The Old Republic - Republic or Empire?

[erilar]

How many of you guys are planning to play the Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO when it comes out this December?

I've been thinking about contacting the couple high school friends and one or two old WoW guild members to see what their plans are. But, my bigger goal will be to play with you guys.

So, in order to keep folks together, there's one major choice that we'd need to make - namely Republic or Empire side? Now, we can certainly do both further down the line, but just for starters, which are you most interested in?

Me, I plan to roll a female twi'lek Smuggler/Gunslinger, so that's an Alliance choice. If most of the group prefers Empire, I'll figure something else out no prob.

Note also that just because you pick Empire doesn't mean you have to be a mean jerk, etc. There can be Light Side Empire players, and Dark Side Republic players. Your roleplaying choices affect your standing on that sliding scale.

[EvilGenius]

I'm definitely planning on an Republic SuperLightSider Jedi for my first roll.

[Lars Porsenna]

I'm almost undoubtedly getting it. It is actually on my "christmas list" for some kind St. Nick to stuff under my tree. If it isn't out by then (pessimistic; it's pretty close to the "big day" and there is always the chance they might miss the date...). I'm going to just buy a copy. Plan right now is I'll either get that or Space Marine as a gift, and I'll just buy whatever I didn't get.

Damon.

[erilar]

Cool, Damon! Republic or Empire?

[Lars Porsenna]

No idea. Likely, I'll make multiple characters, to pllay through all the aspects. So whatever direction is taken, I'll have someone...

Damon.

[EvilGenius]

No idea. Likely, I'll make multiple characters, to pllay through all the aspects. So whatever direction is taken, I'll have someone...

Damon.

Yeah, we'll probably all do that. But do you object to making, say, Republic characters that we mostly play as a group?

[Lars Porsenna]

Yeah, we'll probably all do that. But do you object to making, say, Republic characters that we mostly play as a group?

That's fine. What I was trying to say is no matter what decision is made, I will likely have a character for it. Especially as I'm going to want to do at least one Jedi and one Sith...

Damon.

[Jonkga]

Hmm, so what do we think system requirements are going to be for this bad-boy? I'm not sure my rig is up for MMO goodness anymore...

As for side, I'm not sure I have a preference. You know I always lean towards the left, so the hippy Jedi are always a draw for me, although probably not to play a Jedi, but rather a soldier on that side (can I be a Gungan?). Although, being a light side leaning Sith soldier etc. might be an interesting playthrough...

[erilar]

I'm actually not sure about system requirements either, Jon. My iMac is no powerhouse. Just crossing my fingers that it won't be a slideshow.

There is a Republic Trooper type class that's a heavy armored ranged DPS kinda role (actually I think they can tank too). I have not seen word either way if Gungans were playable, but per canon the Gungans were not yet a known race in the ToR era. (Your SWSE character was an anomaly for that setting.)

[erilar]

My old WoW guild has already created a guild for TOR. It is Republic and PvE in the NE time zone. They have already created a Sith guild as well and set it up as an "adversary" guild to DoNA, so they should end up on the same server.

I sent my email address off to Kasarthic, and he's supposed to send me a guild invite. Once I have that figured out, I can get you guys invites too.

Some of them are playing the beta, which I don't really want to do. I'd like to check it out, but also don't want to be repeating quest/story content later, since any progress int he beta will likely get flushed when the game launches. Will probably wait until Bioware starts offering Early Access weekends.

[erilar]

Bob and Damon -

My guild has been assigned to the TOR server "Mind Trick". It is a PvE, East Coast server.

So Damon, tell your cousins to make their characters there - that should be a good home for all of us.

[erilar]

My early access started yesterday, and I played about a half hour. Rolled a female twi'lek smuggler named Kalli on the Mind Trick server.

I think I've finally found the class that will allow me to enjoy this game. While I haven't played a whole lot yet, I was really having fun last night.

Note: if you try playing and have graphics performance issues, do this: Enter the graphics preferences panel, and choose the High Quality global preset. Once you have done so and clicked "Accept", you can do further tweaking (I suggest turning down the Shadow quality). There appears to be some bug with the graphics settings. Even though mine defaulted to the "Low" quality preset, I was getting terrible framerates. In the beta, I was averaging 30-40 fps. Last night, I was getting only about 20 fps. Once I did this trick though, I'm actually playing on the High quality global setting at max resolution (except I turned shadow quality to Low). I may do a little more tweaking, but I'm currently running at a fairly consistent 30 fps.

Here are my system specs:
Core 2 Duo 3.1 Ghz
4 Gb of ram
NVidia 8800GS graphics card

Even though my setup is close to their minimum recommended specs, I'm actually running pretty smoothly with high quality settings. Hopefully that info will help those like Ken who were on the fence due to system specs. I'm guessing it would run great Bootcamped on your Macbook Pro, Ken.

[EvilGenius]

I got my early access invite last weekend but realistically I'm not going to get to play until at least after new years.

On the plus side, my new Dell Optiplex 990 with the i7 processor, 16GB of RAM and the 1GB video card will be fully operational by then.

[EvilGenius]

I am happy that you found something you like, Lance.

[erilar]

I am happy that you found something you like, Lance.

And, proven to not be a fluke. Played a good bit over the weekend and still having a great time. Not sure why I didn't like the other classes, but the Smuggler rocks. I am level 13 now, and specialized into the Gunslinger advanced class (dual-blaster-wielding pain dealer). Currently chasing after the treacherous jackass who stole my ship at the beginning of the game! I'm getting close though - he's in big trouble!