This is true! How the game's focus is on the character quests is the issue I think. This decision by itself kills groups by story. It's never "the sith warrior and his ragtag guild do the impossible." It's "the sith warrior does the impossible alone by himself." Most of the people I talk to treat the class quest as a solo campaign basically, which is a shame considering that it's the main focus of the story. Had they made the planetary stories and the main plot of the universe the central themes that drive it, I think it would have given better incentive to group. It makes more sense, and is more fun, to group up for the Tatooine tresure hunt, for example, rather than group up to do someone's class quest which you have no part of whatsoever.

I'm not saying they don't appeal to me. I'm saying that they are, in general, very poorly written and not up to standard to BioWare's writing in past games. Take, for example, the Inquisitor story. Without going into spoilers, I loved the premise, but I found the delivery sloppy and poorly paced. Pretty much all of these stories are appealing to me (I am a SW fan after all), but most of them just aren't up to par is the point I was trying to make in my third point. trussasp : My point isn't that they're grindy. It's that the game isn't really story driven. Adding voices over cookie cutter quests and calling it story driven isn't really true. If that's the case, WoW is also story driven.

That's true. My point however is that they should have focused on the story at large instead of the character story. There should have been more Tatooine's imo, and that should have been their focus. I'm not saying that there should be life altering decisions like the Alderaan point you make, for instance, but that the main story that drives everything shouldn't be your character story, but the planetary story and the story of the universe at large.

Note: This is a long post, with a tl'dr at the end, but I'd recommend you actually read it. Well, three things, which I’ll explain in parts. Yes, I know that there are other problems in the game, like pvp, insane lag due to horrid engine, dead servers, but those are all known and discussed, so I won’t be talking about them here. 1. It isn’t a story driven MMO. Not at all. It is merely an average MMO with voice acting thrown on top of it. Bioware has produced some of the best stories in video game history. KOTOR, Jade Empire, Dragon Age, Mass Effect (1 and 2) were all unique because the plot of the games drove the player towards the end. They were character driven stories, where you controlled a character whom you shape into who you want him/her to be, and see him grow. Your actions in game had a profound effect on the game world, and you felt a sense of accomplishment whenever you did something. Every action had a consequence, and that resulted directly in creating a living breathing world. With SWTOR, the development team decided to keep the focus on a character driven story, but this came at the cost of making it feel like a solo game with people running around in it. What’s worse is that, despite being a character driven game, your character, even at the end of it, is incredibly plain and uninteresting. This is because there isn’t any breathing room in the story. It’s all incredibly linear. You’re always some slave turned sith apprentice, and you’re always some down on his luck guy that got his ship stolen. Your character is also plain because the story you play has no influence at all on the overall. So you’re now done with the class story and you’re on the dark council? Good for you! That has no bearing whatsoever on anything, ever. It doesn’t feel like you’ve accomplished anything, because as soon as you leave your instanced story and step into the fleet, you’re going to see many many others exactly like you. All the class stories have almost no bearing or even any relation the main plot going around in the game, which is the cold war between the Republic and the Empire. Well, you may argue that this is to be expected, and they can’t accommodate that many different choices in the class story, so they’re bound to have it similar to everyone, which is completely true. What should have been done, however, is to make the game plot driven. The game should have been focused on a central plot centered around the cold war, and the class quests should have been a bonus, coming of age side plot. This makes sense, because in all of the stories, you start off down on your luck and evolve into a massive powerhouse “I can rule the universe so **** you” type. While cool, they are really detached from the main plot and themes of the universe at large. The game should have revolved around, you know, what was actually going on in the universe at large. Making the plot revolve around the universe at large also presents better opportunities for roleplaying and cooperative play. It makes more sense for the story to push players into a goal of beating the crap out of the opposing faction than it is to play the warrior storyline for the billionth time. This happens sometimes, but nowhere near enough. Take for example, Tatooine. The main quest in the planet is a treasure hunt, and it is wonderful. Here is a prime example of the story pushing you forward! What is this mysterious power? Where can I find it? How do I stop it? What does it do? Can I salvage it? That Darth guy sure is nice! It presents an interesting outlook on the universe, and can really bring players together. The problem is that, when there is a worldwide plot instead of the single player class quest, it’s marred by bad design choices. The game just doesn’t want you to explore. Ever. I was incredibly frustrated whenever I get a warning when I go too far and start losing health. Why would you do this? This just separates the game into distinct zones, and there is nothing at all interesting in them except that there are random quests here. There’s nothing to take in. All that is available are quests separated by an insanely long walk that would be suicide without a speeder. Taris is another example. While the central plot of that planet isn’t as interesting as tat in my opinion, the plot still drives it. In the empire side, you have this Sith chick who annoys the living crap out of you, and she really pushes you to doing quests. I’d do the insanely long bonus quests just to spite her. Again, the planet has some horrible design choices. I’m looking directly at you, bonus quest in a heroic area with a wondering champion and a world boss. Now you’re wondering, all the examples I’ve given have story and plot, so the game is plot driven! Your examples don’t connect with the title! Well, the problem is, these are few and far in between. The game is filled, filled with grind quests. Most of the game is grind quests. The only difference is that these quests, unlike WoW, are voiced. This does NOT make the game plot driven. If the quests in the game are all basic “go kill 10 rodents”, then they are not plot driven. You can add all the voice acting in the world and it won’t make these quests relevant to any meaningful plot. If people want to claim that these quests are plot driven, then by the very same argument, WoW is a plot driven game. Pretty much every single quest in WoW that involves grind also gives you a backstory to motivate you. It isn’t voiced, but the meaning and intention is the exact same. There is NO difference between reading about killing 10 rats for the goodwill of the Horde and killing 10 republics because the guy you were talking to hates them. None whatsoever. All BioWare managed to do is make basic quests like these infinitely more expensive to produce, and there are a LOT of them. They should have made each planet, like Tat, have their own plot that is in direct relation to the story of the world at large, and all questing should be related to this. If you’re going to argue that this takes a long time and is hard to implement, well yes it is. But that’s their job. This is what it takes to make questing plot driven. Having a guy tell you with VO to do the exact same quest that every game gives you does not make a story driven game. I think of the quests in Guild Wars 2 and think that this is what should have been in SWTOR. The main story of the entire universe, sadly, is told through irregular disconnected flashpoints. After playing the Black Talon and the Esseles, I thought that BioWare hit a homerun! PLOT! These dungeons were all story driven and incredibly interesting and different. They encouraged interaction, had meaningful decisions, and flat out rocked. I hated the Twilled ambassador in the esseles, and that’s okay. That’s fantastic, actually, because she’s an incredibly well written character. She made me feel something. She made me think she was an insane stupid idiot jerkface, and that is perfect. She made me feel connected to the game, made me feel like I was a part of something. Even the bosses were cool. The stupid jerkface told you about this big tough guy Mandalorian, and your thoughts are, “Oh cool! This guy sounds tough. I’d better be careful where I go.” You’re given some backstory and info into a boss, and I thought that was very cool. Unfortunately, the design is abandoned IMMEDIATELY afterwords. Each flashpoint after has nothing interesting whatsoever. The story driven style is completely abandoned, and the only thing you get in its place is a quick chat with Malgus or New Bastilla. That’s it. Oh, and the insanely cliche light/dark choice that you make that has no bearing whatsoever. It’s literrally only just there because BW remembered halfway that these were an important part of forming your character, except that meaningless choices like these have no impact. The problem is that these have the most connection the world at large. These give you the most insight into what’s happening in the game world. The most that you can get into the universe is a quick chat with Malgus and Bastila before your mission. This makes me feel that the whole design of the game is broken on a fundamental level that cannot be fixed unless it was completely rebooted. We have a story driven game that isn’t story driven that’s filled with cliche quests that have nothing to do with anything focusing on a single player story that has no effect on the universe at large and actively discourages grouping up as a result. The game fails because it has a whole exciting universe build up, with tension and sith and jedi and everything a Star Wars fan could hope for, but it’s focused on all the wrong aspects. 2. They ruined the story of Revan forever. Spoilers for Kotor 1 and 2, as well as the foundry below: 3.The class stories are not good. I’m going to start this off by stating that the Agent story is one of the best, if not THE best, things that BioWare has ever done. Ever. This story is brilliant. Every single thing about this story screams classic BioWare, the ones that gave us Jade Empire, not the Mass Effect 3 BioWare. This story is so genius, I’m surprised BW even included it, considering how the Agent is one of the least played classes in the entire game, and has been nerfed to hell and back ever since the first patch. Most other stories, sadly, are not up to par. The Sith Warrior story is pretty cool, and that’s it basically. Given that the they advertised that the game is story driven with epic plots, having most of the class stories ranging from decent (trooper) to outright terrible (counselor) is not a good sign. With most of the budget going to VO and story development, I really expected them to be better. With the exception of the Agent story, none of these are anywhere near the quality of past BW titles. The biggest offender in my opinion is the Jedi Knight story, I didn't write much here, since this point is subjective, but I was on the whole disappointed with most of the stories. TL;DR: 1. The game isn't plot driven, it just adds voice overs over the same quests you've seen countless times before, and focuses on the wrong aspects of the story. 2. Revan had no business being in this game, and is a complete contradiction to how he was portrayed in the previous games. 3. The actual class stories are not up to par with anything BW has done before, not including the Agent story, which is genius.

1.3 will make or break the game depending on its release date. Transfers/mergers have been needed since February, and taking a month to release it would be disastrous.

No solo queing for ranked is disappointing. Important thing now is to get 1.3 out as soon as possible.

I see this as happening. BW really dug themselves in a hole by making stories based on class. Then again, since the development team's idea of balancing classes is to nerf operatives every other update, I'd rather they didn't.

And, as was the point of my previous comment, the same thing already happens anyway. Can xserver bring in jerks? Sure it can, just like any other form of pugging, but pretending that it will increase the chance of getting a jerk for a partner to exponential levels to the point of it becoming a useless feature is ridiculous. In my limited experience with WoW, I rarely ran into any jerks. Heck, once I grouped with people all from different servers, and we managed to chat and have a grand time. I'd like to think that people act well with other because they are genuinely nice, not because they know they can't get away with acting like ****s. That, and the game is borderline dead, so I will gladly take an optional tool that will make it easier for me to enjoy game content over never seeing said content.

Yeah, because people acting like jerks NEVER happens in our trusted communities that we have established on our servers. No sir, every single person is of a strong moral fibre, no jerks here! Every single server is filled with countless of people that no only are happy to group up for anything at any time, but each and every one of these fine upstanding individuals acts in a selfless manner, and only selects 'need' when s/he actually needs said item in question! For this reason, I refuse to see a cross server implemented! For it shall destroy the community we have all worked hard to establish by bringing in anonymous strangers from those... other servers we dare not mention in these parts.

After he nerfed the life out of operatives over and over again, I have no respect for him. Maybe he left because the higher ups didn't let him remove them from the game outright.

It failed because it was rush released when it wasn't ready, because Bioware insisted on having an awful unfinished engine, because most of the content updates are fluff, because of some incredibly horrible desicion making (release legacy and wait another 3 months for transfers/merges when it's apparent that servers are dying), because BW got a little too excited with nerfing everything, and because there was a distinct lack of communication between the devs and the fanbase that didn't create a lot of confidence.

No, I will not. Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3, and this mess leave a bitter taste in my mouth. Understand though, that I'm a complete mmo noob. This was my first mmo, having never touched any. They were never my cup of tea, and I thought they were idiotic. I only got this because it was the closest I can get to KOTOR 3. Six months later, and I'm not as big a noob as I was. I have level 50s here and raided and played pvp, I'm looking forward to GW2, and I managed to enjoy a bit of WoW. And I'm finding SWTOR unplayable. There's nothing to do at end game, my server is dead, the server I re-rolled on is dead, and the third one is dying as well. The engine is horrid. I get so much lag it can become unbearable. Every time I log in I end up lagging within 5 minutes. Due to the pop, I can't even play anything anymore. I can't do flashpoints or raids or pvp, and rerolling lost its charm. The voice overs where good the first time around, but they are a waste of time by the third or fourth or eighth run. Even the stories aren't very good. Other than the agent story, and parts of the warrior, nothing has moved me as much as Kotor or Jade Empire. The thing that annoys me the most is how much potential it had. The silence from the developers, the insane amounts of time it takes them to add basic mmo functions, the game breaking patches that go untested, the useless features (Legacy is stupid, and this coming from someone who played every class quest to the end), and the engine, all of these are incredibly frustrating because you know they could have been avoided. If the game's decline is noticeable by someone new to the genre like me, then you've got problems. I've moved on. I have about 28 days left in my account, and I hadn't logged in in ages. I don't really see the point.

Because an expantion would mean a continuation of the 8 class stories. I'd assume they'd let us earn xp for those.

Yes. This is a bug that's been going around for a month or so, since 1.2. Here's a link to the thread on the customer service forum.

Diablo 3 is easily the more polished game. I mean, is this really a question? As for SWTOR's smooth launch, well, you have partly that to thank for the dead servers.

Quick question guys: how good is the buffed 31 healing talent? I ended up not taking it so I can grab lacerate and have another option for offense. Is it worth taking instead of lacerate now?

I think I'm more interested in DPS rather than tanking though. I heard the shared tree was insane! Advice?

Whenever I queue into a warzone, I get a short loading screen before getting sent back to the character select screen. Anyone else having this glitch?

Thanks for the non-spoiler reply! Very reassuring! Can't wait to get to Nar Shaddaa now!

Hi! I had a level 42 sniper which I loved immensely, but unfortunately my server kind of died, so I rerolled an ops on a different server to have a new outlook on things.

Whenever I see these threads I assume OP hasn't seen the armor of other classes. *coughjediknightcough* Also, aren't we supposed to be able to use our orange gear at end game with 1.2?

While that is the case, I don't see why it should be. Again, I don't *need* to do them, and I know that, but still disappointed that the stories in these quests are not up to par. I assumed that would be the case, since it would be hard to have long term consequences for an mmo. I don't want every quest to have a super complicated story. I just wanted them to be more interesting. Take for example the jedi jawa quest on Tatooine. That one isn't complicated, but it was incredibly interesting because it offered something new and exciting! Can Jawas really use the force? Maybe it's a trick? If it is a trick how are they doing it? This quest was incredibly fun because it offered something new, and made you interested in doing it. Another quest (or two actually) also on Tatooine were the ones offered by the two Duros brothers. Those two were hilarious, and I loved how my character would assume that they were the same person. My main reasoning is I don't see why a plot driven game can't have more interesting side-quests like the ones I listed. They are side quests still, I understand that, but more variety than the generic imperial who wants you to go kill stuff would have been served the game better.

I know no one is making me do them, that's not my point. My point is, for a story driven mmo, a lot of these quests are horribly written. I got into TOR for the story, so for me it's disappointing that a lot of quests on every planet consist of "Blaarg I hate republics go blow them up with this detonator." As I said in my reply above you, I'm usually overleveled (by doing what you listed) and I don't see how people can be underleveled in this game. It's just that, from a story standpoint, these quests are disappointing. Also - how is telling you what rewards you'd get spoonfeeding? If you're overleveled - You get to decide whether a generic quest is worth it. If you're underleveled - You're going to do the quest anyway to not be underleveled, so no harm in seeing what kind of goodies you'd get.

I'd also argue that these quests get dreary and boring after act 1 on your first playthrough. You've seen them once, you've seen them all really. Did you read my post? I did say that I love the voice acting, a lot even. I love the plots that I've played through, but these quests have no business being voice acted. Just having 8 different plots for every character makes this game not a WoW clone, so not having voice acting for the plainest of quests wouldn't really hurt it. Also - That's a South Park meme. Edit: My point is, it's almost impossible to *not* be over levelled for any planet. Except if you're incredibly lazy, I don't think there's any way to be underleveled, ever. Since you should be overleveled and will already explore most of the planet doing your class and planet quests, I think telling you what you'd be getting when you go do the "kill ten people" quest would help me decide whether to do it or not. If you're underleveled, that shouldn't affect your choice at all, since you'd want to gain xp. I donno how you can actively listen to those quests for four times, but more power to you.

Hi! While I do love TOR, I have some massive problems with the side quests in this game, especially since the game was touted as the most story driven mmo ever. I got the game, like many others I'm sure, when BW said that it was basically Kotor 3 (to 10) in mmo form. While this is true imo, the writing for side quests is so below the level of writing you're getting when doing class quests it's kind of jarring. While the class quests are all well written and well acted (the ones I played at least, can't vouch for all of them yet ), and the main planet quests are usually good as well, the side quests scattered between them are usually just rip offs of the same basic forumla. It's always some form of "X are being lame meanie pants go kill dem plz" scattered many times over every single planet. While there are exceptions (such as the ones on Kaas, and the Jedi Jawas on Tatooine), a lot of them are that basic forumla, and it annoys me because: 1. It's voice acted. Listening to different people going on and on about how stupid and annoying the republic is can get really grating. Sure, you can skip the dialogue, but if that's going to be an instant reaction why have them voice acted in the first place? It's just a waste of money having every single quest giver voice acting, especially if said quest wasn't all that interesting to begin with. They could replace every one of them with a quest terminal that says go derp for some herp items and xp, and I don't think anyone would care much. If they had the same quality as the class and planet quests, it wouldn't be a problem. 2. They don't tell you what rewards you would get. As it stands, it's very very easy to outlevel the planet you're on by as much as 5 levels, so doing all the quests on one planet isn't necessary. They could tell me what items I would receive if I completed one derp quest, so I would know if it's worth it. It gets annoying when I do a quest that I had no interest in for an item I don't need, which leads me to: 3. Placement. Granted, my second point is negated by the placement of derp quests, which tbh are usually pretty close to where you should be to do your class quest, but sometimes they get some really annoying placements. One example comes to mind is a bonus quest on Taris. I forgot what its name is, but the bonus quest is pretty much spread across the map. Worse still, they decided to place final part of the bonus in a heroic area... Why would you do that? If that wasn't bad enough, they placed it in a heroic area with a wondering champion, and right next ti the world boss. This just screams bad design. I'm aware that my 2nd and 3rd points can be refuted easily, but my main point is that I really don't see why these derp quests need to be voice acted. It's just a waste of time, and a waste of budget. There are a ton of these, and probably cost a ton of cash to voice. I can think of multiple ways that the money spent on voicing derp quests that no one cares about could be put to better use. Say, hiring better writers to make the derp quests less herp. TL;DR: 1. Plot of class quest and planet quest are offset by very plain side quests 2. Voicing these side quests is a waste of money 3. Come up with better more interesting side quests, or save money and don't voice them.