OH - THATS WHY...
We got our golden ticket into the early invite program on the 14th - some folks who pre-ordered and registered right-on-time got in a day earlier than us and it was agonizing! However we did finally get in and boy was it worth the wait!
My wife and I did not play the beta despite 5 total invites between us; I told Telkiney when I heard about SW:TOR and who was behind it (Bioware and EA-Mythic) that if it was not awesome that I was not going to play another MMO ever again. See Telkiney and I have a problem - we have only ever managed to really play 1 MMO together and that was Shadowbane. The rest of them have been plagued by bad games (Vanguard, Age of Conan), or Telkiney Discontent (WoW). Rift was the exception and we went back and played it a few different times but it just never had any real traction... I don't know if I can articulate why...
Anyways - SW:TOR is NOT bad - it is amazing - it is fun, engaging and epic in scale. The key deliverable in this game is engagement: every quest you want to do requires you to interact in a cinematic with an NPC who wants to tell you why they need your help. In every interaction you get to decide how you want to reply - Light or Dark or Neutral. You can turn quests down if you don't like the premise. Something we should have done this one time but that is for another post...
This has tremendous benefits and at least one measurable "drawback". The benefits are that you are engaged in what you are doing - and you have the opportunity to understand the impact of your actions.
The "drawback" is that in a common 6 hour play session you will find yourself engaged in dialogue for at least 45 minutes (Mabe more if you are grouping). Many players are going to reject this - and this will be their primary complaint.
More time talking: less time killing.
There is a game out there already that allows you to ignore what is happening around you and mindlessly do menial tasks that people ask you to do. Its called WoW - and Instant Quest Text is there waiting for you.
Spearking of WoW - I want to address the fears that this is a WoW clone. It is not. It is a game that acknowledges that the mechanics of WoW are familiar to 10
MILLION people; and as such some systems are going to feel derivative. Some players are going to think it is TOO familiar - but I personally think it is just right...
At some point I will slow down enough to blog about the initial experience of a Consular - for now though know this:
It is worth your money.
