In another game. No, really, that IS the serious answer. If you want the more detailed answer: * There's Ilum. It's a planet. Just go there. You'll get a quest for it at 40 but I'm not sure there's any level limits. It's... uh... not very good. * There's a PvP area on Tatooine but nobody is ever there because there is literally nothing to do there and no reason to sit around waiting for someone to show up. On PvP servers you CAN find PvP but you'll have to search for it. Empire and Republic PvE areas are well separated on most planets. You can bump into each other on Tatooine a little bit and I accidentally found a Republic leveling area on Alderaan by jumping down a cliff, and I saw a couple people on Hoth but for the most part they have designed the game to keep the two sides out of each other's sight. It's a shame. Planetside 2 should be out Soon.

I'm willing to bet the real heros are those three healers with big numbers. I'm guessing the high damage guy sat there doing nothing but AEs while getting healed nonstop. I'm also guessing the team he was up against was a lot of clueless melees who constantly clumped up. Most people haven't caught on that SWTOR, more than most MMORPGs, punishes "melee pain trains". There's too much AE damage and not enough AE healing in this game to constantly be clumping up like you would in WOW or Rift.

I think the ultimate answer would be a "you need a dynamic world". So in Rift, for example, a rift opens up and NPC invaders start coming out. These invaders head to the towns on the map and try to kill the friendly NPCs and take over the town. You can log in and discover the town is completely owned by evil monsters and the shopkeepers are all dead. Players must work together to liberate the towns and then seal the rifts. It's a pretty simple system. Too simple, really, but it's headed in the right direction. What if the monsters could control resources? What if they could build up the towns they take over? Building walls and barracks and armories and generally making things worse for everyone. What if players could do the same to the friendly towns? What if, rather than a specific storyline quest, this NPC just wanted you to bring in more stone so he could keep building the wall. It's not just a dumb quest to "bring 20 stone" that everyone does until the end of time. He's really building a wall. He will accept stone until he's done with it. Maybe when he's done, there's a quest to go to the barracks to spar with some NPCs. Sparring trains them up. When they've sparred enough, they go out and stand on the wall as guards. We're not even talking about quests so much as building game systems that make sense, and which assemble into a "game world" and "roleplaying environment" that is consistent and makes sense for everyone in it. True, you lose the "story" in all this -- or at least, you lose the personalized, custom-made individual story. Players would have to make their own story (which to hear it in this thread, is all the rage these days anyway). But maybe that's the cost of massively multiplayer. You want a great story? Take it offline. Play Skyrim or Dragon Age. Singleplayer games can do amazing things with the storyline and have them make perfect sense because you're the only one who has to see it. The error was in thinking they could go from singleplayer to multiplayer while still using a model that only makes sense in singleplayer. Multiplayer needs its own model and the MMORPG industry has been very slow to recognize this. "Public quests" and "instanced content" have been efforts to twist the single player experience into something that makes sense for multiplayer but it's been a pretty feeble effort. The industry has been slow to understand that "multiplayer is different than singleplayer" -- something that, oddly, every other genre seems to take into account. Online FPS games make sense. Online RTS games make sense. Massively multiplayer games like EVE and Planetside make sense. SWTOR does not make sense. Also, the other problem with storyline games is that once people finish the story, they usually quit playing. This is fine for Skyrim. But if you're trying to develop a long term revenue stream with unlimited replayability, then the single player RPG storyline is a bad gamble.

What? No. I disagree. Roleplaying is where you take up a role and play it, reacting to the environment as it is presented to you. You are an elven archer. You are in your home forest. You spot an orc. What do you do. A good roleplay environment must have consistency. It should make a sort of self-contained sense. That is, if 500 people have won the Great Hunt, that should make sense somehow. If 500 people have killed General Arkham, that should make sense somehow. The story or setting or rules of the roleplaying game should tell you why these things make sense. A game that doesn't make sense is a very poorly written roleplaying game. Yes you can "ignore it". You can "play around it". The fact that you are having to do these things is WHY it's a bad roleplaying game. If it was a good roleplaying game, you wouldn't need to constantly ignore or work around various elements that make no sense. No, the bottom line is this: we are discussing what makes a "roleplaying game". What makes them good? What makes them bad? How can a multiplayer roleplaying game be constructed in such a way that it makes sense? You seem dead-set on defending SWTOR's current implementation and would rather ignore its flaws than talk about ways to solve them. Which is fine. Continue playing your game. The rest of us have a lot to talk about.

We can talk about it and hope for the best in expansions. That's what forums are for. Which is absolutely a perfect example of what's wrong with the story. It simply is not taking multiplayer into account. Really I'm surprised this thread has gone on so long -- I thought I was just stating the obvious! I'm surprised people are arguing about it! I sort of thought people would read it, say, "Quite so, old chap" and go about their business but a lot of people actually seem to be defending the "single player storyline in a multiplayer setting" concept, even though it's clearly, obviously, anti-immersive and anti-roleplay. Companions are another good example. The appearance customization items were a step in the right direction but why not just let us put them into the character creator and make them look however we want? Maybe the species is set but we can change all the details, including their name. All of the dialogues cleverly avoid ever saying my name (I'm always "Bounty Hunter" or "Sith", etc) and they could have done the same for companions. I recognize it's probably too late to retool something like that but I can still shake my finger at them for building the entire game without once thinking of how it would look in a multiplayer setting, which is quite a large oversight when making an "MMORPG". You are clearly meant to roleplay your story to some extent -- that's why every conversation gives you 3 choices of what to say. Granted it doesn't change much but the point is to get you into the game. It's all about immersion. Bioware clearly has not thought out "immersion" plus "multiplayer". That's really the crux of my complaint. Most other MMORPGs make the same mistake. I'm just astounded the Bioware made it too.

So rumor is there's a new Operation coming out in every major patch (1.2, 1.3, 1.4, etc). I would be quite a bit happier with this game if every major patch also included a new Warfront. I mean warfronts are smaller, surely easier to design than Operations and they are infinitely replayable whereas Operations have a limited lifespan from the time they are activated. Why not create new PvP content at a pace similar to that of new PvE content?

What I'm really talking about is "immersion". A good roleplaying game immerses you in the story. You are not constantly having to fight the game over various inconsistencies. For example, some MMORPGs have explained that the player-characters are all special entities and that's why they can't ever permanently die. SWTOR could start off explaining that you get access to some special, experimental technology that resurrects you and that's why you keep coming back to life but killing this Darth guy over there is forever. That's not a million dollar change request. It would be like 4 sentences. Other immersive changes could be a little tougher, but still feasible. For example, you kill a robot. It dies and falls over. Fine. 60 seconds later, it just magically reappears out of thin air. How how would it be to, I dunno, have them jetpack down from the sky? Or have a shuttle land and they jump out of it? Or they just spawn at some facility somewhere and come running to take those spots again? It's a pretty small change -- it might even just be cosmetic, but now the robots come back in some sensible way rather than just going "poof" out of the air. (What game was it that did this with your mount? Instead of just going "poof", it always ran in from just a bit offscreen... little cosmetic stuff like that can help keep a game immersive whereas "poof, here it is" is anti-immersive. It breaks the spell.) Nobody seems to be thinking about ways to make MMORPGs more immersive. We're just playing the same pretty anti-immersive, anti-roleplay hogwash we've been playing since the invention of the MUD. This is not an MMORPG. Call it what it is. It's a Massively Multiplayer Action Adventure Game. MMOAAG. Yes you "can" roleplay but you "can" roleplay in Quake. That doesn't make Quake into a roleplaying game. I think with just a little bit of thought, if we could just put WOW out of our minds for a moment, we could think of pretty simple ideas that would make MMORPGs a lot more immersive -- a lot more roleplayish.

How is that "nitpicking"? It's a major flaw in the story. Just because every other game does it doesn't mean it's not a major flaw. If this was a regular RPG, I think you'd agree that it's very poorly done and just inexcusable. It's as if the GM just said, "And you, TyHeaton, shall have the only Sword of Rules in all the lands. With it, you shall command power over all who see it. Also, everyone else has one too." You'd be all, "Um, what? So, one of them is real and the rest are fakes?" "Oh no, no. They're all real. And there's only one of them in all the land. And everyone here has one." Oh now I'm a "tool" for wanting an actual roleplay experience. Interesting. How hard would it be, do you think, to respawn bosses with a random appearance and random name? You could probably do a little voice modulation effect and even make them sound slightly random. You killed General Rathkor. I killed General Stiltskin. It's a really minor adjustment but it's one that would make at least some better sense in a multiplayer environment. The bottom line is people aren't thinking about what "multiplayer" can or should do to an RPG setting. We're just doing the same-old same-old even though it didn't make sense then and doesn't make sense now. And really, Bioware seems like the right company to stop and think about how an RPG story can be told in a multiplayer environment. They could be the ones changing the face of the genre. I would love to see them try a new approach for the expansions. There will be more levels and more missions and while it's too late to do anything about levels 1-50, it's not too late to do something a bit more immersive for levels 51+.

Here's how I like to think of it: I should roleplay. I should pretend that the game universe is "real" and act accordingly. My character should not have to roleplay. He's in the universe and should simply take events at face value. If I have to suspend disbelief, that's fine and normal. If MY CHARACTER has to suspend disbelief, then we are going one level too deep and the only reason that happens is that it's not a very good story. For example: Your character shoots lightning from his hands. I have to suspend my disbelief about this in order to roleplay. No problem. My character does not have to suspend his disbelief -- to him it makes perfect sense that you are shooting lightning from your hands. My character has just won The Great Hunt, an exclusive Bounty Hunter tournament for which there is only one winner. Upon completing it, he notices that, somehow, there are a couple hundred other people who also won The Great Hunt. That's bad because now you're asking MY CHARACTER to engage in a suspension of disbelief. That's just bad story design. The bottom line problem is that we are all made out to be unique heroes in SWTOR. Why am I some super-special ultra-unique no-one-like-me-at-all Bounty Hunter in the story line? Can't I just be "a pretty good Bounty Hunter"? Lots of people can be pretty-good bounty hunters but when you make it out that each of us is the #1 best in the galaxy, you set up a story that's going to be full of holes. Bioware wrote the story without considering that it was going to be multiplayer. Consequently, it makes no sense when viewed from a multiplayer angle.

Except I don't have any of those problems. Maybe it's the #1 problem for some people, but it clearly isn't for everyone. Lack of content impacts everyone, though. Smooth, flawless, perfectly balanced PvP is still going to die quickly if there's no content for it.

Presumably his quote applies to PvE gear as well. They want to make sure that fully geared players do not easily trounce fresh-faced level 50s. Whether this gear comes from PvP or PvE should be immaterial. Basically I think they've realized that they coded in mudflation at a steeper rate than they should have and they need to dial it all back down.

(Also, how did so many other people complete the Great Hunt? I saw their titles! Clearly I won the Great Hunt. And they only do them like once a year or something so there's no way all those other people were there. I would have noticed. And had to kill them. I think they are cheating. I was at the big meeting with Mandalore and I didn't see any of them there! Also, you Republic people really need to sort out your Most Wanted list. I am the Most Wanted person. I don't know why all these other people are wearing that same title when it was clearly me that was the Most Wanted. Is there some sort of tie, or something? How can there be dozens of "Most Wanted" people? I think it's very sloppy and speaks of poor communication on the Republic side as clearly they have no idea who is really Most Wanted.)

For a game that's all about story, there are an awful lot of silly bits in there. I invariably end up killing an entire battalion of enemy troops and thinking, "You know, that wasn't so tough. Any one of those level 50 battle droids back at the base could have waltzed over here, shot the place up and killed the boss without so much as a dent. Why'd they have to send me?" And once in a while I almost think they should send you into some impossible mission just to make a point. As it is, everything is just comes so easily: "And now I shall send you to your inevitable death by having you get the holocron from the pyramid, a feat which nobody has managed to do in 1000 years of trying! Mu-hu-hu-hu-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah!!!! ... oh, you're back already? Got the holocron? Just had to shoot some lightning at it? Huh. Well now I shall send you into this base to kill this guy that is totally unkillable for he has killed so many people that you shall never acc... oh, back already? Killed him, did you? And his 50 troops? Huh. Welp. Guess that's about it here then. Next planet!" I once had a mission that was clearly impossible and thought, "Oh, this is neat! A mission that's clearly impossible! I wonder what twist the story may take now?" But it turned out they had just, for whatever reason, let me pick up a mission 10 levels over my level and I wasn't paying any attention. Basically it's hard not to roleplay a cocky bastard considering I am apparently more powerful than everyone in the galaxy, because I never get any tasks that I can't ultimately complete. It's almost as if the entire universe was laid out with me conquering it in mind. I think I can count on one hand the number of times I have died trying to accomplish something, and those times were usually when I got really reckless because it was so easy up til then. The only real exception to this seems to be PvP. I do occasionally fail to win the Civil War or to stop the Republic from getting through the Voidstar. Everything else is pretty much a given, though. I mean really, after the 10th time they tried to kill my Bounty Hunter, you'd think they'd just come to realize that I can't be killed. At least, not permanently. Feels a bit silly, is all I'm saying.

Sorry, what? Have you actually BEEN to the Tatooine PvP area? That's not "content". That's a very small field with some empty buildings in it. There is no "content" there. If I told you there was some great PvE content and it turned out to be a monster standing in a field with no loot, no rewards, no objectives, no puzzles, no story, no structures and no point what-so-ever, would you call that "content"? PvP is the same way. It needs content -- real, actual content. Objectives, at the minimum.

I agree. This thread seems to have been assaulted by PvE players who think a tiny amount of PvP content is "good enough" and Bioware needs to give them more 20-man raid content. I mean what are we getting? One new warfront? Let me guess: it's roughly the size and shape of a Wal-Mart parking lot and they knocked it out in about a week. And we'll probably get several months of playtime out of it, even so, because that's just the nature of PvP. Meanwhile, Eternity Vault appears to be this massively complex project, probably months in development, and after you've spent 2 weeks running it you'll be tired of it, have everything from it, and never, ever go there again. Imagine if Bioware gave us a PvP area with as much thought, content and complexity as they put into Eternity Vault. PvEers will get an amazing, well planned adventure. PvPers will get some sort of big sand pit, with perhaps some sort of ball in it.

The game launching with such a tiny amount of PvP content is the problem. I mean really, 1 hour to see everything the game has to offer for PvP? And that's a generous estimate. Versus hundreds of hours of PvE content. It's not even a 1 to 100 ratio. PvP content represents perhaps 1/1000th of this game's value. And yet the forums and playtime seems to indicate it's one of the most popular features. I think we should be able to agree that Bioware grossly underestimated PvP popularity and have been caught very short-handed on PvP content. In order to have faith that they will rectify this situation, I need some assurance that they are aware of it. I'm not at all sure of that. Sounds to me like they are mostly working on additional PvE content, even though they have a ton of it already.

Time it takes to see all of the PvE content: roughly 5 months at a heavy pace? This is assuming you want to play through 8 times to see the storylines of each major class on both teams, plus all the end-game content. Time it takes to see all of the PvP content: roughly 1 hour. Whyyyy. Why is the PvP content so miniscule that you can hit level 10 and see all of the warfronts before level 11. And it should only take you about 15 minutes to grasp everything Ilum has to offer. PvPers like content, too!

Minimum range: 5m. Done. Even easier.

What're you? Both my Sniper and my Powertech have to wait for the GCD before they can activate their interrupts. So: I start my ability I see your blue cast bar pop up I have to wait for my GCD to finish I can now try to interrupt you (Or, more likely) You start your cast I hit my attack because I didn't notice your blue bar in time I have to wait (etc) Makes it very hard to interrupt fast casts.

Arenas are bottom of the barrel PvP content. Even calling it "content" is a small exaggeration. WOW Arenas are tiny, tiny maps that Jim the Intern could knock out in a day. It's straight deathmatch so it's not even an interesting strategic experience. It's like -- why would you play Counterstrike or Battlefield if the maps were all just rooms roughly a quarter of the size of a Wal-Mart parking lot with no interesting features? Sure it might be fun for a time or two but how could you play that every day for months? Arenas just bore me to death. I want a little strategy in my gameplay. Voidstar should be considered a strategic minimum. "Do not get any less strategic than this." We should be asking for content that improves on what we already have. Arenas are a step backwards.

Melee interrupts ARE better from what I've seen -- the cycle faster than ranged interrupts. Problem is they are on the global cooldown. That should be fixed. By the time I see you start your ability, and I finish my ability and then I trigger my interrupt, it's probably too late. Interrupting a 1.5 second cast ability is more luck than skill, especially with some alacrity points involved.

Ilum as a warzone would be, by far, the worst of the bunch. It's just a terrible design. There's nothing fun about it. There's no flow to it. Devs should go play Planetside for 30 minutes and come up with a better open world PvP design based on that.

I disagree. My main is a Powertech, my alt is a Sniper and I'm undecided as to which I prefer in PvP. The Powertech is more diverse and excels at running the ball in Huttball but then the Sniper excels at actually killing the enemy ball handler so we have the ball to begin with. I'd say my sniper actually makes a better door guard in Voidstar because he can spam his cone AE attack from far away while the Powertech has to dive in for his PBAE (which overheats him very fast). The Sniper is hilariously fun in Civil War particularly when fighting around the middle as I can typically snipe off 20,000 damage before anyone bothers to figure out where it's all coming from. I certainly outdamage my Powertech, as expected. Worst may be the non-stealth melee DPS classes, like Marauder. Not because they are "unbalanced"/bad but just because of the nature of being melee DPS -- they have to be in the thick of the action and they are not overly durable. My second alt is a Marauder and I do enjoy it and wouldn't say he's "weak" but he certainly dies more often than my ranged DPS. The Sniper is squishier but it's not so bad when you can stand back and shoot into a crowd and not catch incidental AE damage or generally be noticed.

1. Lack of content 2. Lack of content 3. Lack of content 4. Lack of content In 1 hour you can see 100% of this game's PvP content and have enough time left over to go out and grab a beer.

Agreed. Ilum was clearly designed by someone who had no idea what PvP was really about. Perhaps they heard about Warhammer but never really played it and never read the forums. There's really just not much fun to be had in a big empty zone with a handful of overly simple objectives. The Warfronts are pretty small and shallow but they are clearly superior in design to Ilum. Ilum is bad and whoever designed it should feel bad.