This guy totally nailed it. Everything screams Mythics horrendous work, the storylines are by far the best (and memorable) parts of the game, and yes it does resemble Bioware's work. Sad really. Imagine if they used all of Bio's talent to construct the rest of the game. Imagine if they had.. - Dynamic group quests - True open world PvP questing areas, not the isolated crap they have now. - Smooth and natural combat animations, that are responsive and attractive. - Memorable bosses. P.S. I HATE their cookie cutter talent trees, so weak and lacking imagination.

The biggest gripes for me are.. - Poor animations for combat, movement. None of it looks natural. - Horrible, horrible game engine. Really bad optimization. Even if it is the Hero engine, they can gut it and rework it if need be. No excuse here. - No 'breathtaking' areas, planets feel far, far too small. No sense of adventure. - (My server) Lack of people to play with or conflict with. Felt so wrong not seeing a SINGLE imperial throughout my entire 1-50 leveling game... Isolated areas for imp/republic was a bad poorly implemented idea. Why can't they just take a page from other developers and refine those ? - No cross server functionality.

Sadly you are preaching to the VOCAL minority. Most people leave the game or simply wait and see what comes of it as a reaction to what they've played and experienced. It happens to the best MMO on the market, so it was inevitable. Yes the game will need time to grow and breath, no doubt, but the problem is that it's such a huge project that it needs to hit the ball out of the park in every area, or at least that's what most peoples, save for the wise few, perception is.

I applaud your courage for posting these points. Yes, there is a lot of negativity on the forums. And let's be fair, the only people that can make it all go away is Bioware themselves (and EA by extension). They need to do something about the state of the game, and fast. However I do disagree with you on one of your points. The animations are aweful, I mean really really bad. They were so incredibly lazy I can't even begin to state how much. If you pay attention you'll notice that EVERY race is virtually the same, only reskinned human variants (they could have done SO much more in this regard, like unique zabrak appearances, unique chiss etc). Every race follows the same animation theme throughout i.e. Trandoshans, Humans, etc they all have the same animations. And to top it all off they are pretty weak. Auto attack being removed was a bad, bad idea (one that can still be fixed) and made lightsaber combat look nowhere near what they intended it to be.

Depends on how much profit. More profit = Better future content, expansions etc, better systems online.

I'm not sure, although you have a good point, it is a LOT of content., it's in a good enough state to shine. I made my post because I want to see the game succeed and gain the praise it could (and should) receive.

Admitting the error is the first step to improving the game, and making it as great as it should be. None of this is fact, it's opinion, take that into consideration please.

TL;DR - Bioware messed up big time. Can they fix it ? The forums are heaving with negativity and doomsayers, stating that the game is facing imminent destruction and will eventually sink. And there is some truth to it. The sooner Bioware heeds this, the quicker it can recover, it isn't too late. I, like many others am of a different opinion. I think Bioware is going through growing pains and was bound to face these initial trails in order to grow into a successful MMO. They are one of the very few companies that can actually succeed in doing it., but I get the feeling that it's taken the wrong first few steps. These next 6 months will determine if the game has established a foothold or not. I do agree with a lot of the complaints about the game. It doesn't feel like a complete package, especially at end game. The graphics engine is unruly, refusing to work well with most hardware, and utterly unoptimised, the animations are static and inorganic (resulting in disappointing lightsaber combat ... one of the promised features) and the performance of the servers is a sad affair. It feels like the game was launched a year too early, like a lot of the graphics and animations decisions were ok'd for the sake of shipping the damn game, as opposed to waiting to make a sublime product a'la Blizzard style, something Bioware WERE renown for years ago. It's a trend I've noticed more and more in the last few years with Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3 & now SWTOR. They seem to be rushing games that are supposed of the highest calibre, games that should set the standard when they should be taking their time with it, it's an artistic creation and labor of love to make a videogame and it's evident when we all play them. We can all see when the accursed EA producers are calling the shots, it reflects directly in the quality of the product. And I'm 99% positive a lot of the time when these decisions were made the developers hung their heads in disappointment (we just never hear about it). The game does have it's golden moments though, and Bioware's brilliance still manages to shine through in many places, it can still shine through if they work hard on it now. The voice acting is stellar (as expected) and the cutscenes add an element never before seen in the MMO space. Group conversations is really what they've devised from all this, and it does work in the 4 player FP setting, but there are still gaping holes in the framework. Does it feel like a huge expansive world. At first it did, but now it doesn't with all the segragated planets. There is too much division in the adventure, everything feels horribly disjointed. Get to hangar A, LOAD SCREEN, walk through intermediate area B, LOAD SCREEN, access your ships travel pane, LOAD SCREEN, disembark ship. These were really bad decisions, let's be honest they're not hard to make either... The planets should have been fewer and far, far larger for a more rich & in depth experience. For example, Tattooine is a MASSIVE planet and should have catered to a bigger level range and a wider array of quests, giving players a reason to return to the plaent during the leveling process, instead we're subjected to forgettable planets we just want to get off as soon as possible. Poor, poor design choice. Bioware stuck to the classic trinity system, which was a fair point but they refused to take a risk and experiment with new systems, styles of gameplay and combat. These are just a few examples. It's had a lot invested into it, so I think there is still a very good chance the developers will be preparing content, updates and fixes to amend the mess they've released. Who knows they may very well do something amazing in the next few months. But it all hinges on them undoing the aweful design decisions they got wrong, if they nail those issues at the same time as releasing new content, we may very well see the game rise to the challenge. That is, if EA allows it to...

Server merges are NECESSARY. I have a niggling feeling Bioware will be lazy and simply offer free transfers, this will not solve the issue, it will only leave the servers even more sparse and create an even bigger gap between server population as everyone will end up choosing the most populated places to migrate to. Guild Wars 2 and Diablo 3 are coming out soon anyway. Really have the upmost respect for Bioware, but they've really dropped the ball on this one.

This, a million times. Then they can move onto more creative things. I think their animations could be vastly improved too.

OP, your post is amazing and should be read asap. Can I ask you a question, what do you think of the animations system and it's impact on the game's combat ? E.g. melee, casting running etc

Could not agree more OP, this game is crippled by it's own design and performance. - The engine is so poorly optimized that it strains hardware that runs multiple times better on games that look multiple times better. - The animations look inorganic, static and demonstrate little fluidity, combat is affected as a result. They need to revamp them if there is to be any hope. I mean they have only ONE type of frame (as opposed to BLizzards 6+ races) for all player characters and they still managed to make a mockery of it,. This was never Bioware's strong suit to be honest but they needed to get it right to make this game a success. They still haven't. Lightsaber combat looks ****, walking, running, stopping, it all looks very static. I think Guild Wars has some of the most impressive animations I've ever seen. If only Bioware took a page from them,.. Yes I'm bumping thsi thread as it needs to be seen by actual developers.

I agree, they've not come far at all in the animation department. Sad but true, it would add a layer of depth many would welcome.

Running, Strafing, Walking, Combat, Casting, Standing (and the list just goes on..) It all looks REALLY stiff and static like there's very little natural motion in between attacks, paces walking/running, and even stopping after running or organic movement taking place. I never really paid attention to this in the first place until I had a crack at the some other games, and never realised how much of a great impact it could have on SWTOR if they got this part right.

Amen to that.