The gamer of the future returns with a look at Star Wars The Old Republic, here's I hint not only did he play it he ate it alive!

MMO’s are something everyone wants to play, a game that never ends with endless possibilities and never run out of stuff to do? That’s something that appeals to everyone. Most MMO’s don’t deliver on that though. People either don’t feel connected with the world their trying to get into, don’t care about anything that’s going on, Or don’t care to explore any of the vast world that is in front of them. You have your hardcore MMO players who can enjoy a game for its end game. But we’re not all here for that experience. We want to have a great experience while leveling up our toon. We want to explore and find new things and be amazed by everything we see.

Star wars: The old republic is the first MMO to offer all of those experiences. In its first month of launch, SWTOR has done what MMO’s could never seem to do. Make leveling fun. The first thing you’ll do in SWTOR is make a character. You’ll have a choice between Empire or Republic. When you decide on your faction, then you can pick your class. One thing I really love is that each side basically has the same classes, their simply reskinned depending on what faction you choose.

When you choose your class, you then go into customization. I felt like the customization could have been a little more in depth. Even with all the options I still feel like I’m just choosing from a preset of looks.  Even with that complaint you can still make a character suited to your needs. Even make it look like you.

After that you get to start playing. Unlike most MMO’s star wars is treated like a Single player game. Depending on your class and race, you’ll get your own specific opening cut scene. Setting up your characters class story I’ve played most of the opening starting areas for the classes. They’re all amazing and extremely intriguing. Smugglers get their ship stolen, and all the goods they were trying to sell. Bounty hunters are trying to join the great mandalorian hunt. Jedi knights are out to stop the Sith from making their own death star. Every story for every class is great, and is completely separate from everyone else and their quest. It’s impossible for 2 people of the same class to interfere with each outher, unless their grouped, and have same class group quest turned on. And when you reach lvl 10, you choose your advanced class. Advanced classes will determine your play style. Some classes tank, some are healers. And every advanced class can be a damage dealer. You also have some advanced classes, which can only be damage dealers.

There are also side quests in the game. Some simple things like “Kill this guy, and bring me his head” then you have side quests that have a story of their own. These are called Bonus chains, then you also have heroic quests which require you to get a group together. I really enjoyed how the game teaches you about grouping very early in the game. You try to solo it. You die. It forces you to find someone to group with. Then on later planets You’ll soon learn you need to get a balanced group. Consisting of a Tank (Guy who takes all the damage), a healer, and 2 damage dealers, these quests will prepare you for “flashpoints” which are dungeons you tackle with a group of the set up above.

All these quests and group quests, even the dungeons have a story behind them. They make the game, and leveling up that much more interesting. There’s also voice acting for EVERY THING IN THE GAME Vendors, enemies you’re fighting, boss battles everything. The sheer amount of detail and care make the game that much fun to go through. And trust me; it won’t get stale doing the same quest multiple times on new toons. With light side and dark side choices to be made, and making the right choices to raise your companions affection level towards you. It will take a long time to get tired of the quest system.

Out of the Player vs. environment portion of the game, there’s crafting which is handled really well. In most games crafting professions require you to go to the auction house, buy a mass amount of materials, and sit there and click a button, go to the trainer learn a new recipe, then keep pressing the button again. So basically crafting has always been a boring grind that in the end doesn’t really benefit you until it’s capped.

SWTOR does away with all of that. Well most of it. You can get your professions (up to 3 of them) at lvl 10. Their also not called professions their called crew skills, because, yep you guessed it, Your companions do MOST of the work. Wanna lvl up a profession? Open up your crew menu and send your companion on a mission related to the profession.  Wait for the set amount of time to go by, then your companion will soon return with loot, or an apology for failing. This is also affected by your affection lvl with your companion. The higher it is the higher success rate they will have. You also gather resources while you’re out questing. There’s so many you’ll have all of your sorage full way before you hit lvl 50.

Then you have PvP. Something I feel is being handled very well, and with some more patches will turn out even better then what it already is. Once you hit lvl 10 you can start queuing up for warzones. Which are basically PvP instances, where 2 groups of 8 do battle, and follow the objectives depending on the warzone you get. You have civil war which is fought on alderan, it pits you against the opposing faction, and the goal is to use turrets to destroy the other factions main ship. Then you have the Voidstar, which is really creative. It’s a 2 round based game, you have attackers and defenders, as the attacker the goal is to get to the ships core and blow it up, and you have to blow up 5 other doors to get to it. In order to blow up a door, you have to plant a bomb which will need 20 seconds to detonate, then the defenders job is to try and defuse the bomb preventing the attackers from getting through the door. When round one ends, the teams switch places and do it again. The winner is based off who gets the farthest.

Last but not least, you have huttball. A neutral game hosted by a hutt. This is also the only warzone right now where people of the same faction can go against each other. Huttball is basically Capture the flag. The goal is to grab the ball, and run it to the opposing team’s side. And score a point

The warzones work out great for low lvls. You can start joining them at lvl 10, but your stats are boosted up to the highest lvl  person in the warzone. However don’t expect to kill any lvl 50’s when your in lvl 10 gear.

You also have a Planet devoted to PvP. Once you reach lvl  50 you can go to illum, and get most of your PvP gear from there. Also around lvl 20 planets become neutral. Then you can experience open world PvP, if your on a PvP server.

Along with all that, you have your 2 raids, or “Operations” at lvl 50, where you team up with 7-15 other people and take down much tougher PvE content. Thus getting better gear, you also have Heroic, and Nightmare versions of these dungeons, giving even better gear, and more rewards.

Then you have the graphics, which are great. Bioware has done a great job re-creating worlds for SWTOR. Even familiar ones like Hoth, and tatooine. It feels like it’s your first time ever seeing them, and their great and are fun to explore, simply because of all the great things you can see, and admire. The armor sets in the game look great too, you can definitely tell classes, and their specs apart from their armor. Which is a very hard thing to accomplish in an MMO.

Closing comments.

The game is amazing. There’s tons of content, and you’ll actually enjoy having more then one character in the game. Quest don’t feel repetitive cause their so quick and easy to do. And every class has their own set of story quest so even that will make things feel fresh. On top of that it takes a good bit of time to get to 50. Around 10 days of play time, so it will take you a while. The game currently has every an MMO player could ask for. And is friendly enough to where I feel as though a casual gamer could jump into it, and feel as if their playing a single player campaign.

Overall score. 9.5