I'm glad you took the time to read it!

Shameless bump!

Absolutely!

Thanks for the positive comments guys. This took me a long time to write!

Would be a shame to not get any feedback from anyone here.

Hello All, I wanted to write this post in order to provide as much feedback about a single player’s experiences as possible for the game’s developers and community team. I will say from the outset that my views and observations posted below are entirely my own and I do not intend to represent any community or group of players, or assume that anyone will agree with them. I don’t intend to create any arguments, but on the other hand I am not posting this in order to quell the existing ones I see elsewhere. I merely wish to present a single player’s experience, and I just ask that anyone wishing to post in this thread do so with a clear head. In providing feedback on a wide variety of topics I hope that it is clear that I love a lot about this game, and am not at all fixated on individual issues I have found or specific narrow areas of the game. I will provide some brief perspective so that anyone reading this knows where I am coming from and which demographic I fall into, then I will provide extensive feedback/issues/suggestions about various aspects of the game and how I have experienced them. Perspective: I am a 23 year-old man in full-time employment in the software industry, based in the UK. Being in the software industry, I know how frustrating it can be to not receive non-emotional and honest feedback from customers, which is the inspiration for this post. I have played MMOs to varying degrees of seriousness since Earth & Beyond came out, and have played WoW on and off since release. I was not greatly hyped about this game (I dislike the Star Wars films) until I started hearing good things during the early access period, so I picked up a boxed copy of the game on the official release day and made a Bounty Hunter (Mercenary) on a PvE server with some friends of mine. I have not created any alts, and reached level 50 last night. Feedback: Missions: I appreciate the class/planet story structure, whereby the class story will move from planet to planet following an arc, and there will also be a story arc on the planet that will follow through from start to finish (excluding bonus missions) hitting the same areas. Two main threads is a good number to be able to follow, while mixing in the one-off missions that don’t lead anywhere else. However, the early Bounty Hunter story reason to travel between planet to planet is fairly repetitive, and doesn’t give the same sense of a changing “arc” as the story does before the Great Hunt and after Act I. The game could benefit from more missions occurring in same area. Occasionally you find yourself venturing out of camp to only complete one or two missions, and in those cases there is a lot of travelling involved. The first section of Voss seemed to suffer badly from this in my experience, made all the more annoying from the circuitous route I had to take to get back to camp. That said, the effort to give out batches of missions that occur in the same area tends to work well, even if the quantity is often lacking. Area quests seem like a way to avoid adding story and NPC conversations (e.g. Belsavis Scar area), and they pull me out of the experience by not providing context for my actions. A simple datapad laid on the floor as I entered the area would have suited me just fine. Bonus quests can prove annoying when steps after the first one could have been done while completing the first step (e.g. kill loads of soldiers in an area, THEN collect supplies in same area – this occurred around the spaceship in Voss). Dialogue: Both the quantity and quality of voiced dialogue in the game are excellent and to be congratulated. They really bring me into the world and compel me to play the game, to accept missions and complete them. There is often a disparity between text and the voiced line – this can lead to companion affection changes that were unexpected, for example I attempt to say something neutral and my character says something incredibly bloodthirstily, upsetting Mako. This is sometimes understandable due to usage of generic voiced phrases, but when the dialogue seems mission specific then it feels as though the dialogue was not entirely thought through. I learnt early on that my character is not sarcastic when I tried to choose sarcastic options and they were always delivered seriously, but since then I have been more careful and still get caught out from time to time. Character Story: In all other MMOs I’ve just played an avatar, not a character. Not here. Dialogue choices, the voiced character and especially light side/dark side choices help me feel that my character is actually a character. I like how I can actually affect how certain missions play out, rather than merely executing fixed steps. The only problem related to this I’ve seen is how you can be polar opposites to your companions but ply them full of gifts and they’ll love you. This seems gamey and doesn’t fit in with the story that is built up. However, it does seem like a necessary evil in an MMO, where you don’t want anyone to gimp their character. In the later missions, NPCs recognise me and my reputation precedes me. This comes across well and makes me feel proud of my previous accomplishments in the story. Environment: The size of the environment seems very large in comparison to number of missions. I often travel through areas and groups of mobs that I don’t seem to get any missions for, and this feels like missed opportunity. Some places seem like they should have lots more NPCs, for example Corellia could do with more friendly NPCs, however I do not know if that would interfere with Republic questing as have not seen the content from that side. The look of the environments is absolutely fantastic. Alderaan and Voss are beautiful, the towering structures of Taris are overwhelming, and Tatooine looks perfect. I enjoy the rocket tram trips in Corellia and the many pipes that run over the industrial districts. Graphics: I am a little disappointed here. The High textures option is not working and I feel like I am not using my recently built PC to its potential. However, this is not a major concern of mine and has not stopped me from enjoying the actual gameplay on offer. The look of the game is internally consistent and definitely pleasing, and I also look forward to the supported anti-aliasing options coming in 1.1. Sound: Ambient noises seem to be missing in some places. Stepping in and out of areas can cause sounds to be brought in or drop out quite jarringly, and it’s something I’ve noticed a few times in the middle of cave systems. It feels as though more sounds should be playing at once, but that they often overwrite each other. There is a particularly annoying bug with clipped sound effects on turrets in the Alderaan warzone that drives me crazy when I’m defending the middle turret. User Interface: I have a number of suggestions here: The map should allow viewing of more areas and planets – dropdowns would be nice. I would like to be able to view any map wherever I am – this will aid in completion. The number of bars is insufficient. My bars are full (except for two top buttons on right sidebar – they are hidden behind the area map within PvP Warzones) and I want more space for consumables and relics. A combat log and target of target functionality are both needed. I would personally love support for addons. I feel they greatly expand the life of a game – I doubt I would have played WoW for more than a year if the UI was not customisable. In particular I am missing “Clique”-like functionality when healing within groups, but I understand completely why this would not be included functionality. It is simply a “nice-to-have”. I would like to be able to view gear of companions even when they are not present – especially when out on crew skill tasks as I cannot summon them and look at their gear. This would be useful for choosing mission rewards. Companion tooltips are often not working until I have opened the character pane and gone to the companion tab. This can be annoying, as when a mission is completed I need to: a. Close the mission reward pane b. Summon the companion I think might want the item c. Close the crew pane (since only two panes can be open at once) d. Open the character pane to the companion tab e. Open the mission reward pane again and mouse over the relevant reward to compare the items As a result, gearing companions I’m not using at that very moment can often seem more trouble than it’s worth. This is something I would like to tackle myself if a UI API could be provided, and is a good example of how the community can fill gaps in the developer made UI so they can concentrate resources on more pressing issues. Controls: Movement responsiveness on the ground is spot on. I have quit many MMOs due to lack of responsiveness in this department and I am very happy that SW:TOR gets this 100% right. The jump command can seem slow to respond, both in the initial jump and mid-jump. I have gotten stuck in unexpected spots, in particular when dropping down rocks or trying to jump up them. I am now reluctant to attempt to negotiate these areas even when I feel I should be able to do so without trouble. Flashpoints: I have only completed two flashpoints (Boarding Party and the Foundry) and only on Normal difficulty, so take this feedback with a grain of salt. I enjoy the fast paced speed of combat, in that there is no downtime between pulls. There is no telling the group to wait for mana as my heat resources are limitless. I am loving the successful integration of story and additional objectives that the bonus missions provide. It is especially good that everyone starts the FP with the same mission and so you never need to tell your group you need an extra boss or you want to collect a certain resource – it is shared and all group members have the same motivation. The appearance of all of the group members in conversations and the dialogue roll mechanic work well in getting all members involved (yes I am aware this is outside of flashpoints too). Some bosses have too much health without providing a real challenge – e.g. last boss of the Foundry. This would have been fine if there was a challenging mechanic near the end of the fight but there wasn’t, and it simply took up a lot of time. In the Foundry, when wiping on the droid boss (no spoilers) we found that the checkpoint and run from the medbay was particularly long. We would have liked to get back into the action quicker. Personally I would love an “FP Finder”. I would be far more inclined to do more flashpoints if I could wait for a group to form as I do missions and other tasks, rather than sitting around on Imperial Fleet spamming various channels. PvP: I’ve done a fair bit of PvP while levelling, I am now around Valor rank 23. PvP needs more brackets, the bolster system is unfair to lower level players as they simply do not have the skills or abilities that the higher level players have. It also fosters illwill from the part of the high level players towards the lower levels players in their team. I look forward to the introduction of a level 50 only bracket, but feel the system should go further: The lack of PvP brackets and bolstering up to level 50 also brings about a more interesting phenomenon. When I joined my first warzone at level 10 my healing abilities (or healing ability) healed for approximately as much as they do now. Part of the joy of progressing in an MMO is to get the higher and higher numbers, and while getting more abilities definitely helps with that as it provides more chance for combos, the numbers that each ability puts out in warzones remains largely static during the levelling process. Bracketing off groups of 10 levels and bolstering up to the highest level in the range would help with imbalance due to skills, abilities and gear, in addition to satisfying the MMO urge to see higher numbers as you level. Huttball is very fun if played correctly with a good group – although some classes have abilities that are far too useful compared to others. Many classes can jump, pull or sprint, putting them far above the rest. As a Mercenary I feel at a disadvantage as I can only knockback/snare and stun once in a while, and lack an interrupt ability. As a healer I feel I am not getting enough medals compared to the DPS players, and I don’t have any protective abilities in order to gain medals either. The MVP system is also frustrating, mainly because it seems most of the community votes for the top damage or kills done, further rewarding the DPS players who have multiple medals already. Personally I vote for the person with the most objective points (even though I have little idea how they are actually generated). Having to reform a group after exiting a warzone in order to queue again is an annoyance. Progression: Skill costs rocket up until the early 40s then seem to drop dramatically to about 12k at level 50. This seems odd and I’m not sure if intentional in order to help users to save for Level 3 speeder. In any case, as soon as I hit 50 I had enough for my Level 3 speeder, and all but 2 of my class abilities. However, I had stopped training crew skills for a while in order to ensure I would have enough. Moddable gear: I only “got” the idea of these pieces of equipment somewhat late in the game, as I am very used to the old MMO paradigm of replacing whole pieces of gear, and I actually took some time to notice that moddable gear gets ALL stats from mods (I had assumed it worked like socketed gear in WoW whereby most stats are hardwired to the gear, and I didn’t look too closely at them). I do like the idea of being able to choose look of character in this way, but I am disappointed to hear that end-game gear does not work the same and thus you cannot choose the look you desire. I have no experience of the end-game yet, but from my initial thinking a possible solution would be to have bosses drop mods/augments/armouring etc., in addition to end-game commendations that are used exclusively to buy ****** looking moddable gear. However, this isn’t a part of the game I am too concerned about, as I do not go out of my way to get pieces that look best on me. I would rather throw on the piece with the best stats and be done with it as long as it doesn’t look too ridiculous. I was pleased with how my power scaled in relation to mobs while progressing through the planets and how my companions kept up. Ship: I would like to be able to organise companion gear while aboard my ship as it gives easy access to my cargo hold and is often the only stop-off I make between planets. It would also be nice to be able to give companions gifts while targeting them. Space Combat: I find the space combat fun. I enjoy balancing shields with blasters and using the additional ship items, but maybe players don’t know about them since you have to use commendations and get your first “special ability” at level 25, quite some time after the space missions start. Players might have tried it out early on, decided there’s not enough to it and left it. There is not as much repetition of mission templates while levelling as I was lead to believe, and the missions that are available are well crafted and exciting. There are some quiet periods that are a bit too long but most of the time the action keeps coming. I realise that free-roaming space combat would require a LOT of development, and probably something that would only be considered as part of an expansion. However, count me interested. In its current state, I feel space combat would benefit from random variation in enemy spawns, and also branching movement. The player movement “rail” could diverge randomly if for example an asteroid appears on either side of screen and the ship takes the left or right path randomly, leading to different scenarios and flight paths. However, currently it’s an amusing daily diversion that is unfortunately too easy to receive all rewards from. I don’t think I will feel compelled to continue to do the space missions in order to purchase high level reward boxes for very long. Sign-Off: I hope this list of feedback from one player’s perspective can help whoever is reading this. If you’d like to contact me about this post you can do so in this thread or at snorbuckle [at] gmail [dot] com If you liked this post, please rate the thread with a rating you find appropriate.

Reinstall the game off the CDs, then run the download from http://www.swtor.com/download OVER the installation. That fixed an issue I was having.

So exactly which continent is the UK a part of? By every single accepted continent definition, UK is included in Europe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent I live in the Midlands and I can see Europe every day, just gotta look down! Your refusal to accept that your country is factually part of a continent is cute.

Huh? I'm English and I consider myself European... I do live in Europe after all.

FYI you can spacebar through the ship takeoff/landing cutscenes.

You can move the chat pane. ...that's it.

Ok... so you want the servers to go down at 9am US time? Can you tell me what time that would be in Europe?

I'm playing as a Mercenary healer, and using the Attack adrenal definitely buffs my healing. I'm not seeing the point of the Field Tech ones.

The Mercenary commendations are there to promote world PvP. This may or may not work as more people reach higher levels, but what you're asking about is design intent: You're converting Mark A into B because it's easier to do that than get B on its own (for now). However, the idea is to earn A and B separately, and maybe swap some over to the other side to make up the balance. Mark A can be used by itself to buy gear at lower levels, as Mark B is only obtained in its normal fashion by high level players. Mark C is used as a consolation prize if you don't get an item piece from the A + B bag.

Never seen the films? Apparently in the Star Wars universe it seems that all planets have the same gravity. In fact, they seem to share gravity with large asteroids also.