Does anyone else feel like they've bought a half-finished product?

[Crowleyz]

They've been pretty vocal about their plans to the community so I think you're just an angry beaver who has no more trees to cut down......awwwwwwww

 

Not very angry actually

[saltorio]

In response to the thread title: Nope.

[Suzsi]

Not gonna repeat all the complaints people post on forums regularly, not to mention the ones that have surfaced with this brilliant new patch.

 

Main points:

• Speculated class imbalance
  
• Crew skills totally wacked(fixed afaik)
  
• Various bugs with quests(not to mention the warzone one not counting wins...)
  
• Ability delay
  
• A world-PvP area that does not function
  
• FPS issues even for high-end systems
  
• PvP rewards not thought through at all(20 hours of pvp with nothing to show for it...?)
  
• Raid gear stats mixed up and rediculous, loot chests in HM's not working(honestly...)
  
• Legacy stuff not coming until March..?
  

 

Not gonna make a super long list out of this, and I know people will just argue that "Oh it's a new game! Ofc it's broken!"

 

Point is, if this was a more conventional product, you'd be within your full right to demand a refund from the retailer that sold you this product. If you bought a new car which didn't work, and when you returned it to the retailer he refused to help you out and replied "Oh it's a new car, of course it will have problems!" Or if you went to a restaurant and bought a hamburger that had a wet tissue in it instead of beef, and when you complained at the counter the clerc went "Oh it's a brand new hamburger, don't expect it to be perfect!"

 

And in my honest opinion, the "Oh it's a new game! WoW was worse at launch"-arguement doesn't hold up. This is 2012, we expect more from newly released games and rightly so. Seems to be a bad trend in the whole industry to release half-finished stuff simply to "get it out there" asap. That they released a new flashpoint barely a month after release tells me that this was something they were working on, but just didn't manage to get finished before the game was released, and it seems to be like that for a lot of stuff. I doubt new flashpoints are the biggest updates people would like to see right now.

 

And their attitude towards their playerbase doesn't seem like a big step up from their design planning either. I've yet to see a single answer regarding class balance, new threads are being made every hour regarding this, a lot of them have gotten over 1000 posts without a reply from the devs.

 

 

Edit: And yes "MMO's are never finished", we've seen that arguement before and I completely agree, there's a difference between "finished" and "ready for the public".

 

 

Nope. I feel like I bought a new MMO rather then one thats been around for 5+ years and had time to polish things up. How quickly people forget. They expect a brand new MMO to be at the level of one thats had many expansions and years to sort through things - not going to happen, but thats okay because the sooner all those peoples subs run out the better.

[Pvtcarnage]

This game needed 6mo to year more of work before it should have been released. Almost all the problems they have now were brought up over and over again in beta forms. fail is fail

[banecolton]

You have entered the paid beta.

 

This.

[Archrain]

Only about "half" the time.

[LaManoNera]

How something as big as the ability delay can be in the launch of a $100 million game with 5+ years of development time is truly mind boggling.

[Grammarye]

People keep bringing these car analogies up. Have any of you played, oh I don't know, Fallout New Vegas? Skyrim? Arcanum? Bloodlines? The list goes on of RPG games that came out 'half-finished' and had, at least in most cases, significant patching done subsequently.

 

Like it or not, games have always been released with bugs.

How something as big as the ability delay can be in the launch of a $100 million game with 5+ years of development time is truly mind boggling.

You clearly weren't in beta. It never turned up in beta. My guess remains that the delay is actually a very specific form of performance lag. Now, sure, maybe Bioware should have done more stress testing, but I'm not that surprised some stuff like this was missed. You don't really see things as they truly are until you throw thousands of players at it. CCP learn this quite often.

Edited January 18, 2012 by Grammarye

[discosoc]

MMOs are never a finished project. Ever. Sooner you learn that the sooner you can enjoy yourself.

 

There is a difference between being "finished" and "not ready for release."

[Daboozy]

I think what you kids don't realize is that this isnt the beginning of WOW or EQ... this game was released in Dec, 2011 and should and will be held at a higher standard for TODAYS GAMING! When does any company come out with a product that will not compete with the current competition? and if they do the product fails.

 

This game is MAYBE equal to WoW from years ago......maybe

[Amiracle]

People keep bringing these car analogies up. Have any of you played, oh I don't know, Fallout New Vegas? Skyrim? Arcanum? Bloodlines? The list goes on of RPG games that came out 'half-finished' and had, at least in most cases, significant patching done subsequently.

 

Like it or not, games have always been released with bugs.

 

Skyrim was half finished?

 

Oh, because you say so.....lol

[al_giordino]

I'm not PAYING to BETA TEST this screwy game.

 

I do want it to be great, it's hard to admit it's no where close.

 

I think everyone should just unsubscribe and maybe we can come back if/when all the issues are fixed.

 

It clearly wasn't ready for release but EA tends to push things out the door early because they need to meet their quarterly profit and revenue estimates.

[Nuzt]

No, I feel like I purchased a new MMO just like I've felt with all other new MMO's that have problems.

[discosoc]

People keep bringing these car analogies up. Have any of you played, oh I don't know, Fallout New Vegas? Skyrim? Arcanum? Bloodlines? The list goes on of RPG games that came out 'half-finished' and had, at least in most cases, significant patching done subsequently.

 

Like it or not, games have always been released with bugs.

 

 

Absolutely. They'd patch bugs that come up that went undetected during QA or maybe were put off for a zero day patch or something. I understand that.

 

Those games don't charge $15 per month though.

[ferroz]

MMOs are never a finished project. Ever. Sooner you learn that the sooner you can enjoy yourself.

some are definitely more polished than others. This one is so far in the unpolished direction that it's off the charts ...

[Aaluria]

do i have to pay the toll?

[Xilax]

No, dont know about half finnished. As I see it it has been far more to do in it then the avarage game at launch in the games ive played in the past.

However, the overall lack of atmoshpere in this game world have had big impact on me. I just couldnt find "it", the feeling of being part of an MMORPG. And thats serious enough for me.

I dont regret buying this game, it had some really nice stuff that made it worth it, just cant picture myself pay a monthly sub for what the game is atm.

[Vlakmir]

I think what you kids don't realize is that this isnt the beginning of WOW or EQ... this game was released in Dec, 2011 and should and will be held at a higher standard for TODAYS GAMING! When does any company come out with a product that will not compete with the current competition? and if they do the product fails.

 

This game is MAYBE equal to WoW from years ago......maybe

 

And what you kids don't realize is that while they have 8 years of development and patches to get where it is today.

 

I bought ToR, have the BEST MMO storyline I've ever played with the most immersive gameplay, and great group play.

Sadly, it's not completely polished/has a great infrastructure.

 

WoW didn't have an LFG system for more than half it's life....now it's a "MUST OR WE WILL QUIT". That's just *********** stupid. Stop being a douche, grow up, and make some friends in the game.

[Crowleyz]

I think what you kids don't realize is that this isnt the beginning of WOW or EQ... this game was released in Dec, 2011 and should and will be held at a higher standard for TODAYS GAMING! When does any company come out with a product that will not compete with the current competition? and if they do the product fails.

 

This game is MAYBE equal to WoW from years ago......maybe

 

I completely agree, this game is a direct competitor to the ones already on the market, wow included. That's the standard you need to hold games to, not how they might have been years ago.

 

Like he says, it was released in December 2011, not in 2004. Obviously issues are to be expected since they can't really test the game with thousands of players in it, but here's a fun fact to the people that keep bringing that up: We already know that... Some bugs are to be expected, completely agree. But this is beyond what I would call reasonable for a game that was released a month ago.

[Crowleyz]

And what you kids don't realize is that while they have 8 years of development and patches to get where it is today.

 

And during that time period Bioware has had ample opportunity to learn from the mistakes made by others as well.

[PibbyPib]

Nope, can't say that I do.

[Rootsie]

inb4 thread closed

[al_giordino]

Yes, you did buy a half finished product.

 

But EA was smart enough to know that we'd pay anyway.

 

At least we can unsubscribe and keep the cool box!

Edited January 18, 2012 by al_giordino

[Jumajin]

Disclaimer: I am still subbed to the game and still enjoy it.

 

Now, while a lot of the whining is just that: whining, there is one important facet of the industry that future studios need to keep in mind.

 

World of Warcraft changed the field when it took MMOs from a niche, community-based gaming style into the mainstream. It changed the field, and the consumer base. Gone is the pre-2004 MMO era and more focused player base. Today's customers are simply not going to give a new game 6 months, 12 months, or a whopping 8 years to get it right. They are going to have to launch big, launch hard, and grab the players from week-1.

 

It is simply a different market. Yet every developer from SOE to Cryptic to Turbine to the EA umbrella continues to act like it is the pre-WoW industry.

 

I personally think Blizzard single-handedly injured the industry. I don't believe they did it on purpose, as their scale of success in 2004 was impossible to predict. But, injure it, they did.

 

Now, this is the way it is. And if developers don't want to end-up as yet another entry on the growing list of: Warhammer Online, Age of Conan, Lord of the Rings Online, Aion, DC Universe Online, Star Trek Online, Champions Online, and others, they are going to have to completely adapt and revamp their models to work in the current industry.

 

All of us old-timers shouting the old mantra of "be patient", "give them time", "it takes months post-launch to get it right", is not going to change it, either. Guess what, there were old-timers doing that at every, single one of the above mentioned games' forums at their launch, too.

 

We all see where those games ended-up within the first year. I believe all except Aion and Warhammer are free-to-play; and those two are hanging on through sheer willpower.

[Wusword]

Like he says, it was released in December 2011, not in 2004. Obviously issues are to be expected since they can't really test the game with thousands of players in it, but here's a fun fact to the people that keep bringing that up: We already know that... Some bugs are to be expected, completely agree. But this is beyond what I would call reasonable for a game that was released a month ago.

 

If we must hold games to a 2011 Standard then TOR is not only finished it should be Game of the Year. Skyrim is so full of bugs over just about everything in the game it's insane, but people looked past it to name it Game of the Year.

 

So lets hold TOR to the standards of today's best game. That being bug ridden isn't a problem, and all issues will (maybe) be fixed down the road at the developers discretion.