You can have my stuff ^.^

[Drakos]

At least, if you're on Elysium Imperial side.

 

Don't get me wrong, TOR has the trappings of a great game. Story certainly makes the questing and leveling aspect of the game easy even for the most fearful levelers and provides a pretty good incentive to play a variety of classes through to their level cap should they catch your interest. Combat has a solid foundation with class and spec diversity, the environments are stellar and the voice-work is mostly well-done. The War-zones are well-designed in theory and with tweaking PvP could be immensely enjoyable for all. There are probably other nice features as well.

 

It wasn't enough for me. <Incoming wall of text. Ctrl+F "skip to the end" once your patience wears thin>

 

The world(s) feels empty and dead. It may be small population, it may be the geography of planets versus quest-distribution for factions, but I never see Republic characters, and even stumbling upon allies is a rare instance.

 

Imperial Fleet is a curse. Given the way Looking For Group works (tied to the /who <current area> list), where the GTN is located as well as the entrypoint to all Flashpoints, the dreaded situation of standing in a quest-less zone spamming chat for groups was forced into existence, and there's no avoiding it.

 

The Galactic Trade Network needs work - but that's no reason to leave. What the GTN did, however, was show me other little things that seem flawed with the game.

 

Crafting is a joke. Biochem and Cybertech are the only things worth having (and the useful items from BioChem require you have the profession to use them, or so I was told) whereas everything else is actually a huge money and time-sink for no payoff. When you consider that Mods can be bought with commendations and orange gear will last until level 50, the use for crafted gear falls squarely to supplementing the slots you don't have oranges for and gearing companions. I'm actually surprised there was a market for green and blue items considering their ultimate worthlessness even on my server - but as people learn the nature of items in this game, they'll realize how pointless the bulk of gear is.

 

Then there's the palette swaps. There appear to be maybe twenty designs for Sith Inquisitor gear overall, much of it copied with slight variations on color and pattern and almost all of it (spoiler: incoming opinion) completely hideous. At maximum level all of the gear looks essentially identical, and while this is no different from other MMO's currently out, I was told it would be different. To note my leveling experience, I picked up Synthweaving and crafted a few oranges (the Dark Acolyte's set) and haven't found a piece I liked better visually yet. (I check the pieces on the GTN daily.)

 

For my experience, personally, part of an enjoyable MMO is seeing pretty things and going after them, but for me TOR has no pretty things. There's no armor piece from a dungeon I felt the need to hunt down, and without being able to view weapons in the dressing room, what little I've seen comes from the other players I've encountered - there are no shiny weapons for me either. Visually, there's nothing drawing me to my character, the choices I made at creation were largely concessions - choosing what I hated the least out of what was offered.

 

But really, those things shouldn't destroy my experience. But reflecting on my experience, all I seem to remember strongly are small, nit-picky problems.

 

Hating an operative by level 20 and needing to re-roll because you can't change AC's and at level 10 they didn't tell you you were choosing between an awkward healer with melee and ranged skills versus a rogue with awkward healer and ranged skills.

 

Or rolling two Sorceresses after discovering there was no upward cap on respec costs despite wanting to play both Madness and Corruption within the same AC.

 

Discovering that PvP sorely needs diminishing returns on stuns and a significant nerf to expertise as well as class re-balancing between mirrored classes, as well as a hatred for Assassins and Shadows for their ability to tank, harass, stealth and re-stealth in warzones that rely heavily on defending nodes.

 

Frustration at the need to return to Fleet every morning to pick up PvP and FP dailies, as well as sit there doing virtually nothing while waiting for FP groups because it's the only gateway.

 

Discovering that there is no gear that appeals to me visually for the one class I enjoy the most.

 

As well as a few personal realizations about what made other MMO's so much more enjoyable for me. WoW players may remember the white-lion pet that Alliance hunters had to steal out from under horde players on PvP servers to acquire, or the ridiculous but amusing glitch that caused certain pets to stay elite after taming. Vanilla players will remember the first time they saw Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker and thought "where the hell did that come from?" or remember their first attunement quests. Some may remember unexpectedly dying to the first ritual-of-doom they helped cast, or the debacle that was Teremus the Devourer kiting (an experience shared across many MMO's that allowed players to kite or train ridiculous things into low-level towns).

 

I don't need those exact moments anew, but for me, right now, I've realized that TOR won't have any of those moments for me. There doesn't seem to be anything unexpected that players can pull off beyond cheating their way into millions of credits, there don't seem to be any items that make you go "woah."

 

End-game gear can be farmed by commendations, there are no surprises in that regard. All this amounts to the game only featuring story as a significant motivating factor for me.

 

And to be completely honest, there are things about the storytelling that irk me too. Lines of copy-pasta dialogue, the utter obviousness of impending betrayals or "surprise" assassins. The nonsensical nature of certain decisions players are allowed to make, the bizarro-world application of Light vs Dark morality to some decisions, and the fact that none of those decisions affects anything outside it's contained sphere in the end... makes the story seem like a gimmick rather than a feature.

 

As a sidenote, I also see no reason for the planets to not feature a day/night cycle after witnessing the stories on them.

 

As another seemingly irrelevant sidenote: Companions seem to be both a blessing and curse. On the one hand, they make questing easy for all and provide more story components for players, and a tiny reputation grind. On the other hand: 2V-R8, the fact that everyone and their mom playing a sith warrior will - at the earliest available moment - brag about having implied intercourse with Jaessa as well as cackle wildly over their sadistic nature each and every time they shock Vette with a collar - I think I've ignored more immature players who can't stop talking about that than I've friended people.

 

For those who wanted to skip to the end...

 

I can't say that the sometimes cliche or gimmicky story, the broken PvP, the worthless Auction House and server economy, the lack of shiny objects to chase and a working progression system to go with that, class imbalances, lack of personally satisfactory player customization, character weapons and armor visuals nor the lack of day/night cycles are - on their own - enough to make me not want to play the game. But combined and added to the fact that TOR seems like it won't have any noteworthy moments-of-interest for me make it hard to justify paying a subscription for a game I spend at least a few minutes every play session wondering whether or not I'm actually enjoying.

 

 

And yes, I'll actually send you my stuff if you catch me in-game. You have what, nine days?

[blacktone]

Well written my friend. I tend to agree with most of this but I don't have a lot of time to play so it doesn't necessarily affect me the same way it does you.

 

Definitely something Bioware needs to consider.

[GrillMeat]

i just got warning for asking some one if i can have their stuff:( guess admin wanted it more!

[dethzeppelinx]

This game definitely has areas where corners were cut. There are major issues like the action lag and texture issue that needs resolution and the devs don't seem to be doing anything. I'm thinking about abandoning ship myself.

[mcfabulous]

Canceled mine earlier with a long well written note about why, hopefully things change in the future.

I still have a decent amount of days left for them to WOW me, but I doubt that will happen.

[Mechavomit]

brag about having implied intercourse with Jaessa

Jaessa is boring!

 

There, I said it..

[Drakos]

Tl:dr

 

New and interesting.

[sachiels]

i agree with you OP the game world in this game is flat and dead, nothing that make me want to explore those planet they are plain boring and static. having finish all the raid and heroic the item you get look really bad and let not talk about the weapon

 

crafting is a real joke and not even worth doing.

 

all the bug at the end really get you even tough most of them were in beta for a long time they are still not fixed

 

so i am out was a good try on their part

[heybarn]

Some fair points tbh. I'm still leveling a few characters for the story closure, but some things definately need to be addressed to get me to stick around for a longer haul (OP touches on quite a few on my niggles with the game). Edited January 12, 2012 by heybarn

[Jindeaux]

Friend you WoW timeline reference is a smig off. First off instead of mentioning things that were 8 months or later into wow you should have started from the very beginning of WoW. Every problem that could go wrong on their quest did, usually with no solution. Crafting was TOTALLY useless in all aspects. Terrain and mapping horrible "falling thru Azeroth an not being able to rez cause you had no body to rez?". PvP was said to be totally useless because of ??? You got it Rogues!!! Who recieved the first nerf bat btw. Server instability! Instance instablity! No endgame material because MC was not available! Unscheduled Maintance! Scheduled Maintance going for hours past sked times.

 

All these things and more WoW had when it released. But these things got fixed just as all the issues SWTOR is having will be fixed. It will only take a lil time. I remember back how rough the first 5 months of WoW were but i didn't mind sticking it out because of the potential i saw there. As much potential as i saw in WoW i see even more in SWTOR! This is a great game and it will only get better. Just give them a lil time.

[Drakos]

Friend you WoW timeline reference is a smig off. First off instead of mentioning things that were 8 months or later into wow you should have started from the very beginning of WoW. Every problem that could go wrong on their quest did, usually with no solution. Crafting was TOTALLY useless in all aspects. Terrain and mapping horrible "falling thru Azeroth an not being able to rez cause you had no body to rez?". PvP was said to be totally useless because of ??? You got it Rogues!!! Who recieved the first nerf bat btw. Server instability! Instance instablity! No endgame material because MC was not available! Unscheduled Maintance! Scheduled Maintance going for hours past sked times.

 

All these things and more WoW had when it released. But these things got fixed just as all the issues SWTOR is having will be fixed. It will only take a lil time. I remember back how rough the first 5 months of WoW were but i didn't mind sticking it out because of the potential i saw there. As much potential as i saw in WoW i see even more in SWTOR! This is a great game and it will only get better. Just give them a lil time.

 

8 months in? Like what? It -launched- with Strat, Scholo, and UBRS.

 

What problems I noticed were easily ignored. I definitely didn't comment on TOR's quest bugs negatively, so I'm assuming you didn't actually read and have instead assumed that I'm baselessly attacking TOR for issues it would obviously have. But if you want to mention terrain mapping, how about this: in WoW, I remember falling through the world exactly once. Meanwhile, in TOR I've been trapped beneath a ramp onboard the Esseles after using Force Leap, been trapped within a boss chest onboard the Black Talon, fallen through statues on DK, and have had to use the /stuck command at least a dozen times. But I didn't mention any of that, because it's petty.

 

I remember WoW's crafting featuring useful things like Bags. I remember armor was pretty easy to craft as well while you leveled. Alchemy was nice. Enchanting was always used. But... again, it's nearly impossible to verify all of that save to say I know in WoW if you crafted blues, you could sell them. Crafting professions weren't profitable until late game but they were useful. In TOR, most of them are neither.

 

And Rogues are essentially Assassins, so your PvP complaint transfers across both games. Leaving what, server instability and maintenance? Neither of which I commented on. Because this wasn't meant to be a "WoW had a better launch than TOR" thread. It's a thread pointing out that a lot of small flaws in TOR plus a general inability to create interesting personal player experiences makes me question whether or not I'll actually enjoy playing the game in the long term.

 

While it was cute of you to step in and use my thread as a platform to bash WoW, there are several other threads with like-minded individuals for you to bandwagon ride with.

[Kirjava]

Sad to see you go Drakos, had a good few agreements and arguments with you back when this community was smaller.

[Drakos]

Sad to see you go Drakos, had a good few agreements and arguments with you back when this community was smaller.

 

Indeed. It's nice to see familiar faces among all the new ones. I may be back in a month or two depending on what changes get made to the game. As it stands I'm looking at a pretty MMO-less 2012 to match my MMO-less 2011. But all things may change.

[Qoojo]

Darn. I am on the Republic side. I was hoping for some free stuff.

[Kirjava]

Indeed. It's nice to see familiar faces among all the new ones. I may be back in a month or two depending on what changes get made to the game. As it stands I'm looking at a pretty MMO-less 2012 to match my MMO-less 2011. But all things may change.

 

I definately agree with you on the instanced planets thing. Overall I'm enjoying the game, but it's certainly bringing up memories of Champions Online with the instancing. Which on an RP server is incredibly frustrating. It just seems odd they made such massive worlds, and then decide to instance them, so they feel so empty and barren.

[SWGVet]

Yeah I feel you dude, I just unsubscribed as well, each day I feel like playing less and less. Sad, I had high hopes that this game would keep me playing for a long time. The shard aka phased instancing of the worlds, terrible UI is really becoming a downer. Edited January 12, 2012 by SWGVet

[sw_dragon]

A lot of good points.

 

I remember when people used to train stitches to goldshire, and legendarys meant something. I remember running atunement quests for guildmates... there is none of that epicness here unfortunately. I still am enjoying my way to lv50 but a lot of work needs to be done to get me to hang around for much longer

[Genesizs]

got 1 word for you , or wait 4 accualy

 

slow the f### down

 

maybe try enjoy the game then just play it til lyour sick of it

game is just released and you quiting becouse most imo lame excuses ..

patches are comming new content is comming fixes are comming , and you already seen most sory's and played endgame ...

 

ever sins wow people are just so spoiled .. people accualy not enjoying games anymore but just always rushing rushing and things that can be improved on they cant even sit tight and have developers take care of it before come to forum and trash talk ...

 

seriously people have no patiente ..

 

i have lvl 50 and plaing on 30 BH now and 25 ísh jugg ... still just love seeing story questing doing fp's , havent even realy come to play endgame on my 50 yet people come here already being done with the game ...

 

and never have i felt a area is dead , it was more dead when i played at eirly acces with like 10 man in startign area's or less .. now every area is always fileld with at least 20 - 50 to 100 people , general chat mostly filled , and no problem at all for getting groups for every HC or FP ,(maybe try and customisechat channels and filter out the system and loto pam so you dont accualy miss all the chat??) ..some days i little less then other for some part , but if you have no patientce i can see whats going wrong for you guys

 

 

JUST SLOW THE F DOWN .. and enjoy ... seriously

 

Edit: not saying btw this game is perfect still need allot of work , but if you already not enjoying it anymore then i dont know what will this is the best mmorpg out atm imho even with its unpolishedness and bugs, but dotn give even devs time to do anything about this game and here yo uall come complaining , teres way more serious isues going on even then i heard and most problems i dont even see at all .. slwo the f down and start enjoying plz

Edited January 12, 2012 by Genesizs

[Mannic]

Sad to see even some of the old-timers who have been on these forums literally since day 1 leaving.

 

To me almost all the problems OP listed can be chalked up to "Too much focus on story-telling."

 

The story gives us way too much instancing, and the instancing along with the amazingly linear world design makes the game feel too much like a SPRPG, even with the effort Bioware put in to providing group content. The problem is the group content is totally optional and even redundant in a game where it's so easy to level.

 

The SPRPG feel creates a different, almost spooky community where it seems as if 90% of the players are actually avoiding having to interact with any other players unless they absolutely have to. The communities in other games were lively, and there were conversations and sometimes trolling and arguing on /1, but at least it felt like someone else was there. In TOR I'll invariably see players complaining if people actually start talking about something in /1. It's just... wierd. It's an almost indescribably different vibe with this community, like it's being played by people who really don't like other people even in a virtual realm.

 

Honestly, I'd rather read a stupid Chuck Norris conversation on /1 than the constant stream of nothing that I see in TOR. Give me Barrens Chat over total silence any day. And I hated Barrens chat.

 

The dead, static worlds, abundant loading screens, bad UI, bad GTN, the irrelevant crew skills, the non-existent economy, the poorly conceived Warzone queues, poor player customization-- all these things make the game feel unfinished, like creating a functioning MMO was an afterthought for BW.

 

It's unfortunate because BW does have the skill to pull of something much, much better than this.

Edited January 12, 2012 by Mannic

[Drakos]

got 1 word for you , or wait 4 accualy

 

slow the f### down

 

maybe try enjoy the game then just play it til lyour sick of it

game is just released and you quiting becouse most imo lame excuses ..

patches are comming new content is comming fixes are comming , and you already seen most sory's and played endgame ...

 

ever sins wow people are just so spoiled .. people accualy not enjoying games anymore but just always rushing rushing and things that can be improved on they cant even sit tight and have developers take care of it before come to forum and trash talk ...

 

seriously people have no patiente ..

 

i have lvl 50 and plaing on 30 BH now and 25 ísh jugg ... still just love seeing story questing doing fp's , havent even realy come to play endgame on my 50 yet people come here already being done with the game ...

 

 

 

JUST SLOW THE F DOWN .. and enjoy seriously

 

Explain to me how anything I said is indicative of me rushing through the game (any moreso than you), and I will explain to you what false assumptions are.

 

I tried enjoying the game. It's hard to enjoy an averagely paced, averagely told story with repetitive lines of dialogue alone through the bulk of your leveling experience with no surprising moments coming from either the coded game nor the antics of the players around you. As it stands, there isn't that much about the game that's enjoyable for me.

 

And it has nothing to do with me "rushing" through anything. I actually quite think I spend a lot of time screwing around looking for ways to amuse myself in-game.

[Hairless]

 

JUST SLOW THE F DOWN .. and enjoy seriously

 

lol

The op obviously doesn't enjoy the game. You can't force someone to enjoy something they don't. Your post is literally "hey mang, just keep wasting your $15, even though you don't enjoy the game, and wait for the game to get better. derpity"

[Jeedaix]

Another drama goodbye post.....who cares. Oh I did for the 10 secs i typed this

[Gehoornde]

Yeah I feel you dude, I just unsubscribed as well, each day I feel like playing less and less. Sad, I had high hopes that this game would keep me playing for a long time. The shard aka phased instancing of the worlds id destroying this game, period.

 

Wise words my friend, I agree 200% with this. Spot-on.

 

 

No >>>---arrow---> to the knee for you Sir!

[SWGVet]

Sad to see even some of the old-timers who have been on these forums literally since day 1 leaving.

 

To me almost all the problems OP listed can be chalked up to "Too much focus on story-telling."

 

The story gives us way too much instancing, and the instancing along with the amazingly linear world design makes the game feel too much like a SPRPG, even with the effort Bioware put in to providing group content. The problem is the group content is totally optional and even redundant in a game where it's so easy to level.

 

The SPRPG feel creates a different, almost spooky community where it seems as if 90% of the players are actually avoiding having to interact with any other players unless they absolutely have to. The communities in other games were lively, and there were conversations and sometimes trolling and arguing on /1, but at least it felt like someone else was there. In TOR I'll invariably see players complaining if people actually start talking about something in /1. It's just... wierd. It's an almost indescribably different vibe with this community, like it's being played by people who really don't like other people even in a virtual realm.

 

The dead, static worlds, abundant loading screens, bad UI, bad GTN, the irrelevant crew skills, the non-existent economy, the poorly conceived Warzone queues, poor player customization-- all these things make the game feel unfinished, like creating a functioning MMO was an afterthought for BW.

 

It's unfortunate because BW does have the skill to pull of something much, much better than this.

 

Everything you said I agree with 100%. You summed it up nicely as well.

[DukSaber]

I agree with some of op,,the empty feeling on the planets and grouping issues are big for me. Especially as dps its tough to find groups. Personally im going to give it a little time and see what things they improve. Alot of potential in the game thats for sure. I think it will come down to how much money they are spending on devs and how good they are.