SWTOR Free Trial

[GovernorTarkin 0]

TOR Free trial starts the 15th, and ends the 19th, anyone gonna check it out?

TOR Trial

[Hassat Hunter 571]

Heck, if it's free, why not.

 

Though there goes the plan of doing work on TSLRCM xD

[Mandalore 61]

With all these free trials, it looks to me like they've seen that they can get even more people in with lower subscriptions, and just don't want to admit it (or, as HK-47 said, "that may be wishful thinking on my part").

 

I'd play it if my graphics card fitted the requirements for the game (I have 7600 GS, minimum is 7800).

[Hassat Hunter 571]

Every MMO has stuff like this... mostly 14-day free trials.

 

Aside from the duration, this trial is also fairly limited in content looking at the FAQ.

Oh well, we shall see...

[Hassat Hunter 571]

Damn, they need a lot of info before you can start your trial.

 

Oh well, downloading now. It's nice to actually get 2 mb/s. What download site ever gives those speeds these days 0_o.

Now just hope it's finished before the 9AM planned power outage...

[zbyl2 811]

Who else got e-mail invite for 7-days trial?

It should download by the time I get home... I'll probably play for a bit with the classes I didn't get to try back in the beta.

[Hassat Hunter 571]

Didn't make the DL before power got cut... fortunately it continues

 

With the big "1.2 coming soon!" while downloading I would figure they waited with the demo until it was released, showcase a better game for new people. Oh well, BioWare PR is a weird bunch...

[Hassat Hunter 571]

Well, I've only just started (lvl 4 Sith Soldier), but... the gameplay SUCKS.

If it wasn't storydriven, or Star Wars I would already give up... but I suppose I give it some more time due to that.

 

Really no replacement of KOTOR3 though :/

[GovernorTarkin 0]

i can't wait to dive into the story, could care less about gameplay as long as its functional. I'm jealous of you guys with fast internet. I get like 180kbs or something like that. I started it at midnight yesterday, only half done i may get to play by saturday morning

[JediExile 0]

I'm in the middle of downloading it. I played during the beta, mostly because I knew I wasn't going to buy the game or play.

 

More free playing time though, so why not?

[hkmandalore47 3]

im trying the TOR free trial as a republic trooper. its kinda cool how on ord mantell i hear the music from peragus (yay nostalgia). anyway, what kinda annoys me is how when i click, it wont attack. i rmbr in SWG how if you repeatedly clicked on the enemy, you would attack or you could just set yourself on autoattack, but here it seems like most of my attacks just come from my abilities. am i missing something?

[GovernorTarkin 0]

So after a few hours of TOR I've decided i won't be playing it any more, nor will i ever play it again. I discovered i really hate mmo combat(first mmo i played). The Story elements were nice, but the time in between just bored me out of my mind.

[Hassat Hunter 571]

its kinda cool how on ord mantell i hear the music from peragus (yay nostalgia).

The music of the KOTORs is used all over the place. So far best use I remember was the Manaan underwater music in a desolate tomb.

Could be just me, but KOTOR2's music is used WAAAAAY more than KOTOR1 music. Haven´t heard too much new tracks, or if I did, they didn´t catch my attention. Could instantly recognise when hearing KOTOR or KOTOR2 music though (still love it both too).

anyway, what kinda annoys me is how when i click, it wont attack.

What button do you use? Right mouse does that for me. Though with many abilities, it's rather useless to use the standard attack much. Well, for me as Sith Maurauder it gives rage, so it's good for that. Maybe right mouse just triggers slot 1 though, never removed the standard attack from said slot.

 

No auto-attack. Also using abilities on cooldown uses them as soon as they become available. Still with many with individual timers, bars running for global cooling, aiming problems, lag issues ("the target you try to kill is already dead, disregard his 50% HP bar) the combat is as clunky as it can ever be. I generally resolt to pure massive chaos. Works well for single play, less with heroics or flashpoints .

(bigger review coming soonish, as in... probably 20 min if I keep my motivation to make one )

[Hassat Hunter 571]

Well, here's my impression. Know I went in it hating MMO's (still do), rather wanting KOTOR3 and with a great dislike of what they did with Revan and the Exile (or the entire KOTOR2 for that part. Seems they didn't mind stealing the OST though). So yeah, went in the demo pretty negative. The end result did positively suprise me. Enough that I would be willing to shell 50 bucks for it. Not enough to pay a subscription at 12 euro a month. So end result; No TOR for me. Large impression from a roleplaying MMO-Noob and the difficulties in getting into one now follows. Warning; Spoilers aplenty for the Sith Warrior storyline.

 

Sith Warrior. After getting an (IMO) cool skin the game started. Of course obviously first check the options (especially I wanted subtitles). So many stuff there. Don't even know what half does. With subtitles on the adventure could begin.

 

So first murdered some enemies. Easy enough. Wandered around a bit, looting, some minor questing. The respawning enemies already quickly annoyed me. Especially when on the second level of the first tomb I recovered something, then had to walk all the way back. Decided to just ignore enemies, got stunlocked, first dead. I got a bonus mission to kill bugs, but hey, could do at the entrance, right?

 

WRONG. I had to do that specifically on the second level... *sigh*. Afterwards had to run back again... What made it worse was later learning there was an exit to the academy if I just continued. Only dungeon I encountered in the entire demo who has 2 entrances though.

 

I wasn't all that fond of the combat system, and not really in the mood to really have dozens of skills to pick (which I do now), so I stuck to just basic attack and vicious slash. Worked fine for the first 5 levels or so. Later did invest in them, and if you can properly handle them that wouldn't be that bad.

 

Problem is (now having 2 bars enabled at lvl 15), it usually really isn't. The full bar got confusing, and now I have one bar dedicated to attacks and 1 to buffs. Still rather hard to properly do combat though. Firstly you have to handle the camera, which can be a pain. Second once a target is dead, you have to manually select the next. Which, with the amount of "enemies standing dead" seen isn't as easy as it sounds. Not to mention said camera can make selecting an enemy somewhat annoying too, especially in combat heavy instances. Third is distance. KOTOR you would just walk up to the enemy and whack him, here it's a red message easy to miss in the hectic fray. Walking up to enemies is also not as easy as I wish it to be, wish I could strafe without holding the scroll button, amongst other such tweaks.

 

It's the same with peacetime situations, I don't understand why the "too far away" message appears instead of just walking up to that person to talk. Far more userfriendly IMO, and personally it would really make my life easier, especially shopping, not have to walk into their face but just click and sit back to shop. Maybe just a nitpick on my side though, but it really annoys me.

 

Anyway, wasn't done yet with explaining why combat, to me, was clunky. 4; I am already starting to get sick of the message "Your target is dead." I suppose this is a lag issue, but it's really annoying the many times I finally select an oponent just to have that message appear, while I see them as like 50% health. Really tears you away in confusion just when you get on a roll using abilities and attacks.

 

And 5, which is probably me not being a MMO player, but those timer thingies are really hard to follow. You have to watch the oposition, HP, rage AND the timers. Global, individual, unique... aargh. Doesn't help it seems global and individual use the same run-down thing on the UI. I find I spend most my time watching my bar rather than the screen just seeing my rage level, which rage ability is available again, wheter revenge is available (that one is soooo annoying. And it's the most powerful attack one has so you can't really ignore it). Many a "not enough rage" appeared on the screen that I just miss. Heck, during one Heroic my entire team died, and I didn't notice since I was too busy looking at what to use on the boss.

 

Overall, the combat is not as fun to me as KOTOR. Luckily the overall difficulty isn't too high for regular gameplay so it's not really needed to become a pro in "watching the ability meter"... I can rage through the general game, and then get slaughtered all the time in Heroics. Always the one to go down first . Doesn't help I haven't really find a good way to bind medpacks to the quickbar. Right click doesn't work, and left usually puts the thing on my mouse instead of using a medpack. And then they heal barely and have 90 sec recharge. I stopped bothering with them long ago (maybe why I suck so much). Also during my first instances and actual Heroic (lvl 10/11, Sith Maurader) I noticed my obvious proneness to dying, and seemingly doing a lot less damage than all the other chars. Which I tied to being new to MMO, but at lvl 13 I finally found out the Sith Warrior skill trainer had this little "Sith Maurader" tab added, which had all kinds of cool new skills (shield of pain, 6 rage inducing standard attack with small recharge). After that Elites started dying to me rather than I to them. Overall, game's not really that new user friendly I think.

 

Also completely social unfriendly. Heroic's is hell (more so for demo users, which cannot use chat or whisper unless whispered to. Which *never* happens). I usually tried bowing and waving and stuff, still after all the time they finally ask me the first comment is usually "Wasn't sure you wanted to join, Hassat". Doesn't help that 'Join team' automatically rejects with 'does not accept invitations' rather than, I don't know, asking the party leader if they want that person in their group. Would be a small step towards more instance friendlyness, still a long way to go still after that though.

 

Also probably my newness that Heroics can just be confusing. Did one called "Saving face". Why did everyone need explosives? Do we need to place them all (backup arrives after 1 does, so, no? I didn't). Why could I just respawn at checkpoint, not by meddroid when I died? Why did my entire team finish it, disbanded the group and I was still left at 'defend from slaves' goal? Especially that last one sucked.

 

Back to Korriban though.

 

During my next few sidemissions I quickly learned that something really weird was going on with the DS/LS choices. As in, the LS was pretty much always the best. Though, being Sith, you would be punished for doing so. So instead of being smart, being an idiot was really promoted. Make a dangerous beast threatning all stronger or less? Less? LS! Ending a war quickly, so the sith resources can be used wisely or continue it on for mere pleasure? Being wise? LS! Kill a dangerous opponent you're after and end something once and for all, or rather kill his family, pissing him off further? End it? LS!

 

And so we could continue on. I usually picked DS just for getting DS points (and not all DS is gained in LS/DS choices, though rarely are there LS gained seperately), though I did not in several cases just because while my Sith Maurader is bloodthirsty, I atleast would make it so he's not a complete idiot.

 

During the later missions you did have to walk all the way back usually after doing something, which is a pain. Often I would just let myself die to respawn in base, skipping all the useless combat. You overleved fast doing just quests anyway, so having to do so much battle while just walking about gets pretty tiresome.

 

Then the story there ended, and I got to something Kaas. Can't remember the name. But first massive freaking wasted space ship. What's up with those docking bays? Also after finally warming up so to TOR it launches me to such a MMO-point. I hate the place. So many people loitering, so much walking, so many vendors spread out so far.

 

First went to the crew training. Since this is the demo, and no ship and I had no crew (just Mission Vao) I decided to skip them, just initiating convo with trainer for Codex entries (read: XP). Then came to the vendor stand.

 

Lvl 50 PVP gear, lvl 50 PVP gear, lvl 50 PVP gear, lvl 50 PVE gear, lvl 50 PVE gear, lvl 50 PVE gear, recommendation gear (by then I had a whooping 7 Korriban's, not enough for even 1 item), recommendation. Ugh. Thought to get some good stuff, only to find that it's pretty much all based on endgame players. All I got was a 200 credit necklace to grant to Mission, everything else was locked up tight with restrictions I couldn't meet.

 

Haven't even *tried* trading... can't recall right now what the 4th tab was about. In the end; I REALLY hate that place. Couldn't get rid of it fast enough. Fortunately ran into the Black Talon though, that was a fun romp with 3 people (did it twice to see differences, barely any. Also to train social. *That* little for 2 full runs? Forget it! And then later people in chat say it's the best place to get social points. Yikes!) even though as mentioned I suck. What was even more stupid was that if I died I got booted (long loading screen), then had to re-enter (yay, long loading screen). Can't I respawn inside there? After all all the running back to where you die is enough even without those ridicilous long loading screens.

 

Now to finish my story (did you get this far? You're crazy you know!), although I probably forgot a point or 3 I did want to make in this humongous post, teammates. Well, teammate. Mission. Good to have around, although it's somewhat strange you get a pure goody two-shoes as apprentice when Sith (she always gives - when I am being dark. -1 though compared to +15 though, so hardly that much a loss. Only twice had another negative, -30. That cut in...) She seems ridicilously stronger than me, killing peeps faster than I can do myself. And is a greater tank. Why the heck am I the hero here? The downside is the lack of conversations. Only had 1 so far (lvl 15 as mentioned before). I would have liked some more talking with them. And less repeatal battle lines. I heard her repetoire of "end of combat" lines too much *already*. Wonder how bad it would be if you got lvl 50. They really need to tone that down. Another thing that's really needed is comparing windows for your teammate (would 1.2 add this? Or did I imagine people saying that?). Equipping myself is easy (although I also made the mistake of selling my mod armor since it's boosts sucked). Even without the comparrison in the end, just having them next to each other is a great help. For Mission though I have to go back and forth between her item's popup and the one in the inventory. Annoying. Even more so when it's a quest reward (or worse, a loot option during teamgame), so you can't open your inventory to compare. More than once took an alternative reward just due to that. Should be a simple fix/addition, don't you think?

 

Oh, remembered one, still somewhat unsure on need/greed/X on a reward when with the team. First I just thought it was need or greed (get item, sell item?) till someone complained in my first flashpoint why I didn't pass up item X. So I learned you could X out if you don't want it. Which I do most of the times now (though I notice most people don't do this and just go for need of greed. Wheter just due to greed or not knowing like I, I don't know). Not exactly sure what greed does either. You all the money? Split in the team?

 

Anyway, since I hit level 15, and am somewhat tired of going on with my Sith Maurader as is, I probably when starting again tomorrow will choose a new Republic class. I do enjoy it enough to keep playing till the free demo's done, but as mentioned, not enough to pay a subscription. I probably would barely play, also seeing my huge backlog of Steam/GOG games (thanks x-mas sale), and of course work on TSLRCM. A SP game one could play on there own time, but with this MMORPG time is money, which would not really support my laidback approach to RPG's (I do notice I explore a lot less in TOR than most RPG's. And not just because most maps are filled with needless filler (rooms) and there is nothing interesting to discover going "off-path"... which is kind of a shame too really.

[Hassat Hunter 571]

Well, the demo is over, so here are my Jedi Consular thoughts (I try to make it smaller than last post ) and that's it until another free weekend (though apparently one cannot use the same account then) or plain purely f2p. He made it to lvl 11 (never reached Coruscant though).

 

So far the story doesn't grasp me as much as the Sith Warrior's did. Walking around Tython is more fun exploring than Korriban though mostly. Another con is how long it takes for your teammate (I was level 10, but then again... well... read later), and I don't really like him. Mostly because of his alien VO. Mission is much better in that regard, although harder to influence since she's an LS char for a DS PC. This companion at least has your alignment (though bit more bloodthirsty and war-ready). And the overly repetitive combat banter can be more easily ignored since it's just a grunt instead of "better check for my parts" all the damn time!

 

This time I was made aware (through chat and browsing forums a bit) that there were apparently holocrons in the world which give permanent boosts. While my Sith Marauder found none, my Sith Consular found 4 (and there are only 3 on the starter planet and I never made Coruscant... I let you ponder on that for a while...). Although I did recover a "shard" in one instead of a permanent boost, not sure what to do with that since I wanted to find out tomorrow just to learn my trial ended.

 

That might make exploring a bit worthwhile, though still treading off the main path is mostly useless. Explored several islands on the border of the map, nothing special there, etc. Also the exploration still really gets hindered by those damn re-spawning enemies. And of course doing exploration like this makes you hugely over-leveled due to more enemies killed. Although that was not just due to the many enemies.

 

Also interesting that Tython just had 1 Heroic quest compared to Korriban's 2. I actually was able to find a team now (experience!) compared to Korriban. Although that was purely waiting about...

 

About level 8 I suddenly took the shuttle. Didn't expect I could, and ended up on Ord Mantell. Damn, is that planet ugly. Crashed ships have such low-res textures, most of the enemies have blocks instead of rounds for head. So glad I didn't start there. Aimlessly wandered about though, since there's nothing to do there for Jedi. Got quite some puzzled people wondering what a level 8 Jedi did there . It is kind of an immersion breaker too when pretty much all NPC's have plain "not eligable for this conversation" errors instead of a stop line. Some do... wonder why the others can't. Also noticed one or two on Korriban and Tython and wondered the same there. If so many others have a single VO line why not them? Feels sloppy. I can understand for another planet, still... I don't like it.

 

The holocron on Ord Mantell were a lot easier to find than the other 2 planets. One was aim though, not that much use to a Jedi like me. Other was presence, which is always nice to have.

 

Also noticed there were a lot more "strong" enemies in the main path than in my Jedi starter planets. All the loot was heavy armor though (useless). Noticed on Tython most drops where medium armor too. Also useless. So finding anything new was extremely rare, compared to my Sith Warrior. Medium is so much more common than light and heavy. Little unbalanced if you ask me.

 

Of course finding all these new locations gave XP, killing all these new foes gave XP which made me over-level over every other consular pretty fast.

 

Still the battle with the great beast was tough. Died cause I refused to use healing items, with it just a sliver left. Fully healed then. Though I did notice that the first match it kept spamming attacks that pushed me away, which harmed my ability to harm it. Second time after the revive, not a single cast. Which made the fight a lot easier, a simple breeze. Didn't even needed to use the healing item I put in my quickbar as I had 50%+ over when it died. Think that's a bug though... bit of an exploit.

 

Anyway, now that it's over... back to TSLRCM it is .

And here's some screens of my peeps as they were (little old, as the consular is 11 now, with different gear, but can't get a new screen anymore)...

 

EDIT:

 

Heh, just got a mail from BioWare congratulating me on getting lvl 10. It's a day late, the trial is over... and I never gotten that for the Sith Warrior...

So... what? If it's an incentive mail to get me to keep playing with a subscription it's a pretty weird one at that...

[Sith Holocron 2,478]

This time I was made aware (through chat and browsing forums a bit) that there were apparently holocrons in the world which give permanent boosts. While my Sith Marauder found none, my Sith Consular found 4 (and there are only 3 on the starter planet and I never made Coruscant... I let you ponder on that for a while...)

You mean datacrons, not holocrons. Datacrons only provide permanent skill boosts or matrix shards. My ilk - on the other hand - contain wondrous teachings and the ability to annoy modders. Ask Darth Bane for confirmation of the former - and TSLRCM team members for confirmation of the latter. (Ha ha)

 

Although I did recover a "shard" in one instead of a permanent boost, not sure what to do with that since I wanted to find out tomorrow just to learn my trial ended.

If you collect enough of these shards from the datacrons, you can assemble them into Matrix Cubes using the the Matrix Cube Assembler (or MCA for the rest of this reply.) You can find the Jedi MCA in the Jedi Temple Ruins on Coruscant. I haven't played the Empire side yet but supposedly the Sith MCA is located south of the temple on Dromund Kaas. Matrix Cubes - depending on the color combinations from great status increases and are equipped in the Relic portion on your inventory.

 

For more information of cube "recipes", I'd suggest consulting this thread. TORHead's Matrix Cube Page

[hkmandalore47 3]

hmmm its 3/20. i wonder why the trial is still working?

[Mandalore 61]

They extended it for a few more days.

[Boilpoint 12]

They extended it for a few more days.

 

Shhh, you're delaying mods.

[Hassat Hunter 571]

What the heck... my account is locked out :?

(it did download a patch though just now, but still gives "account inactive")

 

Maybe a different trial???

[HK-47 84]

Statement: If the trial has ended then yes. You can still download the patches, but that's it. Unless you buy the game and sub, you can't play. And with it already downloaded, you won't have to install it. Because it already is.

 

Irritated Statement: A lot of people are going on about how it's a dying game and they're loosing subscribers. That's just pure Sith Spit. They have lost some subscribers, but that's because those people are haters or ignorant. The game isn't what they wanted it to be at release, but they've been working on a ton of things. Unfortunately someone higher up said, "Time to release." and they did. 1.2 will put in what was supposed to be there in the first place.

 

Pleased Statement: I'm glad you enjoyed it HH. I've enjoyed it so far. I've got all the Republic classes and only an Inquisitor (all but 2 are unfinished) and so I didn't read your spoiler about the Warrior.

 

Agreement: I will have to agree about the long walks, especially on Dromund Kaas and Coruscant. When you hit level 14 you get sprint, and at 25 you can get a speeder license and buy your own speeder. You move soooo much faster with the speeder. And apparently 1.2 will take care of the long walks to an extent.

 

Query: Would I be correct in assuming you didn't get to the Taral V/Malestrom Flash Point?

[DragonEmperor 0]

You know, I used to browse these forums all the time, but, due to inactivity, my account was removed. Coming back,I'm glad you enjoyed the game HH. I have three level 30+ empire characters and I can confirm the distances are a pain in the butt. If you make a lot of alts, you just get used to knowing what level you get sprint at and saving up for the very expensive speeder + the training to pilot it.

 

It's good to see that not all the speculated opinions earlier can be changed. I remember all of the speculation before the game came out and reading your posts confirmed my thoughts that the game wasn't bad after all. It may have it's flaws and the combat may be a bit boring at times, imo, but the story elements keep me interested. I hope that the other long-standing users on this site post their opinions, if they try it. It would be interesting to read them.

[darthbdaman 71]

I was in the beta and got to lvl 20 with a Sentinel. I did not end up buying the game because I absolutely hated the lack of auto-attack. It is integral if your combat system does not mirror DDO's, to have auto attack. The combat ends up feeling like a cheap version of WOW's that was trying to emulate DDO but failed on all accounts.

[Sith Holocron 2,478]

I have 24 free trials available due to some new promotion they're having on TOR. If you want one, PM me your name and your e-mail address and I'll get you set up.

 

This is a limited time offer. Once the 24 slots are filled, I'll be blanking out this offer here.

[Kaidon Jorn 195]

Man! I love this game! Absolutely addicted.

 

Have a lvl 50 sage, a 42nd Sorceror, a 29th Guardian, and started a Marauder the other day and have him at 15th now, parked him on Dromund Kaas.

 

I think the combat is pretty fun actually, and if I can do it anyone can.

 

I find it funny that ppl cant seem to walk 15 ft without getting on their speeders. i mean seriously..to go from a shuttle to a door thats 40 feet away, they have to jump on thier mounts. If walking (or sprinting) is that bad, you are ridiculously impatient.

BTW, you have to click auto-attack on in prefrences.