1) Problem with main class stories Constructive criticism First,I will make a note on couple of comments you (BW) have stated about the game,mainly before it was released.It was stated that it will be like playing kotor 3,4,5 etc together.But it was stated that in order to experience all of the story,player will need to play multiple classes ( posible all of them ) I will try to explain as best as I can why this simply does not work in this game. Main reason is that because,main class story constitutes only about 20% or less of entire gameplay needed to actually get to 50 and experience that class story. Rest of the time playing will be spent doing sidequest,flashpoints,daily missions,space mission. Problem lies in the fact that huge portion of this content will be identical for all classes. You will literaly will be doing same sidequest,or same space mission,or same flashpoint. And this is where point lies : no metter how good main class story may be,most people are not really interested in doing exactly same things numerous ( up to 8 ) times. It's just simpy not fun. Helpful advice So my helpful advice on how this problem could have been avoided : Simply have different content for each and every class. Completely different sidequest up to level 50. Different space missions. I realize quest like heroics or fp cant be different since you do them with other people,but then atleast each and every one heroics and flashpoint should have been different for different faction. I realize this is a lot of work and a lot of content to create. So I do have yet another helpful advice : how about not promising what you cant deliver ? How about creating ONE main storyline for each of the factions ? This way people would get to experience all of the main class story,because most people would get 2 characters to level 50. Most people dont have time to get 8 characters to level 50. And its not about time,but about repetitiveness of it. In a nutshell : Either create unique content for each of 8 classes all the way to 50,or tone down on the number of main class stories. Because it just doesnt work this way,for the reason I explained. 2) Generic,repetetive and boring sidequests Constructive criticism : Most of the quests in game have simple mechanic listed as objectives such as "destroy 10 turrets" or "destroy 10 crates" or "kill 10 imp/rep spies" etc... This is not very good quest design. It's quite obvious why is this generic and repetetive. I dont see the reason to explain why I have this opinion further. Helpful advice : Take a look at some singleplayer games,even the ones you created. If you carefully pay the attention on what you do,yes,each quest in each game will be about killing some enemies or interacting with enviroment. That's gameplay in nutshell in every game,not just rpg or mmorpg. The key is in successfully hiding this repetitiveness,in making the player NOT feel like he is doing some chore. Games are about beeing fun,not about doing chores. I do enough chores in my life already. But atleast I get paid to do them. Dont get me wrong: There is nothing wrong with voice acting,and you have interesting stories in some of sidequests. Problem is what you have people do once talking ends,and you have to actually,you know,do the quest. Quick hint is to NOT make boring game mechanism such as killing random number of enemies or destroying/interacting with random number of glowing objects quest objective. Make quest objective something alse,even if player will have to interact with objects or kill enemies on the way. Not to mention how unrealistic all the quests are. Do you really belive sith warrior or jedi knight or (insert any of the 8 classes here) would spent most of their time destroying some random objects ? Or pressing some random switches ? 3) Lack of innovation and constant feeling you are playing other MMORPG such as World of Warcraft Constructive criticism I have only played WOW up to level 60,and yet in only couple of hours playing SWTOR I saw many similarities to that game to the point I felt like I am playing WOW,but with star wars theme. Helpful advice Try to be innovative. Try to do something different. If a game is very successfull,it does not mean that copying that game would mean the copy will be successful for one simple reason : People may be tired of playing same old game over and over again,and might want something new and different. Just adding little things,such as voice acting,and of course,new story line and quest,might not be enough of a change... Maybe better plan would be to be creative from start ?

If by "game of this sort" you mean other MMO's,I agree with you. If you mean singleplayer rpgs,then I dont agree. As I already said,its not objective of the quests. Other games are not going to have in their objectives: 1) disable turret in N corner 2)disable turret in W corner 3)disable turret in E corner 4)disable turret in S corner (subsitute turret with whatever would fit in that game's world and lore ) or kill 9 imperial/republic spies (subsitute imperial/republic spies with whatever would fit in that game's world and lore ) And even if they do,those kinds of quest are not going to constitute 90% of the quests in game. When you boil down quest you will be doing same things-killing enemies,interacting with environment etc.. But point is that they not make it so obvious by making mundane game mechanism a quest objective. They atleast try to hide it,while SWTOR rubs it in your face

Yeah,I agree with you completely. I haven't try a lot of MMO's,but I tried WOW and sidequests were the reason I quit. I actually think main reason this game has this problem is that they copied this crappy quest design from wow,instead copying it from their own games.

Well,this is simply not true for me. What I want I clearly described in first post. Give me sidequests like ones found in Skyrim,or Oblivion,or Dragon Age,or Mass Effect or any other quality single player game and I would be happy. Doing just space missions and fp all the way to 50 ? Thats not posible without repeating same mission many many times. And that is exactly what I am complaing about. I do not want to do repetetive chores,I want to have fun and constanly experience new content while leveling up. If singlepayer games can do that,so could mmorpgs. It's just that devs for mmorpgs choose not to

@katharis,thanks for a good laugh ! @ppl saying singlepayer games are not different : truth is when you brake gameplay down yeah everything will be killing enemies,interacting with world etc..Difference is that this is not main objective - you just kill enemies because they are in the way while doing something alse. In some case,you can sneak/stealth past enemies because killing them is not the objective. If you interact with the objects,its usually one object-it maybe be npc you have to talk to,or some thing you need to press/pick up etc...in this game,you have to interact with random number of object,and thats the only objective. Thing is,singlepayer games succesfully hide basic mechanism,so doing quests does not feel like a chore. SWTOR doesn't. And main reason is that quest basics which other games try their best to hide,are listed as quest objectives in swtor. I dont know why would anyone think this was a good idea ? @last 2 post : Great posts ! This really got me thinking and I agree BW screwed themselves here with VA. You cant just improve one aspect of something,and leave the rest of it subpar,and expect it to work that way. It will just highlight your failure.

I actually responded to his/her post and explained why it doesnt invalidate my original post. I agree that games like this are not for me,however I like playing with other people. I did group with my friends and we cleared some heroics and flashpoints..and it was fun. Problem is that I have to get through this repetetive content so I can do stuff which I can enjoy. And it doesnt have to be like that. I will be sticking to SRPG,but not because I dont like the concepts of MMORPG-tha game where you can play with other people. I LOVE that concept. I just dont like boring and repetetive games

Its not issue of sugar coated narrative..because bioware with VA has some very interesting narrative to quests,interaction with npc's and storylines are not the problem. I mentioned some quest types in skyrim : I did not mention what game or quest giver has told me to do-so I ignored sugar coated narrative,I mentioned what I was actually doing. It was literally go,find companion,convince him to go with you and sacrifice him/her at the altar. It was literally escape from somewhere-if you kill enemies or not game does not care. It certanly does not count how many enemies you killed. Etc..

@last 2 posts Problem is that quests in SWTOR which does not fit in 3 types I described are very rare.90%,if not more,of your time questing will be spent doing one of 3 things I mentioned. While in other games,different quests are not so rare.

I love the storyline and interaction with the npc's too. Its the part when you are actually supposed to do the quest which is the problem.

Read my last reply. And this is not Skyrim vs SWTOR post. Dragon age and mass effect,also made by bioware,are far less repetetive then this. And so is most of sp rpgs

Not true. Some of the quests "templates" in Skyrim off the top of my head : 1) Kill boss in dungeon 2) Lure somebody to get sacrificed at some altar 3) Search abandoned house/fort whatever then fight to survive 4)Go to some npc to get something,either by stealing it,killing the npc,or persuade through dialogou to get it 5) pay money to somebody 6)rescue somebody from somewhere 7)kill somebody ( not boss in dungeon ) 8) fnd somebody who may or may not be in some dungeon 9) find something,usually just ONE THING which is reason enough for me to make this kind of quest much less repetetive. Honestly,which is more boring and repetetive, finding 1 thing or finding 7 things ? 10 ) escape from somewhere 11) listen to some old guy talk about magic,let him try it on you,then you demostrate your own magic prowess ( no,you dont kill him ) etc... As you can see,a lot of more variety

Yeah but dont you think MMO's would be better if they weren't like that ? Shouldn't devs want to try to get more people to play their game ?

Thats exactly what I am doing..while waiting for ME3 What I was wondering with this topic is why this kind of repetetive game would be for anyone ? Who in their right mind would enjoy playing this kind of game versus singleplayer games which provide more fun playing ? I realize fun in MMORPGs come from playing with other people. But why do you have to suffer through these repetetive side quest so we get to have fun playing with other people ? Why we cant have both ? Fun,engaging sidequest full of deversity,not boring and repetetive,and still get to play with other people ? Why cant we have both ?

I am fan of rpg games and have played pretty much all rpg games out there,including jrpgs on consoles.I never was fun of MMORPGs for one simple reason-I found them more boring and repetitive then single player games. I tried playing wow quit about lv40 when I realized all sidequest involved doing same stuff over and over. I am big fan of bioware and loved both kotor 1 and 2. So I just had to buy this game eventhrough it was mmorpg. I hoped bioware might avoid some of the pitfalls those kind of game usually have. Boy was I dissapointed after only couple of hours of gameplay. This game pretty much has 3 quests and thats it. They are just repeated hundred of times,with different dialogue.Quests are : 1) Kill random number of enemies 2) Press random number of switches,or other objects in the world. 3) Kill random number of enemies and then loot them to find random number of random things. Whats worse even main class quests involve these 3 quests with addiotion of freeing somebody or killing some boss. Now problem I have with this is that single player rpg are not this much repetitive. Not even close. Take Skyrim for example. I just logged in to Skyrim and checked my quest log. I have about 20 quests there. NOT EVEN ONE quest involved killing random number of enemies or collectiong random number of crap nobody cares about. NOT ONE ! Whats saddens me is that bioware has made games which are not this boring or repetitive. Not one of their singeplayer games has side quests which consists only of those 3 templates I mentioned. Not dragon age,not mass effect none. Dont get me wrong,of course you have to kill enemies,its just in another games its not so blatantly in your face repetitive. In singleplayer games,you kill enemies to survive,to achieve some other objectives instead of killing enemies. There is no any counter which counts how many enemies you killed. Now I am not bashing just this game. I realize all MMORPGS I like this. I already mentioned WOW has same problem. What MMORPG genre needs to do is clear : They need to make sidequests on the level of singleplayer game. If single player games have managed to add variety to sidequesting,to make sidequest interesteing not just because of dialogue,but because of the stuff you actually do,I dont see why MMORPGs cant do the same things. What the problem exactly ?

I dont really care if I get 2k or 4k from lockboxes that is pocket change when you are higher level. I only kept slicing because of mission discoveries,they go for 20k-40k on my server. Before 1.1 game update, I would get atleast one 340 mission discovery every 2 hours. I usually would get more. Now I have been sending companions since 1.1 update went live,and I only got 1 340 mission. I have been sending them for about 20 hours. So basically its huge nerf in slicing criticals. Either that,or I have been extremely unlucky for 20 hours straight. Anyone can confirm or deny this ? I am really worried about slicing now