Star Wars The Old Republic Preview

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John Gatt, long time friend of the [H] and all around great guy, has posted a preview of Star Wars The Old Republic. The article has a lot of really good info, screenshots and a video of never before seen content.

Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) is set three thousand years before the Star Wars time line that most of us know from the six George Lucas movies. It is set three hundred years after the BioWare game called Knights of the Old Republic. There is a lot of expanded universe content based around this time including comics and novels.
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Okay, I'm buying in. I haven't played Wow in over 3 years and shooting 12 yr olds shouting racial slurs is getting old.
 
Interesting. Those of us that played the beta... I thought we were bound to not releasing information about it prior to it's release.
 
well we are a month away from release now, so im thinking they will start to relax on the nda I am in beta and i wont spoil anything for any one but I will say if you loved kotor 1 you will love old republic, it has an amazing story and theres 8 of them lol (storys 1 for each class) it truely is massive
 
Savi said:
well we are a month away from release now, so im thinking they will start to relax on the nda I am in beta and i wont spoil anything for any one but I will say if you loved kotor 1 you will love old republic, it has an amazing story and theres 8 of them lol (storys 1 for each class) it truely is massive
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NDA is lifted. Only restriction is that you can't copy-pasta stuff from the beta forums.
 
3000 years before the films, 300 after KOTOR but the technology hasn't advanced any? This doesn't make sense to me.

I'm interested in this but I wish they had just done KOTOR 3 so I didn't have to pay $20 a month. I'm not really into grinding and gold farming.
 
Burticus said:
3000 years before the films, 300 after KOTOR but the technology hasn't advanced any? This doesn't make sense to me.

I'm interested in this but I wish they had just done KOTOR 3 so I didn't have to pay $20 a month. I'm not really into grinding and gold farming.
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well im prety sure the tech as evolved to a point that its hit a wall or perhaps theres no need to go any further, i mean the movies all start "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." just saying the tech in star wars is just 1 of the means they use to tell the story so i have no problem with that. and yes im a star wars fan boy, well a sci-fi fan boy
 
Burticus said:
3000 years before the films, 300 after KOTOR but the technology hasn't advanced any? This doesn't make sense to me.

I'm interested in this but I wish they had just done KOTOR 3 so I didn't have to pay $20 a month. I'm not really into grinding and gold farming.
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Well, I think of it this way. In 3000 years, of course the technology is a lot different than it is depicted in KOTOR and SWTOR. It is a little different and probably about as different as they could make it while still preserving that Star Wars look and feel. If it were dramaticly different, it would be unreconizable and no one would be interested in the game.

I think it has been said before that this CAN be KOTOR 3 if you want to play it that way. As far as the subscription fee goes, this game is worth it. When you play, you will understand. If it wasn't an MMO of this scale and was just a regular RPG title, there wouldn't be the depth of gameplay and all of the cool features/systems. Plus, this story never ends :)
 
Burticus said:
3000 years before the films, 300 after KOTOR but the technology hasn't advanced any? This doesn't make sense to me.

I'm interested in this but I wish they had just done KOTOR 3 so I didn't have to pay $20 a month. I'm not really into grinding and gold farming.
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It is actually not that illogical. Up until the beginning of the 20th century technology actually advanced very slowly. Technology has advanced more in the last century than any previous to it. Also some technology has pretty much remained the same for the last 2000 years. Concrete for example is pretty much formulated the same way the Romans did at the height of their power, yet the Roman formula is still considered better as evidenced by Roman concrete structures that have lasted up to the present.
 
Teenk9 said:
It is actually not that illogical. Up until the beginning of the 20th century technology actually advanced very slowly. Technology has advanced more in the last century than any previous to it. Also some technology has pretty much remained the same for the last 2000 years. Concrete for example is pretty much formulated the same way the Romans did at the height of their power, yet the Roman formula is still considered better as evidenced by Roman concrete structures that have lasted up to the present.
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Where is the $20 a month coming from? Im totally excited for the game but at that price its kind of getting a little insane.
 
Burticus said:
3000 years before the films, 300 after KOTOR but the technology hasn't advanced any? This doesn't make sense to me.
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In Star Wars, all the familiar elements exist in every time period. It wouldn't be Star Wars without lightsabers, blasters, starships, and so on. As such, those things have existed for something like 25,000 years during the movies. This allows for authors to have a lot of "space" in which to tell stories and contribute to Star Wars canon.

It'd be hard to tell a Star Wars story where you're confined to one planet, ride on horseback, and fight with crossbows.

m33pm33p said:
Where is the $20 a month coming from? Im totally excited for the game but at that price its kind of getting a little insane.
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The game is the same monthly price as WoW. $15
 
I played a beta weekend about a month ago and all I can say is -- ZZZZzzzzz....

This game put me to sleep. I played WoW for years, and this is WoW, though not as good, with a Star Wars theme applied.

I only made it to level 8 or so because it was so boring I wasn't really interested. It was "Go kill 10 of those", "Go get one of these", and "Bring this to that guy over there" over and over again. Exactly like WoW. Everything was, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, dead, loot, rinse and repeat. I had a few other abilities that I bought from my trainer in the city (exactly like WoW), but they sucked in comparison to just plain old shoot.

In the 8 levels I played I didn't get any of this fancy story that everyone is talking about. I had a lame story, with no background, about getting my ship back because some separatist stole it. I never felt like I made on progress getting my ship back because the missions in my fancy story were, "Go kill that", "Go deliver this", and "Investigate the secret back door by clicking on it". Yeah--that's not exactly attention grabbing stuff right there. They were lame. And I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again, the missions were lifted straight from WoW.

Bottom line, if you like WoW, you can add a Star Wars look and feel to it for $15 a month. The "Star Wars look and feel" also includes not having years and years of polish like WoW does. So if you like WoW, like Star Wars more, and don't mind going through the growing pains again, then this is the game for you.

Like someone else said, KOTOR3 would have been a much better way to spend their money. I doubt this will outlast WoW.
 
I wouldn't even look at this with Guild Wars 2 on the way. That game is going to be incredible.
 
I agree, after the new and shiny feeling wears off you quickly find yourself bored and sometimes annoyed by the various meaningless quests, bad dialogue scenes, bugs, bad to mediocre at best PVP, and other underdeveloped portions of the game.

While playing as the most cruel evil sith bastard and making it known by slaughtering everyone who even questions you (well, when the game actually lets you... rarely). You would think there would be a reputation that precedes your arrival and influences dialogue. However, anything you do is pretty much forgotten moments later.

I expected better with the budget riding behind this game, but nothing has reasonable changed in the last two months. Space combat is still shallow, it just doesn't provide the skill thresholds, rewards, and services to make you want to play it better and derive actual enjoyment from (replayability) . The handful of PVP instances are still flawed-by-design and-or boring. There are still broken quests, bugs that make you have to kill yourself to escape from, guild systems that are very underdeveloped with annoying random issues, etc.

I will likely just cancel my pre-order before the month's end, and pickup the game next year when it's roughly $20 from a bargain bin.
 
Hmm you do know what Beta testing means right ?

There are going to be bugs there are going to be problems with balance and there is going to be a number of things why they require feedback.

Not defending the dull leveling(pve) but from what I heard pvp is the way to level it seems ...

What I do like is the website swtorface.

Bioware 1st mmorpg when they threatened us with making some of their previous games for 100+ players :) .

Maybe a lot of effort is going towards the "checklist" features but with a bit of help this should pan out fine, thinking that it might not attract the hardcore crowd it seems a bit to casual and very much on rails event until you reach higher levels ...
 
i have a collectors edition pre ordered.

the next beta weekend (finally, my first) will tell me if im keeping it, or making a killing with it on the bay.
 
Looks like a good Guildwars expansion pack lol. I'm hoping at some point it'll offer free sub like allot of recent mmorpgs, I'll try it then, kinda burned out after playing GW for three years, was fun while it lasted though.
 
Mine's pre-ordered. Best Buy has tried charging my card for about 6 months, cause they're fucking retarded and can't properly process a charge. I'm anxious, but not like I was. BF3 has kept my mind focused on ripping faces off of bads ;)
 
if you got sick of WoW, like me, this game is not very exciting. It just reminds one of WoW in a different wrapper. I have a hard time logging into the beta. Then again, i am not so crazy about BF3 either. So it might just be burnout on my part. Plus, i have only made it to level 7. So maybe the vehicles will make it non WoW like :)

edit: err, lev 10
 
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RedStarSQD said:
if you got sick of WoW, like me, this game is not very exciting. It just reminds one of WoW in a different wrapper. I have a hard time logging into the beta. Then again, i am not so crazy about BF3 either. So it might just be burnout on my part. Plus, i have only made it to level 7. So maybe the vehicles will make it non WoW like :)

edit: err, lev 10
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Not just you (I've played multiple toons to 30+ during the beta phases and one to 40+), and I hated WOW. TOR is all-around boring other than having a star wars skin graphically... it has standard combat with some fun abilities, but the rest is "meh" or outright terrible. The voice acting adds very little to anything and is a detriment to getting to actually play the game (the novelty wears off quickly), requiring tons of spacebarring and choosing meaningless appropriate choices for your alignment to stay proper (light or dark). Quests are standard fare, which I can't fault it for, but it's even more linear than Rift for leveling. The warzones are fun but there are only three (pvp combat is this game's best feature) and Ilum is fairly small for an "RVR zone" from what I've seen/heard.

Endgame was virtually untested by people due to the short times between wipes unless you powerleveled in a quick bursts, and the endgame that WAS there when I was in the 40's one time was basically unfinished (tons of art missing, outright flat terrain with nothing on it but a blurry placeholder texture, mostly unpopulated by mobs or NPC's, completely broken quests, etc.) just a scant few months ago. I'll probably play the headstart since I have my codes entered but I'm not likely going to actually play the game for launch itself. I'm banking on The Secret World to be fun for RVR-style gameplay....

I'm sounding like I'm bashing the game, but truth be told for a theme park MMO it's fun enough and mechanically sound, but it's the same ride we've been playing for the last several years. I miss the days of varied and unique MMO's such as DAOC, UO, etc.
 
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I can't figure out how this game is getting any good reviews, and how it is so anticipated. Perhaps by people who have never played a mmorpg before?

I played SWG and I think that was a better game. At least it brought lots of new stuff to the table for me.
 
GoldenTiger said:
Not just you (I've played multiple toons to 30+ during the beta phases and one to 40+), and I hated WOW. TOR is all-around boring other than having a star wars skin graphically... it has standard combat with some fun abilities, but the rest is "meh" or outright terrible. The voice acting adds very little to anything and is a detriment to getting to actually play the game (the novelty wears off quickly), requiring tons of spacebarring and choosing meaningless appropriate choices for your alignment to stay proper (light or dark). Quests are standard fare, which I can't fault it for, but it's even more linear than Rift for leveling. The warzones are fun but there are only three (pvp combat is this game's best feature) and Ilum is fairly small for an "RVR zone" from what I've seen/heard.

Endgame was virtually untested by people due to the short times between wipes unless you powerleveled in a quick bursts, and the endgame that WAS there when I was in the 40's one time was basically unfinished (tons of art missing, outright flat terrain with nothing on it but a blurry placeholder texture, mostly unpopulated by mobs or NPC's, completely broken quests, etc.) just a scant few months ago. I'll probably play the headstart since I have my codes entered but I'm not likely going to actually play the game for launch itself. I'm banking on The Secret World to be fun for RVR-style gameplay....

I'm sounding like I'm bashing the game, but truth be told for a theme park MMO it's fun enough and mechanically sound, but it's the same ride we've been playing for the last several years. I miss the days of varied and unique MMO's such as DAOC, UO, etc.
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Sad. I was hoping for a non WOW feel, triple A title. I figured Bioware would take what worked and tweaked it a bit; better graphics, voice acting, SW skin. I still try it out, but I doubt I'll play for a long time. The Secret World like you mentioned is what I'm waiting for, and hopefully it's good.
 
Sky15 said:
Sad. I was hoping for a non WOW feel, triple A title. I figured Bioware would take what worked and tweaked it a bit; better graphics, voice acting, SW skin. I still try it out, but I doubt I'll play for a long time. The Secret World like you mentioned is what I'm waiting for, and hopefully it's good.
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There is one glint of hope, though: they just recently added a nice open-world FFA area (except your group/guild) to Tatooine with some small objectives/bonuses, and Ilum supposedly has gotten a LOT of work recently since I last saw it, becoming a fairly large and decent RVR area (which by the time more than a handful hit 50 on live, will probably be fleshed out far more, plus they have another month until launch basically). We may see another left-field ball thrown with Ilum getting a lot of boosts and seeing further ORVR-type areas... they do seem committed to adding content to the game for both PVE and PVP players, and while they aren't as communicative as some would like, they do say things of substance when they speak ;).
 
And, researching posts made since the new build (which I'm just about done downloading now).... things look far more promising. Ilum's been beefed up big time, Outlaw's Den is supposed to be good, there are now two Operation raids + two new Flashpoints, as well as lvl 50 versions of nine flashpoints with full itemization thus far... lots of polish items, crafting buffs, favorable class balancing, and overall goodness per posts I'm seeing. I can't wait to get in and try this new build! If what I'm reading is true... it sounds very good, and the future sounds promising (I'm betting they'll add more open-world PVP areas with time in addition to the expected pve zones). I'll post some impressions once I get a few hours of play in again... since the NDA is gone and all that :D.
 
I did a beta test weekend about a month and a half ago and got to lvl 25. I thought the initial leveling process was a lot like WoW, the first couple of planets arent to great imo, but after you get past like level 20, the planets become a lot better, less linear. The Black Talon Flashpoint I did I thought was REALLY fun. Although I only did it twice, I dont think I could do it 20 times and get the same thrill out of it. I did a few warzones, they were a lot of fun but there was definitely balancing issues for certain classes. They do need to add some bigger warzones with more people like AV in WoW if you ask me, because you could hardly ever find a 1v1 in a warzone, it was usually a zerg one way or another. And the warzone maps seemed so small, I did only play Huttaball one and the snow one, dont remember the name. I cant say I loved leveling in SWTOR but I never liked it in WoW either. I always wanted to just get to max level so I can use all of the skills/talents, and do raids/end game pvp. That's the main test if you ask me , end game stuff. I guess only time will tell if it's good or not. I have no idea. All the classes in SWTOR are really cool, but I dont like how they are basically the same for Republic / Empire, I guess they had to do it like that for balancing. I played Sith Marauder up to 25, and BH up to 10. Cant say which I liked more, both were very fun in different ways. The whole using your spaceship process to travel was pretty bad if you asked me. Basically have to run to the starport, go into an instanced hanger with your ship, then go into your instanced ship into an instanced space, then fly to the planet you want by clicking it on the map, then click the exit of the back of your ship into the instanced spaceport on the new planet.... Yea.... Pretty retarded. I never really did any crafting which I love doing because I just didn't have time to waste on that with 2 days of testing, so thats another thing I hear is pretty good and interesting.

Game is definitely worth trying imo, but it will either be a success or failure depending on the end game.. I think I might honestly cancel my digital plus or w/e edition for 90$ and just get the 60$ version though. The stuff you get for the extra 30$ doesnt seem to enticing anymore after playing because there is so much stuff in the game to get.
 
Since the nda was lifted I will say that I was in the beta since about 8 months ago, and the game blew, it was like really crappy wow. Last time I touched the beta was in august so maybe its changed now, but I doubt it.

The spell animations though were very impressive.
 
I was in beta, too, and as people said, it is a lot like wow. In fact, it is the closest thing to wow I've ever played.

Now, in theory that is a bad thing. But the failure of pretty much every other mmo shows that what people want is something like wow. Pvp centered mmos, non linear mmos, rpg centric mmos all have failed. People want the grind and the purples. That is what swtor gives them.
 
diogo said:
But the failure of pretty much every other mmo shows that what people want is something like wow.
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:rolleyes: every failed mmo has been a wow clone

would be good if some developer made a massive multiplayer world with restrictive fast travel....then actual adventuring could take place
 
sighmk said:
:rolleyes: every failed mmo has been a wow clone

would be good if some developer made a massive multiplayer world with restrictive fast travel....then actual adventuring could take place
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BS. All these dreams of a true hardcore mmo will inevitably fail as well.
 
munkle said:
Since the nda was lifted I will say that I was in the beta since about 8 months ago, and the game blew, it was like really crappy wow. Last time I touched the beta was in august so maybe its changed now, but I doubt it.

The spell animations though were very impressive.
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It has. Starting play in early May, I took a break from around mid-June through August (played sparsely), then late August until early-mid October, played a couple of weeks then and now have logged into this newest build that's out as of a day or two ago and it is definitely changed, for the better. I also played a July 2010 build... hoo boy has it changed since then :p.
 
GoldenTiger said:
Not just you (I've played multiple toons to 30+ during the beta phases and one to 40+), and I hated WOW. TOR is all-around boring other than having a star wars skin graphically... it has standard combat with some fun abilities, but the rest is "meh" or outright terrible. The voice acting adds very little to anything and is a detriment to getting to actually play the game (the novelty wears off quickly), requiring tons of spacebarring and choosing meaningless appropriate choices for your alignment to stay proper (light or dark). Quests are standard fare, which I can't fault it for, but it's even more linear than Rift for leveling. The warzones are fun but there are only three (pvp combat is this game's best feature) and Ilum is fairly small for an "RVR zone" from what I've seen/heard.

Endgame was virtually untested by people due to the short times between wipes unless you powerleveled in a quick bursts, and the endgame that WAS there when I was in the 40's one time was basically unfinished (tons of art missing, outright flat terrain with nothing on it but a blurry placeholder texture, mostly unpopulated by mobs or NPC's, completely broken quests, etc.) just a scant few months ago. I'll probably play the headstart since I have my codes entered but I'm not likely going to actually play the game for launch itself. I'm banking on The Secret World to be fun for RVR-style gameplay....

I'm sounding like I'm bashing the game, but truth be told for a theme park MMO it's fun enough and mechanically sound, but it's the same ride we've been playing for the last several years. I miss the days of varied and unique MMO's such as DAOC, UO, etc.
Click to expand...

I've leveled to 50 multiple times during the beta and totally disagree with everything GoldenTiger says. I love TOR and will be playing it full-time as soon as it comes out~

sighmk said:
:rolleyes: every failed mmo has been a wow clone
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Darkfall? Aion? AoC? Those are WoW clones in your mind?
 
OpStar said:
I've leveled to 50 multiple times during the beta and totally disagree with everything GoldenTiger says. I love TOR and will be playing it full-time as soon as it comes out~



Darkfall? Aion? AoC? Those are WoW clones in your mind?
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Well, as I said at the end.... it's fun enough, but it feels a lot like "more of the same" in some regards. The saving graces I'm looking at are mainly the open-world PVP areas, which have me set to buy this regardless of the rest of my feelings. I really don't find the voiceover to add anything much, but then again I hate PVE for the most part... I will admit I listen to the occasional quest if it's got an interesting story though, but come live I won't be except for alts. Also keep in mind the majority of my feedback is based on a much older build from mid-May to June, and as I said in my follow-up post, it has made great strides since. I am very much hoping TOR is a hit, with the commitment they've shown so far to PVP relative to other games (*cough*rift*cough*) and the positives it does have.

I think TOR's strengths are....

-Voiceovers add more interest to the stories (this pro will vary depending on your playstyle but I think it'll work well for the masses)

-Combat system is fun.

-PVP systems are solid and people don't die in two seconds flat to a single enemy, plus there's a lot of Crowd Control available, leading to longer, more tactical battles where you can show your skill more as well as have fun with doing so.

-Environments are varied and LARGE. There's little room used as filler; most places have something associated to them or some purpose.

-Ilum and Tatooine (Outlaw's Den) open-world PVP areas are great by all accounts I'm hearing. I unfortunately have not gotten to see them for myself this build, but I explored Ilum awhile back and the terrain was pretty big from what I could tell.

-Class design is very well done, each class feels very different from others, and the specs can create quite a few (viable) combos with serious impacts on how you play your character rather than being mostly superficial or just altering one or two abilities.

-The art style will age better than a hyper-realistic MMO's would. Graphics aren't technically amazing but they have enough to be enjoyable to look at.
 
what a waste of time money & resources

I'd rather donate my time to a pregnant methhead

& give money to NAMBLA
 
wright_left said:
I played a beta weekend about a month ago and all I can say is -- ZZZZzzzzz....

This game put me to sleep. I played WoW for years, and this is WoW, though not as good, with a Star Wars theme applied.

I only made it to level 8 or so because it was so boring I wasn't really interested. It was "Go kill 10 of those", "Go get one of these", and "Bring this to that guy over there" over and over again. Exactly like WoW. Everything was, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, dead, loot, rinse and repeat. I had a few other abilities that I bought from my trainer in the city (exactly like WoW), but they sucked in comparison to just plain old shoot.

In the 8 levels I played I didn't get any of this fancy story that everyone is talking about. I had a lame story, with no background, about getting my ship back because some separatist stole it. I never felt like I made on progress getting my ship back because the missions in my fancy story were, "Go kill that", "Go deliver this", and "Investigate the secret back door by clicking on it". Yeah--that's not exactly attention grabbing stuff right there. They were lame. And I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again, the missions were lifted straight from WoW.

Bottom line, if you like WoW, you can add a Star Wars look and feel to it for $15 a month. The "Star Wars look and feel" also includes not having years and years of polish like WoW does. So if you like WoW, like Star Wars more, and don't mind going through the growing pains again, then this is the game for you.

Like someone else said, KOTOR3 would have been a much better way to spend their money. I doubt this will outlast WoW.
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I'm not about to say the game is perfect and amazing but... you seriously only played to level 8. 1-10 is practically the tutorial. You have not even received your first companion at level 8 yet, which is one of the things that makes this game different than other big mmos. Not to mention you have not experienced real group missions, PVP, ship fighting, have not acquired a skill tree yet, etc. You also didn't say what character you played. Some of them have much better stories than others.

One thing that might account for the difference of opinions on this game is the character classes. I really enjoyed playing one class but really didn't enjoy the other.


I'll definitely be playing guild wars 2 but, you guys do realize that you could probably go through the content in SWKOTOR 2-3 times before GW2 even gets a release date right? So it is kind of silly to talk about GW2 at this point.
 
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-MikeHawk- said:
what a waste of time money & resources

I'd rather donate my time to a pregnant methhead

& give money to NAMBLA
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If that's what floats your boat, I suggest that you do so. Anyway, this is entertainment, not your life's work. For me, games replace activities like watching TV and movies. Everyone is different.

SWTOR draws upon every standard MMO that came before it. That is certain and, well, what's wrong with that? A lot of people are perfectly happy with that formula. If a ridiculous game like Farmville can be successful, I know SWTOR can be. It's all about how it's done and how it's marketed. SWTOR isn't perfect, but it's pretty damn good. If you don't want to play, then don't. There will be someone to take your place in-game. No worries.
 
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