Is has potential, but too many features are missing

[Uluain]

Is has potential, but too many features are missing.

Maybe people need to remember how bald a certain other MMO was at launch. A lot of what people seem to expect right now came to WoW years after release. Even basic things, like guild banks. I remember when guilds used a banker alt for that.

 

Arenas? Only after the first expansion. Battlegrounds, even, came in well after launch. I remember - I was in before then. People think all this needs to be here already. Don't be impatient. Things take time.

 

This game is just out the starting gate. Right now, it's time to work out the bugs - which is BioWare's top priority. People are screaming for it. And screaming if the servers come down for a few hours a week to implement fixes.

 

New content is on the way. We're informed that the next serious new content patch is due next month. New features will be coming all through the year - and next year, and so on.

Yes - games are sparse at release. It leaves them room to grow. And grow in response to how they are played.

[dividedconker]

SWTOR is not a bad game, it’s nice to see a Star Wars environment again. I like my trooper, my big gun and my armor. I played a couple of MMO and I always have only one character and I’m more the RP-PvP type than PvE even tho I raided in that game that shall not be named. SWTOR is good for a while up until when you reach the end, at this point it becomes like a lot of other MMO and all you can do is essentially raid again or PvP again. Players that want to LIVE in the Star Wars universe won’t be able to do it, too many features are simply missing, sometimes they are very basic features expected in a AAA MMO like it was falsely advertised by the devs. I’ll try not to talk about bugs and to talk more about absent features and restrictions.

 

 

Dead world

Let’s start with the main problem about the game, the dead world. Best example is Coruscant. Remember the Coruscant scenes in the movies? Huge crowds of people, dense traffic, in short, a living world. Now go to Coruscant in the game, you’ll see a tiny zone linking the spaceport to the senate (nice coincidence by the way!) with barely a couple of NPC standing in place, frozen in time. That plaza is the only “living” area of Coruscant and the only place you’ll go back to (on that planet) after finishing the game, all other zones are full of enemies, completely linear and underground or in buildings and don’t represent at all what we expect of Coruscant. Zones are not connected and there is no feeling of unity. Some zones are obviously made for a video game since they would be impossible in reality by their poor design, it might not be as bad as The Citadel or Illium in Mass Effect but it’s still obvious.

 

You wanted to go to a place like Dex’s dinner? Sorry, there is no such open sky area nor any place like that. You wanted to stand at the 300th floor of a skyscraper and look and the scenery through the window? Not possible. You wanted to visit the planet through the catwalks high in the air? Not possible. The same problems are visible on Nar Shaddaa. One zone is above ground, everything else is away from the landscapes that make the planet notorious and there is little to no NPC life.

 

The main cities like Coruscant, Kaas City, Nar Shaddaa, Corellia, etc. need more life. Hundreds of NPC must be added and they have to walk around, have animations and do things like using a computer, moving to talk to other NPC, going to cantina, etc. Dozens of NPC vehicles must also fly by and fill up the sky. Zones like in the movies must be added, social zones with no enemies, like the bar district or the dinner in ep2, or the building in the books, apartments, shops, attractions, social places, etc. Stop putting everything and every important NPC in the same place, we are not in that much of a hurry. The fleet is currently the only important place to be at level 50, add reasons to go back to the planets.

 

The PvE enemies are almost always in packs and placed in such a way that it doesn’t make sense for a battle and they are frozen for eternity, not moving or doing anything and it just adds to the feeling of dead worlds. They also have to do things and move so it look like a real world.

 

What it is: Coruscant Spaceport | Coruscant Senate | Coruscant Streets

 

What is has to be: Coruscant crowd

 

 

Exploration

Exploration is currently really hard to do. You want to go explore that coast? Chances are good that you are going to enter an exhaustion zone and die, even if you are on land and unaffected by weather. The lands are filled with invisible walls and useless limitations. Most structures are unclimbable or simply inaccessible. As said in previous point, we need more non-fighting zones to go to.

 

 

Day/night cycle

As other caring people on the forum at that time, I was shocked that day a couple of years ago when they announced that every planet would be frozen in time, never to evolve, never to change. It’s mind boggling to see that in a 2012 MMO. A day/night cycle is essential for the mood and immersion of the game. You wanted to organize a RP event during night on a day planet? No chance. You wanted to watch the lights of Coruscant at night? Not possible. You wanted to finally see a day on Nar Shaddaa? Not possible. You wanted to watch the sunset between the hills of Alderaan? No.

 

You'll never see: Coruscant Night | Tatooine sunset | Tatooine at night

 

Pre-rebuttal:

“But the day/night cycle was crap in that other game!”

Just because it was crap, too dark, too light or ugly in another games does not mean that it must be the case for SWTOR too. I’ve seen that argument many times and yet it never made any sense.

 

“Planets don’t all have a 24 hours rotation in the Galaxy Far Far Away!”

So? The rotation just has to be based on the actual data of that planet.

“I don’t want to play during night all the time!”

Many planets are at perpetual night at this moment. Anyway, as said before, the rotation isn’t always 24 hours and it doesn’t have to be on a 1:1 ratio with real life either.

 

 

Dynamic weather

Some planets have special weather but in most case it’s just to limit (limitation being the key word in this game) the zones you can go to like the killer sandstorm on Tatooine if you try to go PvP in the enemy city. Weather needs to be more dynamic, make it rain on Coruscant, spawn a huge blizzard once in a while on Hoth, make the sky change, give life to the world.

 

Tatooine sandstorm

 

 

Environment interaction, social activites & RP

To live in a world, we must interact with the world. Elevator buttons are not enough, there isn’t much liberty in the environment. Cantinas are filled with chairs, why can’t we sit on them? We must be able to gather friends, go to a cantina, sit at a table start playing a game like Pazaak or Sabacc with the possibility to bet credits. I see some kind of Dejarik game in my ship, why can’t I use it?

 

Sabacc

 

Allow us to activate more buttons in our ship, like a viewport toggle, lights, training simulation, etc. Allow us to put waypoint on the map and establish a route for a player created race event. Allow us to climb obstacles like in other games so we could actually go to places that are obviously possible to go to for a trained warrior instead of being blocked like if we were on a wheelchair

 

Allow swimming! Not having that in a modern game is an insult. The reveal of Otoh Gunga in The Phantom Menace was a great moment and we can’t do similar things in the game.

 

Pre-rebuttal:

“I wear heavy armor, I can’t swim!”

It’s the Galaxy Far Far Away with technology thousands of years ahead of us, many solutions exist. Submersible armor, waterproof electronics, scuba gear or simply remove armor when swimming!

 

“Underwated content was crap in that other game!”

See answer for day/night cycle. Because other games failed in doing a good job doesn’t mean that it will fail here too. A lot of potential for underwater content exists.

 

Swimming

 

 

PvP

Some people might like boxed PvP and love to play ball with the enemy or destroy a ship in Alderaan for the hundredth time but many of us come from games with excellent world PvP with a lot of possibilities. One thing that the system of planets with a range of levels prevents is good world PvP. You wanted to raid the capital of the enemy faction? Not possible, capital world are restricted by faction. You Imperial scums wanted to occupy Anchorhead? Not possible, you’ll get killed by a sandstorm while trying to go there. You wanted to have epic battles on Alderaan? Sorry, due to the fact that planets have a level range, there is no reason for a 50 to go there and you’ll only piss lowbies off. You wanted to go the the Jedi Temple on Tython and kill Satele Shan? Not possible, that planet is also off limit, In fact, it will be impossible to ever do any PvP on Ord Mantell, Hutta, Korriban, Tython, Coruscant, Taris, Balmorra and it’s impossible for most of Nar Shaddaa. All iconic worlds on which you will never have the chance to fight the other faction. Solution would be to add more zones to all planets so lvl 50 players have a reason to leave their fleet and explore the world.

 

 

Space & vehicle

Like many people, I was very disappointed when they announced the tunnel space combat. The current system is not bad for what it’s worth, but it could be so much more. It should have been at least as good as the previous one, in SWG, with the liberty and possibilities, or even better, like in X-Wing Alliance. It was said the space combat will be improved soon and it’s very exciting. It needs to be multiplayer and free roam. The travel could also be improved so it doesn’t feel so disjointed. Allow us to go to empty space and float aimlessly, race in a field of asteroids or land on them and mine. Allow us to build structures and bases in space or in asteroids.

 

The vehicles are also very basic. As other said, the speed bonus is very small so it could be boosted. Companions could sit behind the player on the speeder when travelling instead of disappearing to oblivion. Vehicles could be parked and stay there while the player walks away or they could be called from the ship and have an animation of auto-piloting to the player from distance instead of appearing out of nowhere and disappearing every time in an unrealistic way. We should also be able to use them in more places like caves and big buildings.

 

 

Interface & graphics

Other people have talked a lot about the problems of the interface and it seems the devs finally understand and are going to give us some liberty. The maximum of 2 windows is ridiculous, we don’t have enough bars for all skills and items. The friend/guild lists need many functions like personal comments and a complete right click menu. The market must have options to filter better, by type of items and stats.

 

Chat bubbles needs to be in the game, it’s a basic feature for social interaction.

 

The real high resolution textures needs to be available at least for our own character, companion and groups and preferably for everyone in close proximity.

 

Texture problem

 

 

Character

The lack of races at release was disappointing. After SWG, one could expect at least the same races and preferably more, but we got at lot less and most of them are humans with a different color. I guess it’s too late for that, we already made our character and I will certainly not start over.

 

The weapon system didn’t receive any innovation either. A class will have a certain weapon proficiency and it will keep that for all the game. The rockets, grenades, laser shots, beams and electricity all come out of the same barrel.

 

The bounty hunter has a jetpack, that’s great, only he can’t use it at all to access restricted places or jump higher, the Force users can’t use their ability on the world either.

 

 

The cover system is years behind the current standards and requires the player to go to a specific location instead of allowing to take cover anywhere and behind anything and it is restricted to two classes.

 

Real cover system

 

The current item modification is a good step in the right direction but a complete appearance tab system is missing. We should be able to change the color, change logos, have clothes on top of armor and be able to have multiple gear setups for social, combat or events.

 

 

Guild

No guild ship, no guild HQ, nowhere private and special to go. They are going to add a guild bank, that’s good, but we also need to be able to wear a guild symbol like an emblem, logo, piece of equipment or maybe even a rank patch. Having a guild is really just a permanent group chat.

 

 

Endgame

Raid again or PvP again. Most MMO do that mistake. These things are dev-made and have an end, a limit. We must have ways to make our own content, RP tools, possibility to make events, housing, collections, achievements, these things can keep people busy for a long time and if made correctly they can never end. I don’t plan to stay in the game if it’s to log and wait between raids and PvP events. Quests and stories have and end, we must be able to create.

 

 

Housing

As said above, housing is a good way to keep people busy. If we could decorate our ship with furnitures, change the color or, like in SWG, drop every item of the game on the ground and move/rotate in anywhere in our ship to create a real personal space. Most objects in the ship are actually useless. Allow us to use the med center, go in the bed, put items in crates and wardrobes, allow people to sit in the council room and do a briefing for a future mission. Allow us to change the weapon racks so they actually display the guns we used and want to show. We could also buy a home on planets like Coruscant and Corellia and be in our apartment in a skyscraper high above the ground and watch the life on the planet and decorate it like said above.

 

Trophies | Player made council room

 

 

Pre-rebuttal:

“Housing isn’t heroic!”

You can’t be a hero all the time. Han Solo spent a lot of time in his ship, customizing it and changing everything. Luke and Mara had an apartment on Coruscant and I’m pretty sure they had good times there creating Ben. Han and Leia have a place on Coruscant too. Obi-Wan lived like a cave troll in his little house on Tatooine for years so is Yoda on Dagobah. Students at Luke’s academy all have a room. The examples are countless. We can’t be expected to live in this game by fighting all the time.

 

 

Crafting

The current discovery system is too random, we need more control. The resources could have stats and qualities, that would allow dedicated crafters to be famous across the galaxy and people would go look specifically for their items. I remember that weaponsmith in SWG that was known for the good materials he used in crafting guns. I made the trip to Naboo then went far in the wilds to find his shop and buy stuff from his vendor then I could see him in the backstore, crafting and working, that was great and I actually felt I was in a real world.

 

 

Conclusion

SWTOR has potential, but at this moment it is too far behind in many aspects. SWG was bad on many points but it had awesome ideas, the housing was great and the immersion was present. LotRO has a good appearance tab, Champions Online has awesome personalization possibilities and dynamic combat system so does Age of Conan, EVE online has good ideas and incredible liberty and World of Warcraft must have something too.

 

Don’t tell me to go back to X MMO, SWTOR is the only Star Wars MMO and that represents a lot in my life. Accept that it would gain a lot by having most of these sometimes very basic features and the game would only be better and last longer.

 

 

Mechs. You forgot mechs.

[Goretzu]

Maybe people need to remember how bald a certain other MMO was at launch. A lot of what people seem to expect right now came to WoW years after release. Even basic things, like guild banks. I remember when guilds used a banker alt for that.

 

Arenas? Only after the first expansion. Battlegrounds, even, came in well after launch. I remember - I was in before then. People think all this needs to be here already. Don't be impatient. Things take time.

 

This game is just out the starting gate. Right now, it's time to work out the bugs - which is BioWare's top priority. People are screaming for it. And screaming if the servers come down for a few hours a week to implement fixes.

 

New content is on the way. We're informed that the next serious new content patch is due next month. New features will be coming all through the year - and next year, and so on.

Yes - games are sparse at release. It leaves them room to grow. And grow in response to how they are played.

 

 

 

Rift did pretty well, it had most things (it wanted) in for release.

 

Just some things like guild banks that were missing really.

 

 

 

 

However the nature of the beast is that many players want a complete MMO experience on release, it's completely unrealistic (and is likely the reason Blizzard will go on expanding WoW for as long as possible rather than making WoW2)..... but still it's what a lot of people expect.

[Dreossk]

Maybe people need to remember how bald a certain other MMO was at launch. A lot of what people seem to expect right now came to WoW years after release. Even basic things, like guild banks. I remember when guilds used a banker alt for that.

 

This game is just out the starting gate. Right now, it's time to work out the bugs - which is BioWare's top priority. People are screaming for it. And screaming if the servers come down for a few hours a week to implement fixes.

 

New content is on the way. We're informed that the next serious new content patch is due next month. New features will be coming all through the year - and next year, and so on.

Yes - games are sparse at release. It leaves them room to grow. And grow in response to how they are played.

 

As other said, it's not how it works anymore. People have a lot of choices with all the games and they expect some basic things and more importantly, they expect an evolution over the previous game, not a regression in many aspects.

 

BioWare said a while ago that they had two teams working equally on bugs and new content but the last news said they were now more working more or bugs so expect content to be really rare. The March update is far and the lack of content at this moment will not help people wait for that long.

Edited February 6, 2012 by Dreossk

[shirtandtie]

As other said, it's not how it works anymore. People have a lot of choices with all the games and they expect some basic things and more importantly, they expect an evolution over the previous game, not a regression in many aspects.

 

I am one of those players that expect it.

 

I fully understand that other MMOs have several years under their belt which they have used wisely to fix major bugs, balance issues and implement new features. But you see the features that Dreossk listed are not new. SWTOR has several MMORPGs to learn from not to mention its predecessor Star Wars Galaxies. How could they purposefully exclude some of the most popular features of other MMOs from their new title?

 

I am not going to stay subscribed to game with some vain hope that it will catch up to the other MMOs in the next 5(lotro) or 7(WoW) years. For now i will go back to the games that are providing me with the tools i expect from a good MMO to have a fun experience. Then later this year i will buy the two new MMOs that at launch will provide me with not only the popular features of other MMOs but with their own original features as well.

[Chromiie]

Wow first time I saw this thread. Really a great write up and I agree with everything you said. The worlds feel dead and really a weather system, day/night cycles should really have been ingame. I get it Bioware wants to tell a story but you know what? I don't find the story better than any other MMO.

[Aphid]

time for a rant

 

1. character customisation(start screen) just lacks

2. GTN is useless unless you know exactly what your looking for(and how meny times have you hit reset FML)

3. most npc's do NOTHING

4. for the most part enjoyed 11-49 pvp esp when 50 bracket came in, but soon as you hit 50 .. fml

5. rng champ bag fails

6. worlds are full of copy and paste glory

7. why is ilum still here?

8. why are there level 7's farming in ilum

9. 60+ imps vs 1-20 rebs @ ilum is crap(standing in reb base is soooo much fun)

10. 60% chance of back attacks actually working

11. no lfg system (lol)

12. my 50 shadow looks like a tramp wielding his pork sword for change

13. no bonus for open world pvp

14. ****ball is meh

15. crafting / gathering seems soooo simple

16. space combat is mediocore at best.. nah i lie starfox had better mechanics

17. bonus missions are the gay and have NO variaton

18. you can hardly sit on ANY chairs

19. HM FP's are soo buggy

20. its a trek from quest to quest on planets (thinking hoth..)

21. empire is so op compared to rebs(fact)

22. not really that much to do at 50

23. cu-nt or whatever needs to die in a fire

 

theres so much more to go on about but i really cant be assed, generally i feel conned out of 45£ for this game and ive not even had a month on it yet

 

soooooo

 

if you detect the faint smell of alderanian necter, its because i have posioned you and the crew

 

LMAO - this rant is priceless. I totally agree with the OP - maybe he's like me, an early unlock in SWG who watched seven years of collections and accolades vanish into thin air, only to be replaced by this comparatively featureless shooter.

[Dreossk]

An early unlock as in Jedi? I stayed as far away as possible from Jedi at that time (just like now).

[Jadarra]

A good post. I agree many of the proposed suggestions would create 'depth' to the game that doesn't exist, especially more social features.

 

It's like reading cliff notes with all the main points, or reading the full story of a fantastic classic. Some prefer only the highlights, some want more 'depth'.

 

We're all different and there are games that are marketed toward each segment of the population. I'm hoping this game does more than fine tune Illum and the operations. I think those are important and should be fine tuned, but there is room for more in this game.

Edited February 9, 2012 by Jadarra

[Routier]

DISAPPOINTMENT RULES

 

I agree. The game is very pretty, but shockingly limited.

Not only are the "worlds" dead, but the character classes are so similar it's ridiculous.

 

Everyone seems to have the same abilities with a few tweaks & different names.

There are no choices of abilities - all L30 Jedi Knights are clones who may gain a few % here and there from wearing the right clothing(!).

 

The dialogue choices seemed great until you realize that the choices are always in the same order 1-good 2-middle and 3-bad even when the Light & Dark indicators are turned off. And very few choices make any real difference to the storyline.

 

The "space combat" was so laughable I thought it was a joke. There aren't even any ambushes or random space battles on the way to/from planets - at least that would make the game less predictable.

 

My character has only reached L30 & I am bored with the unrelenting sameness of everything already. Is this really what they thought the public wanted?

 

I wanted a Jedi that would gain XP through sparing lives, not by killing more. I wanted a Sith who would gain XP by being more cruel than necessary. I wanted a Smuggler who could make money by trading, like I could in the game Elite - and that was 25 years ago! A Jedi Consular who gained XP by healing, a Mercenary who gained XP by swapping sides.

 

I wanted NPC's who would remember me, and react accordingly.

 

I won't get any of this in this very pretty but shallow video game.

 

Once my sub is up, I'm leaving for a year or two. If it gets better, I may come back.

[Dreossk]

A good post. I agree many of the proposed suggestions would create 'depth' to the game that doesn't exist, especially more social features.

 

It's like reading cliff notes with all the main points, or reading the full story of a fantastic classic. Some prefer only the highlights, some want more 'depth'.

 

We're all different and there are games that are marketed toward each segment of the population. I'm hoping this game does more than fine tune Illum and the operations. I think those are important and should be fine tuned, but there is room for more in this game.

 

Exact, I don't understand why "story people" or raiders are against adding features that wouldn't even change their experience.

Edited February 10, 2012 by Dreossk

[Dreossk]

DISAPPOINTMENT RULES

 

I agree. The game is very pretty, but shockingly limited.

Not only are the "worlds" dead, but the character classes are so similar it's ridiculous.

 

Everyone seems to have the same abilities with a few tweaks & different names.

There are no choices of abilities - all L30 Jedi Knights are clones who may gain a few % here and there from wearing the right clothing(!).

 

The dialogue choices seemed great until you realize that the choices are always in the same order 1-good 2-middle and 3-bad even when the Light & Dark indicators are turned off. And very few choices make any real difference to the storyline.

 

The "space combat" was so laughable I thought it was a joke. There aren't even any ambushes or random space battles on the way to/from planets - at least that would make the game less predictable.

 

My character has only reached L30 & I am bored with the unrelenting sameness of everything already. Is this really what they thought the public wanted?

 

I wanted a Jedi that would gain XP through sparing lives, not by killing more. I wanted a Sith who would gain XP by being more cruel than necessary. I wanted a Smuggler who could make money by trading, like I could in the game Elite - and that was 25 years ago! A Jedi Consular who gained XP by healing, a Mercenary who gained XP by swapping sides.

 

I wanted NPC's who would remember me, and react accordingly.

 

I won't get any of this in this very pretty but shallow video game.

 

Once my sub is up, I'm leaving for a year or two. If it gets better, I may come back.

 

People will realize this soon enough and BioWare will have to start upgrading their game so it's up to today's standards. Every day we see more and more of the people that were previously ok with the game and on BioWare's side hitting 50 and realizing how empty and lifeless it is.

Edited February 10, 2012 by Dreossk

[DrNothing]

You forgot about some that have obvious parts already visible (such as the Companion Alignment bar in the UI/Character Window) that aren't even turned on yet... What happens when that DOES go live and there are *** tons of level 50's with highly limited options per bending their favorite companion to their will? I'm actually strongly considering stopping play until they implement more.

[Dreossk]

Well, the new Q&A further shows that they have no plan to do anything else than add flashpoints, flashpoints, operation, flashpoints, warzones, flashpoints... They even completely dodged the question (that they selected) about housing... And they seem to be unaware of the problems of Ilum. Seems we'll have no chance. Edited February 11, 2012 by Dreossk

[Dyltron]

What you want is SWG v.2.

 

I played SWG for a few years until it went badly downhill. I'd love to see these features in TOR, but the fact of the matter is it is a different forumlae. One day though, we will have another great sandbox MMO.

[Ansultares]

Here is also a Video of the history of MMO's. Showing how Free-to-play is booming in WoW clones and even speaks of how long SWTOR's refined game-play has been around for (You know the one. Where you and a mob take turns beating on each other until your cool-downs are used and one of you is dead. God of War it is not).

I could see this game going f2p once they've ironed out bugs and expanded content some; they'll need some genius pumping the cashshop full of pointless crap to buy, but it's Star Wars, how hard could that be to do.

[Dyltron]

Zones are made the way they are so more than top end PCs can render them. You think the 18 year old playing on his parents Hewlette Packard they got in 2003 running XP is going to be able to render HUNDREDS of sprites and textures of skyscrapers? You think the single world server is going to be able to process that much of a graphical load if there are hundreds of players all around the place? Do you think there might be some hardware limitations that could cause degradation of data transfer because of it, let alone how much bigger transferring all those extra graphic textures the size of the client alone will get?

 

Who is this "we" you are speaking for in paragraph 3? It's certainly not the main playerbase, who though MMO after MMO demand centralized locations for basic needs in order to streamline the commerce process. They *are* in fact, in a hurry, and the developers of modern games sympathize with this thoughts because the quest hub should be a hub. You should get what you need and be out the door and back to your questing. It's just another client-server process in action.

 

 

 

 

The planets expand as you progress, and you really feel it in the Nar Shaddaa bonus series in InfoSec and NetSec, and by the time you get to Alderaan, it's huge landscape after huge landscape. There is reward in exploration, they're called Datacrons. That incites people to explore to discover these rare objects. Most are fairly well hidden. If you have such a knack for exploring, search for them *without a guide.*

 

 

 

 

This is very unimportant and affects nothing. Tell me how you use *actual data* on a *fictional world*? Where's this database that has astronomical data recorded on Tatooine, or any data on a world that is a binomial star system? It doesn't exist, man. The closest thing you've got is that Vin Deisel movie "Pitch Black" and that planet was in a Trinomial Star system and had one night every year. According to most astronomical surveys, Binomial star systems are much more common than single-star systems, like the Solar system we currently reside in, but finding planets in inter-galactic star system is still fleshing itself out to be a hard science. It's more about luck in finding shadows that move. All you want in this is flavor to a sundae, ignoring the fact that the sundae itself is delicious.

 

 

 

 

Yet again, purely flavor, though Dromuud Kaas does have tempermental rainstorms. It's such a small thing that people will clam for at start and never again talk about and ruthlessly ignore once it's implemented.

 

 

 

I consider myself rather progressive in terms of roleplaying to the point I feel cantinas are a crutch for the uncreative and uninspired; a legacy from IRC text-based systems and a banshee of the past from D&D that won't stop wailing on the psyche. I create my own social activities, and organize events for roleplaying and in-character interactions for a guild of about sixty individuals.

 

Do you know why you can't sit in every chair? Because chairs are tied to the cover system of IA and Smugglers. Try the one on your ship and watch your top bar change. The way to fix that is for them to individually code every single chair for you to sit on because they can't omit that link for those two base classes as it is integral to their playstyle. It's quite a hassle, and if it means that much to you, you will be patient to let their one engineer do this extremely tedious job until it's done, as it's far from priority.

 

As for betting? You might as well drop that idea. No game since EverQuest has allowed gambling inside it, and for good reason too. You won't see playermade lotteries or casino-type gameplay here at all. If you want to bet, put your companion on a rich mission and hope that you'll get something legendary out of it. That's the closest you'll come to this idea.

 

You can climb, you really can. You ever get that datacron in Nar Shaddaa that required jumping on all those boxes in the Coreillian sector? Or the one in NetSec that you needed the Datacard from the incinerator room for? There's three others in Taris just like it. You can save yourself 10,000 credits on an MGGS by jumping creatively along the dam in Alderaan. The environment is there, for sure, that allows for uninhibited exploration. Sometimes you just gotta look up instead of out.

 

I hereby claim that any sentence which includes "gungan" and "great moment" without the addition of "death" is false.

 

 

 

 

It is possible on Alderaan, Taris, Hoth, Voss, Belsavis, Nar Shaddaa, Ilium, Tatooine, and so on. Your argument that a planet has a "level range" is both faulty and uninformed. There is a reason that starter planets were off-limits. It was to prevent end-level players from causing unnecessary grief. This game has been developed that by the time you are exposed to Open PvP areas, you should be in your mid-20's, have most of your core skills, and be well on your way to showing specialization in your specified tree. In so many words, you should be competant enough to be able to defend yourself. That's gosh darned ingenious, and you find it restrictive that you're suddenly prohibited from flyin' your little starship on an enemy planet that's so gosh darned protected by hundreds of squadrons of fighters and dozens of capital ships because you want to take your artifact lightsaber and strike down younglings. That's not what this game is about, and killing endlessly spawning faction leaders isn't either, because it circumvents the story (Darth Malgus excluded).

 

In summary, get over it. There's plenty of places to go and people to kill if you're so inclined. You want a big battle? ADVERTISE and ORGANIZE one using some administrative acumen with those shiny new server subforums you have. If you can't put forth the effort you don't deserve the reward.

 

 

 

I enjoy the space missions. It's a great amount of fluff and it earns me a good handful of credits. If you want a flight simulation, play a flight simulator. This is an MMO, and the space missions server as side-quests. They weren't even in the foundations of development until the outcry of the beta community to fulfill some niche in some people's playstyle, so the fact that they exist at all is something of a miracle. But because Bioware has given you an inch, you ask for a mile, and this self-entitled attitude is sickening. If you want to take a ship, float in the middle of empty space, and get a good feeling of the enormous distance that space is, there's an MMO for you, it's called EVE online. This isn't that, nor should it be.

 

Your vehicle suggestions I find are ultimately silly. There's no reason for anything you've suggested besides extra work for little to no payoff. The vehicles are fine, with there being many options for it. THe speed "bonus" is plenty, and is not so much that you would feel absolutely worthless if you don't immediately have the level 3 speeder vice your level 2. There's no reason to have leftover sprites or graphics of a non-persistant ability that is, for all intents and purposes of programming, a toggled buff.

 

 

 

This is yet another point where you show you are uninformed (you have 4 bars, not 2). The UI is getting the same tools from WarHammer that the Mythic developers had near mastered in terms of customizing the default set since they're in Bioware now. Expect that in March along with Guild Banks. Hell, they just put out a video on it this weekend.

 

As for chat bubbles, there was a summit back in the late summer where it was brought up. They are on a priority list, but they're not high on it. There's so little impact that they bring because you're basically looking at one thing instead of the other. The words are still there in your window. I advise you to work with the bountiful amount of tools that you have in setting up a custom chat window and filter out everything but spatial channels so you can more rightly envision who you are by. Every person I know has done this in order to better facilitate roleplaying and in-character interactions and fully approves of this tried and true method. Stop being lazy.

 

 

 

There is no lack of races. The development standpoint, backed by LucasArts has been that human, and near-human races, are always the protagonists of star wars, not the strikingly alien ones and droids. Those are supplementary characters and support the role of the main protagonist, which is the role of the player in these class stories. As such, you would need to include the races of all companion characters, to include wookies, togruta, talz, jawa, devaronian, deshade, droids, houk, trandoshan, mon cal, weequay, chagrian, cathar, gand, sarkhai, and kaleesh. Quite a lot of diversity, don'cha think? Yet again, this comes off as entitlement, just like the 'wads in the summer were with, "The races are fine, but why isn't *my* favorite race included?" Just get over it, there's solid reasons behind this, and the legacy system has already shown to increase racial choices in the core classes (e.g., Miraluka Sith Warrior).

 

The fact you're asking for FPS mechanics in an MMORPG is both laughable and obtuse. A game did try that once, it was called Tabula Rasa. That turd was dropped on some poor development company's lap by Lord British before he flew off into space. The cover system is only for the IA and smuggler classes. It is a core playstyle mechanic developed for them only. To share it with other classes cheapens it's affect and is basically becomes an unnatural way to use basic line of sight defenses against ranged classes. It's simply not to be shared, and to implement an FPS-type mechanic into this MMO would be a horribly devastating thing in how it would change the mechanics of every single class and every single encounter. It's a bad idea.

 

The personal jetpacks for bounty hunters are meant for short bursts of speed or thrust. They're not *travelling* jetpacks. Bounty Hunters aren't the rocketeer. They're not Commander Cody (the old Sci-Fi serial, not the dude from Clone Wars). It's based fully on Boba/Jango Fetts' rocketpack, which allows him short bursts of elevation and mobility, and the bounty hunter gains abilities that emphasize the jet pack's prowess.

 

You won't start over? It's been a month. This game will operate for years. You won't start over? Lord almighty...

 

 

 

The standard prose about this bad ideas is that private, instanced areas take players out of the planets and out of the fleet. It turns a highly populated centralized area of commerce and communication from the server's faction into a deadzone, which you yourself were rallying against! They turn the game into a lobby, which is what WarCraft has become and games like DDO were developed around, where you sit and wait with no one around you until the system assigns you what you want to do. They don't incite socialization, they create a divergance to it and sever it due to severing the playerbase from itself.

 

"Having a guild is a permanent group chat"? wow. Your guild sucks. Mine has an entire backstory. We have diplomatic ties with other guilds. We have an entire storyline with a sister republic guild. We have events and an in-character player bounty system that pays members thousands for specific hits and marks we put out. We have social occassions both formal and informal. We have assigned roles and collateral duties and a fully functional chain of command for prople so they know who to go to in order to meet an expert to handle any situation that might come up. We have a class guide system in place, a craftsman expert system in place. We have all these tools to help our members be better and ensure they have fun playing the game they purchased, and all your guild is good for is "Group chat"? Your guild sucks.

 

 

 

This is more of you wanting the development team to make you stop being lazy and for them to do your work. IF you want to organize something, organize it. Operations, Hard-Mode Flashpoints, Warzones, and RvR are the basic tenets, but there's finishing your class quest, finding datacrons, finding codex entries, uncovering all explorables in every planet, doing all the bonus series' quests, meeting people. You've given this content, but if you don't want to do it, it's not Bioware's fault. There's 7 other storylines you can do. If you manage to finish all eight with all content done, then you can complain that there's nothing to do.

 

 

 

It useless fluff and wasted resources on something that will be completely unused once the novelty wears off and made into a character bank, plenty of which exist, and a private, instanced lobby, which is the antithesis to the MMO landscape that Bioware intends to cultivate. Player cities were graveyards in SWG, they were grave*stones* in UO. This is not a sandbox game. You need to get over that.

 

Funny how me telling you to "get over it" is starting to be like a little motto.

 

 

 

 

Crafting is fine. It's easy. Random is fair.

 

Get over it.

 

 

 

This isn't Galaxies.

 

This isn't WarCraft.

 

This isn't EVE.

 

Get over it.

 

 

 

According to you we should just leave the game as it is? We shouldn't complain about it or say things we want to be added on the off chance that Bioware hears and implements it? If you don't speak up nothing will be changed. QQing is not the way to go, yes, but nothing wrong with sharing ideas. I also don't see why you're such an ******e who thinks his opinion is so much more holy than anyone else's.

[Lucpol]

WHy not wait for GW2 (behind a corner) and enjoy all of the above plus more features? Titan is on the horizon also...

 

My 2c

[skepticck]

Very well written OP and i agree on all points.

 

This game could be great but with all these missing features and a few more not mentioned, it is simple "good" or "not bad".

[Fomby]

WHy not wait for GW2 (behind a corner) and enjoy all of the above plus more features? Titan is on the horizon also...

 

My 2c

 

That's what I'll be doing. Gw 2 or Tera. I'm intrigued by twitch gaming in an mmo.

[Caribroo]

All makes sense to me coming from SWG.

 

I played the SWG 'leveling' for 2 weeks before the trial ran out, then 2 more weeks to hit 90, then I never ever did it again. Never had an alt, ever. I leveled in SWG for a month, played it for 2 years. Never ever ever wanted to level again in that game but I loved it so because of all the things I could find for myself to do.

 

That was really bad game too, awful even, but it had it's very enjoyable moments like Dev run world events, space combat, PvP minibase defense, crafting, exploring the giant planets, etc.

 

SWTOR just feels very restricted and boxed in.

Edited February 12, 2012 by Caribroo

[Bellatrixxe]

Agree with all points made by the OP. The game does have potential but the bugs and lack of things to do at 50 are making me think I won't be here come April.

 

Really hope BIOWARE hears the community loud and clear on this and makes some major improvement quickly or SWTOR will go out with as much of a BOOM as it came in with in December.

 

Not even the droids will be looking for it....

[Threefiddie]

the game really needed 6 more months in the oven. AT LEAST

[mufutiz]

game was pushed out half-ready for the holiday season. sad but true.

 

march patch will bring the game up to a state that would have been acceptable as the launch version(hopefully).

 

don't blame bioware though, this is almost certainly EA's doing.

[Inixus]

game was pushed out half-ready for the holiday season. sad but true.

 

march patch will bring the game up to a state that would have been acceptable as the launch version(hopefully).

 

don't blame bioware though, this is almost certainly EA's doing.

 

Your prob right on that one.