Star Wars The Old Republic Review

Is it Worth Playing Star Wars The Old Republic?

Star Wars Universe – Story Centered MMORPG

Star Wars The Old Republic or known as SWTOR is a Star Wars Themed Free 2 Play MMORPG that is focused on Story on the user’s perspective.

While it has both PVE and PVP elements, but the story is where this game shines. It easily lets Star Wars fans explore the “Old Republic” before the Sith’s Rule of Two, before the Fallen Order, before the Rise of the Galactic Emperor.

While visually, the game did not age well at all, with it’s clunky combat system, it is still much-loved by fans all across the world. Having an average of 5,700 players during this month of May from the Steam Client alone.

As this is a MMORPG, you are able to find, party up and do instances with other players. So, what does Fayie think, is the game really worth playing in 2021?

Is Star Wars The Old Republic Still Good?

Publisher

BioWare is the developer while Electronic Arts is the publisher of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Electronic Arts Games or EA Games is known to be a greedy company that is solely focused on profit while neglecting the community and customers. This can be seen in game with microtransaction for everything, from the classes to customizations to storylines are all locked under their own individual DLC. In 2019, EA was voted as the 5th most hated company in United States. While isn’t totally related to SWTOR, it’s still it’s publisher which means, anything can happen to this title during the crossfire.

Combat

The combat is tab target, and just because it was a tab target game doesn’t make it bad. World of Warcraft is tab target yet nailed it with it’s combat. Star Wars The Old Republic’s issue is because the controls and combat itself is very awkward and clunky. It does not feel smooth and feels more of a early 2005 game. To be honest, even World of Warcraft Vanilla (not classic) had a better tab target combat system. Despite having a huge company such as EA backing them, they are still refusing to upgrade it’s system nor graphics which is very unsettling.

Storyline

Even in 2021, Star Wars The Old Republic is the only source for any die-hard Star Wars Fan to see the world in the view of the Sith. All of the movies to date has always skewed the view to the side of the Jedi, side of the republic, side of the resistance. It has never explored nor fully immerse the fans into the world of the Sith, the empire. This itself should be a reason for any real Star Wars fans to play SWTOR.

There are also many lore for Star Wars fans to enjoy, some includes the Imperial Agent spy or Darth Revan. Although, majority of these storylines are locked behind a subscription or DLC.

Customization

Character Customization

While the sliders and UI may be a little outdated, the game has a huge collection of cosmetics both free and paid for the player to customize upon. The cosmetics isn’t just limited to the old republic storylines, you are able to dress up like Rylo Ken in the Star Wars 7, 8 and 9 movies, or go back in time and dress up as an ancient Sage Master. The choice is yours.

Races

There are a total of twelve playable races in Star Wars The Old Republic. This is categorized into 9 free base races and 3 paid Cartel Market races. Cartel Market races cost 600 cartel coins which is roughly $10.00 AUD.

Class

There are a total of 8 Playable classes for the community.

Playable class by species

	Jedi Consular	Jedi Knight	Smuggler	Trooper	Bounty Hunter	Imperial Agent	Sith Inquisitor	Sith Warrior
Chiss					X	X
Cyborg	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Human	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Miraluka	X	X
Mirialan	X	X	X	X
Rattataki					X	X	X
Sith Pureblood							X	X
Twi’lek	X	X	X				X
Zabrak	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Cathar*	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Togruta*	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Nautolan*	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X

Build Customization

In SWTOR, it adopts a system similar to World of Warcraft’s old talent build. This allows quite a few customization between each player, even though meta builds are always going to dominate.

State of Game

Updates

The game is still very healthy, despite bouncing around between 5k and 10k this year with the 24-hour peak at 8k alone on steam games. SWTOR still still have a healthy population base for an newcomer to the MMORPG. Further, you would have constant weekly maintenance and content updates as the game is not neglected at all. In fact, sometime in August, a brand new expansion is coming to SWTOR, Legacy of the Sith.

Events

There is something going on constantly in Star Wars The Old Republic. From Double XP events to special events with feature rewards, you won’t be entering a MMORPG world where it looks like the only thing going for it is the storyline, dungeons or PVP content.

Cash Shop

F2P Friendly

I was a free player and never paid a cent to the game despite being quite a Star Wars fan myself. It was relatively easy to get everything I wanted done, despite the only thing I did notice was, I was unable to complete some achievements in game due to certain races were locked under paywalls. This can potentailly be quite a turnoff for some players or achievement hunters.

The cash shop is very standard for an MMORPG. There is a bit of everything. Including “Boosting” your character to max level & subscription for bonus currency. However, what I am most impressed is the sheer amount of customization you can buy for your character.

Free Player are players who has never invested any money into the game.

Preferred are players who have spent at least $5 on the game. You revert to this status if your subscription ends.

Subscriber are players who are currently subscribing $15 per month to the game.

Content	Free Player	Preferred	Subscriber
Class Stories	Yes	Yes	Yes
Expansion 1: Rise of the Hutt Cartel	Yes	Yes	Yes
Expansion 2: Shadow of Revan	Yes	Yes	Yes
Expansion 3: Knights of the Fallen Empire	No	Maybe	Yes
Expansion 4: Knights of the Eternal Throne	No	Maybe	Yes
Expansion 5: Onslaught	No	Maybe	Yes
Operations	No	No	Yes
PvP	10 per Week	10 per Week	Yes
Ranked PvP	No	No	Yes
Space Missions	10 per Week	10 per Week	Yes
Uprisings	No	No	Yes
Galactic Starfighter	Yes	Yes	Yes
Questing	Yes	Yes	Yes
Player Housing	Yes	Yes	Yes
Reputation	Yes	Yes	Yes
Events	Yes	Yes	Yes
Endgame Gearing	No	Limited	Yes
Fashion	Yes	Yes	Yes
Achievements	Yes	Yes	Yes
Collecting	Yes	Yes	Yes

Feature Restrictions

Convenience Feature	Free Player	Preferred	Subscriber
XP	Normal	Normal	20% faster
Artifact Gear	No	No	Yes
Credit Cap	1000000	1000000	4 Billion
Hide Head Slot	No	No	Yes
Unify Colors	No	No	Yes
Chat	Yes, once a minute	Yes, small timer	Yes
Credit Cost	Normal	Normal	Less
Credit Gain	Normal	Normal	More
Crew Skills	1	2	3
Crafting Queue	1	1	All
Character Slots	4	12	24
GTN Slots	2	5	50
Inventory Rows	6	6	8
Personal Bank	No	Maybe	Yes
Legacy Bank	Yes	Yes	Yes
Guild Bank	No	No	Yes
Mail	Receive Only	Yes, but not credits	Yes
Sprint	Level 10	Level 1	Level 1
Mount	Level 25	Level 25	Level 10
Quickbars	3	5	6
Renown	No	0.25	1
Flashpoint Drops	Limit 10	Limit 10	Yes
Rest XP	No	No	Yes
Species	Limited	Limited	More Options
Trade	No	After Level 10	Yes
Valor	Normal	Normal	20% faster
Outfit Designer	4	5	16
Companion Customization	No	No	Yes
Commander Token	No	No	Yes
Character Title Display	No	No	Yes
Legacy Name Display	No	No	Yes
Guild Leader	No	No	Yes
Who Function	Not Available	Yes	Yes
Support	Limited	Limited	Full

Artwork

The artwork is what you expect right from a Star Wars movie. Majority of the movie cosmetics and items are all in game. Including Defiant Vented Lightsaber. While it does feel quite outdated, it would be amazing if EA Games decide to retouch on the graphics and update the engine as it is using it’s own HERO Engine.

Is Star Wars The Old Republic Worth Playing

Fun

So… Is Star Wars The Old Republic fun to play? In my honest opinion, yes, despite being a PVP Manic. I love the Star Wars lore and story and for me, I played it for it’s lore rather than the PVE or PVP content itself. This is a must play for any and all star wars fan gamers out there. Totally a title worth checking out.