Jeez, how much can you ask for?

It's more a reaction to the way they came out at comic con and vaguely said "space combat is in!" I interpreted that as a space combat sim, which as it turns out was a mistake.

Personally, I'd be perfectly fine if there was no space element at all to the game. The only reason that I'm disappointed at all is the fact that I probably won't be all that interested in what they do have if it's an arcade mini-game, which is what it sounds like right now. But it doesn't temper my enthusiasm for the game at all, it's just a matter of getting my expectations in line with reality. I'm not one of the reeruns going ballistic today on the tor forums or anything like that.

I agree with you. I was a little dubious of their claim that "space combat" was done. I sort of thought it was going to be a mini-game/sidegame from the get go. I just thought that space combat and travel (in the tradition of a flight sim or Eve online) would be a little beyond their scope. It would have been way cooler if that's what it was, though, imo.

Oh ok. I gotcha. And LMAO at the last part.

I always had this voice in the back of my mind saying the same thing, but I was hoping that wasn't what it was.

A part of the disappointment for me is that my one and only complaint with BioWare games to date has been their mini games. I hated the turret minigame and pod racing in KotOR. I hated the flight minigame in Jade Empire.

Part of me is wondering if the hammerhead in mass effect 2 wasn't sort of a dry run, technologically speaking, for whatever they're going to do in SWTOR.

It's been awesomely entertaining, the amount of bitching going on:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=182698

So were those mission any fun at all? I agree about the minigames with you, BTW. It's a good thing the main games are so ****ing epic.

The firewalker pack? It's not bad, although it's insanely easy to kill everything with the Hammerhead. It's basically duck and cover just like the main game. Find a safe spot, pop up and shoot a few missiles into the geth, then lather, rinse and repeat. It's worth it for Overlord, though. There's a little more variety there as far as the vehicle goes. You have a larger wide-open area that you can drive around freely in, and there are some puzzles involved instead of just straight shoot-em-up.

But it's still basically something you get through as quickly as you can so you can get back to the ground combat...

Hmmm. Welp, I think it's going to be more about twitch shooting than duck and cover from the looks of it. I mean you're flying really fast through outer space, right? Maybe dodging debris, shooting it and the enemies around you... that kind of thing.

Oh yeah, the shooting mechanic would have to be completely different. They'll obviously have blasters and missiles.

I don't think they necessarily have to be limited to space, though, or to wide-open combat missions. They could have assaults on targets located on planetary surfaces, or trench runs on capital ships or stations.

There was conjecture in the pc gamer article about possible pvp and co-op play, as well.

Anyway, my thinking was more along the lines of level design and so forth. The hammerhead levels are linear, unlike the mako in the original ME.

Either way, while I'm not wild on the idea of an arcade mini-game, I am curious to see what they do with it. I hope they surprise me, and it turns out to be something cool enough that I want to do it.

I enjoyed the hell out of the space battles within Empire at War, so it would be fun to take that same dynamic to the space combat portion of Old Republic. You would pick your spacecraft with its own set of strengths/weaknesses. Like bombers are great for planetary bombing runs and torpedoing capital ships but worthless against other fighters, where fighters would be responsible for dogfights and covering bombers/capital ships. There is a ton they could do but it would be a lot of programming in addition to everything else.

I am almost through the first Old Republic novel, and it's pretty good. The Sith are some real ghoulish bastards in the book.

It's interesting being introduced to an entirely new set of characters. I have been reading all of the Clone Wars-era books so I have pretty much overdosed on Anakin, Obi Wan, Yoda, Windu, etc.

Space Combat Video!

http://www.swtor.com/media/trailers/space-combat

My life is pretty much over.

looks similar to battle front II space combat, which means that it's awesome.