Star Wars: The Old Republic [KOTOR MMO]

I don't know much about MMO's so I can't tell if that was bad or not. Was it? It wasn't impressive but it was about what I was expecting from the gameplay.

On an MMO basis it seems pretty okay, but holding it up to what Guild Wars 2 is turning out to be, not so good.

Well that's the thing. I don't actually think it looks literally terrible, just... terribly uninspiring. The graphics are ok but not great, likewise the sound. The voices aren't great and that opening narration makes me cringe. The action looks very stilted, very artificial, very WoW like and that stiff animation does not fill me with wonder, nor do the explosions or effects or the clearly 'magical' use of force powers.

Whereas some of the GW2 videos just blow me away- like 'Whoa! That looks awersome!"

And that might well be style over substance, but then these vids are meant to be acting as adverts for the game. I love Star Wars and I like Bioware games (to a certain extent), but the fact is that these videos leave me more "meh!" than "whoa!"

And I am expected to pay a subscription fee for this? No thanks... not when GW2 doesn't have one.

Yeah I no longer have interest in this. The only two mmos I have hope for is Warhammer 40k: dark millenium and Guild Wars 2.

That Clone wars mmo thing looks way better than this, and that sucked

The two newest characters, Darth Jadus and Jewl'a Nightbringer look to be pretty awesome. I really like the latters look.

*is quietly optomistic that this won't suck*

Animation looks so KOTOR-like its sad.

With me being a Star Wars fan, I have to try this game. Especially all the fun I had with the KOTOR games. I'm looking forward to the release of this game so I can be a Sith again.

It appeals to the Star Wars fan in all of us, but I am very hesitant to pay a fee. Still, they've not revealed their payment plan yet. If there is a trial option I can get WITHOUT buying a copy (as I will not buy something that may become useless as I won't pay the fee), I'll take a look.

I will play regardless of how they proceed, they will most likely have the first month free anyway, and one month ought to be enough for me to make up my mind.

If I don't like the game, and the first month is free, then I will just give it to someone else. I've never played an MMO before. I bought galaxies, but never opened the box for some reason.

I don't take giving the game away as a viable option if I had to pay for it.

Yea I understand, I gave my ps3 away to my cousin because I didn't have enough time to play it. So I won't hesitate to give away TOR if I'm not into it.

I think he meant that you might keep paying the monthly fees. You should look into whether you can change the account paying them after the initial sign up.

So still no word of the actual price range they want for the game, eh? sighs

No, they are very tight-lipped on the payment plan. I suspect they are having quite the internal debate about it.

Well after LotRO has added two million or something players to their list after switching to Free2Play I'm guessing that other MMO developers are also thinking about it...

I mean come on, most people who are ready to pay fees are playing WoW. It's already well established and is always getting expanded. Blizzard has pretty much filled that niche. Developers have to decide if they'll try to rival WoW or if they'll come up with something else.

The WoW situation is indeed difficult. Aion is doing well though, last I heard, and there;'s the Star Wars pull. Bioware have always said it will be subscription 'with a twist', though that's really just meaningless. Trying a buy-to-play model has been speculated upon but BW have given no indication.

Originally posted by Nephthys
I think he meant that you might keep paying the monthly fees. You should look into whether you can change the account paying them after the initial sign up.

Oh ok I got you, I'm going to look that up before I buy the game

Well, in conclusion- the general pricing plan and nature of any trial period will be crucial factors in whether I buy a copy or not.

I guess that's often true, but in this case there was a time when I would have given this a go more or less by default; now I am keeping a wary eye on my possible losses.

The clarity of GW2's model- pay once and that's it- has removed any need for wariness there. That and a clear awesome factor.

I'd like to point out that LOTRO, while advertising itself as a free-to-play game, is only to a certain extent. Free customers are pretty limited in what they can do and what content they can access - even in how much they can level up. If you want to get anywhere in the game, you have to pay.

The vast majority of f2p MMOs are really "sure, it's free for a bit, but you're going to have to pay for stuff if you want to play everything or actually have a level playing field", and the free content is inferior to the paid content.