Star Wars: The Old Republic

 PC
User Score
6.0

Mixed or average reviews- based on 2879 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,378 out of 2879
  2. Mixed: 545 out of 2879
  3. Negative: 956 out of 2879
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  1. Vatolicious
    Mar 16, 2012
    4
    This is not a bad game. It is a good basic MMO. The updates they are talking about will make it better, but the updates are all things that should have been in at launch. Questing it boring, leveling is slow, pvp is pretty fun, ship fighting is fun however repetitive. The end game is VERY dull and offers nothing other MMOs havent been doing for a decade.
  2. Valladria
    Feb 14, 2012
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Ordinarily, I also advise patience with new MMOs but the poor implementation of new content and the often flawed, or non-functional, nature of technical remedies does not give me faith for the future. I would also like to praise the game for utilising such immersive class quests and for successfully evoking the simplistic fun of arcade games via space combat missions. Whilst some reviews praise the lower reliance on co-operation in The Old Republic, I find the emphasis on single player content tedious and counter to the essence of an MMORPG. My complaint in this domain is derived from the fact that the game has limited repeatability value despite claims to the contrary by Bioware. In truth, only a small proportion of the levelling experience is related to class-specific content thus you must either tolerate conversations with generic quest NPCs whilst levelling new characters or must skip them, thereby rendering the experience rather hollow. Moreover, any sense of choice in conservations is limited by the need to make choices that boost your companionsâ… Expand
  3. Shadius
    Jan 17, 2012
    4
    I really don't understand why there is no "jk2:jo" combat system, such a perfect action style pvp could be.
    I don't understand why "planets" are so small and 80% of them are built with narrow corridors. I want to kick those guys who did all this stupid 5 min runs "fleet-ship-star port-land". >40% of playtime i just run from 1 npc/location to another. What for?
    Lack of classes. Mirror    I really don't understand why there is no "jk2:jo" combat system, such a perfect action style pvp could be.
    I don't understand why "planets" are so small and 80% of them are built with narrow corridors. I want to kick those guys who did all this stupid 5 min runs "fleet-ship-star port-land". >40% of playtime i just run from 1 npc/location to another. What for?
    Lack of classes. Mirror classes. And still unbalanced?! How they could fail with that?
    Instances, mirror worlds, flashpoints, battle grounds, awkward auction. MMO? Really? What's wrong with people nowadays? They didn't see what true mmo is?

    It should be simply b2p game. And called coop rpg, not a mmo rpg. Then i would give it may be 8 or even 9/10.    … Expand
  4. moorejs99
    Feb 8, 2012
    3
    Where to begin? If this was a single player game released in 2007, it might get a 7. But as an "MMORPG" released in late 2011? What a mess. A brief rundown:

    Graphics/presentation: The voiceovers are well done. But they get BORING and insipid after a while...you spend as much time in cutscenes as you do in the game. The graphics are, in a word, abhorrent. The terrain/object models are OK,    Where to begin? If this was a single player game released in 2007, it might get a 7. But as an "MMORPG" released in late 2011? What a mess. A brief rundown:

    Graphics/presentation: The voiceovers are well done. But they get BORING and insipid after a while...you spend as much time in cutscenes as you do in the game. The graphics are, in a word, abhorrent. The terrain/object models are OK, but the textures are awful, making the entire game look equally bad. There is no excuse for something this ugly in 2012.

    Gameplay: Nothing special. Not good, not bad- it's just like every other game in the genre, only much, much easier. Rolling an alt is all there is to do if you hit the level cap, and once you're made 1 for each faction, it's just painful to play through the same garbage all over again. Good thing they made it about a casual 2 week stroll to max level, huh? I won't even talk about space combat- it's so insanely silly and poorly done it's not worth it. You're basically playing the 80s arcade came Tempest. Awful. Questing is an on-rails experience. You have no choices. There are light and dark side options, but none of it makes a shred of difference. Skills are typical, boring, cookie-cutter. Nothing to see here that hasn't been done far better a dozen times.

    Performance: The Hero engine is, in a word, trash. It's ugly and lor resolution, yet it chugs like a pig. Everything you do is delayed while the engine thinks about it. Just dreadful.

    User Interface: No mods. You can't move elements or change colors. It's hideous. Enough said.

    Customization/Roleplay: There is an "RP" in "MMORPG", but you won't find it here. This is 1012, and get this: There are ZERO ways to make a unique looking avatar. There are 4 body types: Bobblehead, linebacker, hulk, and fat sloppy git. No sliders for height, weight, muscle tone, nothing. Not a single facial feature can be adjusted- you pick one of the pre-made looks, choose on of the 20 ish terrible hairstyles, layer on some low-res terrible scars or tattoos, and there you are. INEXCUSABLE. Period. Beyond that...the world is completely static. Nothing can be interacted with. You can't sit in a chair or on a bench. The emotes look like they were animated in freeware by a blind teen. Housing? None, unless you count your starship..that is identical to every other starship for players of your class, and can't be customised in any way. It's useless other than a single storage cabinet. Other players can't come on board, either, because your entire hangar is a solo instance. It sucks.

    That's enough, I guess. There is a LOT more wrong with this train wreck, but it's been covered ad nauseum. This is by leaps and bounds the most disappointing, shoddy, half hearted and tossed together attempt at a game I've seen in years.    … Expand
  5. Setebos
    Jan 17, 2012
    4
    Unfortunately I can't recommend this game.

    The game is a closed box game very similar to many BioWare titles. Taking a BioWare game and turning it into an MMO doesn't make a good MMO or a good single player game. If comparisons are used, it's a WoW gameplay duplicate in a Guild Wars I setting. Graphically there's a lot of amazing settings. Unfortunately, as you move through the game,    Unfortunately I can't recommend this game.

    The game is a closed box game very similar to many BioWare titles. Taking a BioWare game and turning it into an MMO doesn't make a good MMO or a good single player game. If comparisons are used, it's a WoW gameplay duplicate in a Guild Wars I setting.

    Graphically there's a lot of amazing settings. Unfortunately, as you move through the game, you never have reason to visit any of these settings again. Once you're done with an area, you'll never have to go back. It almost seems all wasted effort.

    The game itself is fairly polished. I didn't experience too many glitches or bugs while playing. They did a good job with QA and beta testing to ensure that the start game experience is tight.

    Unfortunately, there's just nothing new here. I think BioWare is stuck in the "what works" mode. They released a well received game years ago, Knights of the Old Republic. Then *every* game released by them since has had the exact same gameplay as Kotor, and very similar storylines. The only thing changing is the graphics. (play Mass Effect 2 & Kotor side by side and you'll feel like Mass Effect 2 is an updated Kotor).

    Argh, a game with limited fast travel. Too much walking. Why do I need to walk five minutes to get to my ship, to fly to another planet, then walk five minutes to get out of the star port? If the world was open, then walking would have a secondary impetus of exploring. However the world is simply a corridor where you walk to the next mission objective. There's simply isn't anything to explore.

    Enough bashing, I'm simply disappointed. I've played the game nearly 40 hours, so I've gotten my money's worth in time compared to a single player game. I simply didn't get my money's worth in enjoyment.    … Expand
  6. zenzu
    Feb 23, 2012
    4
    Character creation is a let down. Graphics and overall art direction is a complete let down, I was hoping for gritty shadows of the empire and got bright and colorful jar jar. The stories are wonderful... if I wasn't always distracted by how silly and cartoonish the NPC's are. I'm a huge star wars fun, and I think this game has tonnes of potential... almost exactly how age of conan hadCharacter creation is a let down. Graphics and overall art direction is a complete let down, I was hoping for gritty shadows of the empire and got bright and colorful jar jar. The stories are wonderful... if I wasn't always distracted by how silly and cartoonish the NPC's are. I'm a huge star wars fun, and I think this game has tonnes of potential... almost exactly how age of conan had tonnes of potential. Age of Conan failed due to horrendous bugs, swtor might because it was made like a carebears episode.… Expand
  7. Stumblebee
    Dec 30, 2011
    4
    I believe that I've played enough of the game to now form a solid opinion of how I feel about it. The reason that I'm doing this review is because I feel that while the user reviews are fairly accurate (if some are a little bit harsh. I wouldn't give the game a 0 just because you're disappointed in it) it seems the majority of the critic reviews are a little biased, only pointing out theI believe that I've played enough of the game to now form a solid opinion of how I feel about it. The reason that I'm doing this review is because I feel that while the user reviews are fairly accurate (if some are a little bit harsh. I wouldn't give the game a 0 just because you're disappointed in it) it seems the majority of the critic reviews are a little biased, only pointing out the positive features rather than the negatives, which in my opinion need to be made aware of at the same time.

    Graphics: "With the graphics settings cranked to full the game is arguably the best looking MMO to date. From the fine details like the equipment players can wear and the expressions on the faces of NPCs during conversations, right up to the brilliant looking environments." is a quote from an Australian review which I find bizarre, as even with the settings cranked up the full the graphics just look... odd. While they are better than the majority of western MMOs and better than alot of older MMOs, if you compare the graphics of TOR to the graphics of MMOs released from last year to MMOs about to be released next year, they are by far not the "best looking mmo" If anything, the graphics look like Dragon Age's except, even more cartoony and low quality. The animations are stagnant and stiff, the running animations especially look like they've been done by a bad actor who doesn't know when to run on cue.

    Sound: Your typical Star Wars music, everything sounds right and fits the theme, the score is great also. However, some lines are reused when it comes to voice acting, but I'll let it slide.

    Gameplay: While the gameplay is like World of Warcraft (the endgame especially, when it's around ten people slashing on one enemy. You'd think that only one lightsaber slash would kill a human, it did with Qui-Gon Jinn!) I feel like there was no escape from that style of gameplay for TOR and what's so bad about it being similar to WoW's? it's still fun and to be honest, they make the gameplay more exciting than WoW's anyway. The most unique thing about the game is the dialog choices, but it just feels... slapped on. If anything, it makes it feel like the multiplayer aspect is slapped on more than the dialog. It really does feel like a single player game with a chat room. There's no need to find a party at all. The fact that this is more important than the multiplayer aspect is disappointing. Oh, and don't get me started on PvP. It's nonexistent. The gameplay is fine for a single player game and is still fun at times, but for an MMO, it's just not good enough.

    Story: My favorite story by far is the Bounty Hunter's, it's a ton of fun. I like how each class gets their own unique story.. but, why can you have sex with everybody? It seems like everyone wants to get in bed with you from the second that they meet you. There are SO MANY people you can have one night stands with, it's weird.

    Server performance: I've experienced no lag, but there's something even worse than that concerning the servers. There are too many for a game just launching. It seems that every server is either full or empty. That's your choice. You either wait in huge queues or you go on a barren land of a server, maybe that's why nobody wanted to party with me. Extend the server capacity, Bioware. OH! And there's even queues for the website and forums. No point.

    Random niggles I found on my journey: There are a few graphical glitches in the game, some are quite funny because of it, but every MMO has glitches on launch, so I'll let it pass.
    Why am I stuck in a building most of the time? I'd like to see some outside.
    I'd also like to go more than knee deep in water.
    Why is every playable race humanoid? Is it because they're not pretty enough for the oh so important sex scenes? They're just different colored humans. The most alien looking are Twi'leks, but they're humans with tentacles on their head! I'd like some actual alien looking playable races
    I'd avoid the forums, it seems to be a war between die hard haters who have a vendetta against the game and people who bow at Bioware's feet. You'll get caught in the crossfire even if you create a topic featuring constructive criticism or a simple question. I fear for the game once some of the community lose interest and go back to their regular MMOs. What are we left with?    … Expand
  8. ArcticF0X
    Jan 26, 2012
    4
    Level 50 Scoundrel - Valor rank 33 - Completed most Hard Modes.

    With all the money & development put into this game, one has to wonder where on earth it all went. To put it bluntly, the game looks & feels outdated. The combat is not very fluid. Ability delay which should have be fixed in BETA is still present.The HeroEngine is terrible. Why is it that i can play BF3 on max settings with    Level 50 Scoundrel - Valor rank 33 - Completed most Hard Modes.

    With all the money & development put into this game, one has to wonder where on earth it all went.
    To put it bluntly, the game looks & feels outdated. The combat is not very fluid. Ability delay which should have be fixed in BETA is still present.The HeroEngine is terrible. Why is it that i can play BF3 on max settings with 64 players with an enviroment that is destructible & get 60+ frames but in SWTOR, anything with 30+ people on screen it becomes a slide show? Shoddy.

    The planets are a major let down. Maybe because they don't actually feel likes planets. Most of them are lifeless & dull. Coruscant is a big living, breathing city. In SWTOR, Coruscant feels like a set of corridors with hardly anyone around. This goes for most of the planets, they feel lifeless. Mobs stand in one place waiting to be killed. There is hardly any ambient music whilst you're exploring the planets. Environmental sound is severely lacking. When i can hear my own footsteps in the middle of 'big city' you know something is wrong. Add all of that together with alot of 'loading screens' & you have a game world that feels bland & dull.

    No customizable UI.
    Unable to choose warzone maps.
    RNG end game PvP gear grind.
    The abomination that is Ilum.
    One of the worst character creation screens. A human with an earpiece = cyborg? Really?

    It seems to me that they wasted all their money on voiceovers & cutscenes that they forgot about the things that really matter.    … Expand
  9. frank12
    Jan 24, 2012
    4
    I had high hopes for this game, but unfortunately it only led to more disappointment. The game is transparently a WoW clone, but Bioware fell short in almost every aspect. It should have been released 6mo-1yr after it was. Poor optimization causing low fps on high-end rigs, massive ability delay (which destroys any semblance of competitive PvP), and a lack of basic MMO features such asI had high hopes for this game, but unfortunately it only led to more disappointment. The game is transparently a WoW clone, but Bioware fell short in almost every aspect. It should have been released 6mo-1yr after it was. Poor optimization causing low fps on high-end rigs, massive ability delay (which destroys any semblance of competitive PvP), and a lack of basic MMO features such as combat log, customizable UI, and LFG. Customer service is non-existent. This game received decent scores from critics because they only level to 30 or 40 and then rush a review out. After that, the lack of endgame content and functionality becomes apparent. Pve is a joke (cleared on nightmare mode in less than a month, despite raid-wiping bugs, by a PvP guild), and pvp even worse due to faction imbalance, complete lack of world pvp, and the aforementioned fps and ability delay issues. Bioware/EA had a potential bonanza with a Star Wars licensed MMO, but unfortunately rushed out a game that was poorly developed and conceptualized.… Expand
  10. ThomasVII
    Dec 31, 2011
    4
    I'm enjoying the voice acting and the graphics are great (except for the lack of AA?). I'm finding it very difficult to get immersed and thats very important to me in an mmorpg. Seeing 'my' companion everywhere I go, running along side another 'chosen one' really ruins the personal aspect of them and the story line.

    I'm playing a Jedi Consular, master of the force. Except I'm pressing one    I'm enjoying the voice acting and the graphics are great (except for the lack of AA?). I'm finding it very difficult to get immersed and thats very important to me in an mmorpg. Seeing 'my' companion everywhere I go, running along side another 'chosen one' really ruins the personal aspect of them and the story line.

    I'm playing a Jedi Consular, master of the force. Except I'm pressing one of the three buttons to strike with my lightsaber or throwing dirt in my opponents eyes coupled with a ming vase to the face, that happens to be buried under the hull of a spaceship? That, to me, doesn't feel very 'Jedi like'. I expected to be throwing NPC's and other players around the room, jumping ridiculous heights or at least feeling like I have some degree influence over the physics around my character. I will try out other races and classes during the 20 days I have remaining of my sub but I shouldn't have to work at enjoying a game.

    The story is single player orientated and it shouldn't be. An mmorpg for me should feel like you are part of something bigger than you are, like every player around you is important and not for the most part background/ tools to be used. Being surrounded by the 'chosen one' ruins it for me. The story doesn't suit the genre. If I wanted a great single player adventure with a social aspect, I could play Final Fantasy 7 with Skype running indefinitely, with no subscription costs. I'm really disappointed. I wanted SWTOR to really shine.    … Expand
  11. screenjab
    Dec 31, 2011
    3
    After much hype, finally the reality of this bland game becomes apparent. Disappointing in almost every conceivable way, I not only would never recommend it to anybody else, but would go further and yell...
    RUN!!
  12. garland_spqr
    Jan 15, 2012
    4
    Up until now I have liked every Bioware game and some of them are my all time favorites. This game however, is a gigantic disappointment.
    I played a Jedi sage to level 30 when I stopped as every second spent felt like a waste of time. I expected a game with a good story and rich lore in a vivid star wars world. Sadly, I found nothing of it.
    In my opinion, Jedi sage until level 30 has no    Up until now I have liked every Bioware game and some of them are my all time favorites. This game however, is a gigantic disappointment.
    I played a Jedi sage to level 30 when I stopped as every second spent felt like a waste of time. I expected a game with a good story and rich lore in a vivid star wars world. Sadly, I found nothing of it.
    In my opinion, Jedi sage until level 30 has no story. The quests consist of: disable an array there, hack a terminal there, loot quest items from dead bodies etc. The quests do not feel connected to each other or embedded in a story, everything feels very random and pointless. There are no memorable characters throughout the journey and the companions are annoyingly flat placeholders with no story.
    I expected living, breathing city worlds full of life. They are nothing more than tunnels filled with lifeless mobs. I expected varied crafting professions that let you explore the world. They are nothing more than a "click and wait" game. I would have liked to see flashpoints connected to the planets you travel through, but they are just random missions on the fleet. A starwars game should be filled with passion, but this game is passionless. The dialogue and codex writing is very mediocre and not anywhere near the quality of Mass Effect or Dragon Age.
    Its possible that things look different with other classes, but from a jedi sage perspective, this is a poor game.
    The only things I liked are the music and the voice-actors, which are both brilliant. The rest is forgettable.    … Expand
  13. Poopypants
    Dec 30, 2011
    3
    During my first several hours with the game, I agreed with most of the critics' very high scores due to the combination of voice-acted story elements with MMORPG gameplay. Playing beyond that, however, it becomes clear that the game truly succeeds neither as an MMO nor a high-quality roleplaying game. What initially seem to be high-quality, voice-acted cutscenes with moral choices becomeDuring my first several hours with the game, I agreed with most of the critics' very high scores due to the combination of voice-acted story elements with MMORPG gameplay. Playing beyond that, however, it becomes clear that the game truly succeeds neither as an MMO nor a high-quality roleplaying game. What initially seem to be high-quality, voice-acted cutscenes with moral choices become repetitive variations on a theme with the same rehashing of stock animations (look especially at the hand gestures). The moral choices become somewhat inconsequential because they only affect your singleplayer experience, with no real way to impact the broader game.

    As the other comments have hit on, this is a linear singleplayer hub game where every zone is instanced, mobs are stationary, character creation leaves much to be desired especially with the Star Wars IP, and gear diversity is nonexistent to the point of leaving the game's economy -- a hallmark of many successful MMOs -- irrelevant.

    As the "massively multiplayer" features are minimal, SWTOR should honestly be evaluated on its merit as a singleplayer roleplayer game. Taken in that light it is far inferior to leading titles. The game's sole innovation of fully voiced cutscenes for every quest could be the future of MMOs, and this will likely be seen as an early, flawed attempt. 4/10    … Expand
  14. Zankiesko
    Jan 15, 2012
    3
    Welcome to the World of Warc--Err, Star Wars: The Old Republic. Star Wars is clearly pandering to the World of Warcraft crowd. Instead of trying to innovate anything or add interesting features to the game, Bioware simply made a World of Warcraft clone. Unlike Rift, though, that at least brought a little bit of innovation (in terms of the soul swapping), Star Wars brings nothing. StarWelcome to the World of Warc--Err, Star Wars: The Old Republic. Star Wars is clearly pandering to the World of Warcraft crowd. Instead of trying to innovate anything or add interesting features to the game, Bioware simply made a World of Warcraft clone. Unlike Rift, though, that at least brought a little bit of innovation (in terms of the soul swapping), Star Wars brings nothing. Star Wars' combat system feels like Bioware fell into the problem that amateur developers often do. That issue is that you become fond of a bad system because you've been exposed to it internally so frequently. The combat somehow took WOW's formula and simplified it. Star Wars removed auto-attacks; But then they added it as a button you have to press. That's right, the game that talked about how boring auto attacks are has you hit auto attack instead. I do not believe Bioware understands why people didn't like auto attacks.

    The class system lacks any sort of "heart" and just feels like Bioware sat down and copy-pasted the talent trees from World of Warcraft. People will be up in arms about this, but the reality of it is that you can pick many trees from Star Wars and find an exact version over in World of Warcraft. Sith Sorcerer, for example, has the "Lightning" tree, which is almost copied talent-for-talent from the "Elemental" tree in the shaman class in World of Warcraft.

    To make things worse, you will run into things such as vendors, which have drop down menus for options like "Sort By..." Great addition; Except they don't do anything. If you select "Only Show Usable" as a Level 17 Bounty Hunter, Level 50 Lightsabers will still show up on the vendor. You're not able to use level 50 lightsabers at level 17, and you aren't able to use lightsabers as a bounty hunter. The auction house is a nightmare to deal with, and makes EverQuest 1's original instantiation of the Bazaar system seem like the crowning achievement of MMO auction houses. Somehow, Bioware managed to do so little R&D into a comfortable user interface for an MMO that it feels like this may be the first MMO with an auction house.

    You will frequently run into mouse problems that require you to reload the UI every time. You'll find yourself being permanently stuck in cover as a sniper, but you can't use any of the abilities that require cover while doing so. You're now unable to do anything except stand there and die.

    The UI is fine for a single player game. Sadly, this is not a single player game. It is nightmarish healing with such an egregious UI. Aion's UI was bad, but it was 10/10 material compared to Star Wars' UI.

    Now, everything isn't negative. Star Wars made it possible to send your pets to gather resources for you. You're also able to gather resources yourself. So, you'll be able to level your gathering professions while doing something else or even being offline. This is a feature that seems like it was added purely for convenience and, in the current age of MMOs where "difficulty" means "tedious", a change for convenience is a change for the better.

    Sadly, this then draws attention to the crafting system. The crafting system takes the boring nature of WOW's crafting and mixes it with the RNG rage-inducing system from Aion. There are a ton of patterns out there. The problem, though, is that you either need to train them from the NPC or learn them from reverse engineering. Reverse engineering is akin to WOW's disenchanting, but your profession determines what you can do this to. An armstech can only reverse engineer guns of the types that they can create. An armortech can only reverse engineer armor of the types that they can create. You'll have crafting patterns that are green. When you craft it, you have a chance to get a critical (superior) version of it. You can then reverse engineer these items in hopes of getting a new pattern. This is how you'll learn most of your patterns. By the way, it is mind numbing. As bad as other MMO crafting systems were, Star Wars takes it to the next level. Star Wars makes Eve Online's crafting system feel immediate and closer to "instant gratification". With guns sometimes taking over 40 minutes to craft and gathering missions taking your companions well over an hour, the game's crafting system somehow manages to take more time than Eve Online's.

    "This is not the game you're looking for. Move along."    … Expand
  15. DeNovo
    Jan 7, 2012
    2
    TOR is less than mediocre. The group encounters are a boring rehash of every MMO you have played before. The boss mechanics are lame and easy. There is no sense of achievement beating any of the heroic instances.

    The pvp boils down to 3 small warzones. 3 is not enough, and if you play on the Imperial side, you may as well call this game The Huttball Republic, since you are forced to    TOR is less than mediocre. The group encounters are a boring rehash of every MMO you have played before. The boss mechanics are lame and easy. There is no sense of achievement beating any of the heroic instances.

    The pvp boils down to 3 small warzones. 3 is not enough, and if you play on the Imperial side, you may as well call this game The Huttball Republic, since you are forced to play on that map more than half the time. The warzones are a sloppy mess that have no level brackets to seperate low levels from the well geared high levels. Players constantly hide in a corner and go afk to farm commendations, and there is no system to report them or remove them. The actual pvp combat is also a mess, complete with high levels of server lag that is death for melee characters that can never seem to hit moving targets. The "resolve" system to prevent being chain stunned / cc'd to death is present in the game, but is completely broken and has no effect.

    As for the world pvp I was excited for? What world pvp? I'm on one of the most popular servers with a faction balance closer to 1:1 than any other pvp server and three weeks after release, the questing zones are empty of players when I go out looking for action.

    The game is still rather unstable, lots of crashes, missing textures, and game breaking bugs both big and small, even after the first major patch. The customer service is poor and didn't respond to my request for help for 3 days when my character was stuck in the wall, by that time another player had helped me escape.

    Character creation was an afterthought, there is very little you can do to make your character look good or unique. But that's ok since the gear in this game looks so terrible, no one will want to look at your guy anyway. You will either be dressed up in your sci-fi clown suit, or you will be in the exact same pvp set that everyone else in your class is wearing.

    The only strength of this game is its solo questing with full voice acted cut scenes. In an mmo setting, who gives a **** about single player cutscenes? Its a side detail at best, and yet that was their main focus. You can tell Bioware doesn't have their priorities straight about what makes a great MMO game. I made it to level 50 with a pvp valor rank of 52 in my three weeks here, and I wish I had not bought the game. But at least they won't even get one month of subscription fees out of me. Star Wars fans will enjoy this game I'm sure, but gamers looking for a solid MMO, with intense competitive pvp gameplay should look elsewhere. If they were going to copy WoW, they should have copied all of it, because this game isn't much fun, especially at the level cap.

    For $300 million dollars, Bioware has created a turd that hasn't even been polished yet.    … Expand
  16. Jounar
    Jan 13, 2012
    4
    Sadly after all the hype SWTOR is nothing more than a badly copied WoW clone but missing far to many features to be called a real MMO. Character creation is not only rather basic but seems to share the same graphics with NPC's so expect to see very similar looking throughout the game. The graphics are very dated for a modern MMO and are easily put to shame by the likes of AoC, LOTRO, RiftSadly after all the hype SWTOR is nothing more than a badly copied WoW clone but missing far to many features to be called a real MMO. Character creation is not only rather basic but seems to share the same graphics with NPC's so expect to see very similar looking throughout the game. The graphics are very dated for a modern MMO and are easily put to shame by the likes of AoC, LOTRO, Rift and even WoW. Whats even worse is the promo screenshots and videos Bioware use to advertise the game use a high res texture setting than player can't use no matter how powerful there PC's are. Combat which makes up the majority of a players time in the game is dull, uninspired and fells very unresponsive overall. PvP combat in the PvP arena's is even worse as the game engine just doesn't seem able to handle having lots of players fighting close together.

    The current high graphics setting is just a renamed medium setting due to how awful the Hero engine is and even using low/medium settings the game still performs poorly on high spec PC's. It took Bioware almost a month to admit this on there forums after first claiming it was a UI bug and that the real high res graphics settings are only used in cutscenes with NPCs. For a 2011/2012 AAA MMO with such a huge budget the graphics are a complete disgrace and feel like something that was released in 2006 except game back then had much better visuals.

    The much hyped class story is ok for the most part but nothing that will have single player game developers shaking in their boots and while it makes the normal kill 10 rats type quests all MMOs have less obvious it only makes up about 5-8% of the missions a player needs to do to hit max level. This makes running alts no different than any other MMO and worse than some as you need to do the exact same missions in the exact same order for every character.

    The various planets are very nice and also very instanced so the game world feels very empty for the most part. The planets are not however very open compared to other MMO's and the game through mission hub placement always pushes you in the direction of the next set of missions. There is also no public quest style missions which for a big budget MMO is a huge oversight imho. The dungeons or flashpoints as SWTOR calls them are the exact same deal we have seen in every other MMO since EQ1 with trash mobs to be cleared before reaching a boss. The starter flashpoint for both factions is much more like the standard single player missions due to alot of interaction with NPC's but these are the exception. Crafting is handled well in SWTOR with the players companions doing most of the more boring leg work in gathering crafting materials but to get the best items you still need to raid for recipes and materials and in all cases better items can be gotten from the level 50 daily missions players can run.

    SWTOR is a single player Bioware game with some basic MMO option bolted and I do mean basic. A very poor LFG system, horrid UI, guilds being nothing more than a friends tab, the most basic looting system any MMO has ever had and a class system with less options than those found in EQ1.

    When compared to games like LOTRO, Rift and of course WoW the lack of polish for such a costly to produce game is just shocking with bug that were known about in the July beta of 2011 still being in the released product. What a shame EA didn't allow an extra 6 months worth of development and a more adventurous design team weren't behind the wheel.    … Expand
  17. Thicky
    Jan 2, 2012
    3
    I'm going to try and keep this short because when it comes to great companies like Bioware and great IP's like Star Wars it's difficult for people to read negative reviews and not take the things they love most personally.

    The game is nearly as good as WoW. Well when WoW was released 7 years ago. There's zero excuse for a AAA title with this much time and money dedicated to development    I'm going to try and keep this short because when it comes to great companies like Bioware and great IP's like Star Wars it's difficult for people to read negative reviews and not take the things they love most personally.

    The game is nearly as good as WoW. Well when WoW was released 7 years ago. There's zero excuse for a AAA title with this much time and money dedicated to development to be lacking such basic features as an Auction House or a /roll command for looting. There are so many things left out of the game you have to wonder what the beta tests were for.

    - Battlegrounds are a disaster. There are no level brackets so if you're not max lvl then you are getting pummeled into the ground.

    - There are no diminishing returns so stunlocks are the norm.

    - Everything is instanced. You're going to meet your buddy in town? Make sure you're in the same instance.

    - Zero need to group up, you have a team of NPC's to command.

    - Crafting requires no gathering or even leaving the town, your NPC's will do everything for you.

    - Don't fall in the water, there's no swimming physics so you drown in a puddle.

    Dammit I wanted to keep this short but there are so many problems. I won't even get into balance because honestly that wouldn't be fair. But let's just say that some classes have skills that still don't work or they do things like make you fall through the earth.

    I played Rift and I was one of those people telling others to stop complaining about things because I thought by complaining they were making the game look bad and as such the game would fail. I silently agreed with their complaints but I stayed silent.

    Well this game isn't as good as Rift was and I won't be clucthing to the railing as this ship sinks. Maybe Blizzard can get the rights to Star Wars...

    TLDR: Save your money, F2P games are better.    … Expand
  18. Navyseal
    Feb 7, 2012
    0
    I would Rather Play SWG then this dreadful thing they call an MMO. All Biware can do is story tell not make an mmo Galaxies was way better then this . Really need to stick to RPG's not doing big game like this what a disappointment and a waste of money
  19. Larux18
    Jan 26, 2012
    3
    I am so pissed right now with Bioware, I generally don't give games this low of a score but they screwed it all up! Everything that is story related is now completely screwed up! Every story element related to KOTOR here is awful, how they decide to show Revan in this game is also extremely disappointing! The gameplay here is good but now that the story has screwed up everything there isI am so pissed right now with Bioware, I generally don't give games this low of a score but they screwed it all up! Everything that is story related is now completely screwed up! Every story element related to KOTOR here is awful, how they decide to show Revan in this game is also extremely disappointing! The gameplay here is good but now that the story has screwed up everything there is not a purpose to play this game, this game is no more for me. Thanks to this game KOTOR 3 will probably never be made! Thanks for nothing Bioware!… Expand
  20. LemonFinder
    Dec 30, 2011
    1
    Poor character creation, left me seeing a whole lot of "ME" running around. Character appearance also left me thinking this was more of a kids game. No real tactics involved, just activate ability=win. Static opponents add to the lack tactics needed. PvP is very unbalanced and rather one sided. Now what should Star Wars really be GREAT at? "Space Combat"!... No, it left me again, as withPoor character creation, left me seeing a whole lot of "ME" running around. Character appearance also left me thinking this was more of a kids game. No real tactics involved, just activate ability=win. Static opponents add to the lack tactics needed. PvP is very unbalanced and rather one sided. Now what should Star Wars really be GREAT at? "Space Combat"!... No, it left me again, as with the "Tactics" and "Character" creator, that I needed to be taken by the hand and directed where to go because "I MUST be a child" and certainly couldn't know now how to fly a ship in a 3D in environment, just point and click, point and click... Very uninspiring. I regret having paid money to play this, for at the quality it is it should be a F2P. Which I suspect it will become soon. Most disappointing of all is in fact the Space combat system. This is STAR WARS!! It should have epic space battles!!... but it doesn't. You know who has better space fighting? Star Trek Online... Why in the hell is Star TREK beating Star WARS in Space Combat?!? Bioware, your fired!… Expand
  21. Sethendal
    Dec 30, 2011
    0
    As a long time Bioware fan, this game couldn't be more disappointing. While the tell-tale storytelling is there as you would expect from a Bioware game, there's strong evidence that the game itself was rushed and is a cash-in on the hopes the rabid Star Wars fanbase would clamor for any chance to have a Star Wars MMO that wasn't Galaxies.

    1.) Gameplay and Graphics. The game immediately    As a long time Bioware fan, this game couldn't be more disappointing. While the tell-tale storytelling is there as you would expect from a Bioware game, there's strong evidence that the game itself was rushed and is a cash-in on the hopes the rabid Star Wars fanbase would clamor for any chance to have a Star Wars MMO that wasn't Galaxies.

    1.) Gameplay and Graphics. The game immediately feels dated in terms of gameplay and graphics. While Bioware definitely focused on storytelling, what is lacking horribly is innovations in gameplay which is what you spend the other 95% of your time interacting with inbetween voice-acting and storytelling. Whether they ported in a base-line foundation for the gameplay under-carriage or that they simply forgot to focus on it, the mechanics are boring, second-rate and repetitive. If you're looking for a game that looks and feels like it was made in 2011, this isn't it. The game is a 2005 MMO with a Bioware story and Star Wars IP shoved into it forcibly.

    2. Instanced Co-op vs MMO. This game isn't an MMO. It's an instanced Co-op game. I could write a novel on why but the simple fact is that the world is missing from this game as a character. You move about the world in transitions / instances and never really get the feeling you're in a massive world but a simulator of sorts. It's highly jarring given the setting that you end up feeling as though you're playing a a co-op RPG that decided to throw in some MMO features. Many of the innovations and foundations built as standards for MMO's are missing making the game feel like it's missing something at all angles based on the MMO expectation it sets.

    3. Repetitive. If you're here for the story, that will last you for a while but as MMO's goes, it's a distraction from what is missing which is an innovative mechanism for end-game, combat and the like. The quests while strengthened by voice acting and writing, lets you down as you realize you're still a fed-ex / errand boy to every NPC in the universe. The voice acting eventually becomes an annoyance as you realize you're paying for the games voice-talent and that once the glint of this innovation wears away, your left with a boring and repetitive standard mechanic of quests. I actually found myself annoyed quite quickly, and unfairly, as my new friends to the game wanted to hear the same damn quest dialogue. This early in the life-span of the game, SWTOR shows its true weakness in that once Alts become more and more common (since there's no end game), the repetition will become more and more annoying as the splinter-archs of stories based on your choices become less and less meaningful.

    4. New content. While the promise of expansions are already floating around, the fact that they're built on the same foundation makes me wary, as well as if Bioware will be able to keep the only innovation in their game (voice acting/storytelling) at the same level as expansions roll out. Overall, the game feels like a flash in the pan for me that I spent far too much on due to hype. As my friends already begin to consider returning to WoW (ack), the true teller for SWTOR will be if they can keep people interested enough that they don't run back to what they know is working for them. MMO players are fickle given investments made in other games like WoW and EVE that are always there waiting for their return and I'm already seeing my group of friends second guess the game for similar reasons as I've laid out.    … Expand
  22. Fourdee
    Dec 28, 2011
    3
    After reading all the mixed feedback regarding this title, i finally purchased the game to decide for myself. In short, i have now received a refund for the game. Hopefully the following information will save further players like myself £44.99 for probably the worst MMO (Lobby game, this isnt massive) game ever. The gameplay (what really matters!) = Extremely Poor, i've playedAfter reading all the mixed feedback regarding this title, i finally purchased the game to decide for myself. In short, i have now received a refund for the game. Hopefully the following information will save further players like myself £44.99 for probably the worst MMO (Lobby game, this isnt massive) game ever. The gameplay (what really matters!) = Extremely Poor, i've played over 3 years of WoW, 3 years of Planetside, various other MMO's, even the free ones. Swtor's gameplay is extremely linear and basic, its an insult to anyone who has played WoW. There is no "skill" or sense of achievement from the gameplay mechanics what-so-ever and it quickly becomes boring. You have to stand still, wait for the game animations to catch up, then you are able to start attacking/casting. Once in combat, you are simply pressing the same buttons which all seem to do the same thing and stand there and take any damage which is simply thrown at you. There is no reward for experienced players in this game. The voice-overs are great on the other hand, however, you will spend 90% of your playtime in the actual gameplay, and, as above, this really does get boring quick.

    Champions online, was more enjoyable for gameplay mechanics than this game, and that is now free!

    As others have said, "AAA" titles with 150-300million budgets should never be able to release a game like SWTOR and simply rely on the Star Wars franchise and marketing to satisfy its customers.

    Speaking as an experienced gamer, i beg anyone with sense, do not waste your money on this game. Try World of Warcraft, that game is worth you time and dedications to which you will spend hours upon hours of your time enjoying the gameplay, you wont with SWTOR.

    A major letdown, a insult to PC gamers, a good idea of where the gaming market has gone in releasing poor gameplay titles with hugh budgets and storylines.    … Expand
  23. me2et
    Dec 31, 2011
    4
    Alright i'm not gonna mindlessly bash this game il give you a reasons why i hated this game,the first thing that you notice that immersion in this game is great you even forget it's an MMO is that a good reason,no it is not as you play your first 10 hours you will have many fun hours playing it and then it hit ya : this is an MMO....this game feels like KOTOR with online option this byAlright i'm not gonna mindlessly bash this game il give you a reasons why i hated this game,the first thing that you notice that immersion in this game is great you even forget it's an MMO is that a good reason,no it is not as you play your first 10 hours you will have many fun hours playing it and then it hit ya : this is an MMO....this game feels like KOTOR with online option this by no mean's an MMO,that's why i'm giving it a low score as an MMO game if it were a single player it would give it at least 8 but the game combat feels like wow A LOT no new stuff and do no't tell me voice acting and stuff most people care about the gameplay don't get me wrong story graphics play some part but why do you think people play dota or minecraft no story just pure great gameplay so yeah the game feels cheap and the graphics is like KOTOR do not give in to the hype it's REALLY like DCUO fun but short fun but not a great mmo so yeah wait some month....and all those 1 million player's are gonna be at most 600 and about BioWare pushing new content it's gonna happen but it's gonna take a lot of time reminder : voice acting as Trion's Rift is the fastest content pusher i really think this game is JUST HYPED… Expand
  24. Breeti
    Jan 15, 2012
    3
    It's really just a poorly redone version of WoW circa 2005. I'm sure with time it can be developed to something better, but how they ignore the progress of 6 to 7 years in the genre and expect to be a sucess I do not know. I guess they are banking on brand recognition being enough to carry them for the first 2 years.

    I've cancelled my sub after I just could not get into the mindless    It's really just a poorly redone version of WoW circa 2005. I'm sure with time it can be developed to something better, but how they ignore the progress of 6 to 7 years in the genre and expect to be a sucess I do not know. I guess they are banking on brand recognition being enough to carry them for the first 2 years.

    I've cancelled my sub after I just could not get into the mindless running and having constant load screens any time I went back to my ship. Hopefully they will correct some of the glaring flavor of life issues with game in the coming months. I may check it out again if i see some progress there. Otherwise i see it as a massive failure.    … Expand
  25. chukchuk
    Jan 26, 2012
    0
    SWTOR is by far the worst MMO release by any AAA development outfit in the past several years. I'll just list the game's major flaws that should have been addressed a long time before it ever came to market.

    1) HERO Engine, Bioware choose to go the cheap route instead of developing their own game engine (IE- Blizzard, CCP) when developing the game. The result is that end users are now    SWTOR is by far the worst MMO release by any AAA development outfit in the past several years. I'll just list the game's major flaws that should have been addressed a long time before it ever came to market.

    1) HERO Engine, Bioware choose to go the cheap route instead of developing their own game engine (IE- Blizzard, CCP) when developing the game. The result is that end users are now plauged with terrible lag, unresponsive user interface, delayed abilities, etc, etc. Unfortunately there is no quick fix or simple patch to resolve this without rehauling the entire game which is never going to happen.

    2) PvP is a joke and horrifically unbalanced. Again, Bioware dropped the ball by hiring failed developers from Mythic to handle this aspect of their game. Warzones are totally lag infested, world PvP is non-existant and Bioware made the situation worse by deciding to implement a PvP stat/gear bonus system that has failed in every game that has implemented it before.

    3) PvE is another boring, ill thought out grind fest consisting of killing 10 of this, 20 of that and so on. The difficulty settings are nothing short of a joke as the entire game is easily soloable from 1-50. Bioware included raid content that is nothing more than a joke (difficulty wise) in comparison to other titles out there; within the first month multiple guilds had already beaten every nightmare scenario in the game.

    4) Game Economy/Crafting- Again Bioware completely messed up with their crafting & economic system. To date they have had to implement several knee jerk nerfs to professions because of poor game testing before release. On top of that, there are crafting professions that have absolutely no value in game what-so-ever. I could go on endlessly about how badly Bioware screwed up this aspect of the game, suffice it to say it is the worst system out of any game on the market.

    5) Customer Service, EA/Bioware's customer service is horrifically bad. In fact, it is safe to say that their recent performance in association with the release of SWTOR clearly marks them as the worst in the industry. There is plenty more, however I don't need to keep listing it out here. All one has to do is look at SWTOR's user forums to see how disgruntled the player base is with the product to get an idea.

    I give SWTOR a score of zero and honestly hope the product fails within the next several months. It is time for game developers to stop copying products from several years past, start taking risks and show some innovation.

    My prediction for SWTOR? Free to play by the end of 2011, the game simply does not have enough going for it to keep anybody but the most diehard Star Wars fans subscribed long term.    … Expand
  26. SmellyMessiah
    Jan 15, 2012
    4
    Star Wars: The Old Republic (ToR) had very high hopes, being the successor to the very successful Knights of the Old republic series, and being the latest work by Bioware, one of the better developers in recent memory. However, instead of creating the next big MMO and a true game-changer, they decided to directly compete with World of Warcraft (WoW) like all other recent, and failed MMOs.Star Wars: The Old Republic (ToR) had very high hopes, being the successor to the very successful Knights of the Old republic series, and being the latest work by Bioware, one of the better developers in recent memory. However, instead of creating the next big MMO and a true game-changer, they decided to directly compete with World of Warcraft (WoW) like all other recent, and failed MMOs. As a long time WoW player, and someone who has played most of the big MMO releases of late, I can say with some authority that the game doesn't put anything new on the table. Sure, the presentation is slick, and the voice acting is nice, but is this what compels someone to pay to play a game month after month? The gameplay feels like a direct clone of WoW, and it simply doesn't work in the Star Wars universe. The fast-paced action of the films and some of the better games does not translate here. A ranged class takes â… Expand
  27. Esoteric
    Dec 31, 2011
    4
    This is bugged just like Warhammer Online was [same devs] at launch. Apart from completely broken animations and combat responsivity this is just another generic online game with awful graphics. Character customization is even more primitive than in WOW [which is quite an achievement]. Also, this game have very high pc requirements, so if you don't have top RIG then stay away.

    5/10
  28. manahound
    Dec 29, 2011
    3
    In a nutshell: I'd had high hopes for this game. I got into early access (though apparently not early enough to realize what a vapid waste of time/space the game is:/). I even went so far as to purchase the collector's edition, thinking the game would be fantastic. I was regretfully wrong. Like others have said, this is not an MMO - nearly everything is instanced (making the world feelIn a nutshell: I'd had high hopes for this game. I got into early access (though apparently not early enough to realize what a vapid waste of time/space the game is:/). I even went so far as to purchase the collector's edition, thinking the game would be fantastic. I was regretfully wrong. Like others have said, this is not an MMO - nearly everything is instanced (making the world feel oddly empty, save for the "lobby" areas). This wouldn't bother me, but later on, you'll be unable to progress some story lines unless you can find a group (which seems to be harder than it should be). The character creation is boring and outdated; 4 main body types and more or less a handful's selection of faces, hair styles/colors, etc. The gameplay is the same rehashed skill-less clickfest that every MMO released within the last 10 years have been (just Star Wars flavored). The graphics are greatly disappointing. I started playing RIFT while waiting for this game, and guess I was greatly spoiled with the large, beautiful, lush, open environments. The graphics in SW:TOR are lackluster, even with all the settings maxxed out. The players are the same rude **** you may have gotten used to in WoW; people getting in your face if they're questing in the same area and you kill a mob that aggroed on you becauase they feel they have a right to every mob in that area. The game also has some billing issues; many credit cards will not work due to the way things are setup. That forces you to buy game cards (definitely not the cheapest option). So here I am with a $150.00 statue and $30/60 extra days worth of game time. I'd rather have my $180 back. Please don't think I'm just whining; I made a mistake and will deal with it. I am suffering buyer's/subscriber's remorse and if I can save someone else the same, I would like to. This game is not worth the time and money, even at $50 dollars plus subscription. If you want to play a great MMO with fantastic graphics, play RIFT. If you love WoW, but would like to play a Star Wars-themed game, keep playing WoW and play KOTOR on the side. Thanks for reading; have a nice day everyone.… Expand
  29. scabbycakes
    Dec 30, 2011
    3
    I don't have enough space to write any good things, which there are a few, but:

    The ugly:
    -Biggest one: There is very little in the way of avoiding crap quests you donâ
  30. cmoyano
    Jan 14, 2012
    4
    my god what is this **** Boring Queuing simulator that should never have been made, where is KOTOR 3 bioware? Huh where the **** is it? gamecube graphics; FF14 UI; and about as much fun as have a spear up the ass. I know these results are going to be skewed by people suffering from denial that bioware could ever make a bad game but this is just as bad as DA2. Buy anything else for a bettermy god what is this **** Boring Queuing simulator that should never have been made, where is KOTOR 3 bioware? Huh where the **** is it? gamecube graphics; FF14 UI; and about as much fun as have a spear up the ass. I know these results are going to be skewed by people suffering from denial that bioware could ever make a bad game but this is just as bad as DA2. Buy anything else for a better gaming experience… Expand
  31. Ludna
    Jan 2, 2012
    3
    The game is not bad, but only due to the story questline and voice over. The rest is hugely disappointing.
    The largest issue what drives me off is basicially no freedom in character development. The attribute mechanics is a joke, only one attribute determining everything. Force Power depends on Willpower ? Not for a Warrior, then your Strength determines Force Power. Silly. And the    The game is not bad, but only due to the story questline and voice over. The rest is hugely disappointing.
    The largest issue what drives me off is basicially no freedom in character development. The attribute mechanics is a joke, only one attribute determining everything. Force Power depends on Willpower ? Not for a Warrior, then your Strength determines Force Power. Silly. And the attribute is based on the class, no choice. All other attributes are worthless for a given class. I need to stick to a certain weapon type (single, double, or two-wiedled) again based on class. No free selectable weapon and armour feats, boring. The combat mechanics is to clicky, but that is maybe a matter of personal taste. In general the entire gameplay mechanics is to simple for me. I guess, Bioware wanted WoW players tp play SWTOR and I think that is what's going to happen. Straigtforward mechanics, no thinking required, clear roles. I have got some experience in Ultima Online, Lotro, DDO, EVE and 2 weeks trial in WoW. I like system in DDO most. Still tehre are classes and races, but a lot of options to shape a character. Also all quest run in the instances, so there is no kill x of y. Every attribute (Str, Dex etc.) has actually an impact on the Character. So, it's my Charackter after all. The dungeons are well designed. So, I would opt for more instances in SWTOR and more teamplay required. The graphics works for me, nevertheless the design feels steril. One don't need top nothc graphic to transmit the right impression.    … Expand
  32. dkeppens
    Jan 18, 2012
    0
    Since there is a huge character limit here and TOR deserves all the negative feedback that can possibly be attributed to it, i blogged the review. Here's the link : http://www.bloggen.be/dkeppens/
  33. septusmortis
    Jan 17, 2012
    2
    This game has some nice touchesd and yes the VO does add something but later on gets in the way.

    Don't listen to the rubbish on the internet about the graphics issue. the issue itself is minor but the way it was handled appaling. It still loooks good and some of the animations are terrific. Also if teh opening movie does not grab you, you simply are not human its excellent filler. There    This game has some nice touchesd and yes the VO does add something but later on gets in the way.

    Don't listen to the rubbish on the internet about the graphics issue. the issue itself is minor but the way it was handled appaling. It still loooks good and some of the animations are terrific. Also if teh opening movie does not grab you, you simply are not human its excellent filler. There is no getting away from it quests are tedious, and in the main the "kill x of y" variety (or lack of it).
    The character story line is ok but again I found myself wanting to edit some of teh longer wafflle out. Crafting is like marmite you will either love it or hate it... based on my experience at later levels it becomes redundant to a large degree. Space Combat.... GRRRRRR. Appalling on rails garbage, should of, could of been so much more but nope they totally bodged it up... A feel let down.

    I find the samey nature of the armour, equipment and enhancements a little boring but that may just be early issues that will resolve over time.

    The biggest issues with the game is the terrible ability delay (it is mind bendingly frustrating in PVP and especially if you have some skill in pvp combat you will feel like you are wading through treacle), bugs aplenty (some are so obvious and should really have been picked up with testing) and way more than acceptable at any MMO launch and finally the intrusive amounts of sharding and instancing (why does my game world have to be split in two when I have only seen about 5 other people in the two hours I have been questing. Also there is very little humour and self deprecation on display. The game seems to take itself just a little bit too seriously sometimes and this I think in teh long term with come across as pomposity. The whole game feels baggy and very unpolished once you look under the hood. Yes I know these are going to be patched at some point and I know its naive to complain about bugs in an MMO but there is an odd thing going on and it is something I can' quite put my finger on. And this is teh real killer punch from my perspective The game just does not "feel right". Its like something fundemental is holding back or not working as it should. Its almost as if the fun has been watered down. I knwo I should be enjoying it but it just feels a bit sterile. I know these statements are not objective and for that I apologise. I just don't know how to say it but the game feels somehow a bit souless.

    On the whole an unsatisfying game for me...    … Expand
  34. nickiscool
    Jan 21, 2012
    0
    A WoW clone that failed in execution and that forgot to clone the things that made WoW good. Worlds are linear and sharded. This game feels like a single player game when you play it, not an MMO. And the end-game is a joke. You will finish all the raids in about a week or two, they're painfully easy.
  35. Bloodtau
    Dec 28, 2011
    1
    After playing this game for days I have come to the conclusion that it should NOT have been released in the state that it did. The game feels out dated and old (even though it is new), with sub par graphics, major bugs, horrible pvp system, bad responsive keys, terrible UI, the list goes on. This game was suppose to be one of the "new ages" in MMO, but has ended up taking the genreAfter playing this game for days I have come to the conclusion that it should NOT have been released in the state that it did. The game feels out dated and old (even though it is new), with sub par graphics, major bugs, horrible pvp system, bad responsive keys, terrible UI, the list goes on. This game was suppose to be one of the "new ages" in MMO, but has ended up taking the genre backwards into some horrible single player cutscene spam fest / "mmo" hybrid that should not have even been thought up.… Expand
  36. lazlo2020
    Jan 15, 2012
    1
    I am not a fan of this game. I wanted to be but it just doesn't deliver. I logged in to create a char, there is absolutely no diversity in the races, blue skinned human, human with tentacles etc, why is it like this ?. Get into the game and OMG, it's mass effect but with lightsabres. i have lvl 30 imperial agent and enjoyed the story for this class but the combat/pvp/gfx and bugs haveI am not a fan of this game. I wanted to be but it just doesn't deliver. I logged in to create a char, there is absolutely no diversity in the races, blue skinned human, human with tentacles etc, why is it like this ?. Get into the game and OMG, it's mass effect but with lightsabres. i have lvl 30 imperial agent and enjoyed the story for this class but the combat/pvp/gfx and bugs have been a gamebreaker for me so uninstalled it is. Worst thing is to be honest is that i feel cheated somewhat by bioware, claiming 'epic' space battles and gameplay trailers that have hi res textures but are not actually in game. I wish i could take this title back and get a refund. you won't ever take me for a mug again bio/ea… Expand
  37. Winterwolf
    Jan 2, 2012
    2
    The main question I ask myself when judging a game is: Am I having fun? The longer I played this game, the more I had to admit to myself that I wasn't.

    The game certainly isn't all bad. However the good bits and pieces it does have, have to be seen in context of the game as a whole and how much they add to the fun because there seem to be plenty of bad design decisions that break the    The main question I ask myself when judging a game is: Am I having fun? The longer I played this game, the more I had to admit to myself that I wasn't.

    The game certainly isn't all bad. However the good bits and pieces it does have, have to be seen in context of the game as a whole and how much they add to the fun because there seem to be plenty of bad design decisions that break the immersion or are just annoying. For example, like any MMORPG, you will spend a lot of time running around, doing quests. For something so central to the gameplay, it is incredible how boring it was made. The quest design seems archaic. I wanted to experience the story but in the end the quest design stopped me playing. People mention the fully voiced NPCs. I found that this novelty grows old really quickly and wanted to skip the dialog. It also seems that this will make adding new content slow and costly - no criticism, just an observation. If you are going to buy this game, see it as something to tie you over until the next big game comes out, not as a long term MMO investment. You may enjoy this for a few weeks but probably get bored. I can only see the most die-hard KotOR or SW fans play this long-term. The bad gameplay design makes it hard to recommend it to anyone.    … Expand
  38. MelonPan
    Jan 16, 2012
    0
    This isn't an mmo, it's a series of short single player games artificially lengthened with kill/fetch/deliver quests which have no relevance to the story. I see this as Bioware's excuse to make a series of short single player games that people must pay a monthly subscription to keep their save data. Planets you visit are usually long corridors with a start and a finish, great for a singleThis isn't an mmo, it's a series of short single player games artificially lengthened with kill/fetch/deliver quests which have no relevance to the story. I see this as Bioware's excuse to make a series of short single player games that people must pay a monthly subscription to keep their save data. Planets you visit are usually long corridors with a start and a finish, great for a single player game, terrible for an mmo. Also, no day and night cycles. Seriously? MMOs have had day and night since 2000, and a game with a budget in the hundreds of millions of dollars can't manage it?

    Bioware also strongly advertises itself as an MMO of unprecedented story and immersion, and its fans are usually of the opinion that if you don't like the game, it's because you can't handle playing an MMO for the story and don't enjoy lore. Yeah? Well I just bought a lightsaber from a vendor for 350 points I earned playing huttball. You're telling me I'm going to be immersed and then you throw mass produced lightsaber vendors into the game? And then there are other things, like how suddenly it's acceptable for jedi counselors to use double bladed lightsabers, when at this point in history THEY were the ones condemning their use and calling them "sith sabers". In fact, most of the established jedi lore was completely re-written in order to forcibly fit jedi into certain MMO stereotypes. And sith that specialize in healing other people? Come the **** on, seriously? And who the **** invented huttball. I mean, sure it's a neat minigame, but who decided that this would be what we get for pvp? I was really hoping this game would be the next big thing, and after all these years of waiting I can't help but be a little emotionally invested in its success. I want it to be good so bad, and I was ready to overlook a few things, but it's hard to overlook an entire game.

    I'm giving this game a zero. If you want to play an MMO, this is not an MMO, and there are better MMOs out there. If you want to play a star wars game, there are much better star wars game out there. If you want to see outdated mechanics and technology, there are games that were made TWELVE YEARS AGO that have more features than this one.    … Expand
  39. RazvanDad
    Jan 7, 2012
    0
    Im very disapointed with this game. I cant bealive a company can pull something like this wich such huge budget. Behind the story/voice acting which i agree is very catchy (at least at begining) hides a lazy developed game, with little to none inovation, boring, dead, full of bugs, way too linear. It has so many wrong things im just puzzled it been launched like this. Ofc it have hugeIm very disapointed with this game. I cant bealive a company can pull something like this wich such huge budget. Behind the story/voice acting which i agree is very catchy (at least at begining) hides a lazy developed game, with little to none inovation, boring, dead, full of bugs, way too linear. It has so many wrong things im just puzzled it been launched like this. Ofc it have huge success at launch because of the big fanbase, but the real question, how long it will take until this game will collapse? Not long, because D3 /GW2 are coming.… Expand
  40. DARKWORLD
    Jan 18, 2012
    0
    Seriously? Innovative combat, new battle mechanics stunning graphics... Where all those things? They promised much and did nothing, literally - nothing.
    What we got - new WOW/LN/RF/etc. clone in SW universe, nothing new.
    Same boring-to-death combat mechanics, ugly graphics (of course to oblige all those low-end PC owners), nothing-new story/quests and all those things will cost you    Seriously? Innovative combat, new battle mechanics stunning graphics... Where all those things? They promised much and did nothing, literally - nothing.
    What we got - new WOW/LN/RF/etc. clone in SW universe, nothing new.
    Same boring-to-death combat mechanics, ugly graphics (of course to oblige all those low-end PC owners), nothing-new story/quests and all those things will cost you monthly fees, its just ridiculous.
    This game is not worth a single penny from you wallet, believe me. I feel bad for those guys, spending millions on such low-end product, just to make profit out of it, unfortunately for them this is not how it done.    … Expand
  41. Grazl
    Dec 29, 2011
    2
    This game lack of everything that make a game fun, it lacks of creativity, fun and diversity. The character customisation is nearly nonexistent, so everybody look nearly like everybody ... the game takes what worked for other big MMOs and doesn't change it at all, so if your MMO just get you bored, you'll get bored as well if you play this. the only thing that interests people is that:This game lack of everything that make a game fun, it lacks of creativity, fun and diversity. The character customisation is nearly nonexistent, so everybody look nearly like everybody ... the game takes what worked for other big MMOs and doesn't change it at all, so if your MMO just get you bored, you'll get bored as well if you play this. the only thing that interests people is that: this is a star wars game.… Expand
  42. Vigil
    Jan 2, 2012
    1
    With no exageration, Star Wars: The Old Republic is literally the biggest disappointment I have ever experienced in a video game. I expected better from a studio like Bioware and I thought they would have pulled their socks up after the debarcle which was Dragon Age 2.

    I stand corrected. Bioware isn't what it used to be and after EA cannibalised Mythic to work on this garbage I only have    With no exageration, Star Wars: The Old Republic is literally the biggest disappointment I have ever experienced in a video game. I expected better from a studio like Bioware and I thought they would have pulled their socks up after the debarcle which was Dragon Age 2.

    I stand corrected. Bioware isn't what it used to be and after EA cannibalised Mythic to work on this garbage I only have myself to blame for not seeing this coming.

    I'm not going to write a long review; it doesn't deserve the time or effort. There are two points for anyone reading this which you need to consider before going anywhere near this steaming pile of trash; 1) This game suffers from everything Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning suffered from; and 2) This is a single player game which you pay and ongoing subscription for.

    Avoid at all costs.    … Expand
  43. Bozochicken
    Dec 29, 2011
    0
    It saddens me to see that this game was released this year in 2011. This game was created with the idea to completely reinvent the idea behind MMO's. Sadly, it didn't do anything other than clone WoW with a bunch of chopped up voice acting. There are enough SW fanboys out there that will keep this game afloat for quite some time; but I think that it will die quicker than we think becauseIt saddens me to see that this game was released this year in 2011. This game was created with the idea to completely reinvent the idea behind MMO's. Sadly, it didn't do anything other than clone WoW with a bunch of chopped up voice acting. There are enough SW fanboys out there that will keep this game afloat for quite some time; but I think that it will die quicker than we think because it's not the MMO that most people were expecting.… Expand
  44. FattyMooMooMan
    Jan 22, 2012
    3
    All I can say is that EA/Bioware dropped the ball bigtime on this game. It starts out with the promise of being the new big MMO but fails to deliver on its promises. The graphics engine is dire and on the 3 systems I have seen it running on it has issues with random frame-rate drops, hitching and poor resource loading (the PC I am writing this on runs most PC games just fine - Deus Ex HR,All I can say is that EA/Bioware dropped the ball bigtime on this game. It starts out with the promise of being the new big MMO but fails to deliver on its promises. The graphics engine is dire and on the 3 systems I have seen it running on it has issues with random frame-rate drops, hitching and poor resource loading (the PC I am writing this on runs most PC games just fine - Deus Ex HR, Eve Online, Payday: The heist, etc but fails to run SWTOR smoothly all of the time on even the lowest settings). There are also major balance issues - playing a scoundrel (smuggler) alongside a family members Sage (Jedi Consular) there were obvious imbalances between the two, with the smuggler being woefully underpowered, playing a commando (trooper) felt like driving a juggernaught through the mobs in the game - serious easymode. There were also issues with mission bugs, game crashing, areas not loading up properly. This game needed a lot more time in development before it was released. My rating of 3 is generous and thats only because I like some of the ideas the game has - though not in the games current state.… Expand
  45. Augustus75
    Dec 25, 2011
    4
    I am rooting for any mmorpg that takes immersion seriously, but as of now do not believe story alone can accomplish this. The frequent instancing creates a ghost town feeling. The pasted on, wallpaper backgrounds in each zone do not allow for players to interact with the environment as freely as in many other mmorpgs. To me, each zone feels exactly the same as the last, turning left andI am rooting for any mmorpg that takes immersion seriously, but as of now do not believe story alone can accomplish this. The frequent instancing creates a ghost town feeling. The pasted on, wallpaper backgrounds in each zone do not allow for players to interact with the environment as freely as in many other mmorpgs. To me, each zone feels exactly the same as the last, turning left and right through a tunnel/dungeon environment with different backgrounds. Although the story is fun, and does create the sense of being in a movie, the initial excitement for me wore off mid-level, leaving a real feeling of claustrophobia. Compared to Dragon's Nest and Vindictus this game can be called an mmorpg. But compared to those games already established in the genre SWTOR rates low as an mmorpg specifically due to the lack of an open, persistent world.… Expand
  46. rakista
    Dec 26, 2011
    4
    Besides the voice acting there is nothing to distinguish this game from any of the other WOW clones. The engine alone is just dreadful with delays beyond the global cooldown on skills making PVP an exercise in anger management at times. The PVE areas because of the extreme instancing are dead. Some planets have less than 10 people on 20 square miles of virtual space. Space combat is aBesides the voice acting there is nothing to distinguish this game from any of the other WOW clones. The engine alone is just dreadful with delays beyond the global cooldown on skills making PVP an exercise in anger management at times. The PVE areas because of the extreme instancing are dead. Some planets have less than 10 people on 20 square miles of virtual space. Space combat is a mini game rail shooter, need I say more?… Expand
  47. Vamric
    Jan 16, 2012
    0
    I just canceled my sub today. I don't hate this game as much as I'm very disappointed in it. Here's a list of some of the things that I take issue with:

    1) Not enough PVP maps, just 3? even Rift had more when it came out 2) Terrible graphics Lotro's graphics are light years ahead of TOR, and that game came out in 2007 3) Crafting is painful waiting up to 2 1/2 hours to get a mat, only to    I just canceled my sub today. I don't hate this game as much as I'm very disappointed in it. Here's a list of some of the things that I take issue with:

    1) Not enough PVP maps, just 3? even Rift had more when it came out
    2) Terrible graphics Lotro's graphics are light years ahead of TOR, and that game came out in 2007
    3) Crafting is painful waiting up to 2 1/2 hours to get a mat, only to have your companion fail= BORING
    4) Character creator is superficial do you want to play as a human, or a human with red skin?
    5) No guild perk system or guild bank
    6) No dungeon finder for instances
    7) Class quests are fun, but nonclass quests are kill x, pick up y, go to z, rinse and repeat (no innovation)
    8) UI can't be adjusted
    9) Graphics options are extremely limited no AA, really?
    10) Very linear game everyone takes the same path through the worlds
    11) No player housing
    12) Mobs all look the same humanoid, in groups of 3-5 or a single elite, standing still waiting to be killed
    13) Poorly optimized game performance suffers even on high end rigs
    14) No duel spec for talent trees healers are punished when they want to solo to level up
    15) No appearance tab you will find a lot of identical twin brothers and sisters!
    16) Endgame has one raid, and that's it
    17) World feels empty due to sharding
    18) Auction House is annoying to use
    19) Space combat (rail shooter) is a joke
    20) Combat is a matter of button mashing, no skill involved
    21) Companions are complete morons in combat

    Overall, this game feels like a big step backward. It feels more like a single-player game with occasional co-op. There is so little to do in this game compared with other MMOs (and I've played them all). All I can say is, I hope Guild Wars 2 lives up to the hype and is not a colossal disappointment like TOR.    … Expand
  48. HigeNezumi
    Jan 17, 2012
    0
    I will start at the beginning. 4 classes that split into 8 classes at lvl 10. Only 5 races which are all look-alikes with insignificant differences such as horns, facial tatoos, head-tails, eye-wear and hair. Only two starter areas for each faction. If you wish to experience all 8 classes you will have to go through the same places over and over again.

    Character creation is inferior to    I will start at the beginning. 4 classes that split into 8 classes at lvl 10. Only 5 races which are all look-alikes with insignificant differences such as horns, facial tatoos, head-tails, eye-wear and hair. Only two starter areas for each faction. If you wish to experience all 8 classes you will have to go through the same places over and over again.

    Character creation is inferior to games like wow, aion, rift ever quest and so on. It is completely devoid of imagination, all characters having the same blank, android-like visage, regardless of how hard you try to make them look different.

    And the lack of imagination doesn't stop here. All the caves you go in, follow two, maybe three, patterns. All underground areas, of which the game has an abbundance of, follow the same parameters. The only slightly original area becomes available at level 28 so you will have to grind your way through.

    The quests are a grind, then come the bonus quests of kill so many enemies and so on. And they come over and over again. The areas on the maps are large yet the number of quests in them is very very low. The indoors quests by far outweigh the number of quests you can complete outdoor, adding to the grind feeling of the entire game. One corridor is just like any of the 100 you have been through and just like the next 100 you will go through. Shades might slightly differ, geometry might differ, mob placement might differ but overall it's basically sos all through. Even on planets that are so called 'outdoors' the textures are nothing more than recycled collated backgrounds that fail utterly at giving you something memorable. Without looking at the map over and over, spacial orientation is not possible because everything looks the same. (There is one exception to this: Alderaan. But only between levels 28 to 32, I think)

    Adding to that is the fact that most mobs come in groups ot at least three, with the occasional strong or elite mixed in. This enforces the grind feeling you get throughout the game, making it feel like you are continuously farming the one and the same dungeon over and over again for some obscure gains. Not that this grind is difficult. Far from it, its simplicity being the very thing that makes it so annoying. I'd rather kill one strong mob than a group of so and so manny weaker ones. The amount of green items that drop makes the drops completely worthless, orange items purchased with planet commendations are readily available, adding to the simplicity of the game. There is absolutely no way anyone can fail at this game.

    The galactic trade network is a bad joke at best. It does not offer the possibility to search for a particular item without previous filtering and thus makes random searches a complete pain. It does not offer the possibilty for you to shift click an item and automatically enter it into the search field. It does not offer the possibility of selling for example 10 peices of the same item, all as a separate sale, without having to enter the item 10 times. And lastly you can have only 50 items on sale at any given moment.

    Your inbox will be flodded with messages from NPCs thanking you for help, which would be very nice to keep, if you could at least make a copy of the message and then empty the mailbox.

    Overall a dreary game, displaying absolutely no diversity whatsoever, containing not even one original thought, completely devoid of imagination. The voice-overs are nice, yes, but the choices the game gives you are sometimes far from what you actually think of the situation. The voice-overs are actually the only thing that makes this game slightly different, but, I for one, would gladly give up on the voice overs for some additional content, some actual content, additional quest areas, additional quests and so on.

    Had this game come to us in 2005 I would have applauded it for being innovative. But for winter 2011 it's stillborn. 6 years of development, 300 million dollars later all you get is this?

    I would love to have a word with some of the developers who sat down to come up with this **** but I doubt it would be more than a monologue. I mean, have these developers never played ANY mmos? And if they haven't, they should have done so and found out how to improve.

    This game is a disgrace to the idea of MMOs. It's actually a disgrace to ANY pc game and it might be marginally interesting as a mobile phone game. Move forward mash button 1 mash button two move forward activate pannel, go back report quest. And did I mention that it takes like 10 mins to start, 2 to 5 mins to load a planet and maybe 15 mins to quit the game (at low graphic settings). All this on a PC that runns other games with full graphics...

    It's not worth time and effort.    … Expand
  49. yasger
    Jan 18, 2012
    0
    As a single-player RPG it is downgraded linear clone of KOTOR2 with worse story. As MMO its carbon copy of WoW circa 2007. I wish they`ve found better use for 300 mln budget and Star Wars IP.
  50. lyko
    Jan 22, 2012
    1
    If this game wouldn't be "Star Wars", everyone would laugh about it.
    I really hoped they would create a great game. I should have known better. EA was, is and will be just a ripp off company with only one concern...Money. They give **** about their customers. I was to re-sub after I canceled it, but fortunately, like everything in this game, the payment system is broken and a majority of    If this game wouldn't be "Star Wars", everyone would laugh about it.
    I really hoped they would create a great game. I should have known better. EA was, is and will be just a ripp off company with only one concern...Money. They give **** about their customers. I was to re-sub after I canceled it, but fortunately, like everything in this game, the payment system is broken and a majority of players can't re-sub using paypal or credit card.

    - It's based on a crappy engine
    - World feels empty, if you want a SP story game, buy it, lvl to 50 and throw it away
    - Even if I was to re-sub, I couldn't because neither paypal nor credit card is working because they're having issues with their payment system. - Rep - Imp classes aren't mirrored
    - Biodrones only know two answers...."Please contact customer services" and "I don't understand you"
    - Game felt dead since release because of the horrible choice to instance the planets.
    - Crafting is useless
    - Don't try to sell to much of ther GTN....you could get banned for it
    - Character creation feels like the game was released back in the 90's
    - Ability delay
    - World PVP? There is no World PVP.
    - You don't need tanks to do Hardcore flashpoints.....ZzZz
    .
    .
    .
    .

    If you're not sure to get it or not....DON'T! Spend the money for a bunch of flowers, they will last longer than this game will.

    And all the fanboys know it, they just don't want to believe it and keep hoping. I give them a max of 6 months until the servers get merged. And that's always an mmo's death !FACT!

    Everyone who gives this game a rating of 8+ is either a employee of Bioware or EA (Yes it's proven that they rate their own games on this site) or just has pink sunglasses on.    … Expand
  51. phantomlord91
    Jan 22, 2012
    2
    This is basically a WoW clone without the elements which actually made WoW successful. SWTOR offers nothing new to the MMO genre. Story and voice acting are excellent but they do not justify the rest of the game being a broken mess. PvP is totally unbalanced and was broken beyond any repair after an exploit in patch 1.1 which Bioware actually refuses to fix. The character control isThis is basically a WoW clone without the elements which actually made WoW successful. SWTOR offers nothing new to the MMO genre. Story and voice acting are excellent but they do not justify the rest of the game being a broken mess. PvP is totally unbalanced and was broken beyond any repair after an exploit in patch 1.1 which Bioware actually refuses to fix. The character control is unrensponsive and there is delay when using abilities not related to latency or framerate issues. The game is poorly optimized and performs poorly even on high end PCs. I recommend staying away from this game until it is improved. On it's current state it is simply not worth the montly fee it has.… Expand
  52. McCochiner
    Jan 30, 2012
    0
    Terrible game that has major bugs, database, game engine and severe performance issues. The bottom line is that SWTOR is nothing more than a cash grab by LA/EA/Bioware under the Star Wars IP.

    People who purchase & subscribe to this game are willingly paying money to beta test a product that was released a good 1 - 1.5 years ahead of schedule. I'm somewhat curious as to the mentality of    Terrible game that has major bugs, database, game engine and severe performance issues. The bottom line is that SWTOR is nothing more than a cash grab by LA/EA/Bioware under the Star Wars IP.

    People who purchase & subscribe to this game are willingly paying money to beta test a product that was released a good 1 - 1.5 years ahead of schedule.

    I'm somewhat curious as to the mentality of people showering this game with accolades. Would you people also tolerate automobile makers, doctors, food producers, etc. releasing half-a**ed, unfinished products on the market and call them excellent as well?    … Expand
  53. Swampy
    Jan 14, 2012
    3
    Revisiting my initial review after a month of play; and not much has changed in my views except it's even worse than I initially feared. While the story is nice, it is basically all this game has to offer and makes it VERY linear. There's no incentive for exploration, actually there's not a lot of incentive to do anything but drive the story forward. Technically the game is shabby, theRevisiting my initial review after a month of play; and not much has changed in my views except it's even worse than I initially feared. While the story is nice, it is basically all this game has to offer and makes it VERY linear. There's no incentive for exploration, actually there's not a lot of incentive to do anything but drive the story forward. Technically the game is shabby, the engine is poorly optimised and there are bugs too numerous to list here. The customer service is also terrible, and don't try and leave an opinion on the official forums; you'll be savaged by the rabid 'Bioware/EA defense force' (aka fanboys).. and if you think that isn't bad enough, write any negative criticism and you'll walk a fine line of getting warnings! Apparently they don't mind criticism.. so long as you're not being critical.. I kid you not.. it's actually in their forums t&c's.… Expand
  54. Khornet
    Jan 4, 2012
    0
    It wasn't long before when I still considered myself a loyal fan of Bioware. Although some of their recent activities made me feel strange about them, my love for KotOR 1 and 2, somewhat won over, and I tried the game. Boy how much do I regret that decision. ToR stands against for the entire lore and setting of my favourite RPGs, but that's just the tip of the mountain. The game is ugly,It wasn't long before when I still considered myself a loyal fan of Bioware. Although some of their recent activities made me feel strange about them, my love for KotOR 1 and 2, somewhat won over, and I tried the game. Boy how much do I regret that decision. ToR stands against for the entire lore and setting of my favourite RPGs, but that's just the tip of the mountain. The game is ugly, has stiff animations, the graphics are a joke. Glitches and bugs are a daily basis, the customer support doesn't know what the hell it's doing. Combat and gameplay in general would be funny if it weren't so sad. The typical WoW-like (another dissapointment in a once good company, by the way) "stand still while waving your weapon at a giant single enemy along other 20 "chosen ones" " situation is just too common. The voice acting is TERRIBLE, why people actually list it as the best aspect is beyond me! Monotonous, out-of-character robots, EVERYWHERE. I actually saw a video where the voice actress for the same character changed twice, MID SENTENCE. Top notch quality voice acting, that.
    The whole desperate focus on the RPG elements turns the game into some morbid hybrid, that can only be descripted as "singleplayer RPG with MMO elements". The endgame is simply non-existant, and it takes 2-3 days to reach it. No, PvP doesn't count, because it's an unbalanced clusterf**k. And don't even get me started on huttball...Sith and Jedi playing SPORTS. Yaaay...which gets me to another point: stupidity. CRUSHING lighsabers. DARK heal. SITH getting light points. That's just flat out retarded.
    And the last, but not least is the price for this. Too much. Too high. Alot of people will point out, that WoW is similar in this aspect, but does comparing to WoW really do much good for the game?    … Expand
  55. RampantAndroid
    Dec 26, 2011
    4
    Zones are instanced, gameplay is otherwise identical to WoW, pretty much. The game pretty much bores me to tears. I gave it chance because it was Bioware, but after Dragon Age 2 and now SWTOR, I honestly wish Bioware would go under so I remember them in a somewhat positive light.
  56. Wackywoo
    Dec 26, 2011
    3
    Very disappointed. I wanted to like this game, but sadly this is not the MMO I was looking for. In design school I always wondered why there was a "risk taken" component on project evaluation sheets. Can't a design be good without taking risk? Maybe.. but more than likely it will be unimpressive. BioWare took no risks. They played it safe all around. The result is unimpressive. LookVery disappointed. I wanted to like this game, but sadly this is not the MMO I was looking for. In design school I always wondered why there was a "risk taken" component on project evaluation sheets. Can't a design be good without taking risk? Maybe.. but more than likely it will be unimpressive. BioWare took no risks. They played it safe all around. The result is unimpressive. Look no further than the uninspired character creation. It has lazy written all over it, with all races being practically human. Hair options are multiplied by adding option A to option B and calling it option C. In game, mobs simply stand still, waiting for you to come and kill them. This, combined with uninteractive environments, leaves the game feeling lifeless. What is perhaps more concerning are the absurd critic reviews. Mediocrity should not be praised. The reviews themselves list many shortcomings, however they give the game a near perfect score. Makes me wonder if they have shared interest in the game's financial success.… Expand
  57. CookieMaster444
    Dec 31, 2011
    0
    Currently level 50 with valor rank 40+ on PvP server.

    It's got pretty good PvE even if it does force you to group up in some storyline missions. Decent graphics, love the lightsaber sounds(all sounds actually), great storyline and lots of abilities to play around with. So why the 0 then? Bugs, unbalanced PvP, and terrible customer service. The amount of bugs in this game is just more    Currently level 50 with valor rank 40+ on PvP server.

    It's got pretty good PvE even if it does force you to group up in some storyline missions. Decent graphics, love the lightsaber sounds(all sounds actually), great storyline and lots of abilities to play around with.

    So why the 0 then? Bugs, unbalanced PvP, and terrible customer service. The amount of bugs in this game is just more than any MMO at release that I have ever seen. Everything from broke quests to entire classes unable to attack due to some ability casting bug. If you manage to get stuck into a zone from a bug and your fleet pass isn't up, expect to wait the full cool down of your fleet pass as CS won't come for you. Their response is always usually automated and tells you to use the /stuck command. Gee, thanks.

    Lastly is the PvP which you can clearly see was put in at the last minute. No brackets in Warzones, ranged classes that do more damage than melee and have an array of CCs, stealth classes that can do 6-7k crits several times in a row(you'll only have about 10-12k health at level 50 not geared), and endless CC which never ends. You'd think that classes that gets various CCs wouldn't be too bad as you have this in most MMOs however...you can be CCed so much repeatedly even if you skill to get out of one CC to the point that you can be CCed the second later by another. There is DR but it takes so long to get there with some CC that you'll be dead long before that bar fills up. Plus even if the bar does fill its only DR on that certain type of CC. Various other CCs will still work. So it's not so much the classes in the case for CC as so much as there is no way to get out of it. You can jump out of a warzone spawn just to be CC and dead 5 seconds later and now get the chance to have to wait another 30 seconds before you get into battle. You spend a lot of time waiting behind stupid walls that manage to lock you in. If the enemy team kills you just as the doors blow up on voidstar and you're stuck with a full timer, not only do you have to wait that full timer along with whomever else died with you but now after the spawn wall does go down you have to run and catchup. The problem with this is the fact the enemy can easily blow up the next set of doors before you even get in range of them. Enjoy running to the next point.

    I came for PvP and it was a mess that left me disappointed. There is an endless list of bugs and issues that need to be fixed to make this game stable. However at the rate they are going with patches I don't see this happening within the next 2-3 months so I would suggest looking at the reviews at that time.

    Sigh, hopefully TERA/GW2 will be better. Subscription canceled.    … Expand
  58. jamezohlen
    Jan 1, 2012
    0
    It's finally here! The latest, the greatest, from the sweetheart of gaming, Bioware! It seems like so long ago that the SW:TOR hype train first began to chug full steam ahead. Many years and 135+ million dollars later, Bioware has done it again! Yes, they finally managed to do what Korea has been doing on the regular for the last half decade! They have copied WoW! Okay, all jokingIt's finally here! The latest, the greatest, from the sweetheart of gaming, Bioware! It seems like so long ago that the SW:TOR hype train first began to chug full steam ahead. Many years and 135+ million dollars later, Bioware has done it again! Yes, they finally managed to do what Korea has been doing on the regular for the last half decade! They have copied WoW! Okay, all joking aside, this is pathetic. I've been playing MMOs since Ultima Online, and I have to say it is saddening to see what happened to this industry when games like SW:TOR are actually being given high marks for anything. Calling the game a wow clone is actually a compliment this game doesn't deserve, as it falls short in so, so, so many areas I cringe at the thought of where all the money went. You're telling me after all these years and money, Bioware couldn't add anti-aliasing? After all these years and all this money, they couldn't add a LFG tool? Really? Nobody at bioware thought that would be important or high priority? Oh that's right, all they do is add a bunch of pointless dialogue with a point system to appease the plebs. No customizable UI? No mod support? Horrendously unbalanced PVP? You're telling me after all these years and all this money, and all this BETA testing, the game is still riddled with amateurish bugs and glitches? There are free games that were developed with one twentieth of the budget this game had that have all of these features and more, without all of the bugs of glitches. At LAUNCH. YEARS EARLIER. The success of this game will prove that all you need to do is pour money and marketing into a product and it will be successful, no matter if the product has any merit.… Expand
  59. Khors
    Jan 1, 2012
    1
    Bioware has taken the Massively-Multiplayer genre to a new low, more akin to a single-player rpg then it has ever been. Having played mmorpg's for 15-years and watched the decline of community player-base purpose, motivation, value, contribution and involvement in a persistent world decline over the years from various studios, I would have hoped that massively-multiplayer features andBioware has taken the Massively-Multiplayer genre to a new low, more akin to a single-player rpg then it has ever been. Having played mmorpg's for 15-years and watched the decline of community player-base purpose, motivation, value, contribution and involvement in a persistent world decline over the years from various studios, I would have hoped that massively-multiplayer features and content would see more of a rise with TOR, but that is not the case in the slightest.

    This is a dull, tedious and barren example of an MMO that is void of anything remotely valued in what should be a persistent massively-multiplayer universe. I'll give it a 1 for the false advert that it is a mmorpg, which it isn't    … Expand
  60. Remoe
    Jan 1, 2012
    1
    Terrible excuse for a WoW clone, is Bioware even trying? Game breaking bugs at launch, just an overall terrible game that I would recommend to no-one.
  61. bugbear1
    Jan 15, 2012
    2
    One thing, that completely boggles the mind, is the number of solid 10 scores for this game that have been written by reviewers with singular postings or less than a few, at this observation. While it's true, any number of postings will NOT validate opinion, nor assuage present bias, it MAY, however, raise questions as to motivations of those posters that have chosen ONLY to review thisOne thing, that completely boggles the mind, is the number of solid 10 scores for this game that have been written by reviewers with singular postings or less than a few, at this observation. While it's true, any number of postings will NOT validate opinion, nor assuage present bias, it MAY, however, raise questions as to motivations of those posters that have chosen ONLY to review this game. For comprehension of this line of inquiry, when evaluating any review, please also click "All this user's reviews" at the lower right of the review pane. --In this manner, YOU, the reader, might better evaluate any writer's credibility; or, at the very least, track their opinion-swings through a number of reviews in order to assay the weight of their stated views.
    *STAR WARS:TOR might be better named: STAR WARS: THE TIRED OL' REPUBLIC as the game hews fairly closely to timeworn gaming conventions and staid mechanics; which, under the present condition of the game, might be what retains subscribers, as familiarity often breeds complacency. In other words, with so much rehash going-on in SWTOR; rampant bugs, missing features, incomplete features and broken gameplay concepts such as SWTOR's PvP design, players would, nominally, leave in droves if it were not for the comforting constraints of familiar gameplay design abstracted from nearly every MMO released prior to SWTOR. Simply put, SWTOR attempts to crib nearly every worthwhile idea from practically every other worthwhile MMO that has been released in recent memory. Which, in the singular case of SWTOR is a magnificent conceit!?! SWTOR, in one sentence, might better be described as a "SINGLEPLAYER GAME with limited Coop, chat pane and a monthly sub." While it is true the world of SWTOR is heavily instanced, sharded, loaded with quest-hubs, and only linear, it does embrace the tenets of Lucas' constant micromanagement of the Star Wars universe. With limited player-choice, minimal exploration, linear questing augmented by timesinks and poor implementation of many mmo-style tools such as, practically, nonexistant guild tools, SWTOR raises the bar to enjoyment. Frankly, SWTOR runs poorly on much modern hardware, would NOT run well on an i7 with 8 gigs of DDR3 sys ram and a GT335 vid card with 1 gig of vram, Win7 64 bit. (This machine does run FFXIV on medium, RIFT on medium to high and WOW maxed.) On a tower, a Q6600 with 4 gigs of sys ram, GTX280 with 1 gig of vram, Win7 32 bit, the game ran with FPS in the playable range, although frequent swings were apparent. Screen tearing, artifacts, missing AA, glitchy with hitching, frequent CTDs and massive LAG are readily apparent, as well. Input lag, server lag, EVEN with 30Mbs ISP speeds strongly point to unoptimized netcode and client. Admitted memory leaks also plague the game.
    *The game's not finished, not optimized, feature incomplete and poor feature implementation marrs the fun!    … Expand
  62. Yuze
    Dec 21, 2011
    0
    This is an awful game. Completely void of the Star wars franchise and of KotOR, everything has been retconned removing any form of consistency with bland, lifeless performances, yes, the voice acting may be good but in this day and age the lack of facial movement, limb movement, any movement at all outside of the 3 pre-created 'talk' animations - there is no emotion at all. This isThis is an awful game. Completely void of the Star wars franchise and of KotOR, everything has been retconned removing any form of consistency with bland, lifeless performances, yes, the voice acting may be good but in this day and age the lack of facial movement, limb movement, any movement at all outside of the 3 pre-created 'talk' animations - there is no emotion at all. This is essentially WoW 2.0. There is nothing new, nothing has changed. The art style is simplistic and clearly rushed for economic reasons with generic textures and bland colour palates. The raids/fights are dull and laborious and the atmosphere of an mmo is not there. The worry is that in a months time once everyone has managed to complete the joke of a story, the 'economy' i.e. auction house will collapse and it'll be barren. Good riddance I say - If you really must buy this, play the pathetic story which even a 5 year old could foresee then cancel your subscription. Sad excuse for an MMO in 2011, absolutely atrocious.… Expand
  63. Greever
    Dec 24, 2011
    3
    Despite really wanting to enjoy this game, I find it hard to even just log in and play the beginning levels. Graphics are really poor, combat is tiresome, the classes are uninspired and the quests are just the same old thing as every MMO before it. If this were a MMO from 2000 it would be passable, but for one from 2011 it's shockingly bad.
  64. kvonbose
    Dec 25, 2011
    0
    Nothing new in this game. The world feels so lifeless, like a soulless amusement park. Quest after boring quest makes you feel like you aren't playing a game, but doing non-stop chores. The maps are huge and empty. There really isn't much to do in this game. PvP is monotonous and feels like it was put in as an afterthought. After playing the launch of Rifts, (a game I no longer play) thisNothing new in this game. The world feels so lifeless, like a soulless amusement park. Quest after boring quest makes you feel like you aren't playing a game, but doing non-stop chores. The maps are huge and empty. There really isn't much to do in this game. PvP is monotonous and feels like it was put in as an afterthought. After playing the launch of Rifts, (a game I no longer play) this game just feels 2nd rate, boring, and it's just hard to care about it.… Expand
  65. crnppscls
    Dec 26, 2011
    4
    I've never paid £39.99 for a pc game so this was a first for me. Also i've never played wow (but plenty others) i did have really high hopes for the game but was a bit meh in beta.
    The voice acting i like, plus there are some soul searching decisions you have to make especially if you play a dark side char. It isn't awful by any means, but there are just a lot better mmo's out    I've never paid £39.99 for a pc game so this was a first for me. Also i've never played wow (but plenty others) i did have really high hopes for the game but was a bit meh in beta.
    The voice acting i like, plus there are some soul searching decisions you have to make especially if you play a dark side char. It isn't awful by any means, but there are just a lot better mmo's out there, i am just so disappointed in this release. The questing is normal and generic to any other game, 'epic space battles': non existent, character customisation is a joke, it is not a pretty game either, the bland textures used seem to distract you from any exploration of your new world + the heavy instancing where you can't progress because of barriers.
    Seriously, i think people have become so sick of these generic mmo's (most of which you can play for free) and relied on bioware being their last bastion of pc greatness to deliver something groundbreaking. Well they didn't. If you're a diehard lover of sw lore, you will love it (probably) but for the price of the game and the sub, a lot of people won't bother basically because there is better out there.
    And another thing lol, i spent months telling my console owning friends that this title will be the pinnacle of pc greatness and they all wished the game was available on console. Now i have to say it's uninstalled but you lot just wait for gw2 and then we'll see .    … Expand
  66. Cavadus
    Jan 4, 2012
    2
    If you're a veteran MMO player TOR offers nothing for you. All of the gameplay and systems are absolutely archaic and ripped verbatim from World of Warcraft, the graphics are unimpressive, and the combat gameplay is incredibly stale and dull.

    The game doesn't feature a single sandbox element and dictates every variable of your character's existence. Also, the character creator and space    If you're a veteran MMO player TOR offers nothing for you. All of the gameplay and systems are absolutely archaic and ripped verbatim from World of Warcraft, the graphics are unimpressive, and the combat gameplay is incredibly stale and dull.

    The game doesn't feature a single sandbox element and dictates every variable of your character's existence. Also, the character creator and space combat are so bad that Bioware must be ashamed.

    The lone PvP world is horribly broken and routinely exploited. Open world PvP offers absolutely no rewards of any kind and the bulk of PvP is shoved into instanced warzones where a mechanic called "Bolster" allows low level players to get absolutely demolished by max level players.

    All in all there's nothing new in TOR and the gameplay is so old that you could read Greg Vederman articles and swear he was talking about this game.    … Expand
  67. MaestroBlaBla
    Dec 24, 2011
    3
    LucasArts should scrap this too. SWG was slightly epic. This is tacky and feels more like a $ sink-hole. As far as i know, it is the most expensive mmo to play. Tested CB(thank-god)......WAS VERY UNIMPRESSED
  68. PansyMo
    Dec 24, 2011
    2
    It amuses me to no end how we are not allowed to not enjoy this game. Those giving 10s and complaining about us having different opinions are just trolls is are just wearing their Naboo-tinted glasses, refusing to see anything potentially wrong. These are the same people who think that including a character like Jar Jar Binks in the movies was a much better idea than curing cancer,It amuses me to no end how we are not allowed to not enjoy this game. Those giving 10s and complaining about us having different opinions are just trolls is are just wearing their Naboo-tinted glasses, refusing to see anything potentially wrong. These are the same people who think that including a character like Jar Jar Binks in the movies was a much better idea than curing cancer, simply because he's in the Star Wars movies. That said, I was unimpressed by the game. Everything seemed "samey" to me. The voice acting was alright, and the different story lines are okay, but that's just the thing. Pursuing the different story lines, is, for the most part, an individual endeavor. It gives me the feel of this being a Single-Player game disguised as an MMO. The instances annoy me, though the queues not so much. However, the scattered, unmoving NPCs detract from my overall so-called "immersive" experience. Also, I hated walking through Tatooine to get to a point I needed to be, only to walk through a sand people camp that immediately triggered the "kill 0/20" quests. So far, there's also been no endgame. Really, people, are you that protective of your favorite universe that you refuse to admit that there may be some flaws?… Expand
  69. TheFonz
    Dec 20, 2011
    0
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Don't listen to all the Bio-drones claiming that this is the best thing since sliced bread. I won't bother going into all the technical details as to why this game is a waste of 300 million dollars, because plenty of reviewers with a lot more MMO knowledge have already done that. I'll let them tell you how the graphical style is terrible, the character creation sucks, the endgame content is extremely lacking, and so on. I'm just going to tell you plain and simple: if you're a diehard KotOR fan, like myself, you will hate this game.

    Forget all the crap about "Bioware's brilliant storytelling" and this game containing "KotOR 3-12". None of that is true. Much of the individual class stories are shared, so you aren't going to be playing 8 unique stories. Not only that, but the stories are filled with typical Bioware tripe. If the original KotOR games were the original trilogy, TOR is the prequels; a ridiculous, uninspired story that retcons much of established KotOR knowledge and is filled to the brim with typical Bioware cliches at every turn. For an MMO whose main feature was supposed to be story, you would think Bioware could find something better to devote their resources to than 20 GB of voice overs. VOICE OVERS. Most people will eventually skip them anyways, because they won't care about the elaborate backstory made up for why they have to go kill 10 droids.

    But whatever.. many will surely disagree with me and claim that the story is amazing. That's fine. But what really bothers me about what Bioware is done with the KotOR franchise is how they have ruined two of the best characters ever written in SW EU: The Exile and Revan.

    Not only are both characters given faces, voices, and personalities (a big no-no), but their stories are wrapped up in the most awful way possible. Revan is turned into a mediocre raid boss for thousands of players to kill over and over again. The Exile... becomes a force ghost. That's it? I don't think Bioware really understands just how much fans were emotionally attached to the characters of the first two KotOR games. For them to close their stories in such a shallow, unsatisfying way is a slap in the face to those who have been waiting almost a decade now to see the end. Between TOR and Drew Karpyshyn's absolutely awful "Revan" book, they have successfully ruined what was what a great franchise and story. Congrats.    … Expand
  70. Avvannosst
    Dec 24, 2011
    0
    It makes absolutely no sense to me that people are calling this game polished. The story is sloppy and poorly written, the graphics are horrible both on a technical and artistic level, suffering from texture pop-in and lighting issues, etc. if this were ANY other game from ANY other company it would be getting slaughtered in reviews. But noooo this is bioware, they can do no wrong. TheIt makes absolutely no sense to me that people are calling this game polished. The story is sloppy and poorly written, the graphics are horrible both on a technical and artistic level, suffering from texture pop-in and lighting issues, etc. if this were ANY other game from ANY other company it would be getting slaughtered in reviews. But noooo this is bioware, they can do no wrong. The game shipped without tons of essential features that an mmo needs, but oh wait, this is basically a single player rpg with an excuse to gouge star wars fans. The hype is not earned. At all.… Expand
  71. zaekeon
    Dec 26, 2011
    0
    Basically the game is wow with voiceovers and WAY WAY less features...it's sad that a game like RIFT came out with more features/customization than this blockbuster that has been hyped forever did...the even sadder part is all of the stuff people complain about now, are things they had been complaining about in beta for almost 2 years....the future of this game really scares me. It's goodBasically the game is wow with voiceovers and WAY WAY less features...it's sad that a game like RIFT came out with more features/customization than this blockbuster that has been hyped forever did...the even sadder part is all of the stuff people complain about now, are things they had been complaining about in beta for almost 2 years....the future of this game really scares me. It's good for 1 play through for a KoTR type experience, but after that, it's pretty dull....don't even get me started on how stupid advanced classes are (locking you out of 50% of your class, why do i want to play the same damn character again, with the same exact story, sharing a lot of the same exact skills and even a whole talent tree...yet you want to say it's a totally different class....yeah right, more like they already getting started on Rehasing like wow did.)… Expand
  72. enrogae1
    Dec 21, 2011
    4
    I see the smear campaign has begun. I will try to be as subjectively objective as I can. This is no Asheron's Call, Ultima Online, or Shadowbane. It is as much a theme park game as every other "AAA" MMO to come out in recent years. It looms as a shadow over other titles, such as Age of Conan or Star Trek Online. It is supremely better than anything modern except for the one datedI see the smear campaign has begun. I will try to be as subjectively objective as I can. This is no Asheron's Call, Ultima Online, or Shadowbane. It is as much a theme park game as every other "AAA" MMO to come out in recent years. It looms as a shadow over other titles, such as Age of Conan or Star Trek Online. It is supremely better than anything modern except for the one dated title that everyone likes to compare it to... I won't even bother saying it because we all know which one.

    Does it share elements to this grossly successful "other" title? Of course it does. Just like "it" did, The Old Republic has copied elements from what worked in other, successful MMO titles. Is it a clone or a copy? I would have to say maybe, but it is something new and refreshing in many other ways. It is a theme park MMO... and that type of MMO hasn't changed much since Everquest (except to remove that pesky sandbox, which many of us still lament).

    Does it deserve a 1 or a 0? Of course not. It's better than Dragon Age 2, and even IT didn't deserve a 1 or a 0. I doubt any of the people posting such scores have played much of the game, and if they have then I'm not sure why they rate it so low. 1 or a 0 is reserved, in my mind, for a game that is unplayable or total garbage. That isn't even close to SW:ToR. Here's my quick breakdown:

    The Good:
    1. Voice Acting is Sufficient. You won't hear anything as well-done as the Mass Effect series, but it is adequate... and in places, pretty good.
    2. Stories are Adequate. The story lines in this game won't compete with a half-decent novel, but they are as entertaining as your run-of-the-mill prime time show.
    3. Group Questing is Actually Entertaining. I have always hated being in a group for questing in any other MMO. It's a penalty, curbing reward possibilities and just making everything take longer. The conversation and dialogue with NPC's makes grouping with a friend much more enjoyable.
    4. Instancing is at least Well-Done. I hate instancing... with a passion. Something ought to be said, though, about the way it was done in a way that is less immersion breaking here. Walking through a glimmering force field into a private instance with NO load screen is a step forward, to be sure.
    5. Art Quality is Good. Sure, the graphics aren't top-notch (see "The Bad"), but the environments are often beautiful nonetheless. You don't need Arkham City graphics to be pretty (Arkham City was beautifully ugly), and ToR shines here. Worlds like Taris and Nar Shadda offer stark changes in artwork that is easy to appreciate.

    The Bad:

    1. Character Creation is Severely Lacking for a Modern MMO. In the days of character models such as those in any Cryptic game, Aion, or even EvE's new generator, the customization in SW: ToR's character creation system is pretty much a joke. The mesh/textures on character models are also very "flat".
    2. Engine is Poorly Optimized. There are many posts on the forums about bad FPS. Personally, I run an AMD x4 Phenom II Quad-Core 3.2ghz, 6gb Corsair RAM, and a GTX 580 (GTS250 for Physx, which doesn't apply here)... and I'm lucky to average 30fps on max settings (ironically the same average as people with far lesser systems). Considering the lack of technically advanced graphics, something is amiss here.
    3. The first several worlds are very "corridor-ish". The worlds don't seem very big, there is little exploration at the onset of the game. You are funneled from point A to point B to completed objective H. 4. It doesn't feel "alive" the way an MMO should. The only critters in the world are occasional HUGE monsters that are too busy grazing to attack. This seems like laziness, to me.
    5. Sometimes combat does seem clunky, sometime it doesn't. Most of the time I have fun with it, and I suspect a lot of people's issues stem from timing issues with abilities that can be corrected at some point.

    These are just my highlights. There are other issues I have, such as it not being sandbox (they always said it wouldn't be, so this was expected), and lack of immersion things like being able to sit in chairs or sit on the ground without looking constipated. Despite the flaws, there are many good qualities here... so don't let the zero's, one's, and two's on here dissuade you from trying the game. At the end of the day, I have fun when I log on... for now. I'm quite certain, having been in the beta since early on, that I will get my money's worth before I stop having fun. Give it a try.    … Expand
  73. some_guy
    Dec 25, 2011
    0
    This game not only was and is awful, but (if you don't like giving websites your credit card info) requires $120 non-refundable before you even start playing. The multi-player interaction is severely limited and, while fully-voiced quest conversations are a new twist, this is very annoying for people who are not interested in what is being said all the time or who don't have the time toThis game not only was and is awful, but (if you don't like giving websites your credit card info) requires $120 non-refundable before you even start playing. The multi-player interaction is severely limited and, while fully-voiced quest conversations are a new twist, this is very annoying for people who are not interested in what is being said all the time or who don't have the time to sit there and wait for the dialogue to play out. The universe itself is very limited and linear and combat is no better than other MMOs. I will not be surprised at all if the User Score for this game continues to decrease rapidly until the game stops requiring a subscription. After years of development, this is a sad excuse for the newest MMO. Personally, I have requested a full refund from the game's costumer service.… Expand
  74. Cameirus
    Dec 26, 2011
    2
    Disappointing. Very. Servers feel dead due to instancing and planet only chat channels, the storey based focus means you cant play as a group as the amount of people allowed in instanced storey areas is limited. balance is way off with some classes dominating pvp. Lack of MMO features such as group finder. Numerous graphical bugs, random disconnects, and bugged resource nodes, and optionsDisappointing. Very. Servers feel dead due to instancing and planet only chat channels, the storey based focus means you cant play as a group as the amount of people allowed in instanced storey areas is limited. balance is way off with some classes dominating pvp. Lack of MMO features such as group finder. Numerous graphical bugs, random disconnects, and bugged resource nodes, and options menus dont remember settings through loading screens.
    Travel times are high, which feels like a time sink, and yet worlds are very linear, you cant explore at all without hitting an "exhaustion wall". The voice acting is ok, but far too much, you spend alot of time just watching it, or skipping it, and its very repetative using the same phrases over and over and over again, plus the option you choose for dialogue sometime bears no resembalance to what your character actually says.
    Combat feels clunky, and targettting is a nightmare.

    All in all its a mediocre single player RPG, with a very bad and poorly implemented lobby feature. Feels half finished and very dated. Servers feel like a dying mmo not a new one.    … Expand
  75. Apz
    Dec 24, 2011
    1
    It's a decent game if you still like playing MMORPGs. Sort of angry I let myself get hoodwinked by friends again. As far as I'm concerned, MMORPGs will never be "real" games. And what I mean by real games are games that offer actual content and experiences that aren't just tedious and repetitive.
  76. tallanx
    Sep 21, 2012
    1
    let's see here, animations are basically the same stock animations from the Dragon Age and Mass Effect series. Mechanically the game is practically an exact copy of WoW (not necessarily a bad thing, but certainly not innovative in any way). The story and cutscenes are nice in a way and the VA is generally decent to good quality, but it does get a bit tiring after a while. Is this alet's see here, animations are basically the same stock animations from the Dragon Age and Mass Effect series. Mechanically the game is practically an exact copy of WoW (not necessarily a bad thing, but certainly not innovative in any way). The story and cutscenes are nice in a way and the VA is generally decent to good quality, but it does get a bit tiring after a while. Is this a horrible game? no, is it a great game? no. It's a mediocre game. And for me it also feels very much like a single player game with optional multiplayer elements, which may very well be what Bioware was going for. For me, personally that means the game is not worth subbing to.

    But the biggest problem, is Bioware's attitude. This game by itself deserves a 6, but Bioware blatant lies, broken promises and just general asshat behaviour towards their customer makes me drop the score down to 1. If they hadn't lied so much about the game prior to release maybe people wouldn't have been as pissed that the game did not live up to what was explicitly promised multiple times.    … Expand
  77. Jingo
    Dec 25, 2011
    4
    This was a big disappointment. Sure, it's great that Bioware has inserted a ton of voice-acting in the otherwise text-based genre, and a bit more story in questlines. But that's it. For the most expensive game in history? It's a real shame. The graphics are so 2002, the environment is utterly lacklustre. But the worst thing was the combat. You just click on your enemy once then select someThis was a big disappointment. Sure, it's great that Bioware has inserted a ton of voice-acting in the otherwise text-based genre, and a bit more story in questlines. But that's it. For the most expensive game in history? It's a real shame. The graphics are so 2002, the environment is utterly lacklustre. But the worst thing was the combat. You just click on your enemy once then select some hotkeys. Ugh. In a world when a cheap game like Mount and Blade gives you the immersion of timing and aiming your sword-swing while galloping past on your horse, why is it that the most expensive game fails so miserably? A bit of innovation, some modern game-play controls and up-to-date graphics would have made SWTOR a real hit for me, but there's no way I'm shelling out subscription money for a game that could have been made when Saddam Hussein was still ruling Iraq.… Expand
  78. Dolar
    Dec 20, 2011
    3
    This is a very well done WoW like mmo. The combat is a little more active, but not by a great deal. This is a game that feels like a MMO made 10 years ago. It is missing most of the modern MMO player convinces like a group finder, dual specialization, and several other features.. This is more like 8 single player games than a real MMO.

    Now the launch issues are numerous, 2 to 4 hour    This is a very well done WoW like mmo. The combat is a little more active, but not by a great deal. This is a game that feels like a MMO made 10 years ago. It is missing most of the modern MMO player convinces like a group finder, dual specialization, and several other features.. This is more like 8 single player games than a real MMO.

    Now the launch issues are numerous, 2 to 4 hour queues. Origin issues many people bought the game and were never set cd keys. CD keys not shipping with boxed copies of the game. There is a whole world in the game that will instantly crash the client and put you at the end of a 4 hour queue over and over. And the kicker? This has been known for more than a week and was never affress at all. CS when you speak with them have no idea what you are even asking them to do, and it can take up to 6 hours to get a phone reply, 2 hours in live chat, Forum you will be ignored, and I was told the Email support had a 4 week backlog as of tonight. Tons of technical issues, this game was not ready for launch. It is sad because a little more work and I think it could be great.    … Expand
  79. Lunarosi
    Dec 24, 2011
    2
    I'll begin with character creation. I was expecting a hefty load of options in the creation of my character such custom face shaping. Also I have to point out that the choice of facial hair is beyond a joke and it also looks so bad, almost like it's super glued onto the model's face. You can either have no beard and moustache and or an ugly thick one -- there is no in between. The sameI'll begin with character creation. I was expecting a hefty load of options in the creation of my character such custom face shaping. Also I have to point out that the choice of facial hair is beyond a joke and it also looks so bad, almost like it's super glued onto the model's face. You can either have no beard and moustache and or an ugly thick one -- there is no in between. The same goes with the bodies, infact there is not one normal looking body for the jedi archetype -- it's either too skinny or too bulky.

    Not including the true cinematics, the gameplay graphics are deceiving. After creating my character I get some true CG cutscenes like you would see in a motion picture (money at this point that would have been better spent) which is great. Then I get to the cutscenes that appear to be the game's graphics engine.

    My character lands into a spaceport with crisp, colourful graphics -- im thinking woah, they really went all out here as well as with the voice acting which is superb. Shortly after being told what I need to do and who to talk to, I am thrown in to a world that looks hideous and completely different than the rich vibrant cutscenes.

    Compared with the mission/NPC cutscenes, everything just looks flatter and less vibrant. I was also informed after walking around the environment just how linear and lifeless everything is, something I wasn't expecting from a game this long in development.

    The envrionments outside the cities are also very linear. I found myself being restricted to certain paths where there was hilly terrain. Why can't I just walk up and around this? Dragon Age had the same issues too. This game has been hyped so bad that alot of KOTOR fans will think it's for them, but after EA/Bioware/LucasArts grabs their money they realise it's just another MMO, nothing special.    … Expand
  80. Sethisto
    Dec 20, 2011
    3
    SWTOR is very much a WoW clone, but not of the current version. This game seems to emulate somewhere near the end of Vanilla WoW. The quests are pretty much all "kill x creatures/ kill x boss/ click x items", there really isn't much variation. This, I usually don't mind though. It's a system that has worked multiple times. SWTOR throws a wrench into the equation though, by giving youSWTOR is very much a WoW clone, but not of the current version. This game seems to emulate somewhere near the end of Vanilla WoW. The quests are pretty much all "kill x creatures/ kill x boss/ click x items", there really isn't much variation. This, I usually don't mind though. It's a system that has worked multiple times. SWTOR throws a wrench into the equation though, by giving you absolutely ridiculous distances to run between each objective. Be prepared to enter/exit the same MASSIVE jedi temple 10 times for a single quest line, and the NPC you need is always in the farthest room in the back. While the environments are excellent looking, this is not an enjoyable experience, at all. The PVP Is pretty much the same as what you have all done for years. I played a Jedi consular/shadow, and it literally was my rogue in wow, no different at all aside from a few ranged force powers. The queues are quick though at least! They added voice overs and cutscenes to every single quest, but you can only make "go collect 5 elixirs" so interesting. It's a nice touch, but by level 20, I was just spamming space bar and selecting dark side responses to get through them. The main story quest is neat, but be prepared to grind if you want to focus on just that. Space fights are fun, and a neat addition, but it really doesn't make up for everything else. The game is just so ridiculously linear. If something like this is allowed to be successful, we are doomed to another decade of really bad WoW clones.… Expand
  81. obviousguy
    Dec 21, 2011
    0
    I'm giving it a 2. It gets 2 points for the story and voice over. The audio work is fairly well done. Even though the stories themselves (went to level 35 and 22 on another) are really hokey. It is I suppose better than what mmos have offered in terms of story advancement before. And all of their resources appear to have gone into this. If that's your thing, this game is for you. HoweverI'm giving it a 2. It gets 2 points for the story and voice over. The audio work is fairly well done. Even though the stories themselves (went to level 35 and 22 on another) are really hokey. It is I suppose better than what mmos have offered in terms of story advancement before. And all of their resources appear to have gone into this. If that's your thing, this game is for you. However If you are looking for a next gen mmo, this game is probably not for you. It really is the most blatant wow ripoff to date in a star wars skin. I got up to 35 before calling it quits. I really wanted the game to be great, but it just falls flat. The worlds are very, very small. There is literally no free exploration, it is so linear you are always on a very narrow path. For an mmo this is a game breaker. This is a world I want to live in for years. If there is nothing off the beaten path from leveling, what am I supposed to do after I reach max level? I need places to explore and this game does not deliver that. It feels like a single player game aside from seeing a person running around here and there. But the way they have instanced the city areas, as well as pve areas, it seems no more than 50 people can be in an entire zone together. So the world feels pretty lifeless and empty. The UI functions and that's about it. You cannot customize it at all. Not even scale it. No macros, no mods, not even a target's target. Character customization is terrible. I can not believe how limited it is. Galaxies, a game that came out 7 years ago was so far beyond what came out yesterday. Bioware should be embarrassed. And I wasn't even a galaxies fan. The combat is same old wow combat. Animations are ok, but I wouldn't call them good. Lightning looks cool, not much else seemed worth writing about. The pvp is terrible, so much crowd control it's silly. Clearly an afterthought and nothing to offer for a player looking for good pvp. From what I've heard from the max level guys, there is no endgame content. One raid (8 people) with a couple bosses. That's it. Enjoy farming that one raid for 6 months or so until they release something else. This game innovates on nothing. It took wows model and added mass effect type story. They combined 2 games and came out with a terrible mutant of an offspring. It's clunky, predictable, and stale. It's now two days old and I have never seen a game that is about to bomb as fast as this one. Congrats Bioware. I think you are going to set a record with this game. Biggest disappointment in video game history. I know it is for me. Believe it or not I was a fanboy until I started playing it 3 days ago. Now I'm an ex player, who will never be purchasing a Bioware product ever again. Also I decided after writing this review, the game is getting a 0. It was a 2 for story, but after realizing how bad it is as a whole writing this, it doesn't even deserve that. What a mess of a game.… Expand
  82. Corppor
    Dec 24, 2011
    0
    One of the most colossal disappointments in gaming history, but then again it's bioware--I wasn't expecting much. For the amount of money and hype poured into this thing the result is absolutely pathetic. It has all of the innovation and design of an outsourced Chinese mmo but made in north America. All this does differently from wow is a poorly written and poorly presented story.One of the most colossal disappointments in gaming history, but then again it's bioware--I wasn't expecting much. For the amount of money and hype poured into this thing the result is absolutely pathetic. It has all of the innovation and design of an outsourced Chinese mmo but made in north America. All this does differently from wow is a poorly written and poorly presented story. Cutscenes and dialogue wheels actually make me feel less involved with anything going on, not that I care about the story in any capacity. Quite simply this game isn't worth your time any more than a game that you could download for free.… Expand
  83. Jazzie
    Dec 20, 2011
    2
    This game perfectly fits the downward spiral of quality bioware is pushing out these days, ME2 â
  84. Wireded21
    Dec 22, 2011
    4
    I had 8 days of free early access due ot cancelling my pre-order but EA forgot to remove my early access code so thanks EA. I'm glad I did, had a good 8 days but it's not worth £45 + a monthly sub. It should be F2P as it doesn't offer anything innovating to make a subscription worthwhile. It really is WoW with a StarWars skin. It's a good game in it's own right but not goodI had 8 days of free early access due ot cancelling my pre-order but EA forgot to remove my early access code so thanks EA. I'm glad I did, had a good 8 days but it's not worth £45 + a monthly sub. It should be F2P as it doesn't offer anything innovating to make a subscription worthwhile. It really is WoW with a StarWars skin. It's a good game in it's own right but not good enough to justify a subscription.… Expand
  85. dingoperson
    Dec 27, 2011
    2
    Whilst the game is passably enjoyable as a one-off casual romp through a Star Wars theme park, any person who has played MMOs before will find severe design flaws. There's really too many to list in full, but includes: 1) PvP rewards are enormous compared to PvE rewards, 2) PvP is seriously unbalanced (battlegrounds frequently have 80% of players as ONE class), 3) Classes that are supposedWhilst the game is passably enjoyable as a one-off casual romp through a Star Wars theme park, any person who has played MMOs before will find severe design flaws. There's really too many to list in full, but includes: 1) PvP rewards are enormous compared to PvE rewards, 2) PvP is seriously unbalanced (battlegrounds frequently have 80% of players as ONE class), 3) Classes that are supposed to be "mirrored" across the faction split are not, 4) There are no level brackets so lv10s get thrown in with lv50s, 5) botting, 6) cheating/exploits, 7) a range of other things, 8) Bioware not commenting on or doing anything to fix these issues. The company is completely unresponsive, simply throw out form messages, and doesn't discuss design decisions.… Expand
  86. JesusHKriest
    Jan 3, 2012
    1
    Well... It's World of Warcraft, that's for sure. But I think even then, there are things that The Old Republic tried to do WoW-style but didn't quite make it. I really hate the fact that world PvP is so meaningless or unbalanced (level 10 vs level 50, yay!). World PvP made WoW really good, and the death of world PvP in WoW kind of killed it for me entirely. But here in TOR, it's dead rightWell... It's World of Warcraft, that's for sure. But I think even then, there are things that The Old Republic tried to do WoW-style but didn't quite make it. I really hate the fact that world PvP is so meaningless or unbalanced (level 10 vs level 50, yay!). World PvP made WoW really good, and the death of world PvP in WoW kind of killed it for me entirely. But here in TOR, it's dead right from the get-go, which was a major let down. Plus, I think the most meaningless parts of WoW's endgame were kind of copied and pasted right into TOR, which also kind of ruined it for me.
    I thought the storyline was pretty weak, and then towards the end the story just kind of... dies off instantly, never to return. Personally I don't think trying to include story in an MMO is a good idea, and this game might justify that idea. The story feels more meaningless to me when it tries to "connect" with me, because every other single player in the game has had the exact same experiences. I am not a legendary Jedi who holds the fate of the galaxy in my hands, me and the other 50,000 players all are. I'm not really going to discuss the canon of the story, because I think it is Bioware's choice if they want to pretend KotOR 2 didn't exist. It was a good game, but I can accept it being non-canon. A lot of people were mad at Revan's place in TOR's story (don't worry I won't spoil), and rightfully so. It was a major disappointment, I wish it was handled differently.
    The thing that really made me stop playing was THAT LAG, MAN. I just can't take it anymore. To have everything I do be delayed by almost half a second is frustrating, and to have it happen consistently is maddening. Of course, that is more of a server thing than the game itself, and perhaps in the future the servers will be upgraded, so this might end up being irrelevant.    … Expand
  87. hailey
    Dec 26, 2011
    2
    A truly mediocre experience. If you want WoW with a different name, play Rift, as it is an infinitely better constructed game than TOR. This game has the quality of pre launch World of Warcraft with the storytelling of Dragon Age 2.
  88. Nexmanus
    Dec 24, 2011
    3
    The game itself is ok as mmoâ
  89. Cavissi
    Dec 25, 2011
    3
    A very bland single player game trying to be an MMO. Bioware should have just made Kotor 3 and focused on story and cutscenes, instead you get a worse version of Kotor mixed with a worse version of WoW. The combat is very uninspired, the voice acting is pretty mediocre, and the conversation aspect of getting quests is interesting but the quest themselves are just fetch and kill 30 of thisA very bland single player game trying to be an MMO. Bioware should have just made Kotor 3 and focused on story and cutscenes, instead you get a worse version of Kotor mixed with a worse version of WoW. The combat is very uninspired, the voice acting is pretty mediocre, and the conversation aspect of getting quests is interesting but the quest themselves are just fetch and kill 30 of this quests. If you enjoy the story you will enjoy playing through the game, but as far as an MMO, it is a watered down WoW in every aspect.… Expand
  90. flimda
    Jan 1, 2012
    2
    If you defined the word "blunder", you would get a dictionary definition which stated "Lucasart's decision to let Bioware handle this game". The game feels souless and just comes across as an incomplete product which has been rushed. Star wars is a global cash cow and it really is being milked for all it's worth with such a terribly over priced game. The game is supposed to run on theIf you defined the word "blunder", you would get a dictionary definition which stated "Lucasart's decision to let Bioware handle this game". The game feels souless and just comes across as an incomplete product which has been rushed. Star wars is a global cash cow and it really is being milked for all it's worth with such a terribly over priced game. The game is supposed to run on the majority of systems, however many players (myself included) have experienced severe lag which basically makes any decent PvP redundant. For a game with a supposed $300m budget a problem which hinders the primary selling point of the MMO market is unforgivable in every sense. How can a game which brings computers to their knees have such poor graphics? It really is just WoW in space with terribly cringeworthy writing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7pgk7TZO_c& as an example of one of the horrible cut scenes - and no that wasn't even filmed during the beta, that's something Bioware want you to pay monthly to sit through) and regurgitated MMO game play which could be swapped with the game play of any of the last 10 or so major MMOs and would seem pretty samey. This game was intended for two sets of people: MMO players who wanted something different, and Star Wars fans - most notably those who were fans of the KotOR series. This game others NOTHING for either of them. During the prerelease interviews with Bioware employees they promised this game would innovate a dying game genre whilst appeasing Star wars fans by sticking to lore and basically being a continuation of the KotOR series. Without offering any spoilers I can suggest that this game has basically forgotten that KotOR 2 ever existed. In terms of end game so far there is only one raid which features a couple of tank and spank bosses and a brief extension of the PvP battlegrounds that players could choose to join from level 10. One of the key points of the star wars series is that it captures people's imaginations; Being evil villains in space! Being a hero of the republic! It is such a diverse series with thousands of unique characters it really is disgusting that every single player characters looks exactly the same. There are basically four body choices for everyone which is the only unique aspect of your character (everyone is a humanoid and exactly the same height - sounds really FUN). The four body types include - Child body (a mini version of the adult body - yes 10 year old children in this game have massive racks - gotta reach out to EVERY market haven't we Bioware? ) Japanese anime style body, steroid packed weight lifer body and of course morbidly obese fat man. The hairstyles are nothing like the star wars series and seem to have come straight out of the latest FF game. Another unique feature which TOR promised us was space combat. Although this is the favourite part of the game for myself... that isn't because it is good, just that every single other aspect of this game is horrible in every way, shape and form. It is fun for the first 30 minutes but considering the amount of time people put into MMOs the repetition of this particular aspect of the game would kill me. They even managed to make you grind mobs whilst you are supposed to be flying the ship! Another brilliant USP for TOR was the companions. Their two major benefits are supposed to be helping during combat and also skills. The skills in this game are a complete waste of time and any items you get out of them are dwarfed by those you find elsewhere. It is a complete waste of time in game to spend any time whatsoever crafting / picking / looking for herbs. subscir
    For the majority of time in game I have played a Jedi Knight Guardian. This is a primarily a tank class so what BIoware did was give them a companion whose main function is... to tank. This makes PvE and grinding mobs (Which are ALWAYS in groups of three no matter what) pretty boring (I can only say this is from a Jedi Knight Guardian's point of view - apparently Bounty Hunter is a blast). To summarise I simply cannot see how I could justify throwing more money at EA with a subscription fee for this game. It is so repetitive in every sense of the word - A bland copy of every past MMO with a script loosely resembling the tortured remains of one which was partially based on small aspects of the KotOR series.    … Expand
  91. mobius22r
    Dec 21, 2011
    0
    Bioware is the best at storytelling, and this is no exception. The Old Republic looks and feels like Star Wars, and is, while not unique in the MMO genre, very good. It has elements from many popular games, and the development team is working hard to improve things every day. The graphics are so much better than many MMO's on the market today. It's hard to make something everyone canBioware is the best at storytelling, and this is no exception. The Old Republic looks and feels like Star Wars, and is, while not unique in the MMO genre, very good. It has elements from many popular games, and the development team is working hard to improve things every day. The graphics are so much better than many MMO's on the market today. It's hard to make something everyone can play, but BioWare accomplished it. I think the timeline they picked is perfect. It's a good compliment to KotOR and doesn't step on K1's toes, nor does it interfere with the movies' timelines. I look forward to the future and can't wait to see what comes next!… Expand
  92. ReviewerX103
    Dec 21, 2011
    4
    This game is not all bad but overall not good. The soloplayer content is good for a mmo in my opinion. The content is story driven and keeps you moving. The group content... well saying just lacking would be an understatement. This is easily the most solo player focused mmo game in the genre. It is very obvious little went into designing content for anything above small group, and evenThis game is not all bad but overall not good. The soloplayer content is good for a mmo in my opinion. The content is story driven and keeps you moving. The group content... well saying just lacking would be an understatement. This is easily the most solo player focused mmo game in the genre. It is very obvious little went into designing content for anything above small group, and even that is limited. Really it is a mmo only in respect to alot of people being online at once... all other aspects of what you expect from a mmo are missing.

    Graphics wise the game is honestly really poor, it appears very little of the massive budget went into building a large world with unique and detailed elements. Even if realistic is not the goal ascetic wise the graphic related things such as texture detail and polygon counts are horrific for a late 2011 release. Animations are in the same boat. The graphics and animations might of been acceptable in 2006, but every other AAA mmo released since WoW easily outclasses ToR in the areas of Graphics and Animation.

    Voice overs are decent, better then any other mmo and most offline games I have played this is a plus. The storytelling lacks compared to the rest of the Knights of the old republic games. And the use of cut-scenes are overused for mundane events and just drags out the "Kill X mobs" quest. The whole lightside/darkside with quest gives a false sense of choice since the outcomes are the same no matter what you choose.

    Combat is a near perfect WoW clone same with the UI. While this is not a bad thing, It is not revolutionary or even remotely different. If you are tired of the WoW playstyle well this is more of the same in that respect.

    Instances are way overused for things that honestly have no reason to be instanced, and exploration is limited in the zones.

    In conclusion:

    If you are a Starwars and a big WoW fan you can probably get some enjoyment out of this game. If you are a Starwars Old Republic fan but not a mmo fan you will be applauded by what you see. If you are a mmo fan but not a Starwars fan you will probably play for awhile but leave once the new mmo feeling goes away.

    Those tired of group focused mmos should give this a try it might be up your ally. But for those wanting the group/guild focused mmo you should play another title and stay far away from this one.

    This game is still an infant atm, and no mmo should be counted out especially at this early stage, but this is currently a very unimpressive mmo, if it can even be called a mmo, compared to what else is out there. This game does not even close to live up to the rest of the Knights of the Old Republic series. BioWare has a lot of work to do and very little time if they do not want to lose the big population they started with.    … Expand
  93. motaclown
    Jan 22, 2012
    1
    Like others have said. This game is a failure.
    It has identical properties to WOW. And there is little reason to play.

    The voice acting gets old and boring after lvl 10 and its the same old grind over and over again.

    Zero reason to make the switch. GW2 is worth waiting for I think.
  94. c4nn1b4l
    Dec 20, 2011
    1
    They promised me content equivalent with ~10-20 masseffect. They promised great story. They promised heroic battles. All i got was a yet-another-mmog with boring gameplay (go kill 20 beasts, etc), bad story full of cliche'. I was lvl 45 when i cancelled my subscription.
  95. TwistedComplex
    Dec 31, 2011
    4
    I wish to retract my former review. After reaching max level, my guild cleared all the end game content in one night. Absolutely unacceptable, and coupled with the fact that Ilum is completely broken, this does not bode well for SWTORs future
  96. nhpc
    Dec 22, 2011
    4
    It's World of Warcraft in space with better music. There is nothing revolutionary about the game, contrary to what the paid reviews and shills would like you to believe
  97. sindra
    Dec 22, 2011
    0
    I cannot express how much of a disappointment this game is. People saying that it is a WoW clone are incorrect - it does not even do that well. I'm a massive star wars fan and have enjoyed most of Bioware's previous offerings from Baldur's Gate to Dragon Age. The only thing in this game worth experiencing is some of the story, and that is definitely a finite experience - my advice is toI cannot express how much of a disappointment this game is. People saying that it is a WoW clone are incorrect - it does not even do that well. I'm a massive star wars fan and have enjoyed most of Bioware's previous offerings from Baldur's Gate to Dragon Age. The only thing in this game worth experiencing is some of the story, and that is definitely a finite experience - my advice is to play one of Bioware's previous games that is written better and offers the same story-style experience without forcing you to suffer through a pale imitation of WoW's tired MMO gameplay model - read: WoW has much more fun gameplay than this. Smoother combat, more involved quest mechanics that occasionally engage you - use an item to put on a disguise, sneak into a camp and kill target. SWTOR is - Kill X mobs. Get X items from dead mobs. Pick up X items off the ground. Talk to X. Aaaand that's about it. Customization is atrocious. To have access to the Star Wars license and only have humans with facepaint is such a missed opportunity it's a crime. This isn't Star Trek where you're limited to humans with stuff on their face! There's a rich background with amazing races! Use them, players love them!

    I rolled a bounty hunter, I wanted to use a rifle, or maybe a cool staffy pike thing. Hell, Bounty Hunters in the movies do it. Surely in a STAR WARS ROLEPLAYING GAME I should be able to do that, right? WRONG. You're a bounty hunter? You use pistols. Next. You're a spy? You use rifles. Next. Just lazy and inexcusable. Even in WoW, there are class limitations but within that you are free to pick! My warrior can use a mace, axe, sword, dagger, 2h versions of all those, bow, gun, etc! Pathetic when WoW lays your character's options low. Once players are finished with their stories, this game will not be able to stand up to the competition, period. There is one raid, and three battlegrounds. That's it for endgame, other than that I hope you like sitting in the cantina roleplaying because that's all there is to do. It's missing so many standard MMO features it's painful to think about! Day/night cycles are missing, NO GUILD BANK!?!? No guild progression system of any kind. Welcome back to 2003! Oh wait, SWG and games back then had those. Welcome to a bad MMO. No LFG, horrible pet AI (yes pets, that's all companions are), god-awful UI, no addon support, no swimming, nooo thanks.

    Standard features in other MMOs like limiting who can roll need on what is absent, have fun the first time some sith ninjas your bounty hunter armor because his companion needs it, because it will happen many times. I really hope GW2 comes out soon.    … Expand
  98. ManOfSteel
    Dec 20, 2011
    0
    This game has been a bitter disappointment. The voice acting is ok, but everything else is extremely boring, uninspired and it soon becomes a drag. BioWare seemingly has lost their touch and I'm not expecting much more out of Mass Effect 3, which looks like a boring third person shooter. TOR massively underdelivers on all fronts, and for such a big project with such high aspirations, itThis game has been a bitter disappointment. The voice acting is ok, but everything else is extremely boring, uninspired and it soon becomes a drag. BioWare seemingly has lost their touch and I'm not expecting much more out of Mass Effect 3, which looks like a boring third person shooter. TOR massively underdelivers on all fronts, and for such a big project with such high aspirations, it fails miserably. Do not waste your time or money with this game.… Expand
  99. celerity321
    Dec 20, 2011
    2
    When I heard about this I was disappointed by the fact that they would be turning my beloved KoTOR into an MMO, but, I gave it a chance. Sadly it proved my fears right. Gameplay wise it is a poor WoW clone at best, except it's even more dumbed down. The graphics are just pathetic for a game coming out in 2011, it barely looks like an upgrade over KoTOR. And don't get me started on theWhen I heard about this I was disappointed by the fact that they would be turning my beloved KoTOR into an MMO, but, I gave it a chance. Sadly it proved my fears right. Gameplay wise it is a poor WoW clone at best, except it's even more dumbed down. The graphics are just pathetic for a game coming out in 2011, it barely looks like an upgrade over KoTOR. And don't get me started on the "story". Grade school writing, combined with an utter mangling of everything in KoTOR just led to me hanging my head in shame with bile creeping up my throat.… Expand
  100. Bombadil
    Dec 23, 2011
    0
    Sorry but overused and worn out mmo mechanics from the last 8 years. A veiled attempt of EA and their new lap dog Bioware to cash in on the Star Wars ip. Poor Star Warsians
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Awards & Rankings

19
#19 Best PC Game of 2011
8
#8 Most Discussed PC Game of 2011
9
#9 Most Shared PC Game of 2011

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
85

Generally favorable reviews - based on 73 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 68 out of 73
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 73
  3. Negative: 0 out of 73
  1. RPGamer
    Apr 23, 2012
    80
    LucasArts generally exercised greater quality control of Star Wars games than most licensed properties receive, though that didn't necessarily translate into titles that were actually good. I've played a few other Star Wars games in the past, and while the SNES platformers were pretty good, this one is even better. Knights of the Old Republic may just be the best game in the franchise, and succeeds at being a top-tier RPG even if one has no interest in Star Wars. BioWare did the license proud.
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  2. GameCritics
    Mar 31, 2012
    70
    I wound up bailing out on Star Wars: The Old Republic well before hitting the level cap, but not before digging into it more so than any other MMO I've played. Even if it is an unhappy marriage between two wildly different game types, the fact that it kept me hooked for so long at least counts for something.
    Read full review
  3. NZGamer
    Mar 5, 2012
    83
    A good game. It pays excellent homage to the film series (even though it's set before the movies), and is a really solid MMO.
    Read full review
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