Excellent post.

I would have loved this, if the story actually rewarded you in some tangible way other than just a cut-scene where someone says you make a difference in the galaxy... For example, all that build your alliance and army stuff could have been made far more dependent on the player's choices, and then could have actually had your forces and enemy ones fighting each other in the last sequence, instead of just saying 'oh your men won'. Diplomacy and being the shrewd, wise Jedi Master is great fun, but the way they made the storyline so un-interactive isn't.

It's nice to know that some people enjoy it. I don't anymore, but I don't hate you for doing so. I personally think it's a very low quality game with a very poor (or maybe just lazy/EA-ified) team behind it, but that's just me. Enjoy yourself whilst it lasts. Which won't be long, I fear.

That doesn't mean it's not poor quality and overpriced. And it also doesn't mean it's not a lazy reskin of existing content with a huge pricetag slapped on it. Honestly, this is more about Bioware's work ethic and approach to content and improving SW:ToR than the speeder or whether we should pay x y or z dollars for it. It's just a reflection on how the game is approached in general.

Played in beta. Played December-January. Unsubbed February. Bored, mixture of lack of content and just lack of thoughtful game design and interactive environment and player-driven content. Poor polish, lots of bugs. Came back May, see what they've done new... Entertained me a little while, but... Amazingly pretty much zero improvement or new content whatsoever, bugs still there from beta let alone release, BW just don't care... Stop playing early June, remember to unsub in July. Came back December (this month), see if they've bucked up their ideas... No, still precious little new, but more importantly - no changes to the game design to address issues, bugs still everywhere and (if possible) even less polish as the new content that has been added has apparently taken up any time they might have had to refine the game. Unsubbed already, then found out that they're compiling a couple of patches and charging for them as an 'Expansion' after I'd unsubbed, and Makeb will cost subscribers after all... Well, I would laugh, I would go round writing rage threads but... Nah, I'm gone. This is a poor game, that's the simple thing for me. It's not that the concept and the story content couldn't have been great, but the quality of the construction of the game is poor. It's poor quality, and I just can't justify paying for it - it's not fun to play anymore.

Ok, I'm criticising them too, but why did this have to descend into 'HURR DURR DEY TUK URR JERRBS!'

The point is that's all they have bothered to do, and it's poor. We won't buy it, you're absolutely right sstanks, but it's just mediocre from Bioware. And sure, they don't have to do anything. But they shouldn't expect to impress the playerbase and keep subscribers and players if they take that attitude.

Oh get over yourself - you don't have to be Christian to enjoy Christmas, and when put into video game events it rarely, if ever, has any religious component to it. I mean, Star Wars has its own 'Life Day' fictional holiday for the time and setting with which to theme an event anyway! I'm not religious but I would still expect a holiday event at Christmas, and would not be offended in the slightest to have a Christmas event. What's more important is that I'm not sad and self-entitled enough to believe that the fact that I'm not Christian means that those around me should have to avoid any connotations of a religious holiday and sterilise the cultural and traditional themes around this times of year. Oh, and Bioware also don't need yet more excuses to sit on their behinds and do **** all for ToR.

There are two issues: 1. Some reckon it's not really an expansion, and that the promised content is more patch-sized. 2. More importantly, it's an expansion that has been made by pulling together and scrapping patch content, so that you basically just have to pay to get your game improvements and patch content that would otherwise been released in maybe 2-3 patch chunks. It also means that the upcoming patches themselves will be minimal. And you're going to pay for it. Have fun.

He always ended the love affairs before they went anywhere due to his dedication to the code, he reluctantly fought in the war because he preferred negotiation ('The Negotiator'...), and the other two bits are just story-line features, not really character traits... But who actually cares about the expanded universe? You and maybe 5% of players. As examples go, using Obi-Wan as the example of a stereotypical well-rounded and traditional Jedi is quite a good one. Well have you even played the game? You can have character flaws because it's your choice... There isn't *just* light side options, there are middle-ground and dark side options for most things as well, all of which can be based on your consular's emotions. I tend to agree the Consular's storyline is bland and not very well developed, but too much anger in you I sense.

If you're only level 10 and they're 15, then you need to leave the story quest for a good few days and go level. Stop skipping quests, play some WZs, do the flashpoints, do the group content. Do all the bonus quests and all their stages. If you just run through the story ignoring everything else, you will end up constantly in this situation where enemies are higher levelled than you - and when they're 15 to your 10, you have literally no hope of progressing. The story content may be enticing, but you have to level along with it somehow. Go back, level up. Personally, I like to go well beyond the point of keeping even and stay about 4 levels above my class story quest recommended level, keeps things flowing really smoothly.

Perhaps, but this is not 2004, there are many other similar (competing) MMOs that SW:ToR is pressured to compete with, norms have changed and ToR's business model has changed much sooner, with expectations much greater - mainly because things like WoW are around and already established. So really, it's not unreasonable to expect an expansion soon (within the next 6 months, I mean - even that is getting towards 2 years later), especially given the pressure about end-game that is currently constantly piled on and held off by the skin of teeth by releasing occasional new zones and PvP Warzones (as per 1.6 today). An expansion soon would make a lot of sense. On a few basic levels: It would serve to hit some headlines and thereby get even more people playing, paying and subscribing It would bring in quite a few ex-subscribers back to check it out The resulting sales and interest would be useful both to finance continuing development and judge the market for SW:ToR, and re-assure the corporate ******s at EA It would serve as a breather against the complaints about endgame. Afaik they're planning 10 more levels for the first major expansion, so it would form a buffer zone (both pre- and post-release - the promise pre and the content post) for the team to then catch up on other content issues.

I think this is a brilliant idea, and would support the introduction of being able to re-colour armours (and guild insignia/armour pattern creation later on) into the game in a manner that is dependent on players and crafting. Get on it, Bioware. +1

All tanks are viable, they have different potential and play-styles, but all can be used effectively. In general: Vanguards - have the least defensive cooldowns and tend to be relatively simple to play in terms of maintaining full tanking potential, and are quite strong all round having good passive defence. Very good passive defence, simple and undemanding active requirements; easiest to be consistently good with Guardians - have more cooldowns than a Vanguard but better passive survivability than Shadows. If properly managed, has slightly more potential than a Vanguard, but has less passive defence and if not managed well is not as good - middle ground of good passive defence and manageable active requirements. Shadows - have all sorts of cooldowns and relies more heavily on cooldowns and debuffs on enemies for tanking capacity. There's a trade-off; Shadows have possibly the worst passive defence, but if you master their defensive cooldowns, their debuffs (Force Breach, Slow Time etc.) have the potential to be even better than both Vanguards and Guardians. If not played properly, however, are weaker than both based on their passive defence. Less passive defence, but lots of defensive cooldowns and debuffs that require constant management; hardest to be consistently good with, *but* with the potential to be better than both other tanks with if managed correctly. Can also typically put out impressive DPS for a tank, but also requires management of procs and debuffs.

If the game was only meant to be about story, then why not just play the story and quit instead of sitting paying subscription fees then? It's an MMO, and they've got the story part nailed, but they need to do more with the rest of the game to make people want to play it as an MMO, otherwise people will just play it as a single player game - i.e. when they're done with the single player content, they'll leave.

I think the most poignant thing about ToR's galaxy is that once you've done the quests and killed the enemies you needed to on a planet, none of the space is actually usable game space. There's nothing to do. There's nothing interactive on planets, nothing in the way of PvE objective-based events, nothing in the way of towns to explore with unique vendors and NPCs, nothing sandboxy (note 'boxy', not 'box'; I'm not a sandbox-fanatic) that the players themselves can use the planets for. SW:ToR has an entire galaxy full of useless planets - as soon as you've completed the levelling and quests on them, they cease to be relevant to the game. The artwork and stage design is entirely wasted on empty shells you never have any reason to go back to.

Plasma cell = Face melting cell. Set that pesky Mara on fire in two different ways (one of which slows them), throw two different grenades on them, knock his teeth out with the stock of your weapon, stun him and ... ...Walk off into the foreground and don't look back as he burns then explodes into tiny pieces - , after all.

The decision has no lasting consequences, like the vast majority of decisions in ToR, sadly. Don't sweat it - it doesn't affect your other romance options, or... Anything, really.

+bump for issue that should be fixed in the next available patch slot but BW will probably miss because they just don't care.

Have you been ignoring all the side quests? I've gone through about 9 different pairs of proper armour-plated trousers by now (lvl 22 on my Vanguard)! You can also check the GTN for the innumerable pieces it'll have to your desired aesthetic. Unlike Jedi, troopers tend to be reasonably well catered for in terms of armour that actually look the part.

The planets really do need some major long-term work to make SW:ToR into an epic game. As it stands, planets are a series of nearly identical Super Mario-levels, with different skins and tougher enemies on each. Beyond killing hundreds of enemies for quests and the storyline, the planets in ToR have no value of their own. There's no sense of a 'living' universe, nothing vaguely impacted by the actions of players and, most of all, no reason to ever go back to a planet once you've 'cleared' that stage (let's be honest, they're just platform game stages) with the exception of a few daily grind zones that have been placed on them. It all amounts to a huge waste of art resources - we have an entire galaxy full of worthless, useless planets that have no reason to be in the game as soon as you've completed your story and hit level 50.

More importantly, look at all those cool lightsabre animations that we don't have... Instead we have nerf bat swinging and the same animation for everything each time.

Indeed. OP is probably skipping quests by the dozen.

Shadow Tank levelling is good if you are clued up on what to do, but we can be squishy early on due to the lack of armour-based damage reduction... Our big strengths are in deflection and shielding, and early on there isn't really much of this available to us over the baseline; even if you have a higher level Artificer crafting +def rating and + shield gear to keep you going. When you start hitting the top as the properly statted gear comes in with >20% defence chance and shields that have >50% chance of triggering and high amounts of absorb, you start to be stronger than the early armour-based tanking classes, but in the mean-time, you really need to keep your gear up to date.

I disagree, and feel that the distinction between the two is very minor in actuality and is just a gameplay mechanic. The Consular story-writers even said they felt they wanted to write the Consular 'in the spirit of Obi-Wan Kenobi'. The distinction in individual Jedi is actually more of a sliding scale with a lot of overlap; SW:ToR simply has to divide them up into 'Knight' and 'Consular' for gameplay reasons... Obi-Wan was a mixture of 'Consular' in attitude with the bladesmanship of the best 'Knight' and a respectable degree of Force Powers to go with it. Yoda was very much the 'Consular' in attitude and Force skill but in reality was a great swordsman; it was purely an attitude choice. Mace Windu had the attitude and combat prowess of a 'Knight' but that wasn't because he lacked power with the Force or any sort of diplomatic skills or experience. We can't realistically have players being this well-rounded, otherwise there'd just be one do-everything über Jedi class, but in the actual story there is not some sort of dividing line between different 'types' of Jedi that are inviolable and defining - and even if we did divide these examples into 'classes', I'd not that they all wore the same classic robes. The nonsense huge pauldrons and flowery robes are purely an MMO fail (because most Jedi players really don't want to look like some sort of master sorcerer WoW player). Classic robes are a valid option for any Jedi - 'Consular' or 'Knight', and doesn't suit either any better than the other.