9/10, das war einmal jammern auf hohem Niveau ;-)

Yes, I agree. And good to see a positive thread from time to time. Yes I know, launch is not going as smooth as hoped but still, basically all MMOs had these problems and I don't care too much about another MMO failing th "promise" of best launch ever, so I do not read 100+ threads about it. And engrossing is exactly what SWTOR does right I think, it just feels so smooth when playing - I played most mayor MMOs (and a lot of minor ones, lol) since Ultima Online and I think I didn't have this feeling since playing WoW at launch. (maybe I had it with WAR as well, not sure any longer about his). Leveling up is actually fun again. Like it was in WoW in the beginning for me! Like it was in WAR, but only because I could level there with PvP as well.. So I do think this will raise the bar for future MMOs - no mayor MMO now can easily launch without voice acting/story anymore and not getting bashed for that (like you cannot launch a MMO without instances right now without being regarded to niche status) This is obviously a good thing, because it will increase the quality of future mayor MMos. But I think it will also be a bad thing, because this might mean that only very few, very big companies can afford to launch such a title - even more than now (can somebody think of a company beside EA and Activision that would be able to do it? Ubisoft maybe?) All other MMOs would have a sub-par status, niche title feeling - even if they are in a lot of ways better than WoW/SWTOR, which would be a bit sad... But well, in conclusion I think SWTOR is the next big thing on the MMO market, also of course it really is too soon to state this - a lot depends on the next few month after release and the fact if Bioware can release new/more content fast enough to hold the masses ;-) But I have faith in BW, they are not stupid (not always, at least), so: The king is dead, long live the king! (not in subscribtion numbers since WoW will be huge in Asia but who will be the big one in US/Europe and the one to "beat" for the near future)

Wird praktisch sicher nicht gemacht, eben wegen dem Gilden-Voranmeldungs-Program auf das BW ja viel Wert gelegt hat. Wenig würde Leute mehr verärgern als wenn sie auf den Server, auf dem schon 50% der Gilde spielen und zu dem die Gilde offiziell zugeteilt wurde, keinen Char erstellen können. Fazit: Darth Traya wird dank vieler aktiver Communities und den Leuten die deshalb ebenfalls dort angefangen haben/noch dort anfangen werden prkatisch sicher bald massive Warteschlangen aufweisen. Ich habe auf diesem Server zwar auch schon 4 Chars erstellt (auch um mir die Namen zu sichern), werde aber auf einem anderen Server spielen (und heute vermutlich zum zweiten Mal wieder neu bei Lvl1 starten, grrr) Aber das positive ist: Server mit Wartezeiten in den ersten Wochen werden als letze von möglichen Server-Merges betroffen sein ;-)

Ja, ich finde ja auch dass SWTOR durchaus seinen Platz als (eventuell) neuer Platzhirsch auf dem WoW-Everquest-Clone Themepark MMO Markt mit Hotkey-Kampfsystem hat. Es ist nicht immer schlecht Etwas bewährtes zu kpoieren udn nur Teile vorsicht zu innovieren. WoW hat damals Everquest genommen und mit Instanzen eine Innovation geschaffen. SWTOR hat WoW genommen und schafft mit Voice Acting/Story eine Innovation - dies wird vermutlich eine Meßlatte für alle zukünftigen MMOs darstellen, da ab jetzt ein MMo mit einer WallofText Quest zu spielen sich wie ein massiver Rückschritt anfühlen wird. Trotzdem glaube ich dass das MMo mit Hotkey (und global cooldown) ein aussterbendes Gerne ist, so wie eben rundenbasierte Rollenspiele praktisch ausgestorben sind - heutzutage gibt es ja fast nur mehr Action-Kampf Rollenspiele, maximal einmal wirklich ein Retro Game oder evtl. ein Action/Taktik Gemisch (siehe Biowares pausierbare Singleplayer RPGs).

lots of idiots paid 5$ to start 4 days after people that didn't pay a Cent for the preorder (Amazon ftw) but were interested/informed/intelligent enough to preorder and input the preorder code soon enough ;-)

Ehrlich, mich nervt derzeit am meisten dass ich in meinem Zocker-Kreis der Einzige mit ner Preorder bin, seit Tag 1 zocken kann und trotzdem 8oder deshalb) der Dumme sein wird der dann wieder auf nem anderen Server neu anfängt, lol...weil der Rest der Leute sich nicht früh genug auf einen Server einigen kann und dann vermutlich nicht auf "meinem" Server spielen will wenns dort Warteschlangen gibt (und paralell dazu am 20ten genug neue Server geöffnet werden)

Doppelpost dank Internat-Lag :-(

Alternativvorschlag: Gab und gibt schon etliche MMOs mit anderen Kampfsystemen, die teils auch gut funktionieren. Wer sehen will was z.B. auch möglich ist sollte sich z.B: Vindictus ansehen (asiatische ftp Spiel mit God-of-War ähnlichem Kampfsystem), obwohl man ehrlicherweise sgaen muss dass es kein 100%iges MMO ist, eher wie Guildwars (zentrales Hub und instanzierte Level/Quest-Gebiete). Und ja, Vindictus hat auch siene Probleme (fades Leveldesign,wenig Content,...) aber es geht hier ja nur um ein "anderes" Kampfsystem.

...because they preordered in December, obviously ;-)

Ja, der RP-PvP Server würde mir auch zusagen. Habe auch schon auf einem der RP-PvE Server bis Lvl9 gespielt und muss sagen ganz angenehm (auch keine extrem-RP Leute, der Global Chat ist OOC, Char-Namen sind dafür weniger irr kommt mir vor) Aber den Freundeskreis überzeugen auf nem RP Server anzufangen? Fürchte die Vorurteile könnten da zu stark sein (obwohl wir damals SWG auch auf RP Server gespielt habe, aber SWG war ja auch praktisch für RP gemacht, hehe)

I can you tell some of the reasons why some games failed, and none of them is too mich innovation. Like the previous poster said, these games were bad (or had just some problems). WAR for example was in my opinion a really solid game, copied a lot from Wow, did a lot of things right. BUT: It made some really bad mistakes after launch. Hoping that zonewide open PvP as ONLY endgame content was enough killed that game more than everything. (even more than the balance problems because of non mirrored classes, hehe) Vanguard: Well, again in theory a lot of great ideas. I liked a lot in vanguard, f.e. the diplomatic minigame. But here it was clear from the beginning that it could only be a nichegame because of high hardware hunger and high difficulty - add to this really bad implementation and you have a fail game. (if you go into a full level of negative Exp because of respawn bugs you quickly play something else, lol) Sure, I wish SWTOR and other games to come would copy some more of the innovative ideas that worked in past games, not just copy the one game that was a massive success. But I also think this are only small steps (f.e. Rift took WARs public quests and made aehem "Rifts"..). The big innovation will almost for sure be MMORPG-FPS, I guess Blizzards Titan will start the Era of these... Sandbox, like another poster stated as innovation, I fear is utterly dead. (As much as I love it, most sandbox stuff needs a lot of implementation with only a part of the people ever experiencing it, so it is not too great from a business side of view)

Auch wenn der OP jetzt von allen geflamt wird - ich bin auch der Meinung dass das Kampfsystem angestaubt und recht langweilig/einfach ist. ABER: Man muss bedenken wieviele Jahre ein MMo in Produktion ist. Damals war noch weit nicht alles möglich was derzeit möglich ist, daher ist verständlich/klar dass SWTOR das übliche Hotkey-Kampfsystem mit CCD verwendet. Und ich bin praktisch sicher dass es hier keine Änderungen geben wird, wäre viel zu aufwendig/riskant. Was aber schon möglich sieht sieht man ja z.B. bei manchen asiatischen MMOs wie Vindictus (obwohl es kein "echtes" MMO ist, eher wie Guildwars). Und dass Blizzards neues "MMO" Titan wohl eher ein FPS/MMO Mix wird (vermutlich, angeblich, derzeit noch Gerüchte) passt hier ganz gut. Guildwars 2 möchte das Kampfsystem auch deutlihc weniger statisch machen (allerdings im geringen Umfange). Ich denke also dass SWTOR (und evtl. GW2, habe da zu wenig gesehen dazu) vielleicht die letzen MMos mit dem klassichen Kampfsystem werden und es bald ganz normal sein wird wenn auch MMORPGs ein Action-Kampfsystem ala Skyrim verwenden - evtl. wird Blizzards Titan neue Maßstäbe setzen. Denn man muss bedenken dass vor Jahren auch jedes RPG ein Kampfsystem hatt bei dem man rundenweise (!) Angriffsaktionen aus einem Menü ausgesucht hat - das war damals so üblich, hat gut funktioniert und war ein super System. Trotzdem, jetzt verwenden es natürlich nur mehr RPGs die extrem auf Retro Flair setzen, Actionkampf ist angesagt... Deshalb nicht vergessen - das derzeitge Kampfsystem in MMo is nicht so designt weil das so supertoll udn gut ist, sondern weil die technischen Limitationen nichts anderes zugelassen haben! (wegen lag, sollte jedem klar sein). Immer bessere Hardware,Server,Internetverbindungen werden das aber meiner Meinung anch bald zu einem Relikt ala "rundenbasierte Kämpfe" machen. Trotzdem, ich sehe es nicht als Fehler von BW/EA noch einmal das vertraute, erpropte Kampfsystem zu verwenden, Innovationen werden dann andere bringen...

Würde Darth Traya nicht empfehlen. Wollte dort auch hin, Grund sind SWG sowie DAoC community. Hab auch 4 chars erstellt am ersten Tag um mir die Namen zu reservieren. Gestern, Tag 2, allerdings shcon bis zu 10 Minuten Warteschlange. Allerdings sind da ja erst ca. 50% der Preorders dabei gewesen - ich nehme an dass die Warteschlange auf diesem Server ziemlich heftig ausfallen wird, da haufenweise es-DAoc Gilden aus dem Prelaunch-Gildenprogramm auf diesem Server sind und da viele Members noch nicht dabei sind, aber trotz Warteschlange sicher auf diesem Server anfangen 8da die ganze Gilde dort ist). Schade, hätte dort ganz gerne gespielt, aber ich hab einfach zu viel Angst vor 1-2h Warteschlange ab 20. oder so...

Yes people who level to 50 in a couple of days are cheating themselves out of content Yes WoW might have had less at launch but that was 7 year ago. So still, people compare SWTOR to a well aged, 7 year established WoW and of course hope they get some more content after they reach lvl50 and did most of the things they enjoy (whatever it is for the individual, finishing story, PvP, rading, maybe leveling a twink). So if Bioware/EA are clever and have learned of their (EA) past mistakes (Warhammer anyone?) they will already have more content finished now, ready to be released after 1-3 month after release. Bioware routinely does this even with their singleplayer games (also there you have to pay these DLCs extra, which i really hope is not the case for SWTOR content patches since these should be inlcuded in 13€/month) So I personally do not worry too much about this topic, since it is obvious for even people with half a brain that future content - and fast! future content - will be what decides the fate of SWTOR - if the force stays strong with this one or if it will be another Warhammer/Aion/Rift/... (I read today that Aion will now also join the free to play club, lol) And since I think most Bioware people have even more than half a brain I willforetell - more content on its way not too long after release!

I live in Austria, ordered from amazon.de. They shipped it yesterday (14th) evening, it should arrive tomorrow (16th). Seems Amazon doesn't handle things the same in different regions...

One more - if you still did not decide on which server to play you have more information to choose one that will not have 1 hour+ waiting queue in the next days. And you will not have to reroll because all your friends that only can start play on 20th will choose a server that went up on 19th and still is not overcrowded while your lvl25 char is stuck on a server with 1hour+ queue (which of course all your friends refuse to start on) More or less happening to me right now, I played to lvl9 on day 1, restarted yesterday, maybe restart today...and I fear having to restart again after 20th, lol...but yes, my own fault for having stupid friends that are not able to preorder when I tell em and only coming to their senses now :-(

I feel your pain, but basically this is not a great surprise - Gamestop is not really known for good customer service, is it? While amazon...well, I have to say I never had problems with amazon. No, I had once - DAoC launchen on a saturday I think and Amazon only shipped on Friday so it arrived after the weekend. But since it is Amazon I just bought Daoc at a local game shop and sent Amazon their DaoC back, recieving my money back. And of course Amazon already shipped SWTOR, so no problem here. So people - why do you buy/preorder games at gamestop? Or even at walmart or some other crappy "supermarket" shop that we don't have here in europe? If you have a creditcard: Amazon >> everything else If not, try to get somebody to order for you (I had get my parents to preorder one CE for my wife since amazon only allows one per customer) If that is impossible, does the area you live in do not have any small game shop that cares for its customers? If all these options are impossible I understand, but that would be really sad :-(

Hehe SClay. buying a windows phone is your own fault I fear, you should ahve know that you will be shocked at the marketplace after coming from an Iphone. But on topic - I also think an android app is needed and will in short time be available for sure (also I got the CE authenticator, so I do not mind that much)

Yes please, server forums!

Read a book. Prefereable a Star Wars book, maybe even one of the old republic timeline. Since I am sure you already got all the interent input on SWTOR (forums, information on torhead,...) this might be one of the few possibilities of further "preparing" you for the launch since I know how you feel - evrything that is not SWTOR just feels bland and boring now, you need the SWTOR fix now - was feeling like that since I was in the stress test beta weekend, lol...

While you are basically right that everything went smooth so far and that a lot of games had great problems at launch (I also play since UO and played most of the games you also played, typical MMo hopper) you forget one important fact: It is not yet launch date. We will see if the launch went smooth after 20th of December, when not only all the preorders want to play but also the "last minute" buyers - and there will be quite a lot of these I guess. (from my friends nobody preordered, just my wife and me - but I think 5+ might start playing in the next week because I am so happy with SWTOR, lol) So I personally will wait until something like 22th before calling the launch smooth or best launch ever. What I have to say is that the stress test weekend was the best/most impressive quasi-open beta I ever attended and that there really are very little bugs around for a MMO on launch. But still I see queues for server logins ahead and maybe there might even be worse problems when the "big wave" hits on 20th like I think it will. So yes, everybody that complains atm has forgot or never experienced any MMO launch. And maybe they get everything right (I hope so) and we will be able to play for the whole time without servers crashing left and right, but this we will see in some days...

Mostly I agree. I played around 5 hours yesterday, everything very smooth but that was to be expected by than since the server was far from full and even the stresstest with full servers was pretty great. BUT: The important thing will be how things look like after December 20th - if we have massive queues and server crashes than, the whole "staggered launch" mess was for nothing. So I will agree when/if I still can play without big problems an say Dec. 22th, in which case this might be the smoothest launch in MMO history - also it of course it angered a lot of kids that didn't want to preorder sooner (for some obscure reasons that I cannot understand - I preorder with amazon, didn't pay a cent yet, still can sent the box back when I get it and had 7 days of early access...) but yet feel entitled to play from day 1 of early access...

me, preorder core input 22/07/2011: in on day 1, wave 2 wife, preorder core input 23/07/2011: in on day 1, wave 3

First of all to Ztekan - with Aug. 12 you have beasically no chance of being in first wave today I think, if you look at the preorder chart (vgchartz) which include only US physical preorder (no Amazon, no Origin) and compare that to where we are right now (still July I think) there will be some 100.000 players waiting in front of you :-( And on the original topic - yes, I do not understand this as well. I think BW/EA is doing things too much on the safe side, the waves are too small and for sure people in Europe cannot be happy if the first wave on day 2 start at 15:00... Anyway I have to say that the starting zones yesterday where not as empty as I thought, quite a lot of people around, no problems for group quests. The only reason that mobs and especially quest items like boxes, etc. where not heavily overcamped was the fact that they have improved the respawn rate since last beta. So it felt quite right yesterday IF you could play. Still I do not understand why they didn't add some more severs - they will need some more for sure - and let more people in the waves...but hopefully waves will be larger today! I can feel the pain of everybody not able to play yet - also I cannot understand the whining from alot of people since it was clear from July 21th that it will be more or less like this... But a little bit of complaining (about small wave, short working day from BW/EA) is absolutly justified, hehe...

If an elitist was not informed, interested and smart enough to know about the staggered launch based on preorder date and thus preordered and put in his code in july - well, he lost the race before it even started, but the fault is his own.