I’m not sure what possessed me to do it. Perhaps it was the thought of delving into this universe again or perhaps a part of me was missing it. I’m going to chalk it up to advertising and my strong desire to be sold on anything Star Wars. I was bamboozled into playing the Old Republic again after countless viewings of the Episode VII trailer. Four months is such a long time and i needed a temporary fix, so i headed back with a couple friends after a few years away. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the droid i was looking for and it didn’t take me very long to remember why.

Now i don’t want to go to the extreme and say i don’t care about story in an MMO, because i do, but it shouldn’t be the main focal point of my adventure. Not to sound cliche but i really do want to make my own story. One that’s not tied to a few yes or no options given to me by some random NPC. I want to carve my own niche within the games universe and i want to do all this without being bombarded every few seconds with some immersion breaking cutscene. Boy are there a lot of those.

It’s quite irritating being taken out of the game world on a consistent basis only to be sent out on some lame fetch quests. I understand this was the selling point of the game but it could have been done more sparsely to create a grandeur feeling and give the illusion of quests actually meaning something. When every single quest turns into boring dialogue, i can’t help but reach for the space bar. It even got to the point where i would skip interesting interactions simply because i was tired of having to begin yet another conversation. Enough already.

Don’t get me wrong, i love voice acting in an MMO but it has to happen organically. I thought GW2 did a fantastic job in that regard. NPC’s hailing you are you run by and giving you instructions without taking you out of the game world to do so. In my opinion, it was a vastly superior leveling and story experience without even getting into any other aspects, which i thought it also did better. I feel like this game was and still is light years away from a true Star Wars experience. I know many enjoy it and more power to them, but i feel no attachment as a fan of the franchise. That’s what bothers me the most i think.

Either way my thirst has been quenched for now so it’s back to watching trailers and other nerdy things until December. As far as The Old Republic goes – it’s back to the uninstall bin for you my friend. I wonder if Davidge and Jerry would have lasted longer than i did. My guess is even they wouldn’t have had the patience to continue! That’s right there says everything.