Star Wars: The Old Republic
Pros:
- The Hero Engine - Smooth as butter - at least on my machine.
- Aesthetics - The world looked amazing. One could tell the game was polished and had a lot of effort put into it.
- Crafting - Biochem and Slicing were great. The ability to reverse engineer made Biochem even better. Ingredients could be re-obtained via this method as well as new blueprints.
- Star Wars - BioWare did an excellent job of making the game feel like Star Wars.
Cons:
- User Interface - On one hand I had no issues with the interface; it responded nicely, looked clean and did just about anything I required of it. Not one thing - beyond the group window - could be resized or moved. Lack of hotbar space for extra abilities.
- Ability Diarrhea - Too many abilities. Some unnecessary abilities. Is that whopping 10% damage reduction going to save me when I'm hit for 1000? I doubt it.
- The Hero Engine - The version SWTOR runs on was made for Directx 9. I'm not going to fault the development team entirely, but it's 2012, you would hope some sort of Directx 10/11 compatibility would be there.
Guild Wars 2
Pros:
- ArenaNet's in-house engine - Works great and looks great. I, by no means have a top-of-the-line machine however, the game ran well in beta. A few hiccups here and there, but what I'd expect.
- Aesthetics - The world is alive and looks fantastic. The game currently runs in DX9, but is said to support DX10/11.
- Weapon Swapping - I haven't been able to weapon swap in combat in an MMO in a long time. The ability to go from staff to sword and board and back is fucking awesome.
- Abilities - There's no ability diarrhea. There are a lot, yes, but I don't have 10 hotbars full of them. There's one hotbar. Slots 1-3 are for my mainhand abilities, slots 4 and 5 are for my offhand, 6 is my healing and 7-10 are for my elite and utilities. Hotbars 4 and 5 change according to my offhand weapon or my two-handed weapon.
- Classes - Well thought out and each one feels different. The Guardian is one of my choosing. Nothing like being able to create a barrier and toss people whilst healing myself and allies.
- Combat - Played like a balanced mix between FPS and MMO.
Guild Wars 2
Pros:
- ArenaNet's in-house engine - Works great and looks great. I, by no means have a top-of-the-line machine however, the game ran well in beta. A few hiccups here and there, but what I'd expect.
- Aesthetics - The world is alive and looks fantastic. The game currently runs in DX9, but is said to support DX10/11.
- Weapon Swapping - I haven't been able to weapon swap in combat in an MMO in a long time. The ability to go from staff to sword and board and back is fucking awesome.
- Abilities - There's no ability diarrhea. There are a lot, yes, but I don't have 10 hotbars full of them. There's one hotbar. Slots 1-3 are for my mainhand abilities, slots 4 and 5 are for my offhand, 6 is my healing and 7-10 are for my elite and utilities. Hotbars 4 and 5 change according to my offhand weapon or my two-handed weapon.
- Classes - Well thought out and each one feels different. The Guardian is one of my choosing. Nothing like being able to create a barrier and toss people whilst healing myself and allies.
- Combat - Played like a balanced mix between FPS and MMO.
