To the BioWare and Electronic Arts teams working on Star Wars The Old Republic MMORPG
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I´m nearing my 40´s, but I´ll always be a gamer. Some people say that gamers my age keep the child inside alive, but I don´t think that gaming is a child´s thing. But that´s a whole other subject.
I was born in the early 80´s, and I accompanied the evolution of the gaming community and industry; from my Atari2000 with 8-color games, to PS4 and XboxOne and powerful PCs. Games evolved in various ways, and the individual, the player, started to noticed that, as technology advanced, his expectations could be higher and higher (of course, keeping both feet on the group). Millions of colors, high-def pixels, extremely complex levels of details, quality on voice acting, interesting and compelling storyline, customization of characters and/or other aspects of the game…we can enter a world more beautiful and more complex that the one outside our doors.
Some games will never be forgotten, for several reasons: visual quality, 3d rendering, storyline, complexity of details on several aspects of the game, the whole feel we get when we enter the game.
Star Wars is more than just a movie-saga, it´s a tradition. Even with Disney buying Lucas Arts and being so hell-bent on ruining the main storyline with these new movies, SW has a legion of loyal and loving fans which I´m happy to be a part of. Disney threw away our old canon universe, with all those books, comic books and several games that enriched the entire story with hundreds of characters and events. But, as loyal fans, we fight back, we still live those stories.
SW has had many great games, and I´ll list my favorites (since I prefer PCs over Consoles):
*Jedi Knight II - Jedi Outcast (single player),
*Jedi Knight 3 – Jedi Academy (single player),
*Republic Commando (first person shooter),
*Knights of the Old Republic (KotOR 1, rpg),
*Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords (KotOR 2, rpg).
These last two were amazing! The storyline, the ambiance, customization of all characters, the dialogues, the choices that we could make, the complex and rich universe, soundtrack and voice acting, the visuals, and some surprises during the story. All these traits made KotOR 1 and 2 great games and very important to the entire SW universe (used to be “canon”, now it´s “legends”). They were great RPGs, we didn´t just play them, we lived inside them. What we did mattered, we could change this or that part of the story, and we could help define how it would end. That´s what made these games so special, that was its legacy.
But it seems to be lost. And that offends not just me, but many of the SWTOR players you have today.
We were promised a KotOR 3, and there were even some images released. We were very happy.
Then, new changed, and KotOR 3 was canceled, but we would be given a mmorpg that took place inside The Old Republic universe. Ok, wow, we were happy! Being able to play with other gamers in a world with all those elements? It´d be awesome! We were shown images, gameplay videos of battles, videos of dialogues during the game, and we were promised to revisit the good stuff we had back in KotOR.
Honestly, I feel cheated.
I´ve played several other mmorpgs, like Ragnarok, Lineage 2, Archeage, Secret World, Allods, City of Heroes, Lord of the Rings, and, of course, World of Warcraft. That gives me a some experience and a firm ground when I speak about games, the feel and ambience…and the price.
I´ve read that the initial cost to create SWTOR was $250m US Dollars, and that made it the most expensive mmorpg to be built. For that factor alone, once would expect it to be better; not the best, but better than it is.
Now, first of all, let me say that the game is very good. No, it was very good.
I remember when the game was still in the over, we´d get occasional images, videos and info. I was very excited, as were many others. During the initial period, I could only play the free-to-play part. I played the missions on Korriban and, when those were over, the game would end for me. I did want to buy it, to pay the monthly fee, but the system would alert me that it wasn´t available in my country yet. Well, I still do not understand the reason for that, but those were the facts, I couldn´t do anything about it. I was away from the game for a long time, and then I returned. The f2p option became much bigger than it was before, I could even go to other planets and do the quests there. Of course there were limitations: low limit of credits I could have, bag space, number of characters, and I´d receive much less XP than the subscribers. Fair is fair, I did completely agree with those terms. The game is, after all, the result of the effort of hundreds (if not thousands) of people, and a huge investment for the companies involved. Also, of course, it was a product for sale: you use it, you pay for it. As I couldn´t pay the game, I made due with the f2p version.
It´s been almost 1,5 years since I returned to the game (it was already during the Knights of the Fallen Empire expansion), again after some time away, but I´ve been a subscriber ever since. I also bought a lot of Cartel Coins in order to purchase Cartel Packs, items on Direct Sale, server transfer for some characters, and other minor services. That was a lot of cash, and you have to consider that what I pay for SWTOR each month is double of what I used to pay in order to play World of Warcraft.
Ok, so, let me give you an overall view of the game from a gamer’s perspective: it failed.
The game is good, when it has everything to be great, or even better than that. It´s a problem of production.
The first part is really cool: each class has its own storyline and quests. It´s nice, because it makes you feel the class background, how the character develops and behaves with others (and how other behave with you)…even though I think that sometimes you don´t really have a real choice on certain situations. But it also isolates you from other 7 classes, since you don´t have to interact with anyone or anything for the duration of these 4 chapters. And the story is also too linear, you just go through it, regardless of your choices and actions.
Then the real problems arise: Rise of the Hutt cartel, Shadow of Revan, KotFE and KotET, and now this Iokath + Theron Shan things. It is extremely linear. Actually, now that I think about it, this linear thing begins before RotHC, it begins with Darth Malgus attempt to rise to power: both factions go to Ilum and do the exact same Flashpoints with the exact same outcome. Then there´s RotHC, that doesn´t really count if you think about the game´s whole storyline…you don´t even have to do it (I just did it once, with one character).
So, you brought Revan back. Ok, he´s probably the biggest star in the galaxy´s ancient history, and we all liked him since KotOR 1...the Ozzy Osbourne with a lightsaber. But it was a bit confusing, that whole plot you created: the Revanites (buncha lunatics!), Revan´s spirit separated from his body, his anger and crazy plans, and the way he chose to die. Ok, the story is cool, and seeing him again was nice. But making Republic and Empire unite to destroy him…why? What if players wanted to join him? The quest lines define what you have to do step-by-step, no matter your faction, race, class, choices of actions, what kind of ice cream you like…nothing. You click START STORY and you do what the missions tell you too. That´s not what KotOR 1 and 2 were about. And, since we´ve been hearing since the early days of development that this would follow its footsteps, that´s a major fail on your part.
This game focus way too much on aesthetics. Actually, since the middle of KotFE, I think it has been focusing only on aesthetics. I don´t know who controls this game, BioWare or EA, but whoever it is they have abandoned this game. Maybe they said “There are too few players, it´s not a good source of cash, let´s not worry about it too much…or at all.”, and we were left to dry in desert. The current plot makes no sense. When we form the Alliance, and when we defeat Arcann, we get the choice to be either a good leader or a tyrant, but it doesn´t matter. The only things that change are the speeches we give right after clicking on the choices; nothing that happens after is affected. So, regardless of what you do, Theron betrays you and calls you a tyrant, which makes zero sense. On the train, he starts talking crazy about some stuff that comes out of nowhere, and we´re like “Wait, what?”. But at the end of this Flashpoint, it´s very clear that he´s playing the double-agent, and is not really a traitor. Boring, and quite stupid.
We haven´t had any real expansion for the game for some time now. The only things you give us are these tinny updates: a new Flashpoint and/or Op (that aren´t connected at all), that add nothing to the game´s ambiance. But we always get a new Cartel Pack with some (very hard to get) new items that don´t matter at all. So, we pay for it monthly to not get anything new; and when something new does appear, we have to pay more (those damn Cartel Coins). Well, it seems that SWTOR does bring you some considerable cash; you could use it to improve the game and stop people from leaving. There´s no storyline anymore, the plot has been abandoned, it doesn´t even feel like the original game anymore. All we get are cosmetic items for this, for that and so on…it´s turning into some kind of Barbie Doll´s Universe game.
Another thing that we talk about a lot both on chat and on Facebook: the game is far too easy. I remember when I first played it, it was harder: enemies were stronger, quests/kills gave less XP. Now, you get a ton of XP for simply walking from here to the kitchen table, everything is easy, the companion does most of the fighting (even healing), and you leave Korriban practically on level 20 which makes it so easy when you arrive on Dromund Kass. We´re always above the top level for planet we´re on, it´s boring. Oh, and the big fights with the BOSSes, are also too simple. All of them seem to love to use STUN and THROW, that´s how they fight you. There´s no “super-attack” or anything that makes the fight hard (like some ability that disables one or more of your abilities for some time), no. they are the BOSSes, they could kill us…but meh, let´s not. We don´t need strategy to fight them, just let your companion heal you and click some attacks…I just use the mouse, my left hand keeps playing with my hair. I always use the same rotation of attacks, because it doesn´t matter who you´re fighting, it´s always the same thing. Ok, I haven´t done Operations yet, but if that´s the only place where the good fighting happens, then the rest of the game has been abandoned. You don´t need to know your class very well or be a good player, just have to be patient. Oh, and every 15 days or so, there´s a XP Event, double everything for everyone…turning what´s already easy into something almost ridiculous.
About pets: well, Blizzard got a bull’s eye with their idea of pets. What about you? They´re useless right now, and 50% of them are so similar to one another that I honestly can´t tell the difference. Make them do something, add a Pet Battle system for a Nar Shaddaa underground casino or something. Give them some use, and people will be happy, it´ll be something else to do in the game; and, also, with that, you would sell a lot more of those pets on the Cartel Market. You gotta be creative, you gotta innovate…even if Pet Battle isn´t such an original idea, but it´d be something new here!
About those Command Ranks. Well, loot crates are stuff that people like, some even get addicted to them. It´s not really what´s inside that matter, but the journey of doing things to add points and reach a level where you get a box, and the suspense when you open them. Yeah, of course that we know that around 95% of those items are cosmetics. But there´s the little surprise that makes it pleasant. I used to love to do Daily Heroics to get those boxes and trade them with the 4 dudes on Odessen. It´s nice, ok, I kinda like that. You sell some loot crates, the Cartel Packs, that theoretically have better goods inside, but you also get loot crates on Odessen or simply fighting/questing and getting CXP to get other kind of loot crates. Fine, I´ll give you that, I like it, it is fun in its own way. But why the Ranks for the Command Ranks? Ok, I get that the closer you are to 300, the better the goods inside. But why stop at 300? My main character could be around CR 500 by now, which would be interesting. It doesn´t make much sense to stop at a random number like 300. I bet people would like it if you could hover the mouse cursor over their portrait and see info like: Sith Warrior Marauder lvl 70, Legacy lvl 50, Command Rank lvl 358 for example. That´d be sweet! I would give you a general idea of that character´s overall power.
The Family Tree on the Legacy panel is useless. Simply useless. It should have a purpose, both for you and the other players. For example, if you build a good and interesting Family Tree, you would have some benefits (and also some problems, gotta keep it balanced); you could be part of other players Family Trees, perhaps even having some sort of relationship with their characters and all. You know, create an environment where the interaction among players would improve the game´s ambience and feel. A good relationship among player should make the game better! You should focus on each word of the term MMORPG! But it feels like neither BW nor EA remember that factor; and that kills the game a bit more with each passing day.
I think I may have mentioned it before, but the factions are too far apart from each other. On most planets it´s like “Ok, you from the Republic keep on this side, you from the Empire stay over there. Try not to look at each other, too.”. I´ve noticed that on places like The Black Hole, each faction stays on their own side of the area; the Republic´s are mirrors the Empire´s. Bring them all to the same place! Make one quest here have effect on one quest over there. It´s the same thing on Sector X. This is still about the MMO on the mmorpg terminology. You are neglecting that. Beware, because that´s how you lose clients. Another thing on the same topic (I´m using Blizzard´s WoW because I´ve played that for years, and we have to admit that it´s the strongest game of all mmorpgs…sorry, no offense), when I played WoW, the enemy could get close to your headquarters in several areas, even attacking it and making a whole mess of the place (even on PVE servers, mind you). Why not making the Republic having some secret missions on Korriban and/or Dromund Kass on earlier stages of the game? Why do you keep Republic and Empire so apart from each other, just to put them all in the same basket on the last part of Shadow of Revan? We don´t even feel the tension of the war between both factions (yeah, I know about the peace treaty, but come on…there´s still hatred going on), and suddenly we´re all buddies fighting Revan, and again fighting Arcann. Speaking of that, it´s way too easy to bring them all together into the Eternal Alliance, everyone just join in way too easily…there´s no challenge. And, in the end, it doesn´t matter if you side with Empire or Republic, the result is always the same. My last comment on this topic: I don´t think we should be “The Commander of The Alliance”, the supreme hero (doesn´t matter if you´re nice or a monster). If the focus is on me all that time, and I´m the TopCat all the time, it kinda kills it for me. Someone else should be leader, not the player. We could have choices of being a military General, a Diplomat, etc…and focus on quests that make you act on those aspects. Being the “mightiest of the mighty” and having everyone respect, admire and follow me just doesn´t make sense, and kinda kills the vibe of the game for me. Many other people in our Facebook group agree with me. Too much undeserved ***-kissing for my liking.
Now, something very important, as a costumer. Your Costumer Service is not good, it´s actually pretty damn bad. It never helped me. First of all, there are 0800 numbers for several countries, including some tiny little countries lost between Europe and Asia; but not for Brazil. You´ve heard of Brazil, right? The second biggest country on the west side of the world, right after the USA; has millions and millions of people; one of the countries with the biggest gaming communities in the world… What did I have to do to talk to you when I had a major problem? I had to buy a plan on Skype. I never liked Skype and such, and why did I have to buy (to pay!) to talk to you, when other countries don´t have to? They talk to you for free, I had to pay. Did you offer to pay me back? Of course not. And I didn´t talk to you just once, of course, since you did not solve my tech problems. There were many many phone calls via Skype, what made me have to buy that damn Skype plan more than once. I talked to your employees from south USA, Ireland, England and some other places, I forgot. Since they couldn´t help me with my problem, they told me to go to the forums. So I did. Luckly, a very nice guy (who knows a lot about computers) asked me to perform some tests and send him the results. Eventually, he solved it. So I sent you guys a few e-mails about that, and your employee asked me to send him a text file with the steps that were taken to solve the problem, and he sent that text file to the tech team. Major disappointment. I worked on Customer Service for over 4 years), if something like that happened in our company…I guess heads would roll. There was another incident where I had to contact your people (via ticket now, only!) because of tech problems; when I noticed it wasn´t gonna end well, I searched other places for the solutions.
Ok, so by now, you´re probably thinking “Why is this dude still playing SWTOR, then?”. Well, because it is a good game. I´ve loved Star Wars since I was a kid and said “Dark Vader” instead of “Darth Vader”. I´ve been a geek since I can remember, and I´m true to my roots. I really like the game in several aspects: several different races; the fact that each class has its own storyline is a major point; the dialogues during quests are just awesome; we have space ships; there are pve and pvp space ship battles (I´m god awful on those, but they´re cool); the pvp and pve is well balanced; the characters, items, gear and places look just amazing; the Flashpoints and Uprisings are interesting; and the storyline is good…it´s not great nor amazing, but it could be.
So, what I´m saying is that it´s a good game with an amazing potential to be much more than it is. There are resources and elements that could make it legendary and set it much higher on the list of The Top Most-Played MMORPG of the past years. But it seems like both BioWare and EA gave up on it. As I said before, the only new things we get nowadays are just some silly cosmetic items and two minutes of storyline on a plot that has no foot on the ground. Honestly, we don´t care about this “betrayal” from Theron Shan. It makes no sense, and so far it has not been interesting at all. We just want it to be over with so we can be presented with new content and a new plot, maybe a new major enemy, a new planet…but we do want for the rivalry between Republic and Empire to return, as strong as it can be! Where´s the WARS in STAR WARS? You are neglecting several elements that could help evolve this game into something great. That´s a disrespect towards both the players (customers) and the fans. We pay for this game, and it´s not cheap in comparison to other mmorpgs; and the product is not very good. We´re STAR WARS fans, and we´re watching one of the greatest sagas ever made being abandoned. One of the basic rules of capitalism is: to make money, you gotta spend money. Well, I know the number of players hasn´t been great lately (your fault there), but we pay some good cash every month, and many many people spend some high figure $ on your Cartel Market. But if you think this $ is not enough to create more things for this products, you gotta let us know. As costumers and fans we do have the right to know where this is going (if it is indeed going somewhere), and decide if we will stay by your side or not. If things keep up like this for longer, by the end of the year we´ll make that decision for you…you´re losing players, losing customers, but things can get even worse.
My humble suggestions:
*The Cyborg race shouldn´t be a species on its own, but a sub-species. All playable species (humans, pure blood sith, chiss, miraluka, mirialan, rattataki, twi´lek, zabrak and togruta) should have options for Normal or Cyborg versions.
*Other species could be added: selkath, voss, the “Yoda-race” (since it has no name), wookiee, chagrian, kaleesh, nautolan. All these species are humanoids, and only the wookiee and the “Yoda-race” differ in size, but I doubt people would care. The simple idea of a “dark side yoda-race character” is very interesting.
*Other classes could be added. I´ve talked to a lot of people about it, and yes, I know it´d be a lot of work for you, since the game´s first 4 chapters (Prologue, Chapters 1, 2 and 3) are class chapters. But I don´t think it´d be that hard, no; not for BioWare + EA. In the worst case scenario, you could just sell this new class on the Cartel Market, but giving the alert “Look, dear players, this new class does not have its own background story. You buy it and use it to level up as you desire, starting on any planets that belongs to your faction, and doing Flashpoints, etc. The goal here is to provide you with new skills, and new and interesting gear+weapons combinations.”. It could have a silent companion like TY-4N, or just small talk like Treek and HK-51.
*Decoration Interaction: we can only interact with 5% of the decoration items (I think, it may be less than that). Why, exactly? Many decorations are added each month, is it so hard to make them functional? We can´t sit on the chairs/couches, lay on the beds, use the computer terminals/panels, drink from the bottles of the tables/bars, we can´t even turn the damn lights on and off (only on very few items). Make stuff do something, and we´ll be more interested.
*Nar Shaddaa should be more lively. Where are the Pazaak tables? The speeder races? We had those in KotOR 1 and 2. Where´s the fighting game that R2-D2 was playing with Chewbacca? Not just on Nar Shaddaa, but other neutral planets/moons could have that. We could even have Pazaak tables as decoration items. And why not a fighting ring where you get to use those unarmed punches (legacy unlock) and all gear bonuses are cancelled? Imagine a tournament, where the champions get their names posted on the game´s website! Imagine people placing bets (with credits) on the fights! God, you gotta be creative!
*Just like the item before, we need extra games. Pazaak tables, speeder races, fighting games. People could have their own pazaak card decks, buy other cards, win their opponent´s cards; they could buy parts for their racing speeder, apply paint jobs and all. There´s gotta be more to this game than just one faction fighting the other…jus to unite against Revan, and then against Valkorion, and Arcann, and Veilyn (wow, we spend more time united than actually trying to kill each other).
*More interaction between the factions: when I leveled-up my sith warrior and sorcerer, I rarely ever saw any Jedi or Republic people; when I leveled-up my jedi knight and consular, I rarely saw a sith or empire personnel. The planets are too divided: on this side, we have the Empire and its quest, on the other, we have the Republic stuff. It´s safe, too safe, too lonely, even. I´m not talking about world-pvp, but let´s get people closer. The way we can do our quests, the way we level up, feels like a single player game, not a “mmo”. To tell you the truth, the only “mmo” part I get to feel here is the GTN. If I don´t use the GTN or do some Flashpoints/Uprising, I´m playing on single player mode. And that´s your fault. We know it is a mmorpg, but when we get the chance to play the entire freaking game on solo mode…heck, we will. A mmorpg created an environment that forces (for lack of better term) people to interact, to do stuff together (not just kill a World Boss). It´s also not a matter of having few players (we know the server merge was because of that, very few players of each server, so you bundled them together), but of possibilities: if there´s an easier option of playing the game solo, people will do that…it´s simple. After all, there´s no real strong themed scenario to bring people together.
*Our choices should count for something, like in KotOR 1 and 2. No matter what you say or do, you still have to kill Darth Malgus, Darth Revan, and so on… Hell, I liked Malgus, I agreed with him. I´d join him, as would many people. And why not joining Valkorion? Or Arcann, Vailyn… Also, it doesn´t matter what you do or say to your main companion, there will be romance…even when I don´t want it. As a male Bounty Hunter, I killed people in front of Mako, burned some alive, blackmailed others, robbed many, treated her like crap as often as I could. Her response? “Wow, you´re such a special guy, I really feel something for you.” Next thing I know, she´s talking marriage, honeymoon… In any situation, in any scenario, what you do doesn´t matter, the storyline is way too linear and fixed. It this case, it´s not a RPG then.
My previous comment mentioned that it´s not a MMOrpg, but a SinglePlayer-rpg. Now, this points to no rpg element. Add both items and instead of a MMORPG, you get a "SPLSG" (SinglePlayerLinearStorylineGame). I don´t need to be online for that, nor do I need to pay a monthly fee.
Now, obviously I do know that what I said here, my complaints and suggestions, won´t be used to make any changes in the game at all. But, as a consumer, as a player that pays the game-fee each month and that chooses to spend even more money buying the optional Cartel Coins, I do know I have the right to voice my opinions. Hundreds and hundreds of players manifest their opinions in the General Chat (mainly the Fleet chat) and many more do so on Facebook. The common view is: the game is dead, and is about to be canceled, we won´t have any new big expansions, any new good stuff. All that will be added is: some Flashpoints, Operations and dozens of cosmetic items and Cartel Packs. Nothing more.
