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Welcome!

Hello Giantbomb, it's been a very long time since I've made any meaningful post on this site which, over time, has manifested itself as a desire to write and blog again and not bail when my life becomes a bit more hectic.   For the 3 people that remember me, I can say that my obvious rip off of Dankempster's excellent Final Fantasy VII blog will return at some point, so look forward to that.

For the rest of you (those who came here based on the title) let me start off by thanking you.   There's been what feels like a ton of posts on the site at the moment regarding The Old Republic and I'm sure a lot of you are fed up of arguing over a game that isn't out yet but BEFORE you post saying you're tired of talking about this game, read this article, because I can guarantee you that it's the fairest take on the game you're going to find on Giantbomb, if not the whole internet.  

I'm going to break down a lot of the features about the game, make points to either side of the argument as to whether they suck or not and then give you my personal taste on them, including what I feel they could do to make them much better.

Just before I start I'd like to thank you in advance for reading this, it's a bit of a big read so I really appreciate it.

Personal Opinions on The Old Republic Universe/The ToR Community

Firstly, you need to know what I feel about this game,  because if I don't let you know exactly what my stance is on TOR and its universe, then you'll be questioning my motives all throughout this blog, and that's not something I want.

I played both Old Republic games when they first came out and (despite the second's best efforts to make to hate it) I loved the hell out of both of them.   For years I awaited a third game to be announced and where I thought Mass Effect filled The Old Republic shaped void in my life, it never truly could.  

The magical thing about KotoR games were how people who didn't even like Star Wars fell in love with the universe.   The quality of the characters and the worlds couldn't

help but make people fall in love with them and to this day, there's still plenty of people out there who can't stand Star Wars but love the KotoR universe so much.    As someone who loves the Star Wars Universe (although my love has severely waned over the last few years) at the time, the Old Republic Universe was  an incredible addition to something I really loved.   Today, the Old Republic universe is my favourite thing about the whole of Star Wars, which is really a different story all together.

The passion that people speak with regarding ToR proves that a lot of people care about the universe Bioware created however I am really yet to see a person post anything about this game that isn't either blind fan boy love or fuming fan boy hate...and I can't fathom why this game has created more of a rift between fans than any other game I can ever remember.   There seems to be no middle ground, it's either people freaking out over how incredible the game is or attacking anyone who  point out any concerns they may have for the game. Then you have the haters, who will take every opportunity they can to attack the game whether the hate is justified or not.

As such it's hard to find a post on the internet that both sides can agree with, which is where I jump in.

tl;dr

The Old Republic Universe is probably the best thing bout Star Wars and there's a ton of people out there who are either blindly attacking or defending the game.   NOW ONWARDS!

It's A WoW Clone

Let me start by pointing out the elephant in the blog...the most dividing thing about this game.   Anyone who says this game isn't a WoW clone is wrong.   Anyone who calls this game WoW in a Star Wars skin is wrong.

The whole video game industry is based on developers putting their own spin on other peoples games.   Modern Warfare's multiplayer has been "copied" what feels like a million times, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.   I could bust out a whole wealth of examples but to keep the blog as short as possible but between cover systems and open worlds, I think you get the idea of where I could go with this..

Bioware is taking the great features WoW has and expanding on them, like other games have, like other games will.   Until the game comes out you can never truly be sure as to whether it's added something meaningful to the genre or just a poor emulation.   Let me leave this with you though, a Bioware  RPG with WoW trappings should be amazing, and considering the pedigree of each, some people should be more excited than they are for this game.

System Specs/Art Style

Bioware are trying to keep the specs of ToR as low as possible, which in my eyes is a direct sign they're aiming for the WoW crowd.   People who can only run WoW on low specs should be able to run ToR on low specs, which obviously means the game isn't going to be a tour de-force graphically but it means even people who aren't invested in gaming PC's will be able to play the game.

To compensate for this Bioware are going really heavy fisted with a cartoony art style, in an obvious attempt to mask the somewhat low graphic fidelity.  

I really don't think it's fair to attack a game because it allows more people to play it, by all means, Bioware will need as many people as possible to play this game to recuperate development costs.   I play WoW with my GF and even though I can run it maxed out, she can only get by running it at its lowest but it's awesome that we can play it together on such different machines.

As for the art style, I hated it at first but Bioware have toned it down somewhat and even though it's still a bit cartoony for my tastes, I think it will grow on me over time.

What would be really nice is if Bioware made an add-on or mod that replaced all the textures in the game, completely optional, where people who can will see a whole wealth of crazy awesome looking stuff, but people who can't will still b able to play the game.   Doubt that will happen though to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure of the logistics of it all.

Combat

ToR also looks to take a big page out of WoW's book regarding combat.   I hate the term "Face-Roll" combat because it implies there's no thought to it.   The thing that bothers me though is when Dragon Age had WoW like combat, people praised it, when ToR has WoW like combat, it's a rip-off and crap.   I honestly believe Bioware will have to step their game up little to ensure that abilities feel powerful, cool and fun to use.  

Most importantly though, Bioware need to make sure the game is balanced to near perfection. Even with WoW, there are a ton of abilities for each class that you never use because they are just a waste of time and whilst each class can hold its own against others, there are always times when some classes just feel straight up inadequate.  

If Bioware can give classes a unique feel but have them comparable to each other, and have each classes' abilities be useful, they're onto a winner.   Obviously the nature of MMO communities means that there will obviously be one build that does the most DPS, or heals a group the best but if Bioware can make it so each class is as good as another and each as a wealth of builds that do things right, they'll be onto a winner.

Story

Bioware are attempting to tackle the one thing an MMO has never truly been able to do, tell a compelling story.   They already have an established universe that people want to know more about, so they have the same advantage WoW did going into it.   The things they are doing though are nothing short of revolutionary for the genre.   Fully Voiced?   Awesome! Moral Choices? Sweet!  You've never seen it before in an MMO and chances are you'll never see it again.
 
Some people say if you're playing an MMO for it's story then you're doing it wrong.  I loved the hell out of WoW's story, the reason I started it is because I wanted to know what

happpened after the events of Warcraft 3.  People thought I was stupid when I got excited for meeting Varian Wrynn or Jaina Proudmoore.  They said I was stupid and getting hyped up over nothing.  I put it to these people that THEY are the ones playing MMO's wrong.  WoW has a wonderful story to tell, but does a poor job of telling it.  If ToR can make the storyh as awesom, tie it to Revan and the events of Kotor2, as well as craft new situations that engross and captivate its audience then it's going to be phenominal...unless of course you really don't give a crap about story and then it will be frustrating to sit through...but you're a fool for not caring.
 
One of the things I was worried about has recently been addressed where if you're playing with a group as a good guy and the person who wins the dialogue roll (to decide who gets to speak) chooses the evil option, you will still gain light side points as it was your intention to do the good thing.

Unfortunately though it will mean there are a lot more of phased zones in the game, which personally I do not really like.   When I play an MMO I want to be able to run into a cave and find another player who's running around there, have a chat and a laugh and make a new friend.   If that cave is phased though then I can only bump into someone that has made the same choices as me, which kinda bums me out but I also feel like my idea of meeting people in the big wide MMO world, chatting and becoming friends is a romanticised ideal that doesn't actually happen in MMO's anymore.

Voice Acting

Anyone who says a fully voiced MMO is a bad thing is a moron and a troll.   it will make you care infinitely more for each quest and it takes nothing away from the game at all. Moving on...

Companions

When companions were first shown I hated the idea of them, to me if you want to play an MMO with a party, you go out and find another player.   However the more I've seen, the more I've fallen in love with the idea of them.   For those that don't know, you can basically amass your own crew like you can in any Bioware RPG and each member has their own take on situations.   You can become close friends or even lovers or enemies with them.   How can you not be stoked by that?   An   MMO with Bioware companionship should be awesome.

I am slightly worried however that all this will be lost if one companion becomes much more desirable than another.   The absolute worst thing that could happen to this game is the community dictating which companions should be used by who.   All the dialogue, character, love and charm goes way out the window when you have to take a specific companion because they do the best healing or the best DPS and that's what the raid requires.

If you ask me, end game content like instances and raids shouldn't allow companions to go in.   Not only would it make them more stable from a latency standpoint but it would make sure that the bond isn't lost because there's no point at all in using your favourite team member.

Player Owned Spaceships

The only real thing I have to say is like everything else in an MMO, there's no point getting a load of badass stuff if you can't show it off.   As long as you can invite other players to your spaceship and show off what's inside (it would be awesome if you could earn items for your ship from a quest, like the head of a slain boss) it will be cool.   A communal ship for a guild could also be rad.

End Game Content

I was really curious about what the end game content of ToR would be, and after watching the Eternity Vault trailer I can say I'm super pumped for it.   Looks like they're

going for grand over the top, huge raids (like WoW) with a nice story to each.

If they're smart they will also employ the WoW strategy of patching in later game dungeons as time goes on.

If Bioware is truly smart though, they'll make some different kind of end game other than raiding.   I really don't know what you can make for an MMO that is super compelling for late game, high level players that isn't raiding but then again I don't make MMO's.
 

Back Story

Looking at some of the timeline stuff Bioware is putting out, I must say I don't really care for any of it.  Star Wars lore can get confusing at the best of times and to Bioware's credit they are establishing a lot of lore that will filter into the game...the question is, is it necessary?  Setting the game so many years after the events of the two KotoR games seems like they're shooting itself in the foot.  Like WoW did before it, be a direct sequel to your games, don't set it hundreds of years after.  This would save Bioware having to create a load of convoluted lore that the player has to read...and thinking about it, that's kind of counterproductive to what the rest of the game is trying to do.
 
Bioware should do what they do best and that's create unique stories from the get go, rather than build upon established lore.  Then again if you're totally into looking into lore and back story like that, that's brilliant and the game will cater perfectly to you.
 

Bosses

I'm not sure what I'm going to think of the size of the game's bosses...like height wise.  I'm sure the game will be full of huge monsters, robots and aliens...hell the eternity vault trailer shows the players fighting a multi-stage massive robot  and that's cool and all but when it comes to fighting powerful Sith/Jedi then you're left with 20 people rushing a guy the same height as them, which will look pretty stupid.  WoW did a really good job of making their main characters feel big and tough but that's not something you can really get away with in the Star Wars Universe.  I'm sure battles will be structured differently where you fight more numbers against smaller people but then it makes the guys you're fighting feel weaker.  It's a really, really minor point but it does bother me so I thought I'd post it.
 

Space Combat

The space combat in the game looks fun but I doubt it's what anyone playing an MMO wants to do.  As a rails shooter it looks more than fine but do we really need it in an

MMO?  I've seen very little to be honest and I don't know whether they're mandatory or not but personally I'll want to keep my time playing in the spaceship to an absolute minimum. 

The Marketing

Bioware are doing a piss poor job of marketing the game, no one should doubt that. All the talks of when it will and won't come out is just sloppy but the real problem is Bioware don't understand who their target audience truly is.  Take these two developer commentaries for example, where the person talking the audience through the game is talking as though they've never played an MMO before.  With plenty of forced excitement and "Whoa did you see that's" it's easy to understand why the hardcore MMO crowd is a little turned off.  It's also BLATENT they've kicked the difficulty for them way, way down so that they can get through without dyeing.  Whilst this may look fine to people new to MMO's, for veterans its just out and out frustrating.  Veterans want to see difficulty,.  Check the comments out on them, people are complaining it looks way too easy but don't realise it's because they are watching people who are already highly skilled and familiar with the game playing with the difficulty tweaked to be considerably in their favour.
 
What they should show is parties barely scrapping by or maybe even wiping.  Have the developers talk like experts to the experts and let them appreciate that they know the mechanics of the game they're building.  The sad thing is in both cases you can hear the developer wanting to slip into more MMO terms like aggro and adds, but you can just tell there's a marketing person behind the camera shaking his head every time they do.  

Flashpoints & Operations

Flashpoints and Operations are ToR's names for instances and raids.  For a lot of players (myself including) this is the reason to play an MMO, so you can team up with friends and other players and take down some of the best bosses video games have to offer.  When done right they are quite simply the best thrill gaming can offer.  The rush of having 20 or so players co-ordinate to take down a boss so badass he can one shot your healers is awesome...if they're done wrong however they can destroy an MMO...what's the point in investing hundreds of hours into characters for the payoff to be a crappy, unfair boss fight that disappoints more than it does excite?
 
From the looks of everything I've seen, Bioware seems to be on the right track when it comes to their dungeons.  Flashpoints look to be limited to 4 players which can be looked at one of two ways.  Firstly, you can say that 4 players will cut down on wait times which would be nice.  Then you could ask what's the point of it being an MMO if the most characters you can have, in the dungeons you will play the most, is limited to 4?  Personally it bothers me a little bit but not by much.  Sure 4 players doesn't sound like a lot and WoW limits it to 5 so really there's very little difference there, I just like more players at a time.  
Operations look to be making up for this with the Eternity Vault trailer showing what looks to be at least 20 player characters fighting at once. 
It also seems like my earlier worry that you could take companions into Flashpoints/Operations is needless, as Bioware have stated you can't.
 
Bioware need to make sure that their boss battles stray away from the "Tank and Spank" method a lot more than WoW did. For those unaware, Tank and Spank battles revolve around the tanks gaining all the aggro (enemies attention) and hold it whilst everyone else in the raid deals damage or heals.  Tank and Spanks can be very fun...in moderation.  Sadly WoW got to the point where every other battle was a T&S which not only got boring after a while but it "dumbed" the player base down where any battles which revolve around tactics became much more harder because players just weren't used to having to think or react in a battle.  
 
Bioware should try and fill their battles with as many tactics as possible, and if they can create end game content which requires quick reactions, fast thinking and good co-ordination.  Let's just hope they leave the Random Number God out of this game as well.
 

The Trinity

Modern MMO's follow the Trinity principle that Everquest started and WoW popularised.  The Trinity system is the idea that you have Tanks for holding enemies aggro,

DPS'ers to do the majority of damage and healers to keep everyone alive.  Bioware have confirmed that they are sticking to this tried and true method  but are looking to put their own stamp on it  by making classes more versatile in their roles.  It's a good idea on their behalf, downplaying the trinity will make the game feel like less of a WoW clone but for players to be truly successful, they will need to take the trinity into account...and with more players being able to fill different roles, you should never be short of a healer or a tank, it all boils down to whether you have a GOOD healer or tank at that point. 
 

Grinding

As Bioware have stated (see Rufi91's post above) they are trying to take away from the grind heavy focus of other MMO's and instead reward the player with the most XP by following the main story path.  In their own words they are doing this to "Save the player from themselves" where they have the notion that if players can find a way to gain the most XP by constantly grinding, they will do that to the point of ruining the game for themselves. How does Bioware save the players from Bioware though.  What about the people who aren't interested in stories?  What happens if you've already seen the story once because you've created a different character of the same class?  What happens if the story isn't actually any good?  Players are fucked.  
 
As much as I love playing through an entire story in an MMO and gaining a load of XP for it, there's times where I just like to kick it back (either alone or with friends) and grind out mobs for XP and money....there's something sort of mellowing about it, where I can switch my mind off and just kill mobs for a couple of hours at a time, maybe watching a video in the background or listening to the bombcast.  I'm sure there's a lot of players out there like me that could just chill and grind or fetch quest their way to the top if they really wanted to.
 
I desperately hope Bioware are exaggerating when they say it's completely inefficient to grind mobs and filler quests to level.  Just because their MMO is story focused doesn't mean the story should be forced onto players, they should make it that the story is so good that players want to experience it and for doing so they gain a load of XP but if they don't, there's plenty of other ways to hit the level cap.  I bolded that part because it's probably the most poignant thing I've written about the game so far.

The Lure Of The Darkside

This is in no way Bioware's fault, it's just the nature of Star Wars in general...people want to play as a dark side character.  At least that's the impression I get when I see people play Star Wars games that offer choice.  Rather than the majority of WoW's fan base gravitating towards the Alliance (at least on PvE servers) I feel that a lot more people are going to play as the more "cool" and "badass" Sith than they are the "Noble" Jedi, leading to a strong player favour towards the Empire than Republic.  Maybe I'm wrong and just as many people enjoy playing as the Republic as they do the Empire but the impression I get doesn't really fill me with confidence.
 
I just hope when I'm playing as a Republic Smuggler on a PvP server I don't get ganked by the Empire every time I try to do something...or I could just play a PvE server but screw that.
 
 

In Closing

I really look forward to people posting comments, I reckon by the fifth post it will boil down to haters attacking lovers and vice versa.

The way I see it is a Bioware MMO could potentially be the best   MMO ever and whilst the game shows a few signs of stumbling, it shows a hell of a lot more promise.

Thank you for reading this blog, I know it was long and pointless but I had real fun writing it.

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Welcome!

Hello Giantbomb, it's been a very long time since I've made any meaningful post on this site which, over time, has manifested itself as a desire to write and blog again and not bail when my life becomes a bit more hectic.   For the 3 people that remember me, I can say that my obvious rip off of Dankempster's excellent Final Fantasy VII blog will return at some point, so look forward to that.

For the rest of you (those who came here based on the title) let me start off by thanking you.   There's been what feels like a ton of posts on the site at the moment regarding The Old Republic and I'm sure a lot of you are fed up of arguing over a game that isn't out yet but BEFORE you post saying you're tired of talking about this game, read this article, because I can guarantee you that it's the fairest take on the game you're going to find on Giantbomb, if not the whole internet.  

I'm going to break down a lot of the features about the game, make points to either side of the argument as to whether they suck or not and then give you my personal taste on them, including what I feel they could do to make them much better.

Just before I start I'd like to thank you in advance for reading this, it's a bit of a big read so I really appreciate it.

Personal Opinions on The Old Republic Universe/The ToR Community

Firstly, you need to know what I feel about this game,  because if I don't let you know exactly what my stance is on TOR and its universe, then you'll be questioning my motives all throughout this blog, and that's not something I want.

I played both Old Republic games when they first came out and (despite the second's best efforts to make to hate it) I loved the hell out of both of them.   For years I awaited a third game to be announced and where I thought Mass Effect filled The Old Republic shaped void in my life, it never truly could.  

The magical thing about KotoR games were how people who didn't even like Star Wars fell in love with the universe.   The quality of the characters and the worlds couldn't

help but make people fall in love with them and to this day, there's still plenty of people out there who can't stand Star Wars but love the KotoR universe so much.    As someone who loves the Star Wars Universe (although my love has severely waned over the last few years) at the time, the Old Republic Universe was  an incredible addition to something I really loved.   Today, the Old Republic universe is my favourite thing about the whole of Star Wars, which is really a different story all together.

The passion that people speak with regarding ToR proves that a lot of people care about the universe Bioware created however I am really yet to see a person post anything about this game that isn't either blind fan boy love or fuming fan boy hate...and I can't fathom why this game has created more of a rift between fans than any other game I can ever remember.   There seems to be no middle ground, it's either people freaking out over how incredible the game is or attacking anyone who  point out any concerns they may have for the game. Then you have the haters, who will take every opportunity they can to attack the game whether the hate is justified or not.

As such it's hard to find a post on the internet that both sides can agree with, which is where I jump in.

tl;dr

The Old Republic Universe is probably the best thing bout Star Wars and there's a ton of people out there who are either blindly attacking or defending the game.   NOW ONWARDS!

It's A WoW Clone

Let me start by pointing out the elephant in the blog...the most dividing thing about this game.   Anyone who says this game isn't a WoW clone is wrong.   Anyone who calls this game WoW in a Star Wars skin is wrong.

The whole video game industry is based on developers putting their own spin on other peoples games.   Modern Warfare's multiplayer has been "copied" what feels like a million times, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.   I could bust out a whole wealth of examples but to keep the blog as short as possible but between cover systems and open worlds, I think you get the idea of where I could go with this..

Bioware is taking the great features WoW has and expanding on them, like other games have, like other games will.   Until the game comes out you can never truly be sure as to whether it's added something meaningful to the genre or just a poor emulation.   Let me leave this with you though, a Bioware  RPG with WoW trappings should be amazing, and considering the pedigree of each, some people should be more excited than they are for this game.

System Specs/Art Style

Bioware are trying to keep the specs of ToR as low as possible, which in my eyes is a direct sign they're aiming for the WoW crowd.   People who can only run WoW on low specs should be able to run ToR on low specs, which obviously means the game isn't going to be a tour de-force graphically but it means even people who aren't invested in gaming PC's will be able to play the game.

To compensate for this Bioware are going really heavy fisted with a cartoony art style, in an obvious attempt to mask the somewhat low graphic fidelity.  

I really don't think it's fair to attack a game because it allows more people to play it, by all means, Bioware will need as many people as possible to play this game to recuperate development costs.   I play WoW with my GF and even though I can run it maxed out, she can only get by running it at its lowest but it's awesome that we can play it together on such different machines.

As for the art style, I hated it at first but Bioware have toned it down somewhat and even though it's still a bit cartoony for my tastes, I think it will grow on me over time.

What would be really nice is if Bioware made an add-on or mod that replaced all the textures in the game, completely optional, where people who can will see a whole wealth of crazy awesome looking stuff, but people who can't will still b able to play the game.   Doubt that will happen though to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure of the logistics of it all.

Combat

ToR also looks to take a big page out of WoW's book regarding combat.   I hate the term "Face-Roll" combat because it implies there's no thought to it.   The thing that bothers me though is when Dragon Age had WoW like combat, people praised it, when ToR has WoW like combat, it's a rip-off and crap.   I honestly believe Bioware will have to step their game up little to ensure that abilities feel powerful, cool and fun to use.  

Most importantly though, Bioware need to make sure the game is balanced to near perfection. Even with WoW, there are a ton of abilities for each class that you never use because they are just a waste of time and whilst each class can hold its own against others, there are always times when some classes just feel straight up inadequate.  

If Bioware can give classes a unique feel but have them comparable to each other, and have each classes' abilities be useful, they're onto a winner.   Obviously the nature of MMO communities means that there will obviously be one build that does the most DPS, or heals a group the best but if Bioware can make it so each class is as good as another and each as a wealth of builds that do things right, they'll be onto a winner.

Story

Bioware are attempting to tackle the one thing an MMO has never truly been able to do, tell a compelling story.   They already have an established universe that people want to know more about, so they have the same advantage WoW did going into it.   The things they are doing though are nothing short of revolutionary for the genre.   Fully Voiced?   Awesome! Moral Choices? Sweet!  You've never seen it before in an MMO and chances are you'll never see it again.
 
Some people say if you're playing an MMO for it's story then you're doing it wrong.  I loved the hell out of WoW's story, the reason I started it is because I wanted to know what

happpened after the events of Warcraft 3.  People thought I was stupid when I got excited for meeting Varian Wrynn or Jaina Proudmoore.  They said I was stupid and getting hyped up over nothing.  I put it to these people that THEY are the ones playing MMO's wrong.  WoW has a wonderful story to tell, but does a poor job of telling it.  If ToR can make the storyh as awesom, tie it to Revan and the events of Kotor2, as well as craft new situations that engross and captivate its audience then it's going to be phenominal...unless of course you really don't give a crap about story and then it will be frustrating to sit through...but you're a fool for not caring.
 
One of the things I was worried about has recently been addressed where if you're playing with a group as a good guy and the person who wins the dialogue roll (to decide who gets to speak) chooses the evil option, you will still gain light side points as it was your intention to do the good thing.

Unfortunately though it will mean there are a lot more of phased zones in the game, which personally I do not really like.   When I play an MMO I want to be able to run into a cave and find another player who's running around there, have a chat and a laugh and make a new friend.   If that cave is phased though then I can only bump into someone that has made the same choices as me, which kinda bums me out but I also feel like my idea of meeting people in the big wide MMO world, chatting and becoming friends is a romanticised ideal that doesn't actually happen in MMO's anymore.

Voice Acting

Anyone who says a fully voiced MMO is a bad thing is a moron and a troll.   it will make you care infinitely more for each quest and it takes nothing away from the game at all. Moving on...

Companions

When companions were first shown I hated the idea of them, to me if you want to play an MMO with a party, you go out and find another player.   However the more I've seen, the more I've fallen in love with the idea of them.   For those that don't know, you can basically amass your own crew like you can in any Bioware RPG and each member has their own take on situations.   You can become close friends or even lovers or enemies with them.   How can you not be stoked by that?   An   MMO with Bioware companionship should be awesome.

I am slightly worried however that all this will be lost if one companion becomes much more desirable than another.   The absolute worst thing that could happen to this game is the community dictating which companions should be used by who.   All the dialogue, character, love and charm goes way out the window when you have to take a specific companion because they do the best healing or the best DPS and that's what the raid requires.

If you ask me, end game content like instances and raids shouldn't allow companions to go in.   Not only would it make them more stable from a latency standpoint but it would make sure that the bond isn't lost because there's no point at all in using your favourite team member.

Player Owned Spaceships

The only real thing I have to say is like everything else in an MMO, there's no point getting a load of badass stuff if you can't show it off.   As long as you can invite other players to your spaceship and show off what's inside (it would be awesome if you could earn items for your ship from a quest, like the head of a slain boss) it will be cool.   A communal ship for a guild could also be rad.

End Game Content

I was really curious about what the end game content of ToR would be, and after watching the Eternity Vault trailer I can say I'm super pumped for it.   Looks like they're

going for grand over the top, huge raids (like WoW) with a nice story to each.

If they're smart they will also employ the WoW strategy of patching in later game dungeons as time goes on.

If Bioware is truly smart though, they'll make some different kind of end game other than raiding.   I really don't know what you can make for an MMO that is super compelling for late game, high level players that isn't raiding but then again I don't make MMO's.
 

Back Story

Looking at some of the timeline stuff Bioware is putting out, I must say I don't really care for any of it.  Star Wars lore can get confusing at the best of times and to Bioware's credit they are establishing a lot of lore that will filter into the game...the question is, is it necessary?  Setting the game so many years after the events of the two KotoR games seems like they're shooting itself in the foot.  Like WoW did before it, be a direct sequel to your games, don't set it hundreds of years after.  This would save Bioware having to create a load of convoluted lore that the player has to read...and thinking about it, that's kind of counterproductive to what the rest of the game is trying to do.
 
Bioware should do what they do best and that's create unique stories from the get go, rather than build upon established lore.  Then again if you're totally into looking into lore and back story like that, that's brilliant and the game will cater perfectly to you.
 

Bosses

I'm not sure what I'm going to think of the size of the game's bosses...like height wise.  I'm sure the game will be full of huge monsters, robots and aliens...hell the eternity vault trailer shows the players fighting a multi-stage massive robot  and that's cool and all but when it comes to fighting powerful Sith/Jedi then you're left with 20 people rushing a guy the same height as them, which will look pretty stupid.  WoW did a really good job of making their main characters feel big and tough but that's not something you can really get away with in the Star Wars Universe.  I'm sure battles will be structured differently where you fight more numbers against smaller people but then it makes the guys you're fighting feel weaker.  It's a really, really minor point but it does bother me so I thought I'd post it.
 

Space Combat

The space combat in the game looks fun but I doubt it's what anyone playing an MMO wants to do.  As a rails shooter it looks more than fine but do we really need it in an

MMO?  I've seen very little to be honest and I don't know whether they're mandatory or not but personally I'll want to keep my time playing in the spaceship to an absolute minimum. 

The Marketing

Bioware are doing a piss poor job of marketing the game, no one should doubt that. All the talks of when it will and won't come out is just sloppy but the real problem is Bioware don't understand who their target audience truly is.  Take these two developer commentaries for example, where the person talking the audience through the game is talking as though they've never played an MMO before.  With plenty of forced excitement and "Whoa did you see that's" it's easy to understand why the hardcore MMO crowd is a little turned off.  It's also BLATENT they've kicked the difficulty for them way, way down so that they can get through without dyeing.  Whilst this may look fine to people new to MMO's, for veterans its just out and out frustrating.  Veterans want to see difficulty,.  Check the comments out on them, people are complaining it looks way too easy but don't realise it's because they are watching people who are already highly skilled and familiar with the game playing with the difficulty tweaked to be considerably in their favour.
 
What they should show is parties barely scrapping by or maybe even wiping.  Have the developers talk like experts to the experts and let them appreciate that they know the mechanics of the game they're building.  The sad thing is in both cases you can hear the developer wanting to slip into more MMO terms like aggro and adds, but you can just tell there's a marketing person behind the camera shaking his head every time they do.  

Flashpoints & Operations

Flashpoints and Operations are ToR's names for instances and raids.  For a lot of players (myself including) this is the reason to play an MMO, so you can team up with friends and other players and take down some of the best bosses video games have to offer.  When done right they are quite simply the best thrill gaming can offer.  The rush of having 20 or so players co-ordinate to take down a boss so badass he can one shot your healers is awesome...if they're done wrong however they can destroy an MMO...what's the point in investing hundreds of hours into characters for the payoff to be a crappy, unfair boss fight that disappoints more than it does excite?
 
From the looks of everything I've seen, Bioware seems to be on the right track when it comes to their dungeons.  Flashpoints look to be limited to 4 players which can be looked at one of two ways.  Firstly, you can say that 4 players will cut down on wait times which would be nice.  Then you could ask what's the point of it being an MMO if the most characters you can have, in the dungeons you will play the most, is limited to 4?  Personally it bothers me a little bit but not by much.  Sure 4 players doesn't sound like a lot and WoW limits it to 5 so really there's very little difference there, I just like more players at a time.  
Operations look to be making up for this with the Eternity Vault trailer showing what looks to be at least 20 player characters fighting at once. 
It also seems like my earlier worry that you could take companions into Flashpoints/Operations is needless, as Bioware have stated you can't.
 
Bioware need to make sure that their boss battles stray away from the "Tank and Spank" method a lot more than WoW did. For those unaware, Tank and Spank battles revolve around the tanks gaining all the aggro (enemies attention) and hold it whilst everyone else in the raid deals damage or heals.  Tank and Spanks can be very fun...in moderation.  Sadly WoW got to the point where every other battle was a T&S which not only got boring after a while but it "dumbed" the player base down where any battles which revolve around tactics became much more harder because players just weren't used to having to think or react in a battle.  
 
Bioware should try and fill their battles with as many tactics as possible, and if they can create end game content which requires quick reactions, fast thinking and good co-ordination.  Let's just hope they leave the Random Number God out of this game as well.
 

The Trinity

Modern MMO's follow the Trinity principle that Everquest started and WoW popularised.  The Trinity system is the idea that you have Tanks for holding enemies aggro,

DPS'ers to do the majority of damage and healers to keep everyone alive.  Bioware have confirmed that they are sticking to this tried and true method  but are looking to put their own stamp on it  by making classes more versatile in their roles.  It's a good idea on their behalf, downplaying the trinity will make the game feel like less of a WoW clone but for players to be truly successful, they will need to take the trinity into account...and with more players being able to fill different roles, you should never be short of a healer or a tank, it all boils down to whether you have a GOOD healer or tank at that point. 
 

Grinding

As Bioware have stated (see Rufi91's post above) they are trying to take away from the grind heavy focus of other MMO's and instead reward the player with the most XP by following the main story path.  In their own words they are doing this to "Save the player from themselves" where they have the notion that if players can find a way to gain the most XP by constantly grinding, they will do that to the point of ruining the game for themselves. How does Bioware save the players from Bioware though.  What about the people who aren't interested in stories?  What happens if you've already seen the story once because you've created a different character of the same class?  What happens if the story isn't actually any good?  Players are fucked.  
 
As much as I love playing through an entire story in an MMO and gaining a load of XP for it, there's times where I just like to kick it back (either alone or with friends) and grind out mobs for XP and money....there's something sort of mellowing about it, where I can switch my mind off and just kill mobs for a couple of hours at a time, maybe watching a video in the background or listening to the bombcast.  I'm sure there's a lot of players out there like me that could just chill and grind or fetch quest their way to the top if they really wanted to.
 
I desperately hope Bioware are exaggerating when they say it's completely inefficient to grind mobs and filler quests to level.  Just because their MMO is story focused doesn't mean the story should be forced onto players, they should make it that the story is so good that players want to experience it and for doing so they gain a load of XP but if they don't, there's plenty of other ways to hit the level cap.  I bolded that part because it's probably the most poignant thing I've written about the game so far.

The Lure Of The Darkside

This is in no way Bioware's fault, it's just the nature of Star Wars in general...people want to play as a dark side character.  At least that's the impression I get when I see people play Star Wars games that offer choice.  Rather than the majority of WoW's fan base gravitating towards the Alliance (at least on PvE servers) I feel that a lot more people are going to play as the more "cool" and "badass" Sith than they are the "Noble" Jedi, leading to a strong player favour towards the Empire than Republic.  Maybe I'm wrong and just as many people enjoy playing as the Republic as they do the Empire but the impression I get doesn't really fill me with confidence.
 
I just hope when I'm playing as a Republic Smuggler on a PvP server I don't get ganked by the Empire every time I try to do something...or I could just play a PvE server but screw that.
 
 

In Closing

I really look forward to people posting comments, I reckon by the fifth post it will boil down to haters attacking lovers and vice versa.

The way I see it is a Bioware MMO could potentially be the best   MMO ever and whilst the game shows a few signs of stumbling, it shows a hell of a lot more promise.

Thank you for reading this blog, I know it was long and pointless but I had real fun writing it.

It's going to have a rough start, MMO's always do. But I think it's E3 presence was most telling. Bioware know they won't win over the game journalists and why should they? These people talked endlessly about their love for WoW when it came out but now they speak as if it's a poison to games. They know their audience and I think it's totally correct for them to put their efforts into targeting them instead of pleasing game journalists. I'm looking forward to it, the Old Republic universe is fantastic, though I am a bit concerned they won't totally look to connect the MMO and the previous games.

Hopefully Bioware can tell meaningful, interesting stories with this game.

@SamStrife: Good read. I feel the same as you and my frustration comes from people declaring this game dead on arrival. Though I do like the art style I don't necessarily think they chose it to attract the WoW audience. It's been shown before that MMOs with a realistic style age poorly and with MMOs having a long life span you need something that will last. You bring up a interesting point about companions that I haven't thought about before. It would truly suck if you felt the need to pick a certain companion because they are best at a certain role. Hopefully they are balanced in a way where the difference (if any) is negligible.

Dude, this was a fantastic blog! I've been fighting ToRs corner the whole time on this forum there are some people (and I don't know if they are just hating it because the GB guys don't seem to care for it) just destroying this game and picking it to pieces and ultimately it ISN'T EVEN OUT YET. I'm shocked at some of the hate surrounding this game, I love Star Wars (like you said the greatest part is the universe and this is just 100% true almost all of my favourite things Star Wars are from the extended universe and usually set in the The Old Republic era) I love KOTOR (It was a fantastic game!) I love WoW (It is a WoW clone, but hey, WOW IS GOOD!) I love Bioware (the advancements in their conversation system and story have all passed into this game) I love companions (perhaps one of the greatest things about this games is the supporting cast it makes it almost like a Bioware party and that is such a clever plan and the fact that your companions can do all the tedious stuff like craft looting and selling junk is just genius. Also I love the and AI compaion can act as a instance member so you can do a 4 man with 2 people and 2 AI companions, so great!)

I really don't see where the negatives start to break through I understand there are a lot of rough spots but how do they weigh out all those positives. Again something I have been saying throughout the forums a lot but I love it so much is this tippet from the trooper story:

As the Trooper you are part of an elite group of republic soldiers (ala Reach/RC) who are sent on mission of republic order. However, as you do these missions you find yourself at the hands of your leader doing more to stop a larger over arching threat (will not be spoiled) and you are going against Republic orders and doing some dirty shit which you have to choose to take part in or take a back seat (effects your darkside/lightside points) and at a HUGE turning point early in the story (about level 10) you are summoned in front of the council for your actions and you must decide if you want to tell the council what you have been doing (proving your loyalty) or tell them nothing and continue your mission to in the end save them in the war against the empire...

Personally I think that is FANTASTIC! Like what is the good and bad choice there I love morally grey choices and its what Mass Effect was missing! Lets also be clear here and say if that is just the Trooper story (who is not that important to me) what are the stories like for the other classes like the Jedi and Sith (I already know some of the Sith story about how you plan to kill your master #ohyousith). I just find it weird that press websites have not listened every time Bioware talk about this fourth pillar of story because it is truly what will set it apart.

@Matt: @SamStrife: I can confirm from a ToR live stream that much like every playable character each companion can fill 2 roles well and can in rare circumstances fill the third role but won't be as powerful as other people more suited to the role, because the question of favoring compaions or classes came up and he said that they didn't want to rule anything out so every class and every companion has abilities to meet tank, dps and healing at a base level. Which is awesome!

Also one last point is the story ties to Revan you mention. Are you aware that the female Jedi in both trailers will take on the role of Varian Wrynn as the leader of the Republic and she is Satele Shan daughter of Bastila Shan and Revan which again, is awesome haha!

Don't care if its a WoW clone, i never liked the art style, story or lore of WoW in the first place. I do however find WoW to have the game mechanics down. So if TOR has that down in that sense i'm all in.

@SamStrife: Haha, I hope that is the case! It's always hard to find 25 people who you trust with your life and the AI for the companions is pretty awesome so far you have a lot of options for assigning them roles and abilities so it shouldn't be a hindrance.

I can't take this seriously.

"Here is why this is the fairest take anywhere on the internet ... I LOVE Star Wars."

Instant bias towards this game.

@SamStrife: I still don't see where this supposed fairness is coming from. Is it because a lot of people are talking bad about the game, and thus, that can't be fair? It doesn't make sense to me that you presume to have more of a fairer opinion of the game then the tons of journalists who have actually played it on several occasions.

@DeeGee said:

I can't take this seriously.

"Here is why this is the fairest take anywhere on the internet ... I LOVE Star Wars."

Instant bias towards this game.

You should read the rest of it; it's so fanboyish that it gave me a midichlorian erection.

A point i failed to make in the oringal blog is that showing this game to the press will never yeild positive results.  Every MMO is padded with fetch quests and the like and if you give someone an hour to play the game where all they do is collect feathers or skulls then they're going to walk away thinking it's full of crap.  Throw them into a dungeon at a high level and they have no idea of their characters and how they work and will wipe and walk away confused and hating the game.
 
Look at what people say who are playing the beta and the game looks like a much more positive experiance however.  They are saying the game has flaws but the genreal agreement is that this could very well be a WoW killer.
 
I went into each of my topics with a completly objective mindset but everytime yuou look into it, it's hard to see why people are writing this game off.  Bioware, the greatest story tellers in the industry are taking the best MMO's combat forumla and trying to expand on it...how is that a bad thing?  The only real way to know whether the game will be any good is to wait and see what happens when people have spent a good long portion of a time with it, rather than a short section that can't paint the game as a whole. 
 
I'm not saying journalists that hate in the game are wrong to do so, I'm saying they aren't given the best oppurtunity to see the game as it should be seen.
 

@Jimbo

Journalists are very aware of this, they're not idiots. They give impressions based on the game they played.

But you've just proved this really is a "They're not being fair because they said bad things!" topic. Great.

I would jump in this game, but I do not have the time to really spend on this game.

@SamStrife: In Jimbo's defence, when I finished reading your post I genuinely thought the title had been ironic.

Sums up pretty well how I feel. Not played much WoW but from what I hear people like it and Bioware have never had gameplay as their strong point so it may be a good thing that they copy that from Blizzard who know how to make gameplay and hopefully add a great story to that.

I just hope they mean what they say when they claim it will focus on story. Many MMO's have claimed that before an ended up having 90 % generic quests and just a few quests that are interesting, but if it is fully voiced it should be more than just collecting 10 wolf pelts.

Sums up pretty well how I feel. Not played much WoW but from what I hear people like it and Bioware have never had gameplay as their strong point so it may be a good thing that they copy that from Blizzard who know how to make gameplay and hopefully add a great story to that.

I just hope they mean what they say when they claim it will focus on story. Many MMO's have claimed that before an ended up having 90 % generic quests and just a few quests that are interesting, but if it is fully voiced it should be more than just collecting 10 wolf pelts.

I've been watching a lot of videos of TOR lately and I'm ready to try it out. I have a bit of WoW-fatigue after approximately five years of playing on and off, so here's hoping it's different enough to keep me interested.

Woah this went sour. Nice, as always people are just so fully loaded to dump the fuck all over this game...

O.K. after looking around the net for every detail I can find and I've found some negative points that stand out to me.  Maybe this will make people stop questioning my bias but whatever, they're genuine concerns I have and may need to be addressed.    

Back Story

Looking at some of the timeline stuff Bioware is putting out, I must say I don't really care for any of it.  Star Wars lore can get confusing at the best of times and to Bioware's credit they are establishing a lot of lore that will filter into the game...the question is, is it necessary?  Setting the game so many years after the events of the two KotoR games seems like they're shooting itself in the foot.  Like WoW did before it, be a direct sequel to your games, don't set it hundreds of years after.  This would save Bioware having to create a load of convoluted lore that the player has to read...and thinking about it, that's kind of counterproductive to what the rest of the game is trying to do.
 
Bioware should do what they do best and that's create unique stories from the get go, rather than build upon established lore.  Then again if you're totally into looking into lore and back story like that, that's brilliant and the game will cater perfectly to you.
 

Bosses

I'm not sure what I'm going to think of the size of the game's bosses...like height wise.  I'm sure the game will be full of huge monsters, robots and aliens...hell the eternity vault trailer shows the players fighting a multi-stage massive robot  and that's cool and all but when it comes to fighting powerful Sith/Jedi then you're left with 20 people rushing a guy the same height as them, which will look pretty stupid.  WoW did a really good job of making their main characters feel big and tough but that's not something you can really get away with in the Star Wars Universe.  I'm sure battles will be structured differently where you fight more numbers against smaller people but then it makes the guys you're fighting feel weaker.  It's a really, really minor point but it does bother me so I thought I'd post it.
 

Space Combat

The space combat in the game looks fun but I doubt it's what anyone playing an MMO wants to do.  As a rails shooter it looks more than fine but do we really need it in an

MMO?  I've seen very little to be honest and I don't know whether they're mandatory or not but personally I'll want to keep my time playing in the spaceship to an absolute minimum. 

The Marketing

Bioware are doing a piss poor job of marketing the game, no one should doubt that. All the talks of when it will and won't come out is just sloppy but the real problem is Bioware don't understand who their target audience truly is.  Take these two developer commentaries for example, where the person talking the audience through the game is talking as though they've never played an MMO before.  With plenty of forced excitement and "Whoa did you see that's" it's easy to understand why the hardcore MMO crowd is a little turned off.  It's also BLATENT they've kicked the difficulty for them way, way down so that they can get through without dyeing.  Whilst this may look fine to people new to MMO's, for veterans its just out and out frustrating.  Veterans want to see difficulty,.  Check the comments out on them, people are complaining it looks way too easy but don't realise it's because they are watching people who are already highly skilled and familiar with the game playing with the difficulty tweaked to be considerably in their favour.
 
What they should show is parties barely scrapping by or maybe even wiping.  Have the developers talk like experts to the experts and let them appreciate that they know the mechanics of the game they're building.  The sad thing is in both cases you can hear the developer wanting to slip into more MMO terms like aggro and adds, but you can just tell there's a marketing person behind the camera shaking his head every time they do.  

They are the points I have to add at the moment, if I think of anymore I'll be sure to add them.

@DeeGee said:

Journalists are very aware of this, they're not idiots.

Huh.

Here is a fantastic quote from one the lead designers 

@SamStrife: Hey congratulations!

I read the 'fairest' bit and was seriously doubtful, internet being what it is. I think though you probably pulled it off.

I really can't wait for this game, should be great.

Interesting stuff, thanks for the sneak peak dude! 
Someone should ask the developers why in gods name this should be an MMO though.
 
¡Companions!  
Why? I can team up/have sad imaginary computer sex with other players, and that way it isn't scripted.  
¡Voice acting! 
I dont want to hear the same three voice actors telling me to jawaas or some shit over and over again, I just want to kill jawaas with my mates and hope they drop some crazy jawaa loot.
¡Main quest line! 
So I cant explore this giant universe you've made until I jump through your hoops?
¡Space ships! 
On rails shooter? Please tell me that isn't mandatory every time you want to go to certain planets. 
¡Combat!  
Looks like WoW. The weakest part of so many MMO's. 
¡Super special story all about YOU and YOUR choices!
Thats why you buy Mass Effect or Dragon Age.
 
I honestly didn't intend to write an entire rant post....but yeah I kind of did, so sorry about that 
Oh and the art style looks like trash, ok i'm down now for real.

So here am I again adding another point to my thoughts on this game, this time it's...

Flashpoints & Operations

Flashpoints and Operations are ToR's names for instances and raids.  For a lot of players (myself including) this is the reason to play an MMO, so you can team up with friends and other players and take down some of the best bosses video games have to offer.  When done right they are quite simply the best thrill gaming can offer.  The rush of having 20 or so players co-ordinate to take down a boss so badass he can one shot your healers is awesome...if they're done wrong however they can destroy an MMO...what's the point in investing hundreds of hours into characters for the payoff to be a crappy, unfair boss fight that disappoints more than it does excite?
 
From the looks of everything I've seen, Bioware seems to be on the right track when it comes to their dungeons.  Flashpoints look to be limited to 4 players which can be looked at one of two ways.  Firstly, you can say that 4 players will cut down on wait times which would be nice.  Then you could ask what's the point of it being an MMO if the most characters you can have, in the dungeons you will play the most, is limited to 4?  Personally it bothers me a little bit but not by much.  Sure 4 players doesn't sound like a lot and WoW limits it to 5 so really there's very little difference there, I just like more players at a time.  
Operations look to be making up for this with the Eternity Vault trailer showing what looks to be at least 20 player characters fighting at once. 
It also seems like my earlier worry that you could take companions into Flashpoints/Operations is needless, as Bioware have stated you can't.
 
Bioware need to make sure that their boss battles stray away from the "Tank and Spank" method a lot more than WoW did. For those unaware, Tank and Spank battles revolve around the tanks gaining all the aggro (enemies attention) and hold it whilst everyone else in the raid deals damage or heals.  Tank and Spanks can be very fun...in moderation.  Sadly WoW got to the point where every other battle was a T&S which not only got boring after a while but it "dumbed" the player base down where any battles which revolve around tactics became much more harder because players just weren't used to having to think or react in a battle.  
 
Bioware should try and fill their battles with as many tactics as possible, and if they can create end game content which requires quick reactions, fast thinking and good co-ordination.  Let's just hope they leave the Random Number God out of this game as well.
 

The Trinity

Modern MMO's follow the Trinity principle that Everquest started and WoW popularised.  The Trinity system is the idea that you have Tanks for holding enemies aggro,

DPS'ers to do the majority of damage and healers to keep everyone alive.  Bioware have confirmed that they are sticking to this tried and true method  but are looking to put their own stamp on it  by making classes more versatile in their roles.  It's a good idea on their behalf, downplaying the trinity will make the game feel like less of a WoW clone but for players to be truly successful, they will need to take the trinity into account...and with more players being able to fill different roles, you should never be short of a healer or a tank, it all boils down to whether you have a GOOD healer or tank at that point. 
 

Grinding

As Bioware have stated (see Rufi91's post above) they are trying to take away from the grind heavy focus of other MMO's and instead reward the player with the most XP by following the main story path.  In their own words they are doing this to "Save the player from themselves" where they have the notion that if players can find a way to gain the most XP by constantly grinding, they will do that to the point of ruining the game for themselves. How does Bioware save the players from Bioware though.  What about the people who aren't interested in stories?  What happens if you've already seen the story once because you've created a different character of the same class?  What happens if the story isn't actually any good?  Players are fucked.  
 
As much as I love playing through an entire story in an MMO and gaining a load of XP for it, there's times where I just like to kick it back (either alone or with friends) and grind out mobs for XP and money....there's something sort of mellowing about it, where I can switch my mind off and just kill mobs for a couple of hours at a time, maybe watching a video in the background or listening to the bombcast.  I'm sure there's a lot of players out there like me that could just chill and grind or fetch quest their way to the top if they really wanted to.
 
I desperately hope Bioware are exaggerating when they say it's completely inefficient to grind mobs and filler quests to level.  Just because their MMO is story focused doesn't mean the story should be forced onto players, they should make it that the story is so good that players want to experience it and for doing so they gain a load of XP but if they don't, there's plenty of other ways to hit the level cap.  I bolded that part because it's probably the most poignant thing I've written about the game so far.

The Lure Of The Darkside

This is in no way Bioware's fault, it's just the nature of Star Wars in general...people want to play as a dark side character.  At least that's the impression I get when I see people play Star Wars games that offer choice.  Rather than the majority of WoW's fan base gravitating towards the Alliance (at least on PvE servers) I feel that a lot more people are going to play as the more "cool" and "badass" Sith than they are the "Noble" Jedi, leading to a strong player favour towards the Empire than Republic.  Maybe I'm wrong and just as many people enjoy playing as the Republic as they do the Empire but the impression I get doesn't really fill me with confidence.
 
I just hope when I'm playing as a Republic Smuggler on a PvP server I don't get ganked by the Empire every time I try to do something...or I could just play a PvE server but screw that.
 
 

As ever I hope you enjoyed reading, please leave your comments and I'll be sure to address them.

Um, are you in beta right now? Because it seems you're making very detailed assumptions based on superficial facts. For all you know Ricetello said; " Make me WoW in Star Wars with some mass effect wheels".
 
Also from what I've gleamed of skills, it seems they're directly 1 on 1 taking WoW's design. The horrible thing though is it seems they've taken WoW's pacing and cut it in half. It almost seems as if this game was meant to be a turn based rpg.

Really help full, have been looking for this info for a while, but all I get are like you say haters or fan boys, thanks a lot!

It's a 'modern' MMO (although with the onset of more action-oriented genre-breakers on the horizon, 'modern' just may be outdated sooner than we might think). The real telling part will be the audiences investment in the property and the density of the endgame, because the really unique things about it are kind of shoehorned in from other genres and don't exactly beg for inclusion to a tried-and-true MMO framework and community meta. But hey, every MMO has to have some kind of hook, right?

That was an interesting read. I too, absolutely love SW and the Old Republic in particular. The main issue for me is the Trinity, as you say. I've only ever played Guild Wars and a handful of free MMO's, but I am already sick and tired of this stale and extremely primitive system. It's the same shit over and over again, and developers simply refuse to innovate. For that, they can go f themselves for all I care. 
 
It's understandable, though. Matrix Online and Conan tried to do something new with the combat, but those games were pretty much failures. So it's definitely risky. The original Guild Wars felt different enough. Here's to hoping GW2's innovative combat will be a success.  
 
I'll definitely be passing on TOR, despite the fact that my best friend will be playing it frantically, I just couldn't care less.

@S0ndor: It's a tough balance huh? I'm not a big fan of WoW (I played it because all my friends played it) however, I am a huge Star Wars fan especially The Old Republic era so I think that and I know my friends will be playing it is enough for me to most likely be playing it till I'm up all week non stop.

Grudgingly. However, I'm sure I will enjoy what of the story I have experienced so far...