How is the journey from 1 to 55? I bought the game but RL and work took over. Is it worth playing for the story and would it require a sub and xp pots?
/Long time lurker
I just went 1 to 55 on Jedi Knight, which is supposed to be the 2nd to 3rd best story and usually considered the most "important" storyline. Even with a 2 month sub and having done it during the 200% exp weekend period pre-expansion, I still wanted to kill myself by the time I got to the end of every planet. I can't imagine what it's like for the poor people that actually have to do all the bear ass fetch quests. I assume they quit sooner than I did.
The "story" being a breakthrough or something impressive is such an overrated statement. The scenes are stilted and slow and have a horrible sense of movement, the Jedi Knight Light Side choices make Paragon Shepard look like a bad boy, he's so fucking unbearable. I'd go so far as to say the story destroys any sense of immersion or that you're in a world since it's never really YOUR character, just YOUR Version 1/8 running around making absolutely no change on the environment follow the same theme park path, especially with all the companions you see that look exactly like YOUR companion. I don't expect these these in MMOs but do expect them out of Single Player games so...again a choice that takes all the hits without any of the pluses.
Plus, by the time you realize the worthlessness of the experience and recognize bear ass quests for bear ass quests, you'll just spam that space bar; it might as well be flashing THIS IS A FAKE GAME across the screen. There's also this odd downside to having the "story" in the game in that you have to deal with the cut scenes every 20 to 30 minutes and you're supposed to be enjoying it, right? Cuz it's the story! That's what Old Republic is about! So no throwing on some music or a podcast or even watching the TV like MMO gamers have done for eternity while leveling up.
Combat is clunky, DPS button spam fests outside of the interrupt skills. The mob choices are pretty much humanoid imperials, humanoid pirates, and humanoid droids where the only thing that really changes about them is their level. You never really feel challenged while at the same time never feeling like a badass.
Republic armor is more or less white and tan and EVEN TANNER for the whole way with tiny variations, it's all depressingly bland. They also managed to rip off the visual look from the prequels while also making the game feel like one of the least Star Warsy games I've ever played...it was impressive.
The planet design feels like one little box after another and there's never a sense that you can hop on your speeder and go for it, and even if you could some genius decided that the speeders would feel like the slowest mounts ever because OH YEAH speeders have no moving parts to provide a sense of movement, so to feel fast, they actually have to be fast!
Elevators = FUCK ELEVATORS.
TL;DR = Stay away. Don't pick Republic if you play. Yes, you will have to sub and get exp boosts to make it through.
