Says it is subscriber only- you cannot just buy it.
Now, if your sub lapses you keep any episodes released up until that point... but that's still going to make it a very irritating thing to try and experience if you don't want to sub. Which I don't.
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
To be honest I kinda just want to play it for the story. Don't care for dungeons or raiding or any of that. I'll try the free version and see how that goes, if I enjoy it but want more then I don't have a problem paying the subscription fee for a few months.
They put in a way to solo the plot-critical dungeons of the last expansion, which they might extend back to some of the original ones too (the Revan ones are very plotty so they probably mean those ones). It's very solo-friendly.
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
I am a traditionalist at heart so I went in with a Jedi Knight (his story is pretty by the numbers but not actually bad for that).
I then counterparted on the Imperial side with a Sith Warrior, whose story is better than I might have imagined. They even try to make the Light Side version of him make sense- it doesn't work but they did try.
As it happens, because I made other characters to play with friends who were at various stages of progression, I've ended up with one of each class, so within that context I'd be doing a disservice if I didn't recommend the Agent. His story is the one where you get the most control (four different endings possible and lots of plotty bits in-between) and the Imperial Intelligence storyline is probably the original idea they had for the Empire that worked the best.
One issue with all this is that many of the writers made the Jedi and Sith a bit crap; considerably weaker than what you would expect from the films. But where, say, the rather brash Bounty Hunter plot has him knocking Force Users off all over the place with the whole "haha arrogant Jedi/Sith, I am better than you because I rock" schtick, the Agent storyline writer actually wrote in a Sith villain where the confrontation with him starts on the premise that "You can't beat this guy- he's a powerful Sith" which was refreshing (and you can even join him if you want).
Also: Smuggler if you just want to be amused.
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
"You've never had any TINY bit of sex, have you?"
BtVS
Last edited by Ushgarak on Jun 16th, 2015 at 08:11 AM
When I tried it back when it first went f2p I did a jedi knight. Got to level 20 or so before stopping because of all the nonsense that was within the f2p model back then. Wasn't too keen on the combat for him.
Agent sounds pretty cool. Maybe will give him a try.
Indeed. It's worth making one small purchase, or a one-month sub, or an xp purchase to get preferred status- that immediately gives you all the toolbars you'll ever need and raises your currency max to something usable. Considering you get the whole base game for free, I didn't begrudge making a small buy like that.
Beyond the toolbars there's not much you actually need. Just pick up a few things being resold for credits on the open market to make everything else easier. You can normally pick up things like inventory modules with not much hassle. Artifact authorization, which allowed you to wear the top quality gear for your level, used to be a hassle as it is pricey to buy, but you don't need purple gear through the story and all purple gear over level 50 doesn't need the authorization any more, so nvm that.
I bought a bunch of extra inventory space, extra craft slots for some of my characters and two extra character slots so I could play all 8 classes, all just from money I made playing the game and selling some stuff on the market. Really ended up being no big deal at all.
(Silly as it sounds, you may want to buy the option to hide your head slot. The thing is, you do look bloody stupid with a lot of the helmet options on. It doesn't cost many cartel coins to buy off, but people reselling it for credits on the open market know it is in high demand so jack the price up- so it's often simpler just to pay that one off in real money- and it gets you Preferred status if you didn't do it another way).
So what does that leave you lacking?
- Slower levelling speed. Non-subs don't get access to the sub xp bonus, rested xp or the 12x xp you get now for doing class story missions. However, they are getting xp at the same rate at game release- it was sped up for subs, not slowed for F2P,, so if you are generally playing through there is always enough xp (it's only an issue if you are playing through for the sixth time and want to skip bits). Plus the game throws out a lot of xp boosters for free as you complete quests. Plus- part of the upcoming expansion blurb just released says they are going to speed up story levelling even more, as they want the grind out the game
- A limit on how many PvP maps you an play per week. Don't care.
- You can't play Ops, the high-end raid content for 8/16 players. Don't care there either as I'd never get that many friends online at the same time.
- Limited to 3 space missions per week. Space missions were a non-starter anyway so you'll never miss it.
- Subs get bonus coins per month, but you can buy all that with credits anyway (plus remember if you sub for a month and get an authenticator, you'll get some free coins monthly forever anyway)
- F2P guilds have some limits, but that's really minor.
In short, subbing is really for hardcore PvPers/guild raiders and what-not. For the average you and-me player, it functions perfectly well with no sub- and if you do drop a few bits of money here and there (like for hiding the head slot), it's still way less than you would pay for a computer game in general.
I am one of those who was always deeply sceptical about F2P stuff but SWTOR sold me on it- nine tenths of it works just fine. Plus they made more money on this model then they ever did as a sub game. It seemed like the perfect setup to me- the only structural issue is that the game has its grindy bits that clearly had a monthly sub in mind, but as noted above, they have been removing the grind from the game for some time.
Hence me being slightly miffed that this new expansion looks to be sub only right now- we'll see how that works out.
__________________
"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
"You've never had any TINY bit of sex, have you?"
BtVS
Last edited by Ushgarak on Jun 16th, 2015 at 10:14 AM
That's great. Most of that stuff I really don't care about. And I kinda don't want the exp boost, I want to just level and experience it all at least once as they envisioned it. Not gonna rush through to the end game, as that might be when I stop playing.
All of the new stuff bout the interactable storyline and the moral decisions that actually make sense instead of being awkwardly shoehorned into Light and Dark Side (there are some hilarious so-called 'Light Side' decisions in the main game because of that) all sound great.
It's the nature of the plot that is worrying some long term fans (re: go check out the thread in the EU area). This feels like the plot for a full sequel but instead being jammed into a game full of its own plot already, so people are asking- what happens to all my decisions so far? Are they all invalidated? What happened to Emperor Vititate?
And so forth. In a game where people become storyline invested, I can see whay this may worry. Still, we shall see how this all rolls out.
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
I've been reading that thread... Not much to say about it, really. Given how they hated SOR when I actually thought it was all right (not great, but not terrible), it doesn't fill me with confidence.
I'm more of a "wait and see" kinda guy, so like yourself, I want more information before I jump to conclusions.
Yeah I was happy enough with SOR. I do think Revan deserved a better end than "Oops I just powered up the big bad guy", but then Revan may still have a weirdy spirity part to play so we'll see. They also did a good job with bringing in Theron and Lana- MMOs don't often have distinct characters emerging like that but they already feel like part of the furniture.
(also, that final fight against Revan- it may not be very significant in a gameplay sense, but as a dramatic moment it was spectacular)
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
I only recently played Maelstrom Prison, which was an interesting start (at least, i think it was the start) of his arc. I didn't mind the whole "I only made him stronger" thing, but that's dependant on them actually doing something with it. I do think he still has a part to play, so fingers crossed.
I'm not a huge Revan fan personally, so I'm not really as invested in him either way. I think a lot of the love he gets is due to KOTR, but I know Bioware is never going to write MY Revan the way I want, so I don't have the highest expectations.
Agreed @ Theron and Lana. Even Jakarro was all right at times, though like you said the two were just very well developed. I just hope they fix Lana's hair (though from the concept art of the expansion, they might).
I love team ups, so agreed, that final fight was amazing.
Oh for sure, Revan is this whole 'self-love my own character' thing- it's just that I feel they should either have been brave enough to cut him entirely or give him a finale plot in which he achieves something.
(frankly Vitiate isn't that interesting either- I don't like god-powered SW antagonists- I don't think they are really very Star Wars. Malgus was much better)
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
I honestly think we'll see Revan in the new expansion, so fingers crossed.
Agreed. Even without the book (which was very good imo) Malgus just seems like a more interesting villain. Vitiate is just sort of there... Though I did think what they did with Ziost was pretty cool, as it showed just how insane the guy was.
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Jun 15th, 2015 10:00 PM
