Thanks to some really fantastic friends, I started playing The Old Republic last week! After a lot of debating, I created a Chiss Bounty Hunter with the intent of becoming a Powertech so I can tank. gem created a Cyborg Imperial Agent so she could become an Operative and heal. We might reroll later before deciding on what to keep, but I’ve really enjoyed the game so far.

We were totally hanging out with Nem’ro the Hutt here! I really like how gem’s character turned out. Of course, I had to be Chiss. Thrawn is the biggest hero of the Star Wars universe, right? I love him.

TOR is very similar to WoW so far. I know there are a ton of differences, but if you know how to play WoW, you can start playing TOR easily. There were a few differences I noticed right away. First, the story is more engaging. All dialogue is voice-acted, and it really does add a lot. When you log into the game, it gives you a story summary of what’s happening. That’s fantastic. There are zones in WoW that I don’t even remember. What did we do in classic Thousand Needles? No idea! Of course, the next thing I noticed was AOE looting. Fantastic.

gem and I really know how to rock out. Chiss love to dance, you know.

We made sure to do every mission we came across. One proved too hard; we had to “release” (or whatever TOR calls it) and respawn somewhere else. We came back later to do it though.

I don’t really understand how dying works yet. I can let gem rez me, or I can just click rez myself. What’s the difference? I get the rest, I think. The more often I die, the longer my rez timer. If I don’t want to wait, I can respawn at a medic. Someone please tell me what the difference between rez’ing myself and getting rez’d is.

Look, companions! I was hoping for Nem’ro’s accounting chick. She totally led me on! At first it seemed like she was into me, but then she kept saying “I’m a bit busy here, hun,” or something like that. Condescending little…

Also, I was rooting for a different person to be gem’s companion. Alas, Karrels Javis was not her companion.

The companion system is interesting. I’m not sure how much micromanaging I’m supposed to be doing in battle. So far, I let her do her own thing for the most part. I guess it’s cool for now that she’s a healer and that gem’s is a tank, but we should have that covered after we pick our advanced classes.

Nate came to hang out with us on Hutta! Kristine did as well, but I forgot to take a screenshot. She also crashed my computer (coincidence? Nah), so please excuse my lack of screenshot. Plus, Nate looks sweeter. Super sweet, really.

I really like the way TOR does phasing. In WoW, you enter a phase unexpectedly. I could be walking along with another character and suddenly enter a phase. On top of that, the two of us might be in different phases. In TOR, phases are clearly marked. Areas have what appear to be forcefields blocking them to denote their phasing.

Also, your party can come with you when you enter a phase. Because of this, maybe it’s better to think of them as the equivalent of instances in WoW – at least with respects to the instance portal and the way they work. These phases are clearly not dungeons. Also, I don’t know if phases change over time. I particularly like the phasing in the Molten Front of WoW. It’s public, and everyone can hang out together, but it looks different to different people.

I also liked that certain quest areas were phased and marked as heroic. Heroic areas in TOR are harder than surrounding areas, I guess you could say. Unlike in WoW, they’re not harder versions of a non-heroic version. A heroic area in TOR doesn’t have a corresponding non-heroic version. These places can also be done alone or with a party. I think it’s a pretty cool touch. I suppose it also means no one else, other than your party, can interfere because they can’t enter your phase. I hadn’t really thought about that previously.

Eventually we made it off Hutta! I impressed Nem’ro the Hutt, killed the other bounty hunter, and became sponsored in the Great Hunt! gem manipulated events to cause Nem’ro the Hutt to align himself with Empire! Off to new adventures soon!