hit the nail on the head

actually it is and companies used to do it all the time its called a mmo with sandbox elements like what eve online is currently and what swg used to be before nge. they don't develop those because the learning curve on most them are too tough for the kiddies, plus people no longer have imagination to truly look and have thier own adventures in an open world anymore and needs their hands held in these theme park mmo's which makes players into drones guided by the devs whim and only do content that is given to them. some of my best times in an mmo was pre nge swg roaming all over a planet looking for a rare pet tame. or going on rancor hunts to help guild mates harvest crafting mats. those were at times more epic than any raid in a dungeon and chaotic.! best of all never had to worry about level restrictions or content too much everything was right there. crafting had meaning since everything was player made, could mix skills from different classes to truly have a unqiue character instead of a cookie cutter one mmo's have. this is what all recent and future mmo's are seriously lacking. lately i have moved from hard core play to casual due to real life time restrictions. and personally i like this game a lot solely due to the well written story. but sadly after the story the game to began to fell more closed and and restrictive than it had initially. and like this games space combat feels like i'm on rails with no place left to explore or have my own adventures in between content patches. if there were mission terminal offering random class specific missions like swg had it would fill in the void. so for now (hopefully temporarily) i canceled my sub and i actually went back to subbing to Star trek online despite its free to play now. because its space combat actually works and not on rails, a lot more variety of things to do after reaching level cap. at least with their genesis system i can go into an exploration where it randomly generates missions for my character and gives me something else to do when i don't feel like raids or pvp while waiting for new content. plus it make you feel like your having your own adventure out side the main story lines. the game just feels more open and less claustrophobic than swtor. swtor is an oversimplified theme park mmo that takes 90% of your characters freedom and choices away and strictly guide down a very specific planned path for each character

this thread is incredibly stupid. Because how can SWTOR or GW2 be a WOW clone when WOW itself is a clone of all mmo's before it! so your talking about a clone of a clone ??

no they are not! just bug fixes fast and furious. if they were there would be content for all types of player with every patch not bug fixes. update 1.1 is the first content patch ever for this game. you need to learn the difference between content and bug fixes

um.... a mmo that doesn't have a lfd tool doesn't exist anymore

oh, do you idea of more contente is more raid stuff for the raid only crowd!!! what about those who play mainly and whats more quests and story line after you finish the main ones. when you add content do some for all types of player not for a select few!! why do yo think Rift is having a hell of time keeping subs. and why a lot of other mmo's is going free to play?? because they are catering content to the minority of the mmo players and not the general player base as a whole! patch 1.1 is a fail as it only adds something for raiders and nothing for pvp or player that don't like to raid. so you basically left out 2/3's of your player base from this update! keep doing this and this game will be free to play in no time!

and WOW copied it from asheron's call 2. so those that claim talent trees we'rwe something wow introduced is lying! NOTHING in WOW was original or a first in mmo's WOW is just a carbon copy of all mmo's that came before it. nothing in wow was done by them first. they only got as big as they are through ingenious marketing if not for that wow would have gone f2p a loooong time ago! in conclusion i wish people would stop comparing mmo's to wow which rips off and copies other mmo's. technically EA, BW, Turbine, and SOE should just sue blizzard on the grounds WOW copied element of there games that were released well be fore WOW was. that way wow will be shut down and we get rid of all the wow idiots. from all gaming communities.

gw2 isn't even in beta yet how the hell would you know. in gw1 no one is in the dame gear it practically impossible because the classes all have different types of gear that can't be worn by other classes it'll prob be the same in gw2.

actually so far this game has been! space combat on rails and single player only multilayer aspect of the game is not necessary. if that doesn't make this game a disappointment in this genre i don't know what does! the only thing this game does right is the story!

story is only part of what mmo players want. there are other things that is needed

rift never created the different specs for your character. they copied it from guild wars so that was not their innovation

its not so much that you can solo to level 50 every mmo out you can solo to max. it the fact that the game lack a social element. meaning there really no reason to group or gather some place to role play ect. i have played mmo since they started. in all honesty there more reason to group and have gathering with other players for your own adventurers in a sand box mmo not a theme park mmo. i mean with swg before the nge my guild wold get together for rancor hunts or to search ot imps and not have to worry about levels just make up our adventure as we went or to harvest stuff off the critter for a very robust crafting system since every thing was made by the players. or yo can sit in a Catina for entrainment provided by other player that wanted to entertain other players. sand box mmo are just plain more conductive to promote rpg play as well as promoting player to play together.

it not a matter of wanting the game to fail but what others pointed out. it opposite. but for those who have played mmo's since they started which you young wow addicts. was years before wow ever was thought of. yes, i know it hard for you to believe mmo's existed before wow. but truthfully, this game only has 2 things different than mmo's a compelling story and voice overs and that is it. yes the game is very fun but after you max your first character it is extremely repetitive and gets boring. and i used to think star trek online had the least amount of content on release of any mmo. but i hate to say it but this game has less. which is a dangerous trend i have been seeing for mmo's lately. aside from the bugs, storyline and voice overs. there is outdated graphics that have trouble on low spec machines(not sure how bw managed that one) and nothing really much different than most mmo's except it has a star wars theme. and has all the feel that it was built to be a cheap asian f2p mmo than a AAA mmo. make you wonder where did they invest 200 million in vestment. especially when you compare it to a newer mmo like star trek online that cost around 40 million to develop which feels more like a mmmo and has more content plus current graphics that does run on a broader range of system specs and still has better graphics plus the voice over it has actually from stars of the start trek movies not unknown actors. if the game is going to get a lot and i hope it does. but its going to to take bw long time to get the game up to where the fans want it and to make it feel like an mmo i just hope it doesn't take 2 years like it did for star trek online. MORE IMPORTANTLY WE ARE TALKING ABOUT A GAME THAT EA ULTIMATELY OWNS AND GIVEN EA'S VERY POOR REPUTATIONS WHEN IT COMES TO RUNNING AND PURPOSELY DESTROYING MMO'S IT HAS HAD AND REP FOR GRABBING AS MUCH MONEY AS POSSIBLE FROM A NEW GAME AND RUNNING. THERE IS A GOOD CHANCE EA WILL TURN THE GAME INTO F2P AFTER THEY MAKE THERE COST BACK AND THEN RUN THE GAME INTO THE GROUND

can you link to some official study that proves a lfd tool actually destroys a mmo community???

the only reason some say lfd destroys communities is because they belong to certain group and guilds that want total control over who is able to enjoy raids/flashpoints by making pickup group difficult to form so that they can feel special and be the only few to have that special piece of loot from theses instances. in every mmo i have played that had lfd the benefits are that it breaks the strangle hold dome of these groups have over raids instanced plus it actually improves the community greatly. not having the lfd tool actually destroys the community and prevents players from interacting and meeting up. a lfd tool enable more people to do raids and more varied groups.