SciFriday: Finally, An Amazing Star Wars MMO
But will genre fans give up Star Trek Online for Star Wars: The Old Republic?
To help celebrate nearly a year beefing online, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (you know, the MMORPG) Star Trek Online went from being a subscription-based game to free-to-play.
Basically, that means if you buy the game, you can log in and not have to pay a monthly subscription cost. However, if you want any cool bling, be ready to spend American dollars (or whatever the currency is in your country), and not Federation credits.
When Star Trek Online first debuted in 2010, I was right there logging in for the first time with everyone else. But I have to say, despite the love for the game I know many people have, I wasn't impressed. First, the game was lagging (slowing down and pausing) all over the place, causing me to die over and over again. And I found myself wanting to participate only in space battles, because they were amazing while the away missions were just dull and hard to operate.
Watching my ship drag though space got too much for me, and I decided to go back to Everquest II, a game I've played for many years, but really wanted something different.
Well finally, that something different came last month in Star Wars: The Old Republic.
I was excited about this game, but didn't sign on when everyone else did because I was worried I would be disappointed again. I knew that it picked up a lot of elements from the very popular computer and console games Knights of the Old Republic, but then again, I was one of those people who spent money on Star Wars Galaxies, and look at where that got me.
Yet, I log into The Old Republic and I'm blown away. MMOs are notorious for giving you mostly meaningless quests that force you to run all over the world, fight things, pick the loot off their corpses, and try to cash in.
I have only advanced through 25 levels so far in The Old Republic, but I have yet to find a quest that annoyed me. In fact, the story is so enthralling, I am finding myself losing hours in a day and getting little sleep. You care about what's happening, and you want to do something about it.
From what I understand, there are 400,000 lines of dialogue in The Old Republic right now, and that will grow even more through future expansions. Instead of forcing us to read lines and lines of story, The Old Republic instead creates voice conversations. And you can't skip through them because how you respond can have a drastic effect on character development.
Bioware really hit this game out of the park, and I honestly can't imagine playing anything else. Sadly, there is some lag in this game which I am trying to stay patient through, and for some reason, Bioware thinks it's OK to take the servers offline for hours at a time (it will be down almost 20 hours over past seven days). But it will get better, and I look forward to it. Especially when they figure out how to allow players to find each other for groups (the system they have right now is about as effective as sticking your head out your kitchen window and screaming to the neighborhood).
But what do you think? Star Trek Online, or Star Wars: The Old Republic? Or something else? Or nothing at all? Comment below and let me know!
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by browncoat1984 | Tue, 01/31/2012 - 09:18 #1
They can both exist side by side, no problem. I don't get this mentality that there has to be one MMO to rule them all. STO may not have the massive player base that TOR does, but if Galaxies can survive as long as it did on its small player base, then STO shouldn't have any problems at all. Also re: Galaxies - the fact that it lasted as long as it did was pretty amazing, I mean, considering the game pre-dates WoW.
Have you played STO since it went F2P? Have you played it in the past year at all? Because if all you've played was at launch then you need to give it another try, they've made a LOT of changes to the game. Ground combat is much faster and you have an option now for both the original RPG-style play mode and a new, more action oriented third-person FPS mode. They have ship interiors now, they've overhauled the skills system to be more efficient and allow for faster leveling among other changes. And re: voice acting - the game now offers SOME voice acting and cut scenes for its new missions and some refurbished old ones. Not NEARLY as much or as well done as TOR's but its there, and aside from TOR its the only other MMO I've played so far that features that sort of thing. There's also the Foundry now, which allows you to either create brand new missions or play missions created by others, again I haven't seen much anything like this in an MMO before.
I think you hit the nail on the head in regards to space combat. Its the bread and butter of STO and its what will set STO apart from TOR. Play TOR for your ground combat but play STO for your space. If they capitalize on how fun the space combat is, and on how useful the Foundry could be in supplying endless content for users, STO will go far. That said, there HAS been a 10 month long content drought as the game prepared for f2p which has hurt a lot of paying subscribers, but they promised this will not happen after f2p. If this is true and they keep a steady stream of content, then that combined with a focus on space combat and The Foundry will ensure STO has a strong lifetime.
The weakest aspect of TOR IMO is space combat. It looks amazing, yes, but its kinda boring after a while. Its fun, no doubt, but nowhere near as engaging as STO or the older Star Wars space combat games like X-Wing and Rogue Squadron.
So to answer your question: TOR or STO? I say both.
by serton | Thu, 02/16/2012 - 15:57 #2
I have to agree with the comments above. They are two different franchises each with their own separate fan base. Where the two fan-bases intersect the games themselves are different enough to perhaps engage players who wish to play both. As STO is now free to play then both can exist quite happily in people's wallets. the only people who miss out are the Mac players who once again are left out of the MMO party. Thank God for programs that allow me to run windows games under mac, still a pity SW will not work :-(
I have to say that over the last few weeks STO has also really upped the amount of content they are putting out, with some episodes coming out daily to whet your appetite.
Oh and the first sentence of your article doesn't quite make sense I think there's a spelling mistake (beefing). Also STO recently celebrate it's 2nd anniversary in game.