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

[ExarchCathedra]

No, I feel like I bought an MMO...oh look, I did.

 

Now back when I played Asheron's Call 2, that was a half-finished product.

[GetzMango]

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".

 

NO, next?

[Hiramas]

If I would be asked about the standard of gaming and games at release (though nobody asks me, but I will tell you anyway) I would say that it has declined rapidly since 2004.

Bug ridden games with 2GB launch day patches? Repeated and repainted content for 50 bucks once a year? Almost no innovation gameplay wise (except a few but golden expect ions)?

So, whats up with the "standard of 2011 / 2012"? Another game of the year award for Skyrim, CoD and Battlefield?

 

And by the way, not everything WoW or Rift have done is a good decision. Sometimes features actually ruin gameplay. Sometimes people must be forced to their happiness.

[Cirno]

@OP:

 

I did, and for all the fun I've squeezed out of playing so far, the multitude of bugs and seemingly lack of foresight from the developers had crippled that enjoyment today. It's all come festering to a boil.

 

The ability delay has been the one 'bug' I've focused on since the weekend beta testing. While I've been able to adjust as best I can, combat still winds up feeling clunky -- I'm sitting there knee-deep in Sith hoping a Warding Call goes off to soak up the pain, but it won't activate. Certain problems with the Trooper's Full Auto and Mortar Strike have left me irrate at times, especially when I compare the abilities to a BH's equivalents.

 

The UI needs adjusting. Addons do need to be made available for game use. I spend too much time with my eyes at the bottom of the screen to really focus on all of the cool action going on in the middle. The AH is a bit cumbersome to use; I'm not a fan of its design. While it's functional, it's not very user friendly. On a side-note, my framerate's gone down the crapper today, and dealing with it for the sake of leveling isn't on the agenda.

 

This is a bit of a fragmented post and I lost my train of thought halfway through, so I apologize. I don't think I got my frustrations across in a coherent manner at all, but the bottom line is this; I played for half an hour today, logged, and have no incentive to log back on until a vast multitude of these bugs and problems are fixed.

 

I like this game a lot, but Bioware, you're making it really hard for me to justify it. And I feel that gamers tend to get tied up in that often; the need to justify why they like something (or in many cases, why they don't and why you should share their viewpoint). It's hard to justify playing a game that doesn't feel like it's ready to play.

[Kamiosoup]

I don't FEEL like i've bought a half finished product.

 

I HAVE bought a half finished product.

[illiam]

If you bought a half finished product, why are you passed level 25? (I guess you are)

[ptwonline]

Every single MMO has threads on this exact same topic. Every. Single. One.

[Dozed_monkey]

There are areas of the game that certainly require improvement, but essentially the meat and bones of the game is functioning well for the majority of players; this being the levelling from 1-50, with instances and balanced quest areas to accomplish this in. Crafting skills, PvP warzones, space combat, modding items, player economy etc are not directly applicable in regards to the central goal of an MMO, i.e. questing and levelling with your character up the the 'end' of the game/story. I'm not saying that an MMO could be considered an impressive, nor even a seriously viable MMO for my own purchase without these other additional working aspects, but rather they remain technically gratuitous. So unless a bug or a poor game decision directly inflicts a players ability to quest and level up, the game is largely intact, but very basic, with extra working/balanced single-player and multi-player content needed to keep players interested for long.

 

AA, speech bubbles, action delay etc. are all additional, personal preferential content, and the game is technically functional according to the advertised gameplay. Now my closing thoughts are this: If you are having problems with the basic 'meat and bones' of the game, then by all rights make accusations towards the games producers for delivering an unfinished product. I would not buy a single player game and consider it acceptable if I could not complete the main quest storyline.

 

However, if the standalone content of 1-50, questing through the planets and developing your character isn't appealing to you on it's own, then this isn't the game for you. It would hugely be in Bioware and EA's financial interest to make this game broadly appealing with fast, functioning additional content. But for now we have a basically functioning multiplayer game, that will most likely only hold the average players interest until they've completed their class storyline, with the subscription fees considered. So no, I don't feel conned, but I'm currently not that interested in subscribing beyond one payment of £8.99 after the free 30 days with the rate that additional content is being added and fixed.

[profaneascension]

This is the "risk" that you take when you play an MMO. Look at where WoW is now compared to what it had been in vanilla; obviously the level of content has grown tenfold since its inception, but it's also taken a number of years to reach this point.

 

It's really up to the consumer whether they want to play an MMO right from the beginning or wait a year or two for the content to become more robust. Complaining about a lack of features at the start of an MMO's lifespan is like complaining that your newborn child can't walk.

[Crowleyz]

Complaining about a lack of features at the start of an MMO's lifespan is like complaining that your newborn child can't walk.

 

That's the counter arguement everyone presents really. But, as stated before, this is a competing product to the other games on the market. Are we expecting it to be completely perfect? Of course not, but a lot of people seem to go to either one extreme or the other just to voice their nonsensical angry thoughts.

 

Noone is expecting it to be perfect, and I know I could write this 50 million times and people would still present that arguement. Nuances is something MMO-gamers have always failed to comprehend. But there is a limit to how many malfunctions and how much nonsense you should ask your paying customers to put up with. And yes, even if you are unsubbed right now, you are still a paying customer, you bought the game didn't you?

[Crowleyz]

If you bought a half finished product, why are you passed level 25? (I guess you are)

 

So in your mind, being able to level to 50 = Perfect game?

[_Ender__Wiggin_]

No OP. I don't feel like it's half finished. I feel like it's about 90 percent finished.

 

If they fixed high res textures, better AA, ability delay, and some trade skill and class imbalances, I probably wouldn't complain even in the least bit anymore.

[Blackardin]

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

 

Actually, skip, you bought a product that is about 1% complete. MMORPGs launch with a shell, not a complete game. They spend the first 3 months stabilizing, then the next 7 to 10 years adding content.

 

If you were looking for a finished game at launch, you are in the wrong genre.

[Aisar]

MMOs are always half finished products. TOR took that idea and ran a marathon with it.

[Mlyrrh]

 

I guess you don't have much to compare to then.

 

Faction imbalance is the fault of the community, period.

[DarthPeterNorth]

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

 

By finished it means working decently from start to end game. Hope you understood now.

[Korusus]

Half-finished would be launching with only one full raid, no PvP system, no LFG system whatsoever (not even a /lfg flag), and no daily quest system (coughWorldofWarcraftcough).

 

For a game that supposedly isn't an MMO and has no endgame, SWTOR sure does have a lot of endgame content.

[Glaton]

so because it's an mmo means it shouldn't have been developed more and people don't have a right to expect more for there 60 bucks? i have played numerous mmo's the best one being eve and yes they all have some issues when they start but this is one of the worst, i only hold out that they will improve the issue's in the long run but it is still ashame that some problems even exists.

[Sephendrine]

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

 

This. And to answer the OP's question: Nope. Awesome game. Too bad for you. I really do feel sorry for you.

[lowflyingmeat]

Agreed.

 

I've made several arguments that many of the "WoW was crap at launch, this is a mmo!" are simply invalid.

 

No, no, NO. This is 2012, some of us are rational consumers, we will not put up with this crap. I'd rather donate the $14.99 to United way than to give it to a crook like James Ohlen.

Edited January 18, 2012 by lowflyingmeat

[TyHeaton]

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. Totally satisfied with the game I bought.

[Crowleyz]

If you were looking for a finished game at launch, you are in the wrong genre.

 

Think this has been covered about 20 times in the thread and in the OP as well, but alright, once more for the ones who are always lagging behind: "Finished" and "ready for the public" are two different terms. Obviously the latter was what was meant in the title, and this was explained in the OP as well.

 

I suggest the following course of action:

 

Read ---> Reply ---> Read ---> Reply

 

Ok?

 

Read ---> Reply ---> Read ---> Reply

 

 

So just to clarify:

 

Read ---> Reply ---> Read ---> Reply

 

NOT:

 

Reply ---> reply ---> reply

 

 

Like this!

 

Read ---> Reply ---> Read ---> Reply

[lowflyingmeat]

Actually, skip, you bought a product that is about 1% complete. MMORPGs launch with a shell, not a complete game. They spend the first 3 months stabilizing, then the next 7 to 10 years adding content.

 

If you were looking for a finished game at launch, you are in the wrong genre.

 

Where is this advertised? Where is this stated? Is there some definitive industry standard for this? No.

 

 

While I realize this is the case, likewise buying a Next Generation console on Day 1 (Expect trampling, line ups, riots, theft) but this is never ADVERTISED nor should it ever be EXPECTED or become the NORM...

 

Sorry, but some of us are not complacent consumers. I want this game to succeed, I'm a star wars fanboy at heart..and I love bioware games....but like what Padme would say...

 

"Bioware...you're breaking my heart.."

[gtmach]

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

 

Seriously....

 

Do people know this is an MMO? I know it's BioWare and this is their first but is it labeled on the box somewhere?

 

I keep seeing all these complaints about issues that are standard with any new MMO. After all these years we still never learn this...it's really odd.

[Yellow_Clash]

This game for me is pure singleplayer fun with leveling. The Operations are just outrages, even vanilla wow boss mechanics were better than this.

Ok we make boss, with 2-3 abilities but to make it reallt hard we build in an enrage timer! and to make it extra hard.. No combat logs! so the raiders cant find out why they cannot meet the timer har har...

 

Ridicelous.