I was watching the Star Wars: Galaxies stream. Jeff and Dave talked about TOR. Jeff shared views from his 6-hour test run of a Jedi class character. To no surprise beyond decent voice acting and cut-scenes there weren't enough to be impressed about, really.

I'm paraphrasing. Dave said "So what you're saying is that TOR is like Mass Effect?", or something of that nature. Jeff was pressed for words in that moment, because, mainly people do enjoy the Mass Effect games.

I immediately thought back to my latest playthrough of ME2. When I play ME, what drives the entire experience is the story. Moving forward in the story. To move forward in the story, it is required of us the players, to shoot henchmen and a lot of them. You could argue that it never gets old because a TPS (Third Person Shooter) provides a more responsive experience in that when you tap your mouse, your weapon fires off a round. Still, while I enjoyed the Force Push and Force Levitate moves of ME, it still became a matter of transportation more so than enjoyment sooner than I'd thought would be the case.

Story, though not of high quality (The Suicide Mission plot) was indeed well presented and acted out in terms of voice acting and animation to go with it. TOR seems to be (so far in Early Access) okay with the voice acting, however not so much through animation. The pattern of gameplay though is very similar to the Mass Effect games, which again is similar to KOTOR, and the cutscenes seen in Dragon Age: Origins and DA2.

Looking at the recent game history of BioWare pre EA, It is a melting pot of combined experience and the attempt of trying to make this work in the MMO space. We've come to know financially successful MMOs from the EQ/WoW mold, not the Shadowbanes and the UOs. It is definitely allowed to dislike TOR. The interesting thing though is how would it fare if it was labeled KOTOR 3 and if it had no online aspects to it perhaps beyond Achievements.

My guess is that we would be doing the exact same thing as we're doing in the MMO. We'd be tasked to go kill specific and non-specific individuals, fetch and deliver, press computer terminals and watch cut-scenes that deliver us through the beginning of a story towards the end.

I enjoy TORs story as much as I enjoy Mass Effect story, granted it takes longer to get to the meat, but once it does and you gather up a crew, the developments are borderline incredible sometimes.

I must admit though some class stories are REALLY not as good as others, I am so into my smuggler right now and I tried out a Jedi Knight and HATED it, I am upset that this is Jeff's only experience and I hope he gets another chance to play another class soon enough.

I also like TOR's story, and even more than ME, where, to me, there was one/two mindlblowing twists in the story, in TOR I've found one mindblowing twist in just two planets I've visited. Also the rest of the story, is well presented and engaging.

The gameplay isn't outstanding, and I'm not a fan of the targetting system, but overall I'm liking the game very much.

And as to all games, everyone has the right of not liking it.

If they labelled this KOTOR3 without the online featureset, it would be labelled a masterpiece beyond comparison. Say what you will about the hotkey themepark MMO gameplay, it's significantly more responsive and more polished than any traditional Bioware game.

The Smuggler class plays quite similar to ME. You take cover and click dudes to shoot 'em, you have grenades, things you throw at dudes that latch on and explode. Different types of shots. I'm enjoying the Smuggler MUCH more than the Jedi.

Not a slight to Jeff,but I don't think he is into MMO's in general. I feel the whole "pay to play" aspect turns him off., that is why he embraces GW so(not to say it is a bad game.)

I'm normally pretty in step with the Giant bomb crew opinion.. but so far their discussion of SWTOR has been really far off base. 80% of their complaints are just misinterpretations or based on internet rumor and not actual in game fact.