Star Wars beta

I got my beta invite to Star wars during the week and dutifully downloaded it ready for this weekend beta test.

I took some video, so I will convert it at some point and upload it to the youtube page so I can share it with everyone, although I am sure you can find other videos now since they lifted the gag order on it 🙂

As a self denying Star wars nerd (hubby likes to remind me and EVERYONE that I used to read the novels), I do admit I enjoy the story and the universe, so I was really looking forward to adding a Star wars MMO to my game time.  I have only gotten to level 6, and they have just shut down the servers for maintenance, so will not likely get much further as we have plan tomorrow for lunch and for evening…..so it might be the limit i get to this weekend. Hubby can get further as he doesn’t have the same lunch plans as I do….he has no plans in fact 😀

TO get back on track from that massive tangent.  I have found quite a few nice things in game that have impressed me straight away, like being able to have the map up whilst running around – think Diablo, they have also put gear comparisons in without having to do anything for it, WoW you still need to push shift.  Currently it also appears as though the only gear I get is stuff that I can actually use….I haven’t had any other gear drop or rewarded that isn’t the right armor for me…stats I am not sure about but I seem to only be getting the same type. Hubby noticed that as well, so we are assuming that is by design – and I like that!

Not all mobs can be looted, however beams of coloured lights shine on the mobs that are lootable.  Blue beams for junk, green for green items, yellow for quest items…so far they are the only colours I have seen, perhaps there are more for higher level items etc…no idea though. I do like that as it just changes things up a little bit.  They also have an auto loot function for nearby corpses, but neither that or the actual auto loot seems to be working so I can’t really tell if that is cool or not…in theory though it sounds kick arse – kill 4 mobs and only loot once…yes please 😀

The maps can be slightly disorientating, however I am sure over time ; once I got the hang of it, they would be ok.  There is also a lot of video sections and voices, you can’t fast forward through all the speech sections to get to the options….not that I have found as yet anyway, to start with it is ok, but it currently seems like a fair chunk of quests are the type you have to have a chat with people about.  I think it will become tiresome.

It looks great, the graphics are very nice if you like the style and overall feels really good in combat (great animations for fighting) and seems pretty easy to pick up the basic controls and quest icons etc.

In the end, it is not likely to steal me from WoW – I still like the high magic feel of WoW with dragons and magic and wizards etc. SWTOR is about Sci-fi and is going to have a different feel because of that.  I can see myself playing SWTOR as more of a solo type thing – but I think WoW for me is still going to be my main MMO and my focus.  SWTOR is very cool – but it is not (at this early stage for me) the type of universe I am wanting to be in, of course I am not at level cap, I don’t know what the “raiding” scene is going to be like or what the dungeons will be, so hard to really make a solid call.

Definitely a shame we won’t be getting in Australia with the rest – I would be keen to play it straight away! Definitely worth a look for anyone wondering if they should!