A Fast Ship And A Blaster At My Side

Star Wars: The Old Republic

  In the previous post I made on the game back in the early days of the blog, I talked about customization and some of the nice ways you could make your character look unique.  But that really only appealed to those who are already playing the game.  I felt that it was high time I posted something devoted to those who either haven't tried the game or have been gone for a while.  So we will take a brief tour of the game today, and address some of the items that I've seen change since launch.

First of all, we begin with the character.  There are two factions, Galactic Republic (Pubs) and Sith Empire (Imps).  Those who have somehow managed to avoid learning this much about the Star Wars Universe since 1977 likely aren't going to be playing this game, but hey gotta start somewhere, right?
A lot of people are going to say one side or the other is "better" or "more fun," but I have played both sides, and honestly have enjoyed both tremendously.  For this article, we'll be focusing on a character named Setnaris, a young smuggler who flies freight and takes on odd jobs for the Galactic Republic.  Each class has a story line quest chain that starts the moment you load in, and continues up until level 50.  Lots of cinematics, good voice acting, and the like are hallmarks of the class quest line.  Each one is unique and tells a part of the overall story-line.  For the role-play types, or solo gamers this is a large part of the game.  For the end game types, who race to the end to raid or do "operations" as they are called in this game, the questing system might be clunky. 

Setnaris, the Smuggler and his companion Corso Riggs.

The starter quests introduce you to the main story line, more or less in a how you got here sort of way. In the case of the smuggler, you need to have a reason to get involved in the coming war between the Empire and the Republic rather than just sell goods to both sides.  So you are a courier bringing in a shipment of weapons to the outpost on Ord Mantel which you find stolen in the opening scene. Oh, along with your ship.  So it's personal for you now, am I right? Of course, that's the idea. 

Each character at various points in the story line gets companions. Companions are combat helpers who quest with you and help complete your skill set.  In the original set that comes in Patch 1.0, each class gets at different times: a ranged tank, a melee tank, a healer, a ranged damage, and a melee damage.  As Setnaris is a healer, a tank is handy. And Corso Riggs, the original companion you get at the end of your starter planet quest line is a ranged tank.  So it works out well.  If you solo on your smuggler, odds are, you will play primarily with Corso much of your career.  One of the big things I hated about Corso when I first started the game was that he had a bad habit of harpooning enemy mobs and pulling them to you. Which is awesome if you're a melee class, but since smuggler is either a ranged damage class or a healer, having the bad guy next to you is bad.  They fixed that sometime around the end of the first year, replacing it with a charge-like ability.  Good thing to, because you won't get your next companion until the third planet in the story chain somewhere around level 24. But more on that in a later post.

Ord Mantel finds you in the midst of a small civil war, where you will find the non-force using Republic players (Troopers and Smugglers).  Due to the nature of the classes, early on Trooper will make you feel like you are stuck in mud as a smuggler.  The rapid run and gun style of the Trooper is much faster than the smuggler who crouches down and has to take long aim with his blaster pistol.  While it evens out later on, at the start Trooper has a huge advantage over smuggler in terms of speed and efficiency.  And why wouldn't they? They are special forces soldiers, trained in combat and in the latest high tech powered armor.  The smuggler lives by his wits, getting by with precision strikes and explosives. Each quest area will have 1 class quest and a number of other quests that are planetary quests.  In the case of Ord Mantel, the planetary quests deal with the conflict against a separatist movement that has the feel of being pulled from the headlines online.  There is a lot of options for being either heroic and a good patriot, or a sleazy scumbag out to make a credit.  That is the first major change from many MMOs that players in Star Wars find, an alignment system.  Old school RPers from the Dungeons & Dragons era will be familiar with alignment, but it's not something that most MMOs deal with that I've seen.  While not all quests have alignment choices, many do. You gain either Light Side or Dark Side points for each of these quests based on how you choose to handle the situation. The choices are often for play style only, but some have major consequences in how the story plays out for you.  And if you choose to keep it on, as your character grows darker, they are scarred and changed by the power of the Dark Side. 

Some items require you to have a certain attunement to one or the other to use, mostly relics which are small items that give buffs and some stat increases at later levels.  And there  are fashion sets that are unique to looks for a dark or light character.  Other than that, it often doesn't affect the outcome of the game, only in how you arrive there.  It's there for the flavor of the game, and to give you a full experience to be able to do the story different ways each time you play it.  Where my first smuggler, Peiper, was pretty much all hero and little scoundrel, Setnaris is a bit rougher around the edges and while still having a good heart, he's out for a buck and will look the other way when criminal activity happens.  There are going to be times he does the "right thing," and then there will be times where he is cold hearted and ruthless about making a living.  It's a tough world he lives in, and it's important to survive. Sometimes you have to break some eggs to make that omelet.

Ord Mantel teaches you the mechanics of the game if you haven't played before. And has a fun story that gives you a rather nasty villain at the end to draw you in further.  Once you finish, you will be on your way to Coruscant, the capitol of the Republic. See you there soon :)