{"id":667,"date":"2011-12-19T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-19T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shadowcovenant.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/19\/star-wars-the-old-republic-first-impressions\/"},"modified":"2011-12-19T20:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-12-19T19:00:00","slug":"star-wars-the-old-republic-first-impressions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/shadowcovenant.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/19\/star-wars-the-old-republic-first-impressions\/","title":{"rendered":"Star Wars: The Old Republic first impressions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"star_wars_the_old_republic_1600x1200\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve pre-ordered the game, and as such I got early access to the game\u2026 Unfortunately for me, I was travelling abroad when I got the invite, so I could only try the game on Saturday (instead of Thursday)\u2026 Anyway, I spent most of Saturday and Sunday playing it, so here are some first impressions about the game.<\/p>\n

First of all, before I start bitching about the game, let me just say that I\u2019m having a lot of fun playing it\u2026 It\u2019s a good game, on par with \u201cKnights of the Old Republic\u201d but in a massive setting! Any Star Wars fan that likes games (of the MMORPG and normal variety) should definitely pick it up!<\/p>\n

The game\u2019s well written, with interesting storylines, excellent graphics (besides some occasional bugs), cool battle system and lightsabers! What more can you ask for?<\/p>\n

In a world without World of Warcraft, this game would be freaking amazing\u2026 Unfortunately for them, there is such a thing as WoW, and comparisons are drawn.<\/p>\n

Is it fair we do these comparisons? Shouldn\u2019t a game stand on its own merits? That\u2019s a tricky question\u2026 WoW created what most of us considered the baseline, with most of the semantics we\u2019re used to tackle, and as such, he has provided us even the language in which we discuss this and other MMORPGs.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, more than in any gamming scenario, MMORPGs are in direct competition with each other\u2026 They are huge time drains (they\u2019re designed that way), and a normal person can\u2019t sanely play two MMORPGs at the same time (and be any good at them)\u2026 Every hour I spend in SWTOR is an hour I can\u2019t spend in WoW, it\u2019s not like a single player game which I finish and then move to the next one. <\/p>\n

So, regardless of fairness, the comparisons are indispensable to understand and to analyze the potential of the game. <\/p>\n

Although SWTOR is a very good game, fun and all that, it has some downsides that really detract from the experience. I feel some \u201crushing\u201d in the development of the game, because some obvious things that shouldn\u2019t be so hard to put in are absent, especially if you\u2019re trying to be a WoW killer:<\/p>\n