Here is an interesting link to 1 hour and 30 minutes of gameplay in Star Wars: The Old Republic. The player procrastinates a bit here and there, but it’s still worth checking out if you have any interest in this upcoming MMORPG.
I actually didn’t want to post it at first (the name of the page is “Don’t Say a Word!”) but since then I’ve seen it pop up in forums and other blogs, so I guess the rabbit is out of the cage anyway. I wonder how long it will take before it is “foxed” by BioWare? UPDATE: Not long. The video is already gone.
Back when I first saw the link in a forum I actually watched most of it and wrote down a few notes:
- Generally there are many conventional MMORPG clichés. A bit worrying.
- Nice UI layout with health, pets, buffs and more all in the bottom, close together. Makes it fast to see the important stuff in battle.
- The chat window in the top left corner is a little strange, however. But maybe I just need to get used to it.
- Very odd “blue soap bubble” map. It even goes partly transparent when you run while it’s still open – I wonder if they were inspired by Rift there?
- Combat seems a little boring to be honest. Same old. And of course no blood.
- Tooltips are very WoW/LOTRO-style – even has bonus sets too. But there’s a nice delayed “slide-out” comparison with gear tooltips.
- Some textures are too WoW-style for my taste (i.e. cartoonish), especially inside caves.
- The KOTOR-style voice NPC talk and choices are pretty cool. Nice lip sync and voice acting. Also a nice touch with the good or bad choices in debates showing a cyan or red tint on the screen afterwards.
- Some humans have long faces. I don’t have a problem with that, actually – the models still look good. It’s those textures on the cave walls I’m worried about.
- Action icon GCD cyan refresh is too interfering – can’t see icons well enough.
- Groups of 2-3 mobs seems to be quite common?
- Many mobs stand still (LOTRO-style). Good. I’ve had enough of excessive patrolling like in Rift for a while.
- Not a lot of background music – often silent. Perhaps this will change in the final version?
- Almost devoid of loading bars. Interesting.
- Taxa on small speeders.
- Large inventory – 48 slots! I hope that makes it to the final version.
- I saw the player enter a big building that had its entrance obscured by a wall you had to run around. It’s 2011 and we still need this trick in 3D engines?