What stronghold were you in when you noticed this? I'm having the same problem in my Nar Shaddaa stronghold with all jukeboxes doing that. They play for about 2-3 seconds, then fade out, then come back for another few seconds. It just keeps repeating like that. Oddly enough though, in my Dromund Kaas stronghold, they all work perfectly fine.

You do realize all the stuff you are trying to pin on WoW is exactly the same with SWTOR, just worse. Guards, everyone someone else, npcs standing still, all stuff that goes to show SWTOR didn't try to do anything to make their worlds come alive. Also, you said you could hear music in the Inns, was your speakers off? At least WoW has music on repeat so it doesn't just get dead quiet like a certain game I can think of (hint: you're defending it). I do like how you mentioned sitting on a chair in WoW though. You'd be surprised how much immersion is added when you can actually click on things. Every npc in WoW can be clicked on. In SWTOR they may as well be paintings because you can't even target them. Anyway, enjoy living in your little bubble.

Illusion of choice is a powerful thing.

They seem too afraid to lose any subscriptions from actually banning people. There have been exploits and hacks going on since launch and people have been getting off with just a few day suspensions.

If you level both a Republic character and an Empire character to 50, you've seen most of the leveling content. The fact that every character follows the same progression makes this more a single player game than anything else. Not doing all eight storylines equals not doing half the content? Really? That's hard to agree with when the class story consists of a small handful of quests, five or so, compared to the multiple number of side quests on each planet. The class story ends around 50 as well. They had so much potential with the class story idea and they botched it. Stop trying to pretend rolling alts is the way this game was meant to be played. This is an MMO. It's suppose to be about character progression. If i wanted to play the same parts of the same game just with different characters, there are tons of other single player games I can play and none of which charge a monthly fee.

Pretty sure he was referring to ArcheAge beta.

Doubt Azzras actually does play. More likely a BioWare employee posting on a regular account to attempt damage control. Most companies do this.

It's not so much what people prefer, but rather just all they know. WoW brought in so many new people to the genre and since every MMO after WoW wants to be WoW...well, yea. Again, it's just more the fact that people have only played themepark games then look to the past and see things like SWG with a significantly lower amount of subs compared to WoW and just assume all sandbox games are horrible.

ArcheAge.

This sounds eerily familiar to something that just released but I can't place my finger on it...

Just because a game failed doesn't mean some of its features wouldn't be successful in this market. Oh and speaking of laughing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3Rrk6lgi24 That one gets me every time as well.

I'm not convinced sandbox games would be doomed before they launch. MMOs in general were a niche market before WoW. What WoW did was make the genre more accessible to everyone. Since then, most of what you see are companies trying to copy that. Using SWG as "proof" that sandbox is a fail genre is just false. I love SWG and I wish it developed into what it should have been and not change the way it did. Truth is though, the game had so many flaws that it just couldn't compete with WoW. Also the market wasn't there yet. Eve is rather successful, not like WoW, but still. The thing is, the learning curve in that game is extremely steep. It's hardcore. There hasn't been any big budget sandbox games that attempt to appeal to more people. What WoW did was bring in a massive amount of new people to a genre and now those very people are itching for something different. This is the reason you see so many "WoW clones" fail. Not so much because they are bad games, but rather people are done with that type of game. All it takes is for one company to take a chance and put out a guided sandbox game. Something that appeals to people who want direction, but enough freedom to do whatever they want. If you look at some future games releasing, it's already started to happen. Companies are slowly starting to dip their feet into the sandbox genre while still being heavily themepark. Testing the waters and it will just continue. The hybrid of these two is inevitable and that's what people are wanting to play.

Something that breaks from the current mold. GW2, Tera, TSW all seem like steps in the right direction, though maybe not far enough. I wouldn't mind seeing something similar to how Dark Souls plays. It would have to be altered for an MMO of course, but actually having reactive gameplay would be pretty enjoyable. The difficulty also needs to be ramped up significantly, in my opinion. The way current MMOs are offer no real sense of accomplishment for overcoming any task. Ultimately, I'd just like more depth. Or perhaps something so radically different that people would call it insane. Whether that's a mix of a FPS and what we have now, I don't know. My point is, just break the mold.

Content and features won't fix the core gameplay though. This game is the same as games have been for over ten years. That's the problem.

Actually TOR isn't the first fully voiced MMO. I guess they kind of are because they released before The Secret World, but TSW was announced before TOR and is going to be fully voiced as well. So TOR really isn't that special in that sense. The problem with TOR is that they focused so heavily on story that when you complete that part of it (get to 50), the game becomes stale. Say what you will about WoW, but Blizzard as a company understands the importance of gameplay. They master the thing the people spend most of their time doing. This isn't just shown in WoW either, look at the past Diablo, Starcraft, and Warcraft games. The replay value for those are all extremely high. For Diablo 3 they've said they want a game that's easy to play yet hard to master. They aren't the only company with that philosophy either. Look at Bungie with the first Halo. It's a game where you are basically just killing the same stuff over and over. Gameplay is by far the most important part to a game. That "new" feeling certain features have eventually ends and you are left with the gameplay. Part of that gameplay, I feel, has to do with the world you're in. When that's pretty lifeless and stale, it kills the mood. Companies really need to stop trying to be the next WoW by copying so much of it but rather make something that other companies want to copy. Something fresh, innovative, and done in a way that keeps people coming back after it stops being new.

The best part about that thread is the random dev response. They brought their A game people!

Very nice post.

Is that relevant to the topic? And have you played this game? You want to see sterile and boring....

If you want to see how a company should handle a game before and after launch, I suggest you look to Trion with Rift. Smaller budget and they fixed things at a remarkable rate. Not to mention their customer service was outstanding. Puts BioWare and their budget to shame.

So true. That's what the beta really felt like. Here's a bunch of stuff you guys could have, but we're actually going to be removing it all for launch. Enjoy!

This post is just wrong about so many things.

You'd think they would have prioritized those story bugs we found during Beta that made it into launch. Since this game was all about story, perhaps they should rethink their priorities?

In this game you're lucky if you see 1 other person while leveling. The one thing they did best in this game was separating everyone from each other while you level. You want to sit there and lie saying you only ever saw 1 other person in WoW, go ahead. I quit playing that game a while ago anyway so it doesn't matter to me. Doesn't change the fact that this game is more lifeless than anything else I've played. In fact there was just a thread on this very topic not too long ago.

So it's a single player game? Then they shouldn't be charging a monthly fee. 1-50 was fun, I enjoyed it. Yet at 50 the game turns into what everyone is currently complaining about. And before you tell me to roll an alt, I did. I can only handle the linear leveling for so long.

I wasn't comparing to WoW, but since you want to. WoW actually has ambience everywhere, unlike this game. Not to mention it has weather effects as well as day/night cycles. Things that make it feel a little more alive. On top of all that, they match the music to the zone really well. In SWTOR there isn't even an option to repeat music. Not to mention all the other games that bring life to their worlds. Edit: Since you brought this up, might as well add it in. Tatooine does have both suns go down in the movie. Just saying.