Star Wars: The Old Republic - First Impressions on the Game
6:57 AM
MMOGuy
, Posted in
Finally, I had the opportunity to play the game long enough.
At least satisfying enough to write my first impressions.
The conversation and decision based quest system is
incredible fun and I truly believe that it is the greatest innovation an MMO
had since WoW. When you interract with a quest giver, a conversation cut-scene
starts rolling. Most of the time you have three choices to carry the
conversation on and the best part is that; your decisions actually matter. How
come you say? Here is the answer: your decisions change the way you do the
quest; so two people can do totally different things to complete the same quest.
From this perspective, Star Wars: The Old Republic seems like the fruit of a
happy marriage between Mass Effect series and Dragon Age series.
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| Quest effecting decisions instantly remind us of the legendary game, Dragon Age, definetely not Dragon Age 2 |
For instance, at an earlier quest at Korriban, I was asked
by a Sith Lord to hunt down and take the brain of a creature, a Tuk'ata which
was believed to be a source of pure dark Force. After you receive your
instructions your are sent to the apprentice of the Sith Lord to know the
whereabouts of this particular Tuk'ata. This is where the fun begins. The
apprentice clearly states that she is full of her master's delusional
experiments and wants you to return the brain of the creature to her; just to
tamper with the results. By doing that, she wants her master to be discredited
by the other Sith Lords; hence, finally she might evetually be released to do
something actually of importance for the empire rather than disecting creature
parts all day. The decision to deliver the brain sample to the so-called
delusional Sith Lord or to the traitor young apprentice is totally up to you.
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| The conversation wheel at the bottom enables us select our response; hence decide on the way we are going to do the quests. |
The game goes one step further about making your decisions
count. What I explained above was about how the story was affected by your
decisions. Your character and your companion (will elaborate in a second) also
gets affected by your decisions. As you give decisions, especially important
ones such as letting a criminal live or die, will make you progress towards
either light or dark. For example in the above quest that I have told about; I
have chosen to deliver the brain specimen to the Sith Lord. I also notified him
about the treason her young padawan was dreaming of committing. As a result,
the apprentice was first shocked (literally) then sent to torture. And what
kind of points do you think I have gathered? Pretty obvious isn't it?
Star Wars: The Old Republic is designed to be played with
your character and your companion. You get your companion somewhere around
level 10 and it changes from class to class. I believe that -though not totally
sure- you can have a total of 5 companions; but can summon only one at a given
time. Right know I have Khem Val, an ugly-ass Dashade who has sworn loyalty to
me after I have bested him in a fair fight. The companions have roles such as
tanking, healing and dps. They ease your troubles a lot during quests. As I
said, your decisions have an effect on your beloved companions, too, altering
their affection level for you. To get an insight on what kind of decisions can
increase and decrease your companions, you should check the codex entry of your
companion and figure out what he/she likes/dislikes.
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| My beloved Dashade companion Khem Val. If only he did not want to devour any living thing... |
So what does the affection level of your companions effect
in Star Wars: The Old Republic? Before answering this question, one must accept
that our characters in the game, whether they are a mighty force user or a
renegade mercenary; are "too cool" to do the gathering and crafting
to support their lives. They order their companions to go on crew skill
missions for gathering and crafting items; though it is always their masters
who get all the credit and appreciation for the hard work. Each of these
missions cost you an amount of credits and time, during which your companion
will be unavailable to summon. Back to the question: the affection level of
your companion will shorten the time your companion will be unavailable. Trust
me, it might seem like a minor inconvenience now; but this game is literally
designed to be played with two characters. One actual player and a companion.
This is all I want to share at the moment. I will continue
to add more details as I discover them for myself first.
Have fun and may the force be with you.
