This is all true, but so what? Blizzard were in the right place, at the right time. You can't afford a mediocre initial release month in 2011. It wasn't acceptable in 2008 when Warhammer and Age of Conan were released. The only thing that has changed since then is that WoW has 'improved' more and the genre has grown into the stagnant mess we see today. The only question is if Star Wars is a strong enough brand name to survive a 'bad' first month post-wow where others have not.

This is being regurgitated time and time again. Not only are you wrong about when Onyxia's lair and Molten Core was available, but your logic is flawed. WoW was released in 2004. What year is it currently? Not 2004? You are expected to release a product that not only is competitive with the rest of the market but make strides forward, especially if you intend on charging the exact same amount. Swtor while it has made the odd step forward, it takes quite a few steps back. This is not acceptable in the current mmo climate, when will you people understand this?

You, like Bioware, seem to be living on the planet earth circa 2004. WoW got away with what they did because of the mmo climate at the time. Their launch was bad, it was buggy and yet it survived. That was seven years ago, which is a long time in the gaming industry. That mindset and approach to releasing and developing an MMO is outdated and DOES NOT WORK. There are MANY examples of this being the case, some games with a similarly strong IP like Star Wars. This game has been using it's release build for a couple of weeks, yet has been in development for years. Bioware has a lot of data at its disposal and a very real benchmark of what and what isn't acceptable through not only WoW but Age of Conan, Warhammer, Aion, EQ, Daoc, EVE and a slew of rubbish releases. EA doesn't learn from its mistakes and it's not acceptable in 2011.

Simply put the game is pretty bad, for a lot of reasons. The fact that it's a Star Wars game and made by Bioware, brings to the table a special kind of fanboy. It's ludicrous for anyone to expect people to PAY money for a bad product in the hopes it gets fixed. Vintage EA. It has nothing to do with maturity or patience. It's really just bad business. In a post-wow mmo market, you cannot and will not get away with a bad first month. There is a literal mmo graveyard littered with those who have tried. Bioware has in the past, attempted to make it clear that they understand the current mmo climate, but they clearly don't. This game takes backward steps in so many areas, and for what? Voice-acting and a star wars backdrop? It's enough for some, but not enough for most.

This problem has existed for a LONG time. Game has made it's first impression on a lot of people and it's not a good one.

The RABID fanboys. Game was released too soon, has A LOT of issues. It's a slap in the face that they expect people to wait and pay them money so they can bring this game to an acceptable level. Classic EA.

I agree for the most part. Except I think that the resolve system is just inferior to the DR system of WoW. Swtor as a pvp game would be worth another month if the combat was smooth and fluid. This is just another PVE game with PVP as an afterthought.

An obvious, loaded question, with a lot of people biting. I'll play along. This game cannot be taken seriously until the combat fluidity is drastically improved. Doesn't matter what your opinion of WoW is, it's a fact that it's fluid and responsive, this game is not. It's pretty funny reading threads like these and getting to see people who have CLEARLY not played much, if any WoW, joining the hate train. Both games are PVE centric, didn't come in to Swtor expecting much, still came out disappointed.

It is one of the most, if not the most important thing to have in any game. A smooth, responsive feeling engine. Sadly swtor lacks that and then some. Such a glaring oversight.

The game has some positives no doubt but there are a lot of issues. For instance, the resolve system is poor, too much instant cc, no macro system, no target of target, ui as a whole is pretty poor, non-responsive and clunky engine, too much focus on instanced pvp. Who knows if they will get some of these sorted in time for me to care.

It's sad to think how much money and time was spent on the creation of swtor and yet it feels so clunky and non-responsive. As someone who has played wow on and off for the past 6-7 years, it's the first thing i noticed and one of the main reasons I don't expect to be playing for too long.

The resolve system is horrible. It really needs to be changed. The simple diminishing returns system of full duration effect/half/quarter/immune works wonders.

Absolutely agree, it's one of the determining factors to why other mmo games either succeed or fail in many people's eyes. Should be a very high priority to have a fluid and responsive feeling game, with clean and smooth animations. Swtor does very poorly, not as bad as warhammer mind you, but poorly nonetheless.

You generally played hybrid specs because the talent trees weren't focused enough in terms of optimising specific roles and functions the class can perform. If there is a specific spec that is great for pvp for example, then you don't need to hybrid to get the most of the class, how is that a bad thing?