Early impressions of new shinies
Jan. 3rd, 2012 10:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysobelSo I got two new games for christmas - sw:tor and skyrim - and thought I'd braindump a bit about what I think so far.
#
SW:TOR is not, as one might think, WoW with lightsabers. It's WoW with lightsabers and Bioware's dialogue wheel.
...okay, a bit more seriously:
I like having the dialogue options, although for the most part they don't really change what happens; some options will give you "light side" points, and some will give you "dark side" points, and NPC companions that you get will like you better for different things. (Though sometimes the dark side / light side thing seems a bit arbitrary. One of the early quests I hit goes something like this: Army dude says "Our medicine got stolen and people are going to die. Go get the medicine back." You go to the probable thief, who - after a heart-rending scene where, apparently, some kid has a mild headache? - says to bring it back to her instead. You are given the option of which person to return to. Going back to the trooper? Dark side. Giving it to the thief administering to whiny children? Light side. Yeah, idek.)
Okay, backing up a bit. Character creation. You choose a side,Horde or Alliance Republic or Sith Empire, and then classes. There are four classes per side, but they share similarities, and two of them (Alliance smuggler and Horde bounty hunter) are identical. Then you choose a race, which is slightly dependent on class, and then a gender, and then the customization options. Which are, for the most part, decent, although the body types are a) limited and b) the same for all races. I kind of miss Guild Wars' creation interface though.
The combat system is fairly straightforward - and some of the classes have an option to 'take cover', i.e. hide behind an object so there is a reduction in personal damage - but there is a distressing lack of auto-attack. Even when you are actively in combat, you have to keep pressing skill buttons (or, okay, mouse buttons work too) to keep fighting.
PvP options are ... meh. Things what I do not care about. There are group quests (labelled as 'heroic'), and there are flashpoints (the equivalent of dungeons I think, though I have not done any), and there are battleground type things, but I seriously do not care about PvP.
It is somewhat interesting as a solo game, but I don't know if it will be something I obsess over.
(My current characters are all on Wall of Light, ftr.)
#
Skyrim, otoh... I had to describe it to my mom as "WoW without other players", because she was asking what it was like, but wow is it different.
For starters, it is ... there is not really any linear quest progression. There are no people with giant glowing ! marks over their head indicating who has a quest (there are markers for approximately where to go for quests that you do have, but that's different), there is no real "beginner area", there is no sense of "now it is time to move to $otherplace". It's more of a wander around and discover things sort of game.
My first attempt at a playthrough was kind of ... dismal, mainly because the audio accessibility is ... er, dismal. There is an option for subtitles, but you can't access that option until you're out of the opening mostly-cinematic; I had my system volume turned up but I could barely hear the dialogue, and certainly couldn't tell who was speaking; and I don't have a lot of experience with TES lore so I didn't really have any grasp of what was going on.
Ditched that character and started a new one, with subtitles this time, and it's going better.
The customization is a little odd; you can change the amount and color of dirt on your character's face, the width and depth of cheekbones, etc. A little too finicky for me, plus the faces I've created (all two of them) all have something vaguely Off and I can't tell if it's inherent in the Skyrim character design or if I'm just making choices that I turn out not to like.
The world is completely and utterly gorgeous, however. I spend half my time just wandering around going "ooooh purty". :D
In conclusion, it's not perfect but I like it. And as a bonus, no PvP! \o/
#
SW:TOR is not, as one might think, WoW with lightsabers. It's WoW with lightsabers and Bioware's dialogue wheel.
...okay, a bit more seriously:
I like having the dialogue options, although for the most part they don't really change what happens; some options will give you "light side" points, and some will give you "dark side" points, and NPC companions that you get will like you better for different things. (Though sometimes the dark side / light side thing seems a bit arbitrary. One of the early quests I hit goes something like this: Army dude says "Our medicine got stolen and people are going to die. Go get the medicine back." You go to the probable thief, who - after a heart-rending scene where, apparently, some kid has a mild headache? - says to bring it back to her instead. You are given the option of which person to return to. Going back to the trooper? Dark side. Giving it to the thief administering to whiny children? Light side. Yeah, idek.)
Okay, backing up a bit. Character creation. You choose a side,
The combat system is fairly straightforward - and some of the classes have an option to 'take cover', i.e. hide behind an object so there is a reduction in personal damage - but there is a distressing lack of auto-attack. Even when you are actively in combat, you have to keep pressing skill buttons (or, okay, mouse buttons work too) to keep fighting.
PvP options are ... meh. Things what I do not care about. There are group quests (labelled as 'heroic'), and there are flashpoints (the equivalent of dungeons I think, though I have not done any), and there are battleground type things, but I seriously do not care about PvP.
It is somewhat interesting as a solo game, but I don't know if it will be something I obsess over.
(My current characters are all on Wall of Light, ftr.)
#
Skyrim, otoh... I had to describe it to my mom as "WoW without other players", because she was asking what it was like, but wow is it different.
For starters, it is ... there is not really any linear quest progression. There are no people with giant glowing ! marks over their head indicating who has a quest (there are markers for approximately where to go for quests that you do have, but that's different), there is no real "beginner area", there is no sense of "now it is time to move to $otherplace". It's more of a wander around and discover things sort of game.
My first attempt at a playthrough was kind of ... dismal, mainly because the audio accessibility is ... er, dismal. There is an option for subtitles, but you can't access that option until you're out of the opening mostly-cinematic; I had my system volume turned up but I could barely hear the dialogue, and certainly couldn't tell who was speaking; and I don't have a lot of experience with TES lore so I didn't really have any grasp of what was going on.
Ditched that character and started a new one, with subtitles this time, and it's going better.
The customization is a little odd; you can change the amount and color of dirt on your character's face, the width and depth of cheekbones, etc. A little too finicky for me, plus the faces I've created (all two of them) all have something vaguely Off and I can't tell if it's inherent in the Skyrim character design or if I'm just making choices that I turn out not to like.
The world is completely and utterly gorgeous, however. I spend half my time just wandering around going "ooooh purty". :D
In conclusion, it's not perfect but I like it. And as a bonus, no PvP! \o/
no subject
Date: 2012-01-04 02:36 pm (UTC)But the world, seriously. As we play I keep saying "I want to move to Skyrim."