[Does anyone else think...]

...that it's kind of crazy that some people blew through the 50 levels in 2 weeks, and are crying that there's no "end game" which they'd probably blast through just as fast?

 

What should be "crazy" is that BioWare apparently didn't anticipate it at all. I'm a relatively casual player, but I've already unlocked the legacy system with my level 32 Jedi Sentinel, and I'm already a third of the way to my next Legacy level because I've gotten three other characters to Carrick Station.

 

It was so unanticipated that BioWare didn't even roll out the legacy system - when you unlock your "legacy", the only thing you get is a surname and a "sorry - there will be more here soon" note on your Legacy tab.

 

So much of this game seems unfinished - not just unpolished, but actually nonexistent - that despite the stunning visuals and the interesting story arcs, I have to wonder about BioWare's priorities.

 

I hope next month's patch is nothing less than miraculous, because otherwise I'm predicting a diaspora. Guilds that can't share, people that can't talk, players that can't play, PvP that isn't tiered, PvE that's stuck on rails - it's frustrating as hell to wait this long for a Star Wars MMO, only to be stymied by, of all things, missing basic gameplay & social mechanics.

[Lack of Community and Depth - Why I believe this game will fail]

I disagree with you on those numbers, most polls conducted by bioware indicate that the kotor and star wars fans make up a larger portion than just mmo players. But I think you guys need to keep your minds open, they are releasing a massive patch NEXT MONTH thats crazy fast, no matter what happens though, I shall never play a non fully voiced mmo anymore, with the voice acting most of the grind feel is removed for me.

 

As a Rift player who's seen 6 expansions in 10 months, no, that's not "crazy fast" - especially when you realize that the "patch" is simply basic functionality they didn't finish for RTM. And they may not even ship all of the basic functionality they didn't finish, either. If next month's "patch" doesn't include significant improvements in the UI, gameplay, guild system, legacy system, and social functionality, it's going to be rough on them.

 

It's not a matter of keeping one's mind open - it's a matter of realizing that there are some good games out there now, like Rift, and some stunning games coming down the pike, like Diablo III and Guild Wars II, and that if BioWare doesn't get their collective asses moving on putting in place what even a basic MMO should have at RTM, this is going to be a very expensive flop. Players have finite amounts of cash, and finite amounts of time, and they tend to move on quickly if they can't spend either well - and, right now, this game isn't much of an MMORPG as it is a single-player, "on rails" MMO with missing features.

[Lack of Community and Depth - Why I believe this game will fail]

I’m starting to agree with OP. I’ve waited for this game for such a long a time and as a result really don’t want to, but the gameplay speaks for itself. I can’t think of any reason to stay in a linear universe after the single player element of the MMO is finished. I’ll play for the rest of the month, then I’ll need something new.

 

SWG was a good game before "Smedley's Folly", and unfortunately SWTOR will have to suffer through comparisons between SWG and itself.

 

But, even without comparing it to SWG, this game has some real troubles. Basic features, things that should be in any MMO, just aren't here. For example, if your MMO supports guilds, then there should be something here besides a Guild chat channel - guild banks, guild abilities, a single meeting place exclusive to a guild, something like that.

 

An MMO is supposed to be a social place - yet this is, by far, the loneliest MMO in which I've played. Even talking to each other is a challenge. There's no visual indicator that someone in your area is talking to you (read 'chat bubbles'), and there's no way to move the UI around to bring chat tabs into your field of view. We're forced to stare at the bottom of the screen during much of our gameplay, to observe cooldowns, health, radar, companions, and so on, yet chat is firmly nailed to the top of the screen.

 

If the hype is true, then BioWare's betting the farm on this game - and they've spent a lot of money on it. Voice talent, world design, models, textures, sounds - why, then, didn't they spend more of that money on usability, globalization, or just plain UI development?

 

I honestly hope BioWare's folks came back rested from the holidays, because they have a hell of a lot of work to do to ensure this game makes it past the three-month mark.

[Why did Bioware design such a big (almost sandbox) planet Alderaan?]

They told us that they would add sandbox elements later

 

Alderaan seems the logical place

 

If BioWare doesn't get their act together, there won't be a "later." The game's missing even basic elements expected by MMO players, especially the large guild contingent these folks courted long before release.

 

Guild chat barely works, there are no other guild features to speak of, even basic features like a guild bank, and the best information we've received so far from BioWare with regards to a timeline for these basic guild features is "soon."

 

It's hard to play as a guild in SWTOR. Heck, with all of the missing features, it's hard just to play SWTOR. Sandbox elements are, indeed, sorely needed, but they should be lower in priority to the basic game features even the meanest of MMOs support at this time.

[its hard to enjoy a game when you have no party chat]

Which doesn't always work. I lost /g and logging didn't fix it. Had to get booted and reinvited to the guild. I've lost /p and general at other times.

 

It absolutely is a problem.

 

I've had the same issues with guild chat & party chat. I "lost" the Guild chat channel, and had to be kicked & reinvited to the guild to get it back.

 

It's a pain, but it's a known issue.

[Remove the Lightside/Darkside restrictions on color crystals.]

Actually, I think we're missing the larger point.

 

The primary purpose of the Alignment stat, apparently, is to restrict the types of equipment available to a character. That's the real failure - not that we have limited equipment, but that the Alignment stat isn't used for much more than that.

 

There should be abilities, not equipment, that are limited by or restricted to a specific level of the Alignment stat, light or dark. Interactions with NPCs should be affected by the Alignment stat. There are a number of gameplay mechanics that could've been influenced by, limited by, or enabled by the value of the Alignment stat. The idea that, of all the things BioWare could do with the Alignment stat, they chose to limit equipment by alignment is, indeed, silly.

 

I don't want to see lightsaber colors, of all things, limited by the Alignment stat - indeed, I'd much rather see lightsaber colors a function of the Artifice skill, in which desirable colors would be more difficult to obtain through crafting or exploration.

[Listen to the hardcore players.]

Blizzard made this mistake and it has cost them dearly. When they ran the metrics they found that less than 2% of their PAYING CUSTOMER BASE were "hardcore". Less than 3% of the population were progressive raiding. So you suggest they listen to the 3% that make them the least money?

 

QFT. Games have attempted, in the past, to pander to so-called "hardcore" players. Most failed - some succeeded, but the ROI was so low that the game suffered as a result. But the whole discussion is moot, really.

 

This game is missing basic features that, "hardcore" or not, need to be implemented long before BioWare should expend the effort needed to please a tiny minority of their user base. Before we start on the whole "I MUST UBERPOONZ!" rant, I'd suggest we worry more about why those basic features aren't here yet, and ask BioWare for the timeline associated with their "What's Next" post. A working legacy system, guild banks, a useful chat system, a UI that works, that sort of thing.

 

Because if BioWare can't get the features described in their "What's Next" post in place post-haste, the feelings of "hardcore" players won't matter a damn - the game will fold like a card table in a hurricane.

[Disappointed, 50s with PvP gear against low levels?]

I do. I don't want to wait half an hour for a game against the same people.

 

And Kricys demonstrates why I won't PvP until I hit level 50 - there's no point, except as amusement for the level 50s who think it's "fun" to feed off the unequipped low-level characters fed to them by this non-tiered PvP system.

 

The early PvPers, the folks who sprinted heedlessly through the content to get to this point can wait until there are enough 50s to make it fun for everyone.

 

It's simple - don't PvP until level 50. When BioWare realizes only a tiny minority of folks are PvPing, and they realize why, then they will perhaps add level tiering to the PvP system. Until then, though, don't let chuckleheads like Kricys keep feeding off the low-level folks and giggling about it.

[SWTOR: 5 things you love and 5 things you want to see fixed]

Simply put, the game's unfinished. Basic bugs identified in previous beta testing cycles are still present, and chunks of expected functionality, like the legacy system, aren't present at all. As much as I love the eye candy and voice acting, without gameplay and depth, there isn't much of a game here yet. This post offers a lot of promise - but a timeline for what's described in that post would be a heck of a lot more reassuring. Otherwise, you're going to have a lot of folks at max level scratching their heads & leaving in disappointment in the coming weeks.

 

Likes

1. Environment
   The graphics are phenomenal. I absolutely enjoy Tatooine and Alderaan. The design of the worlds is just beautiful. I can't stress enough how much I enjoy the graphics.
   
2. Storyline
   The storylines are a huge hook for the game and are just what we'd expect from Bioware - interesting and well-written. I end up more engaged in a story arc when it appears more "plausible", at least within the confines of the game.
   
3. Voice acting
   Again, a huge hook for the game - makes the game more engaging, more interesting. If anything, I'd love to see even more voice acting. It's what makes me care about the story.
   
4. Crafting mechanics
   I like the crafting mechanics - crew skills allow for some experimentation, even while engaged in the storyline. I like that patterns can be discovered through reverse engineering - it increases disambiguation between characters on a server, especially given the "on rails" content & limited expressivity.
   

 

Dislikes

1. Rigid, unresponsive, broken UI
   Having to constantly reset the UI using Ctrl+U to get around freezes, clicking buttons only to have nothing happen, unable to move things around to my preference, watching the UI lock up in the middle of combat - it's irritating.
   
2. Primitive gameplay mechanics
   The mechanics of gameplay are relatively simple compared to other games currently on the market. For example, there are quite a few abilities introduced for each class, but no way to macro, chain, or otherwise streamline the use of those abilities - I've two full quickslot bars, and even that isn't enough. Story areas mean you'll never have two classes in the same guild group together, limiting what a guild can do together. Space combat is, frankly, a joke - Star Wars Galaxies had more sophisticated space travel & combat eight years ago.
   
3. Primitive social mechanics
   Try talking to someone. The UI makes chatting difficult at best - combine that with simple things, like the inability to see "chat balloons" (and therefore, no visual indicator in the current field of view that someone is talking to you) means casual social interaction is near-impossible. There's almost nothing available for the "Social" ranking system, and the only way to level it is to group up & run the "on rails" content - actual socialization doesn't figure into it. Even macros contribute to social mechanics - the game has dozens of emotes, but it's impossible to, for example, yell something that includes the name of the target, or perform those emotes in any useful sequence or with a chat message. To me, an MMO is meant for shared, social experience - and there's even less here than I would expect on a typical console game. There's no reason to share your story line, no reason to talk to anyone, no reason to group with your guild.
   
4. Everything's "on rails"
   There's no point straying from the storyline - the illusion of choice is manifested as a single stat, used primarily to limit you from certain types of equipment. This game is actually pretty tightly scripted, making spontaneous interaction challenging at best. There's no point in having a decision tree if, at the end of the day, all of the branches collapse into the same one or two results.
   
5. Where's the rest of the game?
   No legacy system other than "here's your last name"? Only 3 warfronts, and you can't pick which one in which to play? No guild features, like a guild bank or a meeting place? No macro system? The game feels incomplete, as if a huge amount of money had been spent on graphic designers, voice talent, and marketing, but relatively little was spent on gameplay, depth, and functionality.
   

[UI becoming unresponsive when using Thumb buttons]

Yeah i have rocket Punch and Flameburst on 2 of my thumb buttons and sometimes it just breaks the UI or the Quickslots, and nothing reacts, this can get ugly if in a big pull...., but i'm just to used to having 4 abbilities on my mouse i will not remap all of this.

 

It's getting to be a real issue, though. I've had to cycle the UI on a regular basis, especially when item roll dialogs ("need/greed/disassemble") appear during combat - I'm using a Logitech G700 (for which I have to manually switch profiles, because SetPoint doesn't detect when SWTOR's window gets focus), and any combination of keyboard & mouse action during lots of in-game activity runs the risk of locking the UI.

[Metacritic negative feedback]

the poor kid gave SWTOR a 2 and Skyrim a 5, he knows loads about gaming

 

And that's pretty much all I need to know about the reviewing "skills" of this individual.

[My respec costs 36550 credits now]

i don' t agree with the posibility to change advance class BUT to charge so much for a talent respec ???

 

It's not a bug - it takes more than a few respecs to get to that level of expense. Also, that's not that expensive, given the cost of other items in the game. Learning to drive a speeder (the first level of the skill) takes 40K credits.

[My respec costs 36550 credits now]

Please, don't allow "Swiss Army Characters", in which characters can be respec'd easily or on the fly. The system works fine as it currently is, and the system fits this game. Changing that system would change essential portions of the game, and that would, quite frankly, suck.

 

If you need to become a "Swiss Army Character", maybe this isn't your game. Rift, for example, is a fine game with a very flexible spec system. (I play Rift as well.)

[Huttball is crap]

I like how most of the people posting in this thread are attacking the OP instead of acknowledging the problem. Nobody cares that you personally like Huttball, the simple fact is that some people don't like it. I don't mind the occasional Huttball game myself, but sometimes, I would just like to do some Alderaan or Void Star in between some PvE, even if it takes 30 minutes to get a match. There is no reason why we shouldn't at least be able to choose which warzone to queue for. The next step would be to add a Huttball-style or "training" versions of Alderaan and Void Star so that population imbalance becomes a non issue.

 

This is the real issue.

 

To be frank, far too much of this game is "on rails" - too few choices, even as you're given the illusion of choice. PvP is one area in which even the illusion of choice would be nice.