Recently I’ve had the opportunity to play the beta for Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Since I’m a huge fan of the franchise, I was excited to see an MMO for it.  I’d never played Star Wars Galaxies, mainly because I never had the chance, but seeing its sordid history I’m glad I wasn’t tainted by it.  SWtOR (as I and some friends refer to it) is set 3,500 years before the films, and 300 years after the events of Knights of the Old Republic.  You choose between either Republic or Empire as far as factions go.  The Empire is the “evil” faction of course and the Republic the “good.”  The quotes will make sense in a minute.

It’s got the typical World of Warcraft MMO elements.  Get a quest, complete quest, collect reward.  PvP is present, but have yet to try it out.  There’re mounts, crafting and gathering skills, class trainers, quick travel, etc.  Pretty much all the staples for an MMO.  There’s a big difference though.  I mean a really huge difference.  There’s actually a STORY for your character, and more importantly you, to follow.

No, I’m not talking about some grand narrative about the galaxy, a war, or some mythical creature reshaping the landscape.  You see, each time you receive a quest, you’re treated to a mini cutscene, with conversation options for you.  The conversation tool will be very familiar to anyone who has played BioWare games.  The reason that this works, is because your character is actually voice acted.

Personally, I haven’t played an MMO where I get to hear my character speak.  And if I did, I wouldn’t expect to have multiple options of what to say.  The conversations play almost to the T like those of the Mass Effect series.  Choosing an option wont cause your character to say exactly what you picked, but that point comes across by your words.  You even get to choose how to complete some quests.  You might be tasked with interrogating a prisoner, do you let them live, or kill them?

Can I use this picture? Hope so!

This doesn’t mean every quest is important to your character.  There are typical fetch-and-retrieve, mob slaying, etc missions.  But these are also handled like your main story arc quests.  Why do them?  Well, besides the obvious experience, quest rewards, etc.  It helps you further your alignment with the Force (keep reading) and can help with how your companions view you (keep reading after that).

You also have more of a likelihood to get “commendations” for whichever faction your fighting with.  These operate much like in WoW and other MMOs, you can trade them in for various equipment, upgrade parts, etc.

At key moments (like the example above), what you say/cause your character to do affects your attunement with the Force!  Sure, you might be a Jedi, but you can still walk the path of the Dark Side.  It’ll be interesting to see how this affects gameplay.  Personally, I’m a true red Sith.  Dark Side all the way.  So far, your alignment with the Force only affects what gear can or cannot be worn, but apparently BioWare plans to utilize it more in the future.

Another way SWtOR is setting itself apart is its companion system.  So far I’ve only gained one companion (or crew member), but you can have multiple.  With only one following at your side, helping you in fights, at a time.  A neat spin on this simple NPC helper, is that they can actually go on missions for you.  I mentioned crafting/gathering was available right?  Well, instead of always having to go dig/mine/gather/find stuff on your own, your companion can do that for you!  Of course, each mission takes a certain amount of real time minutes and that increases with your level/difficulty.

These “gathering” missions provide you with materials to craft various objects.  By the way, your companion does the crafting too!  Even if your in the middle of a mission, you can tell whomever is available, to go climb around in a Sarlaccs stomach in hopes of finding some color crystals for your lightsaber.  I’ve gotten enough for a blue colored lightsaber.  Yep, as a Sith.  Companions can also like or dislike you.  This (so far) seems to be based upon what you say/do doing a conversation.

The crafting/gathering system, thus far, seems fairly straightforward.  Each piece of equipment can have slots to be upgraded.  A lightsaber has four separate components, while chest armor might have three different components.  This is somewhat similar to how WoW handles glyphs, enchantments, gems, etc.

It seems to be a rock-paper-scissors style of which gathering/crafting combos can build upgrades for various equipment.  Which is as it should be.  Since I, as a Force wielder, have no intrest in making blaster barrels.  You can only have one crafting ability, but it seems you are free to have either two gathering skills or mission types to use.  Or a combination of both.  The “missions” you can send your companions on are another form of gathering.

Of course, I’ve only advanced to level 11.  The cap is 50.  I still have mounts to experience, as well as personal starships!  Yes, at some point apparently, you can buy/earn your own starship.  There are even vendors selling upgrade parts for your ship.  What good is a ship?  Do I just fly from point A to point B?  Nope.  There’s actually space combat.  I have no idea what level I get to experience this at, but I’m quite excited for it.  From what I’ve heard on chat, there are even missions that send you into space.

A friend expressed concerns that this might just be an MMO that loses all steam after release.  Being revealed to be nothing terribly new (you know who you are).  While I can’t definitively say that this is really all that different from WoW, or anything else for that matter.  What I can say is this: You’re in the Star Wars universe, and get to be whatever kind of [insert character class here] you want to be.  You don’t have to be a peace loving Jedi, or even a cut-throat bounty hunter.  Heck, since a Sith is allowed to align to the Light Side, you could be the Empires version of Al Gore if you want.

This game has enough different content and features, that it’s not going to be a flop.  I feel safe in saying that.  It might not match WoWs user base, but I would expect that from a game that’s trying to be something even slightly refreshing in todays stagnant MMO genre.  Because if this does end up being a failure, we’re just going to have to hope Guild Wars 2 can be different enough to feel ungrindy.  And SWtOR definitely doesn’t feel grindy.