Seasons greetings everyone, and I apologize for my lack of posting. I’ve been doing a fair bit of writing, but just not here. I plan to change that. Writing for Force Junkies has been a blast thus far, and I think I’ve figured out how I want to approach writing articles there and here. In case you were wondering I’ve written four articles for them,
- Choosing Your Class in Beta: Try Before You Buy
- Dual-Spec: Beating a Dead Bantha
- The Intel Report: The Imperial Agent, Class Preview
- The Intel Report: Sniper Concepts (this is a game play video)
I’ve got one article about the fate of the Guild Headquarters site that’s pending review, and another on theory crafting that I’m not quite done writing. As always, I’ll try to update you here as these things get published. But enough of that, let’s talk about the beta.
I was fortunate to get invited to two beta weekends. In that time I leveled an Imperial Agent Sniper to 24. This will be my main class come launch. I also played around with a Jedi Knight, Jedi Counselor, and a Bounty Hunter. I didn’t get far with any of the other classes, but Counselor was a lot of fun. There may very well be a Sith Inquisitor in my future. I also tried the space game and Warzones. I didn’t spend much time crafting and I didn’t run any Flashpoints.
Overall I was very happy with the game, and early access can’t come early enough. Having spent the better part of six years playing WoW the transition and learning curve in SWTOR was amazingly small. The controls, the movement, the keybinds, the abilities and talents were easily understandable. I felt quite comfortable at the keyboard.
The game looks and sounds fantastic, but it’s not perfect. Take the UI for example. It looks great, but by level 24 I found myself staring at my toolbar and focusing on tiny buff icons and health bars during combat. I also found the chat window to be a little too out of the way. Often times I would miss what players were saying. The /tell sound is also very quiet and I found myself missing a few whispers.
The bottom line is despite its faults the game is just plain fun, and it has a tremendous online community supporting it. Will it beat WoW and become the top MMO? Who knows, but I think it’s safe to say that it will be around for a long time.
And with that I’m off for vacation. I have Revan in my bags (hope he can breath /groan), and the Deceived audio book on my iPod. I leave you with some images I took during my time in beta. Enjoy!
I am envious of your two BETA weekends! But I had a blast in the one last week, so it’s all good.
🙂