A few words about the main thing
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The anticipation of a game's release is a meditative and quite pleasant process only if you are not going to sell this game. You are not planning to promote the project, not placing ads on fan sites, and not coming up with contest ideas.

[Star Wars: The Old Republic](/games?search=Star Wars: The Old Republic) I wasn't waiting for, although I knew that EA would stop sales to all its partners. I didn't wait simply because I had already played enough MMOs a long time ago, and the Star Wars universe left me with only vague memories of watching “The Empire Strikes Back” in Baku in 1988 and “The Phantom Menace” in 1999 in Paris.

Moreover, the abundance of skepticism towards the project was fueled by the fact that most news about the game was tied to analysts' opinions on the profitability of SWtOR. As for the media hype, let’s agree, the trailers and screenshots looked... terrifying. “Another WoW” with outdated graphics in a not-so-loved setting and without Russian voice acting, all of this painted a not-so-attractive picture.

Nevertheless, a few days before the release, I decided to take a look at the game, just for reference. After all, who knows how EA's policy towards partners will turn, and whether I'll have to hastily “jump in” to the process.

I won't describe the process of acquiring a key, installing the game, and other early access perks – all these nuances are already in the past; you either encountered them or will never encounter them.

The first impression of the game is very unpleasant. Outdated graphics, terrible character designs, and all the MMO clichés assembled together – you want to close the game within 5 minutes. Complementing this horror is the interface, which you can't properly customize yourself.

But an hour or two passes, and you begin to understand for whom SWtOR was created. This game is not so much for those who try all new online projects and certainly not for those who care about first world kills. This game is made for and aimed at users who buy Bioware games year after year.

You will get absolutely everything you have been used to since Baldur’s Gate and what you have come to regard as essential after [Mass Effect](/games?search=Mass Effect) and [Dragon Age](/games?search=Dragon Age): a “dialogue wheel”, party dynamics, your own ship, and a stunning storyline.

The game has, among other things, one very serious advantage – it has a very strong RPG element that allows you to see your “character” as a full-fledged persona with its own role, mannerisms, and, most importantly, its own story. In this story, there may be room for raid adventures and BG farming, or there may not be, depending on you. But by rejecting the standard MMO entertainment, you won’t lose the social aspect of the game – completing group quests will require you to make decisions collectively. And the choice of one path or another, as strange as it may sound for an MMO, can cut you off from certain parts of the content (which is actually not typical for online games).

The main and probably only barrier that may arise between you and the wonderful world of this game is the English language. Comprehending numerous dialogues would be easier with subtitles, but alas – “subs” are only produced for the last line of your interlocutor. Without at least a pre-intermediate level of English, you will find it decidedly difficult to do anything in the game.

In conclusion: SWtOR is a rare example of a true MMORPG, where the elements familiar to us take a secondary role, and the role-playing component is so strong that after reaching level 21, I realized I had only written 2 messages in the chat during this time, hadn’t said a word in Teamspeak, and the English-Russian dictionary had been sitting on my desktop for two days.

In other words, this is a wonderful game from Bioware, into which an online component somehow crept in – neither better nor worse; it hasn't affected the project negatively.