Star Wars: The Old Republic - To buy or not to buy

This is my first blog here on N4G, and the reason I'm writing this is because I'm facing a big dilemma regarding the new Bioware game, "Star Wars: The Old Republic". I will state some of my opinions regarding the game, with some playtime experience to back it up.

Please note that the video I attached contains a scene from the game, and therefore may be considered by some to be a spoiler. It's not a big spoiler though, as it doesn't add anything significant to the story.

Expectations

When I first saw gameplay of Star Wars: TOR, I felt severely disappointed. The reason is that I had been playing Bioware games since the first Knights of the old Republic, and I had hoped for a proper sequel to the franchise.

The more I saw of it, the more it appeared to scream "World of Warcraft" at me as well, which to me was particularly unappealing considering I already had a WoW clone called Lord of the Rings Online, with a lifetime membership attached to it.

Regardless, I decided to sign up for the TOR beta, as I still had some hopes hidden away somewhere that it might actually be a good game. After several betas, I had lost hope that I would receive an invite, when finally I got one for the final weekend stress test. After a hefty 20 Gigabyte download, I was excited to try the game, with hopes of it proving me wrong.

The Game - A weekend of Star Wars: The Old Republic

Once I actually started playing the game, I was immediately thrown into my first conversation with a NPC. I could already make some mean choices, although the concept of Dark & Light wasn't quite introduced yet. The conversation system felt a lot like the ones of previous games, which, if you like Bioware games in general, is a good thing. Not only does it motivate me to actually follow the story*, it also helps to make the game feel more like a single player game that is online. The reason that this is a good thing is related to my initial expectations, in which I felt I wanted a new KoToR game instead.

The place on which the game really blew me away was something rather simple, but a significant departure of previous games: Multi-person conversations. When I experienced my first conversation with an NPC in which other players were involved as well, I was immensely impressed by the sheer simplicity and robustness of their implementation of this situation, as the game actually manages to make you feel like there is actually a group of players talking with the NPC rather than just one person.

Working in a group works well in the game, and is often quite enjoyable to do, regardless of whether you know those people or not. It creates a sense of non-deterministic gameplay, in which the situation in most instances can radically change by choices that the other players make, and the situation can radically change for them by the choices that you make.

Visually the game is very appealing as well, with good quality textures and a very nice and calm, yet quite beautiful artstyle governing the areas that I have visited so far. It really helps in terms of immersion into the game, and works well for what it's trying to achieve.

On the downside is the combat system. The system is very much reminiscent of classic MMO games, but more tuned towards the KoToR system than in a game like Lord of the Rings Online, where it's all about who has the most HP. The animations are pretty good, and the system is easy to use, but it still manages to feel old and clunky regardless of the way they streamlined it. On the other hand, it doesn't really feel like a chore, either, so I would probably put it a bit on the mediocre side, in which it's neither outstanding, nor terrible.

The other complaint is one I have about most MMO games, though it's slightly less in this game. Any quest you do doesn't have any direct impact on the non-instance environment of the game. For instance, at one point you can get a side-mission that tells you to either poison or kill all the rebellious slaves in a particular area. After going through this quest, you would expect the effect to be seen on the slaves, but they remain in that area regardless of your efforts. This really takes you out of the immersion, as it makes it appear that any efforts you put into it are completely pointless.

The Old Republic attempts to resolve this issue by working with instanced worlds, so that there is a set of instances, and each of those has the world in a particular state. Whilst this helps resolve some of the major issues that would conflict with the main story, it also segments the player base quite significantly, so whilst it's a solution, it's not _the_ solution.

The Dilemma

To conclude this blog, my dilemma is this: Should I or should I not pre-order the game. At the moment I feel like I really would like the play more of the game, though the doubts I'm having are that
1) The game doesn't run very smoothly on my current PC (though acceptable)
2) On top of the hefty $60,- pricetag the disc comes with, there is the requirement of a monthly payment - about $12,- per month.
3) Given current time constraints, I would only be able to play the game during the month surrounding Christmas, and during the Summer Holidays
4) I have a fear that the game might grow stale after a while, and that the experience will lose its freshness. (note: I do not know if this is actually the case)

Pre-ordering on the other hand would allow me to play the game 5 days early, and it would also allow me to play the game at a better computer for about 2 weeks.

So N4G, what do you recommend?