Ok, thanks!
I need to learn to read more closely.
I got home last night, went to SWTOR.com to see if I could download the client yet, and I could, so I confirmed my participation and started downloading. A short time later I got an email confirming my participation, which I mistook for my invite to participate.
At 2:30 AM I got my actual invite with a request to RSVP, which I already had. So perhaps I actually got my confirmation in a bit earlier – 7 hours before I was invited, in fact. So I feel a little better.
I have received my testing details, this makes me very happy:
[Quote=SWTOR]
You’ll be able to begin testing Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ very soon! Your test begins:
Friday, Nov. 25 at 10:00AM CST
[/QUOTE]
Me too!
Me Three!! 
Maybe Sunday we can all get on the same server or something? I suspect that much of tomorrow will be spent rolling and rerolling characters, lol.
You guys in the US I think? I’ll be trying out the EU servers.
Still not sure what to roll. I intend to play a Jedi Knight Tank and IA Sniper when the game goes live, should I try them now or wait until it goes live? What are your plans?
I might start out trying a bounty hunter or smuggler at first, or an inquisitor. It’ll probably be a spur of the moment decision.
so when does the play button stop being gray?
Though I am still at work and not able to check myself they should be up - lots of complaints from the Uk that there was only one English EU server to start with 4 German\French. Some people do not understand what stress testing is it seems.
My email said Sat 10CST So I know what I’m doing tomorrow!
Skammer, **Taomist **or anyone, let me know what server you’re on. I’ll roll there.
Given how many codes they’ve given out it still seemed a bit silly, but after I got in I didn’t really care any more. Looks like the English servers have several hour queues now, though, while the French and German ones have far shorter ones. Played ~4 hours, had fun with Imperial Agent, then tried Jedi a bit. Liked IA’s abilities and the story but didn’t care much for their cover mechanics. Jedi seemed too straight-forward goody-twoshoes to be as interesting, but I guess that’s how they should be.
Game’s pretty much what I expected, so going to buy it as I planned. 
Well, as I figured, so far I’m just rolling different characters and seeing what they’re like. So far been going with whatever server will let me in, lol! It varies, according to whether I afk out and can’t get back into the same server, hehe.
I only had a bit of time to play today - played a couple levels as a Consular and then a few as a Bounty Hunter. I have to say I’m enjoying the BH starting quests so far, but I dont’ think I’m evil enough to be on the Empire side. I should probably try the Smuggler.
Only bug I’ve seen so far - besides some fps issues that I solved by adjusting my graphics - is that when I went back to play for the second session I couldn’t log into my existing character - it kept taking me back to the selection screen. That’s when I rolled the Bounty Hunter.
I’ve been in a beta and have pre-ordered (and am regretting it… a lot, but the guild I’ve been in multiple games for the last 3 years is going there, I’m stuck.) I’ve played CoH/CoV, WoW, LOTRO, WAR, Rift and GW1.
Playing this beta, it’s very hard to believe anyone is taking this game seriously as “the next big thing.” It’s hard to believe anyone thinks it’s ready for release in 3 weeks, frankly.
It has serious performance issues. ATI video cards work sporatically - my Radeon 5770 works fine, several of my guildies with ATI cards are having terrible times. There are LOTS of random crashes to the desktop. It usually won’t let you log out - you end up having to hard crash.
The UI is a joke. It’s completely non-customizable (I mean location/size, you know, BASIC stuff that even old games like CoX let you do) let alone having add-ons. There’s no way to save your settings/keybinds between characters, so if you have a gamepad or do extensive keybinding, you have to set it all back up again every time you roll a new character. They claim they’re opening up the API some time after release, but in the meantime, the UI seriously sucks, especially if you are a healer. The raid windows don’t display buffs/debuffs, the raid window doesn’t display your health (so you get a lot of “what? I was dying?” moments while you’re trying to heal) and raid windows do not properly update the health of your party members. If you want to heal, prepare to be angry a lot. As you may have expected, there’s currently a severe healer shortage and I don’t see that going away.
Team size is maximum of four, including your “companion,” which is a mildly customizable “hunter pet” each class gets automatically. That means instances run with only 4 people (or 2 people and their pets) which really limits how many friends/guildies can run together. Also it means that since you can only enter a PvP warzone with one party and not queue up a op (raid) of 2 groups (warzones max size is 8) that the likelihood of getting queued along with 4 people who don’t work together is high, and your chance of being able to pull a win out on the strength of your group is small.
The voiceovers are seriously annoying. Yeah, they’re fun for a bit, but EVERY. SINGLE. QUEST. has a full on cutscene. And you can’t skip it - you can skip the NPC animation, but you still have to click the dialogue wheel. If you’re in a group, then you have to wait for everyone in your group to click the dialogue wheel, and if they want to watch the animation, prepare to wait. And even with what could be an interesting and engaging quest system (albeit one with very limited replay value) they still stock the game with Kill 10 Rats and Go Retrieve My Lost Necklace type quests. I enjoy the VOs and cutscenes on the few quests that actually tell interesting stories, but that’s about 5-10% of them. By the time you’re 20, you’re sick to death of them. I can’t imagine rolling more than one alt at this point.
The controls aren’t very good, and the animations are weird. Jumping and running animations look TERRIBLE. Blaster combat looks great - Lightsaber combat looks awful. Mouse sensitivity is crazy - most of my guild is in the beta this weekend and that (and the crashes) are the #1 complaint, even with the mouse sensitivity turned all the way down, you have to adjust to very minimal mouse movements.
PvP is pretty standard. Ish. They took the bolstering and scenario system from WAR, so everyone queues up for the same scenarios, and everyone “plays as” level 50 when they’re in there. Except that a level 10 in the scenario still only has 10 levels of skills, and a no-gear/naked version of 50 stats. Meanwhile, 50s, especially geared-out 50s, don’t have their own tier to play in, so it’s basically a tease to even offer PvP scenarios to the under-30 crowd, they just get mowed down and have few useful skills. Also you don’t choose what scenarios you queue for - you queue for everything, and the game randomly inserts you into one. Right now, there are only 3, but BW says there are extras waiting for release. They’re going to get really old, so they’d better release them in a hurry.
The environments are GORGEOUS. Many, many times I’ve stopped just to pan around and admire them, even after playing for a while or re-visiting an area. The game world is really lovely, and really captures the Star Wars feel. The music is also great, lots of it lifted from/modified from the movies or made by a John Williams clone. The music and environments together really make the game feel cinematic, like you’re playing the movies, which is very cool if you’re a SW fan.
Basically, the game is competent. It doesn’t do a single thing better than WoW except be based on Star Wars, so whether you prefer fantasy or sci-fi could determine which you think is better. It is very much a WoW clone and makes no real bones about it - the developers are on record saying that WoW is the best thing out there and anyone who doesn’t develop on that template isn’t very smart. But it’s not BETTER than WoW at anything except the cutscenes and voiceovers, which is a very subjective “better.”
I think a lot of people will play this for 3-4 months and drop it. It just doesn’t feel like it has staying power.
Feyrat, I haven’t experienced any of the crash issues you mention. I played for about eight hours yesterday and crashed only one time - pretty acceptable for a stress test like they’re doing now. My framerate and lag were also fine, although I did have to tweak my graphic settings. There is still a problem logging out (you have to Alt+F4) which is being worked on.
I’ve been completely soloing except to team up for one quest, so I can’t address the raid/party UI issues you’re complaining about. If they’re as bad as you say, that would be a problem I guess. But I think the questing has been way, way better than WoW. I like the dialogue and social aspect, as well as having interactive crew members (there’s a lot more to them than WoW hunter pets).
My only complaints so far is that I wish we had some non-humanoid races to play, since there are non-humanoid NPCs. I’ve only levelled a BH up to 11 so far and am now working on a Consular; we’ll see if the starting zone is as good. But so far I’m pretty impressed and way more engaged than I have been in WoW for a long time.
BTW I’m on Khoonda Militia server if anyone wants to look for me.
Thank you for the review; that was very helpful. I will only add that I remember a lot of those same complaints when WoW first came out; even I, a very easily entertained perma-noob left WoW after the first six months because they STILL hadn’t gotten any PVP up and going; I was BORED. Me. BORED. It’s hard for me to get bored enough in a game to quit, as usually I’ll just go find something else to do. But WoW developed over time, and I am sure…scratch that, hoping…that Bioware isn’t planning to either leave it as is, or gut it like SW:G.
So for those interested, I’d wager the first free month should scratch the itch, and then the game will be there in the background to pick up later, once it figures out in which direction it’s going.
I also find that the quests are different and a cut above WoW too. For example, in the Bounty Hunter starting area, a woman asks you to go rescue her son who has been kidnapped by his father. The woman wants the son to train as a Sith and the father has taken him away. When you find them, the father explains that he himself had attended the Sith academy and how failure there results in death and how he doesn’t want that for his son. So you have to decide; do you honor your agreement with the mother and bring the son back or do you let him go with the father? There are plenty of other quests that present decisions like this, which you don’t find (hardly) in a game like WoW.
I’m love, love LOVING the Sith Inquisitor! I haven’t taken anything above level 5 yet <lol> but this one is just so much damn fun; I might have to go Republic because I just can’t stop playing this toon.
Umm…I did mean Imperial, not Republic >.< Damnit, I’m used to Empire and Rebellion! <grumble>
So far I’ve done 10 levels as Bounty Hunter, 5 or 6 as Smuggler and 8 as Consular. I have to say BH is the most fun, followed by Smuggler. The Consular is kind of dull. I think not having a ranged attack is too annoying, although it’s fun to throw things at people using the Force.