MAXIMUM PC Rates SWTOR 7 out of 10

[Daeborn]

you can find them on teh shelf of your local drug store right beside electronic gaming monthly and nintendo power

 

lolz

[dirtyklingon]

Yeah, nothing feels immersive like an exhaustion debuff after you step 20m out of a city!

 

Finally a good balanced review. Unlike some of the most hardcore fanboys think there ARE things wrong in this game. And it is what it is, a single player game with some lacking MMO elements slapped in.

 

lacking mmo elements like the length of time it takes to travel between locations in game as the review lambasted swtor for?

 

 

teh exhuastion zones ar ea little too close to quest areas an dhubs i agree, but it's not any different from wow's non stop mountains bordering every single zone in teh entire world with convenient choke points here and there. even on another planet (outworld) you will notice, yes, mountainous borders with convenient choke points. SO OPEN BRO.

[dirtyklingon]

this review is the most accurate to date.

 

VAST world is USELESS when you only play it once a.k.a swtor.

 

seriously, you think SWTOR's planet are bigger then SWG? Heck no.

 

SWG's tatooine is about 4 times bigger then SWTOR's tatooine.

 

 

and seriously people LFG TOOL does NOT HELP when you team sizes is 4 and you still need a damn healer/tank. which take 2 spot when 90% are DPS.

 

SWG's tatoooine is also 90% empty spaces and the rest is small packs of mobs, empty player cities, and a few legacy quest locations. it was also created with procedural RNG landscaping, and it shows. NGE mos eisley though so much mor epleasant to navigate and occupy than PRE nge mos eisley.

 

having trouble getting a tank or healer for a flashpoint? turns out guilds are for more than just raiding.

[BobTheTeepo]

This review isn't far from the mark.

 

Though I don't agree with all of it, many of us warned Bioware well in advance that the lack of UI customization and the pitiful LFG feature would result in many reviewers and players voicing their disappointment.

 

 

This should come as no surprise.

 

 

Having said that, I do believe the critic was a bit harsh in some areas. I believe it rates closer to an 8 than a 7 and after a couple months of fixes and hopefully additions, we will see.

 

A lot hinges on Bioware getting things into the game ASAP. Better guild management tools, a more friendly UI, a better (not necessarily x-server/teleporting) LFG system.

 

Many of us will wait a bit for these things and gladly keep paying Bioware for the wonderful game that already exists. Others have less patience.

 

Had the game launched with just those 3 things mentioned above in better shaoe, a perfect 10 wouldn't have been out of the question.

 

I agree with the guy above, 8 is around fair, and the critic is complaining about some pretty stupid stuff to whine about. I LIKE taking a long time traveling anywhere, it gives a sense of vastness and epicness to it. Overall, I feel the review was too subjective, the reviewer could a lesson in how to review objectively.

 

For those here who take this one 7/10 critic that no one has ever heard of as the word of God (which is kind of silly), I leave you with the 31 professional reviews that are all above 8: http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/star-wars-the-old-republic/critic-reviews

 

Of course ALL those critics were bought off because they think it's a good game, no question about it, that makes perfect sense and it's a logical conclusion that adheres to Occam's Razor perfectly. <-- Sarcasm.

Edited January 11, 2012 by BobTheTeepo

[Blackfriar]

What's maximum PC?

 

Anywho:

 

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/star-wars-the-old-republic 86%

 

http://www.gamerankings.com/pc/951199-star-wars-the-old-republic/index.html 85.94%

 

 

It works like this:

 

Joe Gaming Company makes a dog. Joe Gaming Company gets a 65.

 

BioWare makes a dog. BioWare gets an 80 because in 1998 they made Badur's Gate which was, don't you know, one of the greatest CRPGs of all time... Therefore NOTHING they do can bad. Ever. No matter if some people notice that all their games are rail-crpgs with few, if any, real game-effective options and are padded with excess running around in large areas to pad play time to the point that if you put a clock on your game, pointless running approaches 50% in these games. This list includes, but is not limited to:

 

NWN,

NWN:SoU,

Jade Empire (which was short (18 hours) and padded),

KOTOR,

 

(I wise up and)

 

Mass Effect 1, (bought in bargin bin)

Mass Effect 2 (but not nearly as bad as 1), and (bought in bargin bin)

Dragon Age:Origins (bought when price dropped, but before bargin bin).

 

I don't include the obvious rip-off, cash-in that was DAII and got a 94 from PC Gamer because I wouldn't even buy it in the bargin bin. I will point out that, despite the 94 from PC Gamer, DAII sold (in its first six months), less than 400.000 copies and most of them were from pre-order by fools who actually trust BioWare to deliver when, since Baldur's Gate, they've been more 'average' than good...

 

So I've found, for various reasons, that the ratings for BioWare, from any gaming magazine, are generally worthless. Conflict of interest and rose colored glasses tends to give them a leg-up on average-to-mediocre products.

 

Having said all that and played other, non-BioWare, initial release MMOs, this one is one of the shoddier ones. Too many bugs and lacks MMO features. It is, like the recently released "Lord of the Rings -- War in the North" game (not to be confused with LOTRO), a co-operative, multi-player CRPG.

 

And when I'm done with the stories, I'm done with the game. This is the first MMO I've ever played where it's all solo on the intial release. That there is nothing worth having that you get by raiding, grouping, etc.

 

And that is sad. But, I have this, I'm getting about 3 CRPGs worth of play out of the game and it'll work out to about $30 a game for three grinding, running-man CRPGs that I expect from BioWare. Though when I run the four Sith stories, I'll run just four Sith, not like I've done with the Republic and run all eight...

[TKMaster]

The quote you posted start off by basically saying its bad to have vast worlds.

 

This is a guy reviewing an MMO, and he complains about a vast world.

 

That is all.

 

Not only that but the turdlick said it needed some SWG in it, i played that steaming pile for 8 years and this game needs nothing SWG had.

Edited January 11, 2012 by Parali

[Baaddare]

What is Maximum PC? i've never heard about it before. Reading the article all i can say is someone trying to draw some attention to the site with a review haters will praise.

 

Seriously, i've never EVER heard about this site till this moment, and i am kinda old.

 

Well the game reviews when they do them are stuck in the back of the mag near where they rate someones personal rig that they submitted. They mostly do reviews on hardware and software. Such as ratting cases or comparing different manufactures cards. They also have articles that are a step by step guide to streamling win 7 or building your own rig.

Edited January 11, 2012 by Baaddare

[Arutassin]

Haters gonna hate.

 

More like :

 

Reviewers gonna review honestly and fanboy's gonna be fanboy's

[Happo]

lacking mmo elements like the length of time it takes to travel between locations in game as the review lambasted swtor for?

 

 

teh exhuastion zones ar ea little too close to quest areas an dhubs i agree, but it's not any different from wow's non stop mountains bordering every single zone in teh entire world with convenient choke points here and there. even on another planet (outworld) you will notice, yes, mountainous borders with convenient choke points. SO OPEN BRO.

 

Lacking MMO elements like:

 

UI Moddability

 

Guild Banks

 

Bank Stacking

 

Actually working Open PvP incentives

 

Combat parser

 

Addons

 

LFG Tool

 

Well optimized game engine

 

 

I'm not gonna mention the countless frustrating bugs this game has or the dozens of game design mistakes.

 

Once people hit 50 and see how broken and lacking the endgame is they'll stop playing.

Edited January 11, 2012 by Happo

[OriginSucks]

I really don't understand peoples fanatical obsession with reviews.

 

I don't care if a game gets a 2, if I enjoy playing it, I will.

 

Same goes for a game that gets a 10, if I don't enjoy it, I don't play it.

 

I have a shelf full of PC and console titles that have been praised by multiple review sites, yet they sit on my shelf collecting dust, most of them unfinished.

[swdrgn]

You really can't give a MMORPG a fair rating the first month of release.

 

It's not like a console game that will always be the same game 1 day or 1 year from it's release. I would not even think about Rating a MMO till 3-6 months in.

 

Besides who even care about Maximum PC, I rather read Maxim PC.

 

I am not trying to defend SWTOR, it's just that your trying to put down the race horse before it has even left the gate

[Vortgon]

Agreed, too far too soon.

 

The real concern is longevity, Bioware has marketed a story driven MMO. With every quest outside of the Dailys having a full voice dialogue the challenge will be to continue pushing out content as fast as possible. That doesn't mean an expansion a year down the road either...I don't think players in this day and age will wait that long.

 

 

I don't think this is as much of a problem as people think.

 

 

Between content heavy patches say every 3 months - they can be recording dialogue at a rate of 1 a week or even 1 a fortnight and still have plenty of time to get it all done.

 

It's not hard once the scripts are complete to book a days studio time and record all the dialogue in a single day.

 

The producers of this type of content are well versed in getting this stuff done quickly and efficiently.

 

And the best thing is that the voice content recording has no influence on the other areas of the content such as animation or cutscenes so it has no impact on the speed of completion.

[Hematic]

I for one am really enjoying this game.

 

WoW was released in 2004, it was in development for 5 years. I will do the math for you, that's 11 years of development. It had god damn better be refined.

 

The reviewer mentioned the fact that there are no achievements. Pretty sure there are, he probably didn't notice since they don't cause an epileptic fit when you get one. Also, achievements were only introduced to WoW after BC.

 

Have any of you even read the test realm patch notes? (Read them here) There is your level 50 PvP bracket, your AA etc. Everyone just loves to whinge and think Bioware doesn't care, and it's always cool to hate on EA. Believe it or not, they do read your feedback and are working extremely hard to improve the game.

 

Everyone's issue seems to be that this game is not WoW. This game definitely has it's issues, but try providing some constructive criticism, it will get you a lot further. If you have already decided that you hate the game, then move on or be part of the solution.

[Blackfriar]

SWG's tatoooine is also 90% empty spaces and the rest is small packs of mobs, empty player cities, and a few legacy quest locations. it was also created with procedural RNG landscaping, and it shows. NGE mos eisley though so much mor epleasant to navigate and occupy than PRE nge mos eisley.

 

having trouble getting a tank or healer for a flashpoint? turns out guilds are for more than just raiding.

 

lol. My guild was founded by a group of WoW-burnouts who came to SWTOR for something new to do. They quit enmasse and went back to WoW. Three weeks in and they're gone...

 

I've asked people in their guilds if they're any good and so far it's been nothing but 'meh.' Seems that due to all the level disparities within them, guilds don't do bupkus for the most part. People don't want to leave the world their on, go through the nine-step travel process, to help someone 10-levels lower run a single-player dungeon because they're too incompetent to solo it... And yes, if you can't do any main or side quest without help, you're incompentent. Everything is easy and through 30-levels there has one challenging boss fight and that was because I was severely underleveled for it as I skipped all the Tattooine side quests...

[jarjarloves]

SWTOR is a 4/10, not a 7/10

 

I am going to miss you in 9 days.

[Knyghtprowler]

Great review! He hits the mark in my book. I read a similar review on EuroGamer also.

 

Eurogamer scored an 8 and MaxPc a 7 - still a little generous in my opinion... I would have gone 6, this game needs a lot of love before your average MMO gamer begins to call this game a great MMO IMO.

[Baaddare]

Yeah sure but it starts to late im level 25 and im still in Taris, wolrd pvp should start from the begining.

 

I would pointout that in wow you do not have world pvp till you get to places like STV unless you intentionaly run over to the opposit factions earlier zones and hope somone clocks you so you can fight them. Here you have your starter world and then your home planet you next area you can go hutning or be the hunted to your hearts content.

[ApesAmongUs]

The quote you posted start off by basically saying its bad to have vast worlds.

 

This is a guy reviewing an MMO, and he complains about a vast world.

 

That is all.

 

Wow, you get pissed when he gives the game a rating of significantly above average. Is anything less that perfect unacceptable to you?

Edited January 11, 2012 by Parali

[Oupy]

The insecurity is strong with this (fanboys) one

[BobTheTeepo]

It works like this:

 

Joe Gaming Company makes a dog. Joe Gaming Company gets a 65.

 

BioWare makes a dog. BioWare gets an 80 because in 1998 they made Badur's Gate which was, don't you know, one of the greatest CRPGs of all time... Therefore NOTHING they do can bad. Ever. No matter if some people notice that all their games are rail-crpgs with few, if any, real game-effective options and are padded with excess running around in large areas to pad play time to the point that if you put a clock on your game, pointless running approaches 50% in these games. This list includes, but is not limited to:

 

NWN,

NWN:SoU,

Jade Empire (which was short (18 hours) and padded),

KOTOR,

 

(I wise up and)

 

Mass Effect 1, (bought in bargin bin)

Mass Effect 2 (but not nearly as bad as 1), and (bought in bargin bin)

Dragon Age:Origins (bought when price dropped, but before bargin bin).

 

I don't include the obvious rip-off, cash-in that was DAII and got a 94 from PC Gamer because I wouldn't even buy it in the bargin bin. I will point out that, despite the 94 from PC Gamer, DAII sold (in its first six months), less than 400.000 copies and most of them were from pre-order by fools who actually trust BioWare to deliver when, since Baldur's Gate, they've been more 'average' than good...

 

So I've found, for various reasons, that the ratings for BioWare, from any gaming magazine, are generally worthless. Conflict of interest and rose colored glasses tends to give them a leg-up on average-to-mediocre products.

 

Having said all that and played other, non-BioWare, initial release MMOs, this one is one of the shoddier ones. Too many bugs and lacks MMO features. It is, like the recently released "Lord of the Rings -- War in the North" game (not to be confused with LOTRO), a co-operative, multi-player CRPG.

 

And when I'm done with the stories, I'm done with the game. This is the first MMO I've ever played where it's all solo on the intial release. That there is nothing worth having that you get by raiding, grouping, etc.

 

And that is sad. But, I have this, I'm getting about 3 CRPGs worth of play out of the game and it'll work out to about $30 a game for three grinding, running-man CRPGs that I expect from BioWare. Though when I run the four Sith stories, I'll run just four Sith, not like I've done with the Republic and run all eight...

 

You're stating things that are completely subjective as if they were objective. You're also committing numerous logical fallacies and your train of thought does not at all follow the sound principle of Occam's Razor (which doesn't mean you're wrong granted).

 

From a technical standpoint, most of these games were revolutionary. Kotor I has probably one of the most amazing twists in any game, ever. It has solid gameplay and all around amazing story with a great cinematic feel for it's time. Mass Effect achieved unparalleled follow depth that really made you attached to each character, it was also probably the 2nd most cinematic RPG of all time (behind Mass Effect 2) even though YOU may not like it, and it certainly has some faults, you cannot claim that it was bad objectively.

 

Not to mention your overall attitude is just deplorable, because I like Bioware's games I'm a "fool"? Seriously? U4REELBROTHA?

[BigOso]

Haters gonna hate.

 

What I can't understand is why haters choose to stay on the forums. If I did not like the game I wouldn't waste my time on this forum ... I would have better things to do ...

 

LMAO... QFT..

 

I never understood that neither...lol

I think there here for the attention and that its in their nature to whinne alot and forums is a great place for them to vent and get the attention there lacking irl.. i duno, seams silly but im sure its not far from the thruth.

 

[dirtyklingon]

Lacking MMO elements like:

 

UI Moddability

 

Guild Banks

 

Bank Stacking

 

Actually working Open PvP incentives

 

Combat parser

 

Addons

 

LFG Tool

 

Well optimized game engine

 

 

I'm not gonna mention the countless frustrating bugs this game has or the dozens of game design mistakes.

 

Once people hit 50 and see how broken and lacking the endgame is they'll stop playing.

 

while all those things are VERY nice to have, they are not standard or basic or "mmo elements" nor do any of them contribute to an mmo being an mmo.

 

nor can i think of many mmo's that had comba tparser ever built in, let alone a decent one if ever dev made parser, and this tend to be entirely a community effort(shor tof combatlog.txt file which has it's own issues, or LUA API, which is preferable but with scaleform don't expect the wide range of aesthetic based ui addons that wow *community* has built)

 

as far as the whole ui addons goes, no doubt ther ewould be few if any addons out yet if the API was ready 3-6 months ago. it took literalyl years for wow to get a decent library of decent addons like it has today or even during wotlk, even in tbc decent addons were pretty lacking overall(there was some great ones back in tbc though)

 

as far as out of the box ui customization, yes i iwsh this game had this alot myself, on the other hand i recognize that every game that has this on launch it's buggy as **** and often likes to reset mid pull on boss fights on your tank who also is a clicker so suddenly you wipe and it turns out the boss has a bug that resets customized ui's and then... assuming ht eui customization saves at all. that being said, again, not a standard feature of mmo's.

[Baaddare]

It works like this:

 

Joe Gaming Company makes a dog. Joe Gaming Company gets a 65.

 

BioWare makes a dog. BioWare gets an 80 because in 1998 they made Badur's Gate which was, don't you know, one of the greatest CRPGs of all time... Therefore NOTHING they do can bad. Ever. No matter if some people notice that all their games are rail-crpgs with few, if any, real game-effective options and are padded with excess running around in large areas to pad play time to the point that if you put a clock on your game, pointless running approaches 50% in these games. This list includes, but is not limited to:

 

NWN,

NWN:SoU,

Jade Empire (which was short (18 hours) and padded),

KOTOR,

 

(I wise up and)

 

Mass Effect 1, (bought in bargin bin)

Mass Effect 2 (but not nearly as bad as 1), and (bought in bargin bin)

Dragon Age:Origins (bought when price dropped, but before bargin bin).

 

I don't include the obvious rip-off, cash-in that was DAII and got a 94 from PC Gamer because I wouldn't even buy it in the bargin bin. I will point out that, despite the 94 from PC Gamer, DAII sold (in its first six months), less than 400.000 copies and most of them were from pre-order by fools who actually trust BioWare to deliver when, since Baldur's Gate, they've been more 'average' than good...

 

So I've found, for various reasons, that the ratings for BioWare, from any gaming magazine, are generally worthless. Conflict of interest and rose colored glasses tends to give them a leg-up on average-to-mediocre products.

 

Having said all that and played other, non-BioWare, initial release MMOs, this one is one of the shoddier ones. Too many bugs and lacks MMO features. It is, like the recently released "Lord of the Rings -- War in the North" game (not to be confused with LOTRO), a co-operative, multi-player CRPG.

 

And when I'm done with the stories, I'm done with the game. This is the first MMO I've ever played where it's all solo on the intial release. That there is nothing worth having that you get by raiding, grouping, etc.

 

And that is sad. But, I have this, I'm getting about 3 CRPGs worth of play out of the game and it'll work out to about $30 a game for three grinding, running-man CRPGs that I expect from BioWare. Though when I run the four Sith stories, I'll run just four Sith, not like I've done with the Republic and run all eight...

 

 

 

The problem is it is all a matter of taste. Outside of DAO II all of the games you mentioned were huge success. Myself i loved playing all of them.

[Blackfriar]

You really can't give a MMORPG a fair rating the first month of release.

 

It's not like a console game that will always be the same game 1 day or 1 year from it's release. I would not even think about Rating a MMO till 3-6 months in.

 

Besides who even care about Maximum PC, I rather read Maxim PC.

 

I am not trying to defend SWTOR, it's just that your trying to put down the race horse before it has even left the gate

 

If it were a race horse, it'd be plowing fields.. It's not an MMO. It's a co-op CRPG pretending to be an MMO.

 

It lacks the basic features needed to foster a community and long-term particaption found in an MMO. So stop pretending it's more than it is...

 

Other things:

 

It's not 2004 in the early post-pioneering days of MMOs. This game was released 7 years later. It is an established, competitive market with rational, mature consumers who have viable choices and a resonable beleif that their MMO expectations will be met.

 

This game fails, and fails hard, to meet those rational expectations. And no matter how much you, or anyone else, cries "Please Leave BRITTANY ALONE" you're not going to do more than put lipstick on this pig. MAYBE in a year it'll be worthwhile. But I, like a huge swath of people who expect a good game, will be gone. And for reference:

 

• Age of Conan lost 7 out of every 8 initial subscribers in three months.
  
• Warhammer Online lost 7 out of 8 intital subscribers in six months.
  

 

But even I have doubts this game will recover. Neither game has ever recovered from that launch failure because the market doesn't forgive in this industry. History tells us that you have one shot to get it right in this market and BioWare failed.

 

So, go ahead, like the rest of the fanbois and defend this game. Time will prove the critics right, not you.

 

 

One other thing. People like you tent to dismiss the forum hater-fanboy post balance. I've been through a lot of BioWare games. Even the mediocre ones have been far, far better received. There have always been 'this game sucks' threads. But they might make three out of twenty...

 

Here the 'this game sucks' threads would overwhelm the board but for the constant closure by the moderators. And I mean constant closure three out of the six threads I posted in yesterday were closed as I was posting. I have not seen this bile and venom, and corporate spin-control, on any CRPG since Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor.

[Blackfriar]

LMAO... QFT..

 

I never understood that neither...lol

I think there here for the attention and that its in their nature to whinne alot and forums is a great place for them to vent and get the attention there lacking irl.. i duno, seams silly but im sure its not far from the thruth.

 

 

Why aren't you playing the game? Perhaps you come here because you don't enjoy it so much so hating on the haters fuels your denial?

 

I've always wondered that...