whilst playing.

Music is incredible, the lore is incredible, the conversations are so versatile and natural. The voice acting is off the charts good.

My only gripe is that the equipment is a bit geeky looking and I don't feel like I have a say in what my character can wear because stats. But it's a small price to pay for such a great game.

This review will probably be added to as the game continues, with the next chapter of Knights of the Fallen Empire coming out Feb 11!

... it is a good time to be a Star Wars fan.

A very good MMO, the class stories are definitely exciting and makes leveling a fun experience. I also had alot of fun with PvP. Regarding instances: the first instance for each faction is very good (Black Talon/Esseles), the others are ok but nothing extraordinary. Sound and graphics are excellent, it really feels like a Star Wars universe. A couple of small things annoyed me though. Firstly, since the world is so huge it can sometimes be tedious to move around. Second, some the side quests can be boring and feels like filler. Id rather just play the class stories if I could. Overall though, this is a fantastic game! I quit playing The Old Republic only because it took too much of my time and I couldn't put the the game down!

Disclaimer I never got to the endgame with operations so these opinions are only based on the levelling process and multiplayer. I mainly played a Sith Warrior, Bounty Hunter and Imperial Agent.