15 Days between Love and Hate, Sincerely - A Fan Boy

[Gunryu]

Honestly, you know what I'd like to see them do, but improve on. The way FFXI did expansions, no increase in level cap. No new tiers. Here is new content, it has new gear with different looks and abilities. You can chase after it. You can do the old content or you can gripe on the forums.

 

Honestly, why does every expansion require a level cap increase? Expand the available content at the current level is all that is needed. Just make sure new gear is on par with old gear and people will go after it. And if the old gear is still viable, people have reason to play old content for gear they want to wear.

 

I thought the same thing, but then it occurred to me, for as much as people gripe about it, they enjoy leveling because it gives them a sense of "WOOT" when they hit max level *shrug*

[Oneiros_IV]

Multiplayer space combat with guild flagships, space combat pvp and a mish mash of space combat mixed into ground combat. Also planetary bombing runs with your ship. Pod racing.

 

Realm vs Realm vs World Bosses vs Space combat pvp

 

World pvp Valor ranks with exclusive gear

 

Did I mention pod racing?

 

 

You just listed different forms of same grind, it will get old sooner than you expect. There will be rewards for realm vs realm space bombing. If rewards is one time it has no replay value, if it's repeatable you will want to do it just a couple (dozens) times more.

 

It's no different at it's core and your line of thought is flawed.

[Chiricahua]

At least you enjoyed leveling to 50. For me the pizzaz wore off right about level 10. I re-rolled 6 more characters, and guess what? Same thing. I keep thinking what someone with talent could've done with all that money. Instead we are left with this empty vessel that calls itself an MMO.

[BetamaxBandit]

This is also my biggest issue with the game. I began beta testing in July just in time for the magical late-July build and it was so *********** frustrating to see them gut system after system which was very well received for extremely dumbed down and WoW-ified iterations.

 

What made things even worse were the devs coming onto the beta forums and simply lying to us about the changes they made.

 

All of that feedback and all of those bug reports were ignored wholesale by Bioware. The entire beta program was an absolute farce and nothing but an internal measure by the team to gather player statistics and data.

 

All one needs to do is remember the outcry when they gutted the awesome mod system, all of the lies fed to us by Reid afterwards in his pathetic attempt at platitudes, and then the infuriating loss of "unify to chest" coloring for armoring because, for whatever reason, Bioware became butt-hurt over the fact that people actually looked good at any stage in the game.

 

I'm L40 now and have never once liked the armor appearance on my Trooper. I'm always three different colors of crap and it's annoying.

 

Oh, and then there's the insanely lame linear gear appearance progression which we didn't have until the later beta builds. In the earlier builds not only could we mod nearly every piece of anything but almost all appearance sets were available at any level post 20.

 

Another thing that always bugged me was Wallace's dev blog about how TOR would supposedly straddle the themepark and sandbox genres. What narcotic was that guy on when he even dared propose TOR have sandbox elements? This game doesn't have one iota of sandbox in it... in fact, I've never played any type of game which is as insanely linear and restrictive as TOR.

 

That is unbelievably depressing to hear, I think I was better off not knowing what could have been and almost was...

[Ashes_Arizona]

So can you please explain how the gear system was different?

 

Imagine that every piece of gear you pick up that has stats, has those stats because it has mods in it.

 

So you get a green drop on your starter world, and that green drop has two stats? Why? Cause its got a mod in it.

 

Over time you could find a look you really liked, and consistently upgrade the mods in it and play with that one look all the way to the end game. Without any penalty for doing so.

 

As our esteemed l33t raiders have pointed out, thats no longer an option cause if you're not grinding for end game "gear" right now, you won't be able to actually pursue the "end game" which is extremely viable as a truth because thats how it generally works in every other game, you grind for the "welfare epics" so you can qualify to even be allowed to go on the grand "field trip" to the "evil fortress of doom" where you can defeat the "ultimate and unbeatable evil" of the current game state, so you can get epics that are not "welfare epics" and be the most l33t people on the server! Until the next patch, that comes along, and makes your l33t epics no better than welfare epics and you have to grind out a gear set for the new gear rating tier again...lather, rinse, repeat.

 

In beta, even with this process, if you liked the way your first Jedi Robe looked, you could strip the mods out of even the highest level elite epic legendary piece of armor from the hardest encounter in the game and put those high level mods in your newbie robe, and be just as good as someone wearing the elite epic legendary piece of gear.

 

This isn't all that changed, but it was a gigantic issue of contention between the beta players and the BioWare devs and a lot of us skirted our NDA's very heavily bringing the issue out into the light of the public.

 

And to be frank the only reason that you can mod gear at all right now is probably because of what we did. Because the build they threw at us that gutted that system, its original form had no modifiable armors at all, and only certain quest awarded weapons were modifiable. As things stand right now, there are modifiable pieces in the game, but theres not much point in using them as static stat Prototypes almost always heavily outstrip the stats and armor factor of pieces of modifiable gear of the exact same level.

[Oneiros_IV]

I'd also like to mention that in WoW difference between two max level characters can exceed the difference between generic lvl 1 and generic lvl85.

 

Because there's so many "ranks" in raiding, and just in raiding players can belong to dozen different castes or breeds. All easily distinguishable both by gear, vanity stuff and personal reputation.

chill baddies mad baddies, baddies, not-quite-there players, 2nd-in-backwater village, up to world 10 stars with dozens of varieties of guilds between them. All of them obvious to a trained eye at a first glance.

 

Hopefully with more content and finer tuning we can get close to that.

[Waiting]

I feel your pain, OP. Also, I agree completely. How anyone can find hours of grinding for gear entertaining, I'll never know. I, too, stopped playing characters in WoW when they hit level cap because I'd sooner suffer a sack full of angry bulldog ants tied to my head than run the same dungeon/dungeons and/or dallies every day for months at a time so I can update my bleeding GEAR, (which I don't give a tinker's cuss about beyond how it looks and whether or not it allows me to tackle even-level solo content).

 

I play these games for the mission/quest lines and whatever over-arching story may or may not be present, but apparently the majority of MMO gamers enjoy this kind of tripe or there wouldn't be game after game released featuring this vaunted "content", if content it can indeed be called. It truly is sad. I'll get two, maybe three characters to cap and then I guess I'll move on until some developer somewhere can make an MMO which doesn't rely on a gear carrot to keep people playing.

 

My fellow MMOers, mindless grinding IS NOT CONTENT. This IS NOT A QUALITY ENDGAME and you shouldn't settle for it. If you enjoy mindless grinding then good for you! You have a lot of games from which to choose.

 

This game, like many others, is really quite good up until level cap, (at least, the storyline is anyway), in my opinion. However, until people stop paying for this stuff via monthly fees or "free" to play systems or what-have-you, developers will continue to make crap for us. Why not? They have no impetus to change, do they? Don't fix what isn't broken. Hey, if they want to pay to play a game where their character's ultimate fate is to grind for tokens with which to buy sets of gear which all look alike within their weight tiers besides different colouring, then lets give it to them!

 

Honestly, it makes me not want to play at all. I feel as if I'm wasting my time. If it wasn't for the fact that I'm enjoying the class stories, I'd have stopped already. I'm willing to pay them for that experience, but I will NOT pay to NOT have fun. I was never a fanboy and I never had high hopes for this game because I've simply been around the MMO block too many times to fall for hype, but dear god, could someone PLEASE come up with an alternate endgame to the currently going model?

 

I think therein lies the fatal flaw for MMOs. Developers can't think of dynamic, meaningful content quickly enough to keep people happy so they just crap out some innane grindfest for the endgame and hope people get addicted enough to the progression system to keep playing and paying for that 1.0% stat increase hovering over their nose. The first game which can break this mold will be the new standard by which all other MMOs are judged and the person or people behind it will become very rich, indeed.

 

Why do you think they didn't put an appearance tab in or allow all gear to be moddable? Because that would be too easy, wouldn't it? That wouldn't require you to pore over the galactic market for hours a day trying to find the perfect piece of orange quality gear which you could use to make your character appear as if he DIDN't lose a fight with a trunk full of clown props. No, that wouldn't require you to devote hours to the game where you AREN'T partaking in the missions and storylines and AREN'T consuming content thereby keeping you paying and playing just a little longer.

 

Why is it that it costs 220K credits to get a 10% speed increase to your speeders at level 40? Why is it that training fees are ridiculously expensive? Why are there so many money sinks in this game? Because the longer you spend grinding out credits, the less time you're spending consuming content and the longer you'll keep paying and playing. On top of that, in the end they're hoping you'll settle for more grinding than ever before and continue paying them, even though the process of grinding for ANYTHING in one of these games is a soul-consuming act of purest boredom which is really more like a job than fun. Hell, it even requires you to fill out a damned application and attend to a schedule if you want to get REALLY serious about it.

 

That's not just this game's problem, though. Pretty much all of them suffer these same pitfalls, it's just that someone has to break the mold someday. That might not be until someone comes up with a way to generate dynamic, interesting and meaningful content using some type of automated program. Until then, enjoy the ride and get off when your stop comes up.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Waiting

[vinnia]

There is no endgame without grinding. That doesnt exist. The thing is you can make it look like its not Grinding but its still is. AND THATS VERY HARD. Like, if u get all the epic when ur ding 50 isnt fun. When you need to grind 50 hours for 1 epic isnt also fun.

 

But with the grind i think the story will make the grind fun to do;)

[thomaspraill]

I am a BioWare fan, I am a Star Wars fan, and you got too much World of Warcraft in my Old Republic. And you did it because you were cowards, because those of us that were in beta got to see you trying new approaches, that we liked..that we fought for as ardently as we could without breaking our NDA's when you started dumbing them down, and regardless of your meaningless platitudes to the beta testers and the general public at large, you still crippled this game into nothing but a boring WoW Clone with a story stapled onto its back.

Amen. Cowards.

[Oneiros_IV]

If what you say is true, I guess their idea was to make visual player evaluation possible while art dept lagging behind.

[Ashes_Arizona]

I'd also like to mention that in WoW difference between two max level characters can exceed the difference between generic lvl 1 and generic lvl85.

 

Because there's so many "ranks" in raiding, and just in raiding players can belong to dozen different castes or breeds. All easily distinguishable both by gear, vanity stuff and personal reputation.

chill baddies mad baddies, baddies, not-quite-there players, 2nd-in-backwater village, up to world 10 stars with dozens of varieties of guilds between them. All of them obvious to a trained eye at a first glance.

 

Hopefully with more content and finer tuning we can get close to that.

 

Why would you even want to be close to that. Its a system of exclusion. It doesn't promote cohesive server communities.

 

You're literally endorsing caste systems as if they're a good thing. Thats just....wow.

[Gunryu]

I feel your pain, OP. Also, I agree completely. How anyone can find hours of grinding for gear entertaining, I'll never know. I, too, stopped playing characters in WoW when they hit level cap because I'd sooner suffer a sack full of angry bulldog ants tied to my head than run the same dungeon/dungeons and/or dallies every day for months at a time so I can update my bleeding GEAR, (which I don't give a tinker's cuss about beyond how it looks and whether or not it allows me to tackle even-level solo content).

 

I play these games for the mission/quest lines and whatever over-arching story may or may not be present, but apparently the majority of MMO gamers enjoy this kind of tripe or there wouldn't be game after game released featuring this vaunted "content", if content it can indeed be called. It truly is sad. I'll get two, maybe three characters to cap and then I guess I'll move on until some developer somewhere can make an MMO which doesn't rely on a gear carrot to keep people playing.

 

My fellow MMOers, mindless grinding IS NOT CONTENT. This IS NOT A QUALITY ENDGAME and you shouldn't settle for it. If you enjoy mindless grinding then good for you! You have a lot of games from which to choose.

 

This game, like many others, is really quite good up until level cap, (at least, the storyline is anyway), in my opinion. However, until people stop paying for this stuff via monthly fees or "free" to play systems or what-have-you, developers will continue to make crap for us. Why not? They have no impetus to change, do they? Don't fix what isn't broken. Hey, if they want to pay to play a game where their character's ultimate fate is to grind for tokens with which to buy sets of gear which all look alike within their weight tiers besides different colouring, then lets give it to them!

 

Honestly, it makes me not want to play at all. I feel as if I'm wasting my time. If it wasn't for the fact that I'm enjoying the class stories, I'd have stopped already. I'm willing to pay them for that experience, but I will NOT pay to NOT have fun. I was never a fanboy and I never had high hopes for this game because I've simply been around the MMO block too many times to fall for hype, but dear god, could someone PLEASE come up with an alternate endgame to the currently going model?

 

I think therein lies the fatal flaw for MMOs. Developers can't think of dynamic, meaningful content quickly enough to keep people happy so they just crap out some innane grindfest for the endgame and hope people get addicted enough to the progression system to keep playing and paying for that 1.0% stat increase hovering over their nose. The first game which can break this mold will be the new standard by which all other MMOs are judged and the person or people behind it will become very rich, indeed.

 

Why do you think they didn't put an appearance tab in or allow all gear to be moddable? Because that would be too easy, wouldn't it? That wouldn't require you to pore over the galactic market for hours a day trying to find the perfect piece of orange quality gear which you could use to make your character appear as if he DIDN't lose a fight with a trunk full of clown props. No, that wouldn't require you to devote hours to the game where you AREN'T partaking in the missions and storylines and AREN'T consuming content thereby keeping you paying and playing just a little longer.

 

Why is it that it costs 220K credits to get a 10% speed increase to your speeders at level 40? Why is it that training fees are ridiculously expensive? Why are there so many money sinks in this game? Because the longer you spend grinding out credits, the less time you're spending consuming content and the longer you'll keep paying and playing. On top of that, in the end they're hoping you'll settle for more grinding than ever before and continue paying them, even though the process of grinding for ANYTHING in one of these games is a soul-consuming act of purest boredom which is really more like a job than fun. Hell, it even requires you to fill out a damned application and attend to a schedule if you want to get REALLY serious about it.

 

That's not just this game's problem, though. Pretty much all of them suffer these same pitfalls, it's just that someone has to break the mold someday. That might not be until someone comes up with a way to generate dynamic, interesting and meaningful content using some type of automated program. Until then, enjoy the ride and get off when your stop comes up.

 

 

Congrats you just described a single player RPG, or a game like Diablo as what you like!

 

Now I await the "No it isn't"

Edited January 6, 2012 by Gunryu

[Oneiros_IV]

Why would you even want to be close to that. Its a system of exclusion. It doesn't promote cohesive server communities.

 

You're literally endorsing caste systems as if they're a good thing. Thats just....wow.

 

 

It keeps likeminded players together. Keeps em dependant on each other. Keeps things competitive. Keeps them striving to better their personal playing aptitude, to go into research etc etc.

 

What's bad about it.

[thomaspraill]

I think therein lies the fatal flaw for MMOs. Developers can't think of dynamic, meaningful content quickly enough to keep people happy so they just crap out some innane grindfest for the endgame and hope people get addicted enough to the progression system to keep playing and paying for that 1.0% stat increase hovering over their nose. The first game which can break this mold will be the new standard by which all other MMOs are judged and the person or people behind it will become very rich, indeed.

 

You see I thought vanilla already did this. When I played vanilla it was a good year, at least, of endgame that I didn't even finish before TBC came out.

 

The first step in endgame was the lvl 60 5 mans that you had to gear up running in order to get into 10man instances which you aquired various crafting materials in. You then would use those crafting materials with your crafting professions to make fire resist gear so you could do the first 40 man (molten core), then molten gear for BWL, Ony, and that bug place. The only PvP gear was EPICLY hard to get so the best avenue to be good in pvp was to participate in the endgame PvE. It was perfect.

 

Wow was ruined in TBC by an uncreative and lazy team replacing a revolutionary one... and that failed commendation grind model has been copied ever since.

[Kashaan]

Imagine that every piece of gear you pick up that has stats, has those stats because it has mods in it.

 

So you get a green drop on your starter world, and that green drop has two stats? Why? Cause its got a mod in it.

 

<snip>

 

 

Ahh ok, so basically all gear was moddable gear. I have heard that the best raid drops now have their armoring slot locked.... that's pretty crappy. I'll agree with you they should have kept it how it was if that was the case. Can't imagine what possessed them to change it.

 

Any other examples of things that were changed? I'm curious how badly the WoW fanboys screwed over TOR.

[Gunryu]

It keeps likeminded players together. Keeps em dependant on each other. Keeps things competitive. Keeps them striving to better their personal playing aptitude, to go into research etc etc.

 

What's bad about it.

 

 

One friend is better than the other friend at pvp or raiding, they both want to raid or pvp together but neither group will let the other in...........see the problem yet?

[SoullessCaptain]

Ok so what do you want your end game to be if not raiding or pvp? I raid in other games and pvp in other games I like that stuff. Sure i would be ok to do it with no reward and everyone is equal at max lvl and there is no improving that would be ok but i would still want to raid or pvp. What else is there? I've played lotro and they have the epic story that is tied from lvl 1 to max and they patch new bits in from time to time and im assuming thats what bioware is going to do with their story lines but they still have raids. I'm just not sure what your asking for.

[Gunryu]

You see I thought vanilla already did this. When I played vanilla it was a good year, at least, of endgame that I didn't even finish before TBC came out.

 

The first step in endgame was the lvl 60 5 mans that you had to gear up running in order to get into 10man instances which you aquired various crafting materials in. You then would use those crafting materials with your crafting professions to make fire resist gear so you could do the first 40 man (molten core), then molten gear for BWL, Ony, and that bug place. The only PvP gear was EPICLY hard to get so the best avenue to be good in pvp was to participate in the endgame PvE. It was perfect.

 

Wow was ruined in TBC by an uncreative and lazy team replacing a revolutionary one... and that failed commendation grind model has been copied ever since.

 

 

*blink blink* people used raid gear/pve gear for pvping........there was no pvp gear until they introduced resilience.

[thomaspraill]

*blink blink* people used raid gear/pve gear for pvping........there was no pvp gear until they introduced resilience.

You could actually get pvp gear as rewards for pvp titles. It was "Warlord" and "Field Marshall" I believe. The gear had no pvp stats persay but was on par with the gear you got from BWL.

 

It was stupidly hard to get. I believe you had to finish highest pvp rating on your entire server for a week to get that title.

 

You can see the progression here:

http://www.wowwiki.com/Field_Marshal's_Battlegear

 

Patch 3.3.3 (2010-03-23): Items which previously required Marks of Honor will have their costs adjusted to remove these requirements.

Patch 2.0.1 (2006-12-05): PvP Rank requirement removed.

Patch 1.11.0 (2006-06-20): The armor rewards for Honor ranks 12 and 13 have been increased in level and stat point allocation.

Patch 1.4.0 (2005-05-05): Added.

 

I remember because the day TBC came out they removed the rank requirement and I was finally able to buy a whole set!!

Edited January 6, 2012 by thomaspraill

[Waiting]

Congrats you just described a single player RPG, or a game like Diablo as what you like!

 

Now I await the "No it isn't"

 

Diablo? That's just more of the same. Mindless dungeon crawling and fighting the same enemies over and over again in the hopes that some piece of gear will drop. Diablo is a gear acquisiton game where the story comes in third behind character skillpoint/stat allocation. Basicaly, Diablo is the embodiement of what I said I don't like about the endgame for your average MMO. Did you even read what I typed? Probably not. It's alright though, right? How dare I expect an endgame beyond what we've had since EQ? I should just acquiesce and accept mediocrity with a smile and a creditcard number as you apparently have, I suppose. I mean, why expect anything to change or ever get better, right? Yes, that's the type of attitude which really takes you far. It's a good thing you weren't with the cavemen who discovered fire...

Edited January 6, 2012 by Waiting

[Oneiros_IV]

One friend is better than the other friend at pvp or raiding, they both want to raid or pvp together but neither group will let the other in...........see the problem yet?

 

One friend has car license and another doesn't but they both want to steer together at the same time. How unfortunate.

 

but there's always a number of solutions, one can (and encouraged) to atend drving lessons since car is already provided in our case.

 

Or they can settle for guy with license driving and another taking a passenger seat and they ride happily with talks, jokes, etc. Passenger can have complimetary beer even.

[Hina]

This game needs at most half a year of development more... UI is painful and a total copy of wow, graphics get bugged every time, the videos doesn't load well and the sound sometimes doesnt match... there is lots of lag and the load screens are eternal...

 

Endgame, It needs a diferent crafting system that doesn't mirrors Wow seriously guys even Lotro is better in that aspect... More raids, more PVP, more nice rewards, and the Challenge of course...

 

About RP, becasue there is people who like to RP and are fans of SW, you know? This is the most unfriendly RP game... No chat bubbles! And the areas for lowbie RP are... really... You can0t sit in the chairs or sleep in the beds, some emotes are bugged and repeate ad infinitum...

 

Sometimes when there isn't endgame I use the RP as endgame but I think I'll cancel my subscription and return to Lotro...

[Wrender]

What?!? You hit lvl 50 in only 15 days? That's the problem right there. If I played that intensly to hit 50 that quick I would be pissed off the entire time and ready to explode. You missed the entire point of even playing an MMO. I would personally like to take you out into the woods and kick you in the balls as hard as I can with steel toed boots and run away screaming like a drunk schoolgirl cause it's what you deserve. You should not even be playing an MMO period! Sheesh! This kind of mentality really pisses me off. Then you have the audacity to come here and ***** and moan and whine on the forums in an attempt to piss everyone else off just cause you ruined your own experience.

[Gunryu]

Diablo? That's just more of the same. Mindless dungeon crawling and fighting the same enemies over and over again in the hopes that some piece of gear will drop. Diablo is a gear acquisiton game where the story comes in third behind character skillpoint/stat allocation. Basicaly, Diablo is the embodiement of what I said I don't like about the endgame for your average MMO. Did you even read what I typed? Probably not. It's alright though, right? How dare I expect an endgame beyond what we've had since EQ? I should just acquiesce and accept mediocrity with a smile and a creditcard number as you apparently have, I suppose. I mean, why expect anything to change or ever get better, right? Yes, that's the type of attitude which really takes you far. It's a good thing you weren't with the cavemen who discovered fire...

 

 

So then what type of end game do you want? What exactly would you like to see for end game? If a story continues IT'S NOT THE END so what would you like? You seem to have this idea in your head as to what you want from end game so let's hear it.

[Wrender]

It will take me a good 4-6 months to hit lvl 50 in this game because after 50 the fun will end. I enjoy the journey to 50 rather than the pain of gear grinding after 50. Then there will be 7 new classes to explore after that. I will never understand the obbsessive need to hit lvl cap especially in a new game in 2 weeks or less. To me that is just retarded. You missed out on the whole experience. Give bioware time to polish the game and add content. Leveling to max before the first month is up is even more stupid because they havent even started patching things as the money is just starting to come in.