SWTOR- One Week Impressions

Well, I have been in SWTOR for a week now and today the game officially launches. While I wait in a (horribly inaccurate) queue, I think I’ll take a look at my game experience so far:

The Status

• Level 22 Scoundrel with Armstech level 170
• Level 10 Jedi Knight (can’t decide between Guardian and Sentinel)

The Good

• Enjoying the story so far. My smuggler was really happy to have his ship back. It was an interested approach to have the story continue by a passenger I found aboard offering me a job.
• I like that I can keep upgrading my pistol. It’s even kind of cool that the upgrades come from three different crafting professions.
• Overall crafting seems very balanced. If you take 1 crafting, 1 gathering and 1 mission you can have access to most of what you need to craft stuff in that category. Interdependence is NOT generated by needing subcomponents from another crafting profession or from to many different gathering professions (so far at least). But, to really equip yourself, you need stuff from most categories.
• I like Reverse Engineering. Gets resources back and has a pretty reasonable chance at learning an upgraded schematic. Gets expensive though.
• Space is better than I expected. Not super wonderful, but still fun. It’s nice not having to worry about flying and just shooting stuff. Not sure how long that will last.
• The Lekku motion on the Twi’lek is very well done. They move with the character’s motion.
• The PVP maps are fun scenarios. I like that they each have a different flavor to them. I haven’t gotten to try Huttball yet, but the attack/defend on the starship map is fun to play both sides of it.
• I like the global cooldown on abilities. It gives me a second to plan my next move and combat doesn’t feel like a button mash fest.

The Bad

• I hate my droid. Everytime he finishes a crafting mission, he has to give me the same stupid line. And it is voiced OVER top of whatever mission dialogue I’m trying to listen too.
• I’m having difficulty playing with my guild. I find that I don’t want to get on the Vent server for the same reason as above. I want to listen to the dialogue, I don’t want people talking over it.
• It is a little disheartening that the only moddable pistols schematics available for sale from the crafting vendor are level 48. I suppose it might be possible to get lower level moddable guns through RE or something. You can definitely buy them.
• Mission flows can be odd. I’ve had to back track a few times because I didn’t turn in my class quest quick enough and it sends me to an area I just finished.
• It’s annoying that when you visit your ship, it takes off. There’s no way to board your ship and stay in the hangar.
• You spend a lot of time running around. I like the big worlds, but it feels a little excessive sometimes. Especially since you don’t get sprint until level 14 and speeders at level 25.
• There is some clipping with the Twi’lek lekku. My Jedi’s practice saber sticks up through the lekku.
• It’s easy to accidentally buy stuff at commendation vendors and then no way to get your commendations back. I purchased a level 40 pair of smuggler pants while trying to see what they look like. I have yet to find the badass gunslinger duster the guy in the video has.
• This goes into a broader issue of a poor interface. You can’t move windows around and sometimes they cover each other up. Also, when a crafting mission completes, it interrupts whatever you’re doing, which is annoying.
• It’s just annoying that the vehicle piloting skill comes at level 25 AND costs 40,000 credits. Since I’ve been working on crafting, I never have any more than 10k at a time. This really isn’t a grip against SWTOR specifically, just MMO design that charges outrageous prices for a fast travel skill that should be free. SWG did it right, anyone could drive any vehicle. Getting cool vehicles took some work, but you got a speeder right away. I had the same gripe with LOTRO and the 5 gold horse and the really annoying quest to learn the skill.
• PVP suffers from the usual run around like an idiot issue of all MMO’s. I can’t keep people in melee range and my smuggler has some useful short range skills. I can’t image doing this with my Jedi.