Blog

Star Wars: The Old Republic – First Impressions

The release of the online world is inexorably approaching Star Wars: The Old Republic. The closer the coveted twenty of December, the more serious the tone of letters from Electronic Arts. There is a lot of things at the stake, and the publisher, putting the sharks of the pen into the beta version of the pen, rolled out very harsh restrictions for them.

We, journalists, are not the first to deal with the hard embargo. But in the case of Tor, it seems to us, with restrictions slightly went too far. You can understand the ban on the description of ships, cosmic battles and the intricacies of combat mechanics, because they are likely to be finalized. The requirements are quite normal not to retell dialogs and not describe the game after a certain plot point – it was not enough to lay out spoilers before the release. But why you can’t talk about the empire? What the poor Sith guilty? And why you can’t show your own screenshots?

The most unpleasant thing in all this is that the unorganized Internet Legion wanted to put on these prohibitions (and put it confidently on them), so they cannot restrain the flow of information, but they are harmful, and very strongly. But enough about the sad. Let's still about the impressions-within the framework of the permitted.

We bring to your attention two points of view on the "old republic". Opinions with each other practically do not intersect, but complement each other, so it seemed to us reasonable to give them separately.

Timur Khorev, editor of the Best Computer Games magazine

Timur Khorev: “The Old Republic surprised. Surprised in the good sense of the word."

For a few days of access to beta version, I played tightly for the Jedi-Consulus of Twi’gli (their hentai head tentacles are swayed with fervent pigtails), for the republican cyborg attack aircraft (“I’ll be back! "), For" Khanshi Solo "with her cunning tricks and for a couple of imperial characters. I explored the starting planets, walked around Coruscant, figured out the game mechanics, battles, group game, satellites and the original plot submission system.

I will be short: The old repullic surprised. Surprised in the good sense of the word. For the first time in a long time, the online game managed to “cling” me tightly, forcing me to return to it again and again, forcing me to feel discomfort when the server lies on planned maintenance or … just lies. And for the first time I saw a game that managed to overcome the shortcomings of the predecessors who were previously considered invincible.

Take, for example, the curse of “thousands of boars”-quests in which so many enemies need to be killed, collect so many skins … They managed to win them in Tor, and in a very original way-dividing the quests into a mandatory and optional part. If the player wants to go through the quest faster, he goes to the right place and does what needs. Whether he is cringing a villain-npc whether he collects good from half-dozen of boxes, whether he activates terminals-there is no need to mess around there for a long time. But if the player wants more experience, he in parallel “exterminates boars” – fills the right number of enemies hanging out nearby https://kinghills-gb-casino.co.uk/. A portion of experience for the optional part is large enough to crush everyone around, but not so great that it cannot be missed without special reflection. An elegant idea.

Only those members of the group who have a quest participate in the plot conversation. But the rest can look from the side.

As for the plot scenes with voice acting, I used to consider them pampering, for MMO not mandatory. I believed that BioWare I decided to make them for the simple reason that it was worn out to rivet them in single games. In principle, I am still not sure of their need, but I must admit: these scenes and conversations greatly contribute to immersion in the world, even if you scroll through the dialogs. The sensation is mixed. On the one hand, there is an online game around. On the other hand, you have a story, there are first feats and satellites.

With satellites, by the way, it turned out also interesting. They appear in the plot in each character and sometimes compensate for its shortcomings well. Some satellites can serve in battle tanks for poorly protected heroes. Some help with a twinkle, and there are those who are treated – this is especially pleasant when you are in the role of a tank. It would seem that this is just the development of the ideas of "pets", but what a grandiose difference! In a solitary game, help from satellites is very helpful, and if players gather in groups, their satellites disappear so that the total crowd does not exceed four “snouts” (that is, if there are three characters in the group, only one can have an active satellite, and if if there are four players, then you cannot call satellites at all).

Visually, the game resembles something between Tabula rasa And Rift. Unlike Rift, the picture does not exist here, the player is allowed to consider close to his character, and a satellite, and other players or NPC. The cartoon style did not like many (including me), but I have to admit – from the point of view of developers who want to poke system requirements and not get into the “ominous valley”, he does not have alternatives. Of course, such "star wars" will have to get used to for some time, but the ugly game certainly cannot be called.

The lizard of Ozen Fess is a short-combat tank and the first companion of fragile Jedi consultants.

In general, The Old Republic leaves a very pleasant feeling of the game … thoughtful. It is pleasant to realize that the developers do not rush back and forth, but are quite adequate to priorities and can already show a stable and working gameplay in the closed beta test, even if not on such stable servers.

Of course, the game has disadvantages. For example, interface. He, of course, works, but looks nightmarenly, and the possibilities for setting it up is very kutsa. This could be corrected by addons and macros, but they are not expected to start the launch, although BioWare unequivocally promises them in the future. According to trifles – there are some minor problems with graphics (the absent texture of pants for release is not a problem), animation and balance of the complexity of missions. But in general, the beta version of The Old Republic looks much better and works stable than many MMO releases. And this, whatever one may say, is a good sign.

Alexander Trifonov, head.ru "

Alexander Trifonov: “Do not rush with conclusions, because the medal has the opposite side."

One of the main competitive advantages of The Old Republic, which developers love to talk about, is fully voiced dialogs and a worked out story for each of the eight game classes. Imagine, they say, instead Knights of the Old Republic 3 , which many fans would like to see, we made eight continuations at once! Thus, even the creators of Tor themselves claim that their game is comparable in interest and plot with a full -fledged single RPG from the same BioWare. How much such a statement corresponds to the truth? Well, beta – the most suitable material for study.

The fact is that on advertising trailers and demonstrations of the passage of plot instances that constantly replenish the official site, it is very difficult to make a real picture – because the game also has hundreds of side tasks, both common for everyone and unique for each class and lion You will spend the share of time just in conversations with secondary characters. And it is for them, and not for spectacular scribbled scenes that you will love (or maybe not) The Old Republic.

The developers, shouting at all the corners that their MMORPG is the first with completely voiced dialogs, somehow forgot that, in addition to the fact of voice acting, it would be nice to be interesting, and the interlocutors are memorable. For which first of all they would criticize a single RPG. You don’t have to go far for an example, just compare the last two games from Bioware itself: Mass Effect 2 And Dragon Age 2 (and their predecessors too). Gorgely set, almost movie scenes in the first, aliens of all shapes and sizes … and old -fashioned idols almost without facial expressions and gestures in the second, and even with the same models on all NPCs (man, dwarf, and their female options).

They are created for each other! “Hans Solo” can get Vuki in satellites.

It would seem, “star wars”, thousands of the most exotic races … but no: with rare exceptions (Hatta, Vuki, etc.p.), in TOR, all characters have four trunks of different sizes, to which, in the case of aliens, the head is assigned to a worse. When playing, for example, for an attack aircraft, which at the beginning of his storyline with “strangers” has almost no business, all these republican soldiers, refugees and separatists very quickly merge in your memory into a homogeneous mass of people, about which you can’t even remember the next day their requests, not like names.

In addition, at first, one more is alarming: although in dialogs you can choose answers, often the replica of your hero does not affect anything. NPC will respond with the same phrase – and still give out the quest and reward the hero by its completion, although you depict a greedy hamlo or holy man. It would seem that here is a great argument for those who consider the voice acting of dialogs nothing more than a marketing trick and is still going to skip them.

Jedi tossing into the air is nothing more than a modified magic "sheep".

But do not rush with conclusions, because the medal also has the reverse side – in about half of the cases, the dialogs suddenly turn out to be really interesting, your behavior begins to affect the outcome of the assignment and moral appearance of the hero, and you are put before a really difficult choice. Is it to stand up for the girl who is beaten in prison for the sake of receiving data about separatists, or vice versa – to help knock out even more confessions out of her? Give the medications selected from the bandits to the wounded soldiers in the infirmary or refugees in the tent camp? Destroy the load of smuggled drugs or allow them to distribute them to the population, so that it becomes a little easier to endure the hardships of the civil war?

It is then that the game is online, and the preservation in the event of an unsuccessful outcome can no longer be loaded: they didn’t follow the conversation, they rude when it was not necessary-that’s all, your hero shot and corrupt, but still republican soldiers and must continue to live With this. Even “dark” and “bright” solutions (carefully illuminated by icons) sometimes happen a few pieces-to do it very much, just cynical, well, or portray a good guy. In addition, some acts will come in in the future – all the options for the development of events can be found only by passing the plot for the selected class to the end several times.

Finally, the dialogue system begins to play with new colors when you are in a group with other players – after all, whose replica will sound, it is determined by randomly by throwing a virtual cube, and each time when choosing the answers it covers remarkable excitement. And also – do not forget about satellites who also live vividly in dialogs, are offended or approved by your actions. In general, they behave in the same way as members of the team in Mass Effect ..

What is logical, The Old Republic has much more shootings than in the usual online worlds. Therefore, long -range tanks were added to the near -Russian tanks. A republican attack aircraft may learn this role.

Summary from "Gambling XP"

In general, the "Old Republic" we still liked. As expected, everything is spinning around the advanced dialogue system here. BioWare, trying to realize in an online format what they get best did not lose. You can argue for a long time about the advisability of using dialogs “under Mass Effect” in a multi -user role -playing role, as well as the implementation of this system in practice … But we will postpone the reasoning on this topic. Let's say before the review of the release version.

In the meantime, wait for the detailed analysis of Beta on the pages of the nearest numbers "Gambling" And "The best computer games".

Author

admin

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *