Pure joy on their faces

As we reported earlier today, there is a hands-on event being held in London today where lucky people that applied for a pass at the official forums are now enjoying all SWTOR has to offer. They all get to visit the Origin worlds and here are the first impressions from the gamers.

deanogee @ official forums said:

I thought the (Jedi Knight) gameplay was pretty smooth and the story progressed nicely as your were immersed straight away into a “heroes” role. Despite playing for an hour It felt like I was only a small percentage of the way through the sub plot upon the orgin world Typhon, progressing only 2-3 levels in the process. Nevertheless with the whole game being bigger than every single previous BioWare project put together I see this story lasting a very long time and loads of tiny sub-plots along the way.

p.s Titles are confimed (i.e Darth’s, Lord’s etc) and you apparently hit the advanced classes around lv 10.

I also found the two Jedi Knight buffs at the start allowed either you to buff yourself so you did more damage, or/and buff players around you.

Plus in pretty much every fight you are in – an enemy drops something which you can pick up.

Darth-Reaver @ official forums said:

Ok so i just want to say it was great to meet and chat to Daniel Erickson and Stephen Reid

So i played the Sith Warrior for half my time and the other half i played a Bounty
Hunter, the game runs nice and smooth quest system was easy to follow.

Combat is very similar to WOW both mele and ranged, i did find vendors, trainers and a taxi system on my short travels.

the games is looking very good, however i did notice some very minor bugs while i was playing.

But very fun to play.

We had a small Q&A after with Daniel Erickson and Stephen Reid and as others have said Darth Titles are confirmed I asked if there was still going to be an open Beta before release and i was told “No Comment”

We got a cool poster that i got signed and choice of T-Shirt, i got the Sith one

Ilmarian @ Twitter said:

Had an awesome evening at #SWTORGB Big thanks to everyone at Bioware for making this happen. I think #SWTOR is the first true mmoRPG!

qmyn @ Twitter said:

#swtorgb was totally surreal. The BioWare guys are truly inspiring. Amazing game coming to a galaxy near you soon.

aartanaway @ Twitter said:

• Play time is nearly over, having fun but there is just not enough time!!!
• Smuggler – fun play quite a lot of ducking/diving, fun ranged stuff. Game isnt too buggy but there are a few annoying things.
• Jedi guardian – much more fun opening area IMHO, some beautiful graphics. Combat feels great with the test sabre 🙂

You can find more impressions as they come in on the official forum thread or on Twitter.

Update with more impressions and pics:

Dariel at the official forums said:

Played a Sith Inquisitor tonight at the event.

Only got to level 4 but I absolutely loved the voice over. Even the random NPCs standing around which don’t have much of a purpose are talking to each other and they have voice over too whilst they chat, continuously found my self stopping and listening to what they had to gossip about.

The phased story areas were pretty awesome definitely felt very cinematic and heroic every time you went into one. I had one scenario where I was interrogating a guy and had the options to reason with him, talk trash or just straight up electrocute him . There were some traditional kill x and collect y but nothing in terms of having to grind mobs as you were usually leading yourself to the next part of a story or phased area.

At level 4 i had 4 attack abilities and 1 buff, i only learned from the trainer twice and peeked at what i could expect, i can truly say i was always excited to level in that respect. I had learned force lightning at level 3 and overload which was a AOE knockback at 4.

Combat did feel a little button smashy at first until i did get overload which sort of put me into a bit of a rotation but can’t comment much past that with only being so few levels in.

Questions were answered in the last 15 minutes, highlights of that were : No companions in Warzones, there will be titles e.g Darth / Lord etc Daniel Erickson briefly explained they were ranks you gain but nothing else on that, no more planet announcements, flashpoints can have companions but only filling the main 4 group spots.

At the end of the event we all got decieved posters (choice of malgus or the jedi) which Daniel Erickson, Stephen Reid and Gabe Amatangelo signed and a choice of Empire and Republic Shirts.

matteh at the official forums said:

I played the trooper, had a great time playing grouped with another 2 troopers

One thing mentioned is that we were playing off the NA servers and there are no European servers currently (I could stand corrected on how far along they are) but could show how far/close are from release or open beta.

Took me about an hour and a half to get to level 5.5 skipping a few conversations to get a bit further. Also there is a queue group/solo button for joining warzones don’t know if its been mentioned before. I ejoyed the mini map and the whole transparent part of it. The questing as a group was well put together. Any of other questions about the trooper or the gameplay I’ll be happy to answer

Nighthaunterz at the official forums had a very long post that you can read in its entirety here. Here are the most important things to know:

There is no swimming in the game.
There is a maximum of 4 characters in a flashpoint, this limit includes companions.
There is auto facing, it is odd.
NPCs could shoot through solid objects, maybe a bug.
There will be no other major planets announced (planets whith 10+ hours gameplay).
Staying alive is pretty easy, you can handle 5+ mobs at once.
There were class specific areas in certain buildings.
There was a clear indication of when you were choosing a light side or dark side answer prior to getting points.
You can refuse quests through conversations.
The voice acting is very good.
There is an ear equipment slot…
I didn’t notice any weather.

Tags: event, gameplay, hands on, London