November 23 2011
I recently spent a weekend doing my part to stress test the Star Wars: The Old Republic beta, which was my first hands-on time with this upcoming MMORPG from Bioware. Because it was a stress test, the servers were extremely busy, and they filled up quickly during peak hours. Once in the game, however, it ran smoothly and I noticed very little lag.
Jedi Knight is almost certain to be the game's most popular class, so I decided to take a stab at it. Character creation seemed a bit low on options for customizing your look, so it wasn't long before I was inside the game swinging my lightsaber around.
The first time you right click on an NPC with the appropriate icon floating above their head, you'll notice that the quests all use cutscenes and voice-overs. In many cases your replies to these NPCs affect your alignment with the light or dark side, which I presume defines some of your options later in the game. Even as someone who isn't big on voice-overs, I can understand their appeal, and there seems to be a well-developed storyline for each class, including their own starting area.
The early missions themselves keep you busy hunting and delivering under the usual pretense of urgency. The map tracks your quests and makes it easy to find your way from one objective to the next. Apart from the voice-overs, it's a pretty typical quest system, but it's clearly received several coats of polish.
At some points in the class storyline, you enter areas where only your party is visible and you have the NPCs to yourselves. They're a bit like instances but there is no load time or load screen. If you stand at the entrance to one of these areas, you see other players disappear as they run inside, and reappear as they run out. I mention it only because I've never seen anything quite like it a MMORPG before.
Wielding the lightsaber was good fun, and combat for the beta was scaled such that you can take on numerous mobs your own level and show them what for. It felt fitting for a Jedi Knight, but difficulty levels could still get changed before release. The format is pure RPG, with conventional target selection and hotbars. It almost goes without saying that if you've played WoW, you'll feel right at home with the combat system and the UI.
The Old Republic looks good on high graphics settings, although the strong resemblance to comic book art is bound to turn a few people off. The environments are large and impressively seamless; once in the game I can't remember hitting a single loading screen.
There's a lot to like about The Old Republic, especially for those that want engaging storylines, and the classes offer good replay potential. If you're waiting for a game to redefine the genre, this probably isn't it, but the early levels exceeded my expectations. I'm looking forward to seeing more of it after release, which is scheduled for December 20th.
