Thats very accurate but there are other games beside WOW that have acomplished an increase in population since launch, which also proves that its not about how great game your release is, but simply out great your game becomes. Here is a short list of games who's population saw massive increases in some cases over 2000% increases. Eve Online: It went from 3,000 players after launch and went to break over 150,000 players with over 300,000 subscribers at one point. It also won MMO of the year from several highly respected online sites and magazines several years after release. Dungeons and Dragons Online: This games population has been growing since launch and continues to grow to this day. Star Wars Galaxies: After a disasterous initial year it went on to grow a population of dedicated players that stuck around for 8 years. So while I agree that this is the case for most games, their are many games who see a lot of growth in some cases like Eve Online many years after release. Star Wars Old Republics future won't be decided anytime soon. Its all about what they do in the next couple of years, but its also true that this game caters to ... simpler players and as such they tend to be less patient.

I think thats the point. Someone at some point decided that World of Warcraft is the "standard" and suddenly every game released effectively grabs all the mechanics in that game and applies it to their franchise. I don't think its inappropriate for gamers at this point to expect more out of developers and anyone who says "its can't be done", should apply to Bioware that seems to be the philosophy over there. And just to make a point, people are doing it. Arch Age for example. Not only have they already released a game that does everything World of Warcraft does better, but they have added all sorts of new and interesting features never seen in an MMO. Its the difference between looking back to find success like Bioware did and looking forward to find success like XL games did. So it is possible to create a better MMO, they just didn't try here.

There is no such thing as a quality standard, thats a catch phrase created for comercials, not a realistic way to run a business. The fundamental and most important thing for a product is ingenuity and usefulness, the most important aspects of a company are honesty and integrity. You don't buy a car because its standard, you buy it because it has features you want and it doesn't matter if what you want is standard or not. A car can have 5 wheels for all I care as long as its awsome. If it has 4 wheels and fits the definition of some companies vision of standard yet lacks the features I want, no matter how standard it they claim it is, its completetly useless to me. Just saying.. its kind of a myth.

I started with Ultima Online and since have have played just about every major MMORPG you could think off and more Indie games than you can shake a stick at. I think of the many games I have played the ones that stand out are Star Wars Galaxies due mainly for its incredibly emersive community and probobly one of the most full featured MMO's in history. By the time it was closed it had more features than any 3 MMO's you could name. Everquest 2 I really liked because it was a very challenging game, Its one of the few games I have played where I didn't feel like the developers where holding my hand through it, but fell into the themepark line of games. Eve Online captured by attention for a long 5 years, easily one of the best MMO's on the market and I would play it still if I had not done just about everything you could do in the game 100 times. Even great games get boring after a while. I found elements of Darkfall very interesting, certainly a complex game, but buggy with very poor developer support unfortunatly. Warhammer Online is probobly the most recent game I played that actually did something that wasn't a complete copy of World of Warcraft. The realm vs. realm combat is reminiscent of another game I played plenty of Dark Age of Camelot, but I found the world hit closer to home with me as a Warhammer Miniatures player. There have been a lot of games like Aion and Rift that probobly are great games but they used the same tired mechanic that World of Warcraft uses and as such just don't have much appeal anymore. I liked SWOTR for the first month I played it but again like Aior and Rift it uses all the same formulas and mechanics as World of Warcraft, which itself was a repeat of games that came before it. Its just a very over used mechanic and frankly Im just tired of it so the sex appeal of SWOTR wore out rather quickly and like Aion and Rift at this point I don't think the developer can do anything with the game that would get me to resubscribe. If this game came out a decade ago it would have been a huge hit, but today.. its just another want to be success game that didn't really do anything that makes it stand out. Its what I describe as a typical apple. It fell from the same tree as all the others and I have been eating apples for a long time. Someone needs to plant a different kind of fruit tree I think before these games will have any lasting appeal.

Even just the use of the Engine was a bad idea, just wanted to add that because that itself is basicaly a trap. It creates built in limitation on day one and that makes this game less of a design venture than it really should have been. They should have started by asking themselves the MOST important question of all. "How will this game be better than everything that is out today?". They didn't and its not. Its a fun game, again there is nothing wrong with it, but its not better than say World of Warcraft, or Rift. Its the same. Has the same features, same combat mechanic.. same concept. Its unfortunate really.

Thats actually not true at all. A more appropriate comparison would be that if NeverWinter Nights is a great game, Dragon Age has to be like it in order for it to be good. The truth is they are vastly different games, with different mechanics and functions through and through yet are part of the same genre. Take what the Korean developer XL Games is doing with Arch Age. You have dynamic organic world controlled by players with things like castle building, player land ownership, dynamic customizable classes that can be mixed and matched, ship ownership with sea battles a non instance world while including all the traditional features you will find in a traditional MMO game like Star Wars Old Republic. You can in fact improve on design if you think outside of the box as you design the game. You can take good existing features and take the next step and make them better. There was no effort here at all and its percisly no offense, the rather narrow and pesimistic view of developers that share you idea about games that results in rather pointless clones like Rift and Aion for example. People have just grown tired of taking a risk on design, its become an industry destined to continue this trend of failure that has been going on until someone steps up and creates the next new standard.

Well while I think some of the bug complaints and abscent feature complaints are unjustified, frankly I find the game to be very stable, I think the primary complaint really overall is that there was an expectation from this game to be more than what we got from half a dozen or so games that have been released in the last couple of years. I mean you have developers out there who have really stopped trying to create games with new ideas, new design concepts etc.. and just fallen into a trap of repetive re-design of the same old tired play style and I think Bioware and SWOTR fall into that category. There is a very large portion of the MMO playing population who wants more out of their MMO's and we just aren't getting it out of the developers right now. I mean Rift, Aion, Age of Conan, Lord of the Rings, DC Universe and Star Trek Online just to name a few have really done absolutly nothing to move the genre forward in some way. They just took what has already been done in other MMO's and put a skin on it using their own franchise and every single one of those games had a lot of hype around them but ultimatly most of them are doing what most MMO's are doing right now... barely surviving. Its a traggedy really that Bioware had one of the greatest franchises (in my opinion) available and was unable to create a game that differentiated itself in some way from the common clone. They should have been looking forward not backwards when designing and developing this game. In short, its clone. Thats the problem. There is nothing wrong with this game, its fine the way it is, its an average every day MMO that appeals to many players who like the franchise, but as an MMO it really is WOW in space. The only unique aspect of this game is the voice overs and Cinematics, both features that have a very limited shelf life since repeating a single player story really doesnt have much lasting appeal. I like where they where going with companions, but again this feature really isn't sufficient for the game to stand on. Im rooting for bioware, hopefully with added development they will find some niche to fill, but right now the only niche they are filling is the same one every other WOW clone is filling. A replacement for games that already exist.

Im not sure exactly what aspect of the game didn't appeal to me in the long term, but Im with the poster, the first month was great, I really liked it. I wasn't bothered by the bugs, nore did I think the game was too easy or anything. If you put a gun to may head and force an answer I would probobly simply say that the game didn't have enough interesting features that differeniated it from other games I have already played and the fact that it simply wasn't the game I hoped it would be. I think part of the issue really is the fact that Star Wars Old Republic at least in my eyes was supposed to be different. I mean in the last couple of years we have had some interesting MMO's but none of them really differentiated themselves in anyway. Star Wars Republic has some interesting features like voice overs and cinematics, but these things really have a limited shelf life (about a month apperantly). I mean Aion for example was a fun game, but what did it do that other games haven't already done better? Rift was a great game, but again... it was a clone of many other games I have already played. Star Wars Old Republic kind of found itself in the same company. Its just more of the same in a different universe/franchise. Even its art direction is so familiar it hurts, I constantly found myself reminded of of these past games. Combat and the whole treadmill is just so repetative and so horribly cloned from other games its just not fun to do it all again even if it is a different game. I found myself getting bored of this game even faster than some of its predescessors from which it clearly borrowed. The developers spent a lot of time and money developing a game on a design that really wasn't special or unique. I was expecting a lot more out of this game and it simply didn't provide anything new. Looking at games like Arch Age for example or Eve Online where developers are actually moving the genre forward should have been what motivated this games designers and developers... not trying to replicate World of Warcraft in space, which really is what this game did. Which is fine, but we already have half a dozen games that do that, so we really didn't need another one.

Im satisfied with it I will get my 100 hours of play out of easy, so no issues. Though Its not the best game I bought this year, that honour goes to Skyrim.

Than why does it have PvP? Whats the point of having PvP Scenarios, Open PvP servers, Two clear cut oppossing sides? It is as much a PvP game as any.

I personally think they should start small. Make the PvP scenarios fun, balanced and interesting. Thats sufficient for now. I suspect we will never see something as large as a realm vs. realm system even though thats kind of what Im hoping for. But ya of course, the situation is what it is today and I think its great players are getting involved. As a game though, if it hopes to capture a PvP audiance they have much work to do and given how impatient players are and a slew of PvP games on the horizon they really don't have much time. Guild Wars 2 is going to draw a very large player base being PvP focused and their are a number of other PvP oriented, Sandbox games and interesting MMOS scheduled for 2012 like Warhamer 40k, NeverWinter, Archage is getting a lot of attention for good reason, even Diablo 3 is going to create competition for this game all games with clear player vs. player components in mind. Bioware can not afford to feel safe with this game. Its missing a lot of important features that make for a good MMO and every day that they don't have them in the game is one more day for players to rethink their subscription dollars. Its a great franchise, a fun game and a great developer. They have every advantage to make this game work, but they have to get this game in much better shape if they don't want to end up like Age of Conan or Warhammer Online. Great games with great franchises and great developers which had great starts, but ultimatly are suffering at the hands of subscribers who simply don't want to pay to wait for a developer to get it together and the road to recovery from unrealized and under developed starts is a very long and hard one, far harder than if you get it right out of the gate.

Actually contrary to popular belief it did happen to WOW, after the first month their was a mass exodus and their where population issues, economy issues, bugs, server outages, malfunctioning mechanics, severe imbalances and so many missing features compared to Everquest the game was considered "Everquest for Children". You have a short memory. The main difference with World of Warcraft and many other games historically speaking is that throughout its entire run the population has always constantly increased after the initial post launch subscriber drops, which is what made WoW a unique case and game. That however is over now, WOW numbers have been slipping drastically, they lost close to a million players last year, thats more than an entire MMO population for most games. Whats happening right now is as standard as cheese on a pizza.

Well traditionally speaking population are always pretty screwed up right after launch. There is just no way for the developer to properly predict how many of the initial buyers will still be playing in a month and how many will be picked over the course of the first few months. Its all a crap shoot. Just to give you an example last night I was on Kass and their was so many players on my server their that I couldnt complete my quests because the spawns where killed so bloody fast. Most of these population issues will work themselves out, those that don't will be worked on by Bioware through server consolidations. But the point is, whats taking place in this game. The whinning on the forums, unscriber threats, economy being out of whack and population issues is all standard stuff that happens with a new mmo. I've never seen it go down any other way.

Personally Im looking forward to that more than the patch.

Come on now. If there is no reason to do something, than their is no reason to do it. I mean I love PvP and surely if invited I would love to participate in PvP Events like this but these events are just that, events for the sake of the event and the event becomes the "reason" to do it.. aka its fun to participate in events. But ultimatly without a reason to pvp, the reliance on players to produce reasons through the creation events simply means that their will be very little pvp in the game. This is the first such event in 3 weeks. Even if they bring the ratio up to once a week its hardly sufficient. Global mass PvP should be taking place every day 24/7. When i log in there should be one going on ready for me to join. Not one scheduled 2 weeks from now at 7:30pm. I think you understand the difference here, lets not make execuses for a game with a clear cut case of missing features. its forgivable, its a new game and I understand they don't have this in place yet, but its a must if PvP has any future in this game at all outside of scenarios.

Its awsome to see and its great that it happens, but as already mentioned, this was an event that took planning in order to take place. People don't have any reason to naturally come together and fight for things like say in games like Dark Age of Camelot or Warhammer Online. It was an event that took place for the events sake. There isn't one taking place right now and when I log in their won't be groups already in place out fighting. You jump on Warhammer Online anytime of the day 24/7 and you will have mass pvp combat taking place. I think the point to be made here is that SWOTR needs a logical and natural reason for people to get together for PvP, right now, there is no purpose to it and so people don't do it unless someone goes out of their way to schedule events.

Its like I tell my kids. You want to enjoy something you have to savor it and you have to pace yourself. I know you said you "didn't rush", but in order to get to level 50 you HAVE to play at least 40-50 hours which I guarantee you that you have. Now breaking that down, lets say you reached level 50 after 21 days (2 weeks) your average play time was 2.1 hours per day assuming you played every single day. Now I'm no expert but 2 hours a night, for a gamer, while it may sound like a lot really isn't much. I have a full time job, a wife, 2 kids and a dozen other hobbies and I manage easily to put in 2 hours a day, however after about 8 days of playing the game Im at level 12. So the question is what are you doing differently from me? I mean we are both likely playing about the same amount of hours on average, so after 9 days shouldn't I be further along? You see where Im going with this. Its not about "how long it takes you", but what you do in the game.. how you play. See when I play (or any person that is "not rushing it") is the same way I play a single player game. I'm not trying to "level up"... Im simply exploring the game and I do what I fancy to do. Some nights I don't even leave a Cantina because I get in a conversation with someone, like last night. I spent about an hour of my game time chatting with a chap from England. Some nights I log in and run some scenarios, other days I might do the main quest and on other nights I might look for some group quests. The point is I don't worry about what level I am, what gear I have.. I just play the game. When I come to a new city a spend time walking around, checking it out. Stuff like that. Im not saying thats the right way to play or anything, but if your at level 50 at this point, you have had some pretty focused game sessions. Focused on advancing as quickly as you can. Which is fine and I agree that if you can play an MMO focused as you have for 3 weeks and reach level 50 there may be an issue with how the game is designed, but I think that SWOTR was probobly designed more with players like me in mind... mellow, not terribly focused rather than the hardened veteran. I can understand WOW players for example breeze through this game because in WOW you have to be very focused to get to the higher levels.. I mean I played WOW for 2 years and my character was level 48 using the same approach I use in this game. So you might not have "rushed" through the game, but you are running a very focused regiment of gaming else you would definitly not be level 50 at this point.

You should turn off general chat. Strictly speaking this is an OOC area on most roleplaying servers so its the one place where people tend not to roleplay at all. Usually roleplaying is more local, try cantinas or hanging out near mission areas. Thats usually where you will see the RP and mind you not everyone participates but I have found the RP servers to be pretty good as long as you kind of know how people approach it.

Agreed and the fact is that this is the first mmo RPG ever. I challenge anyone to name another MMO with this much interactive storytelling. For the mmos that even bother to try to add some story, in general this was done in the form of, here is some text and while interesting it isnt roleplaying and hence not a roleplaying game. I do want to mention though that star trek online is doing a bit of this, even though its linear and the storys very short, its still more than any other mmos even attempt to do. To answer the question however, is it enough.. sadly I have to say no, its great but not enough. This game has the rpg down pact but single player rpgs have a limited replayabilty value and frankly while I love the story, I dont want to repeat it and when it runs out I wiill be looking closer at elements like pvp, space battles, trade skiills and other mmo features on all of which SWOTR comes up very short in my opinion. Without them, once the story is complete there really isnt much of a game here and much better games already exist.

I think EA would rather go out of business all together rather than give out freebies, hell I as suprised this wasnt the first 20 dollar mmo given EA is behind the project. You can. Bet that conversion happened at some point.

Level 11 Sith Warrior

My suggestion is try out Darkfall or possibily one of the SWG emulation servers. If you want something more current, Arch Age is soon to be released in Korea and is currently shopping Wester publishers. I get what your saying, I like games like that too, but a game can't be both a theme park and a sandbox, the two are at odds with each other from a design perspective.

No question in my mind that the addition of story to a MMO has got to be the greatest aspect of this game. Really when you think about it, it is in fact a first. MMO's used to be refered to as MMORPG's for many many years. This goes back to the fact that the first MMO's where effectively spawns of single player RPG's, people who played games like Pool of Radiance, Bards Tale or later Baulders Gate etc.. found themselves right at home in creating characters and taking on a role. Same people who likely played Dungeons and Dragons prior to that (or still do). But historically their has never been much story in MMO's. Sure we got the digital books and in more recent years logs of our achievements, but role-playing is all about interaction, presentation.. the moment. Its not about sitting down and reading a digital book online to find out what a quest is about. We saw a little of bit of story in Star Trek episodic missions and such but really this is the first game in my experiance and as far as I know that really earned the RPG at the end of that MMO title. The problem I suppose is that it didn't really quite earn the MMO title, so in a way we are still waiting for someone to come along and join the two in a real union. It may turn out to be this game in the end with the development direction. But as it stands story remains the best part of this game and the MMO aspects are a little light.

Eh no it didnt, in fact swg is not even entirely dead given the dozen emulation servers running today. If anything killed the official servers it was simply age. The game had more mmo features than all other games combined, it simply expired after years of success, the best result any developer can hope for.

I don't think the reviewer said anything in accurrate, its all pretty factual. Its just that he chose to focus primarly on the negative aspects of the game which is exactly why the review is very very short, easily fitting on a single sheet of paper. That says a lot more about the reviewer than it does about the game.