1-50 Best MMO Ever, 50+ - Slightly Below Average

[Clyric]

Look.

 

I absolutely loved my characters storyline. The 1-50 in this game is awesome, and for that reason alone I'd recommend it.

 

But we have to be honest with ourselves, and in that hope that Bio-ware will pick up on it and listen.

 

50+ is.... boring.

 

There just isn't much to do.

 

3 PvP's WZ over and over, Illum (ring around the rosie for drops), and the FP's (with their many bugs, drop issues, flaws), just isn't enough content to keep a gamer interested.

 

I'm not bashing SWTOR. I really love the first part of the game. I will keep an eye on it for a long while and hope they add a "real space game", and end game content that will be endless fun. Tons of PvP planets, in a galactic struggle for the universe kinda thing

 

For now, I've been loggin in less and less. I even got a letter from Bio-ware saying my companion was lonely. Not as lonely as I am when I log in...

 

[jneim]

Don't forget how long the game has been out as well^^ And they already had a content patch and getting ready for a 2nd.!

[Hxxr]

If you play 8 hours a day no new MMO can keep up with your content consumption. Not now, not ever.

 

If you took your time gearing up, doing dailies, PvPing, starting to run Ops, progressing to higher tier Ops without being carried by fully geared out people, I doubt you'd be done with the content by now.

 

Btw, I'm one of the first category - played way too much, raided early on and I dislike PvP minigames to begin with. So I slowly level some twinks and just play less, do raids to get the few pieces I'm missing and do something else than playing games. (Posting on forums e.g. ;D)

[Gohlar]

If you play 8 hours a day no new MMO can keep up with your content consumption. Not now, not ever.

 

 

Old mmos did because it took a million years to level up.

 

No I'm not suggesting we go back to that but SWTOR moves people along very quickly for a game with so little to do at 50. I know what you mean but SW is a far worse offender than most in this regard.

[Amelyssan]

Look.

 

I absolutely loved my characters storyline. The 1-50 in this game is awesome, and for that reason alone I'd recommend it.

 

But we have to be honest with ourselves, and in that hope that Bio-ware will pick up on it and listen.

 

50+ is.... boring.

 

There just isn't much to do.

 

3 PvP's WZ over and over, Illum (ring around the rosie for drops), and the FP's (with their many bugs, drop issues, flaws), just isn't enough content to keep a gamer interested.

 

I'm not bashing SWTOR. I really love the first part of the game. I will keep an eye on it for a long while and hope they add a "real space game", and end game content that will be endless fun. Tons of PvP planets, in a galactic struggle for the universe kinda thing

 

For now, I've been loggin in less and less. I even got a letter from Bio-ware saying my companion was lonely. Not as lonely as I am when I log in...

 

 

 

man I agree so much. Endgame is horrible.....

[Race_Starraker]

It's not even close to the best MMO ever.

 

Other than the storyline, 90 percent of functionality is circa 2004 or before:

 

Guild functionality, PvP, UI, Auction House, long loading times, etc. - all of that is archaic by any measurement.

 

Not a bad game, but not 'the best ever' by a long, long shot.

[tylersavesworld]

can i have your stuff

[Aleeha]

I capped out story line right as I dinged 47. Finding the end-game to be a buggy annoying adventure into frustration and repeating the same 13 dailies over and over, level 50 blows.

 

Space combat? Only being allowed to go in the direction that BioWare wants me to go in? That isn't all that fun. If I wanted that type of game experience I'd go play SNES.

 

The Sith story lines were good but the best ever? Hrm... I dunno, I really loved the epic feel of the story leading up to killing the final boss in WotLK. ZOMG I hate you so much for saying that. Maybe so but that's OK, I don't hate you. I like the idea of building a story alone and then needing other people to finish it out. That's EPIC.

 

The following is from the Sith Warrior story line...

 

Not being able to kill that ******* Quinn after he betrays you is beyond dumb. No Sith is going to be, oh yeah OK, so you betrayed me, tried to kill me, lets be happy now and work together. They are going to kill that ahole right there without thought. Quinn should have DIED.

 

That did NOT make the story feel epic or amazing or anything else other than freaking fail.

 

 

EV and KP did not really tie into any story line at all for me as a player. It was just some random place some holo call said go kill. That's not epic..

[MegaBubble]

Look.

 

I absolutely loved my characters storyline. The 1-50 in this game is awesome, and for that reason alone I'd recommend it.

 

But we have to be honest with ourselves, and in that hope that Bio-ware will pick up on it and listen.

 

50+ is.... boring.

 

There just isn't much to do.

 

3 PvP's WZ over and over, Illum (ring around the rosie for drops), and the FP's (with their many bugs, drop issues, flaws), just isn't enough content to keep a gamer interested.

 

I'm not bashing SWTOR. I really love the first part of the game. I will keep an eye on it for a long while and hope they add a "real space game", and end game content that will be endless fun. Tons of PvP planets, in a galactic struggle for the universe kinda thing

 

For now, I've been loggin in less and less. I even got a letter from Bio-ware saying my companion was lonely. Not as lonely as I am when I log in...

 

 

Your argument is valid enough, the problem is that you're trying to apply your logic to everyone. We don't all thinke you. There is enough content to keep "a gamer" interested, just not the particular gamer making the above post.

 

While I can agree that there needs to be more content added to end game eventually, I'm confident that there will be soon enough. For now, what's there is adequate imo simply because of the amount of other things to do besides endgame. Roll an alt, man. Be social. Help smeone with a flashpoint you don't "need" to get done. Dabble in a bit of light roleplaying.

 

If you're the sort of person that lives for endgame content, you're ALWAYS going to be unsubbing and waiting for new content. That's the cycle of the hardcore endgame types, they don't so much log onto the game to enjoy it as they do log in to beat whatever new content the game has to offer, usually a few weeks after an expansion is released, then they either unsub till the next expansion or idle around and complain about not having anything to do.

 

If its all about endgame for you, that's all you're ever going to have to look forward to in any current-style MMO. For the time being, 2 months in? TOR has enough endgame to keep me happy. Time will tell how long that'll be true, but your discontent doesn't cover everybody. Just because we aren't bored with the game doesn't mean we aren't being "honest with ourselves".

[Sparklehorse]

Step 1: Make some friends.

 

Step 2: Start or join a guild.

 

Step 3: Benefit from the expanded possibilities of content that you cannot accomplish solo.

 

Step 3: Be less bored.

[navarh]

can i have your stuff

come get some

[Xenich]

 

50+ is.... boring.

 

There just isn't much to do.

 

 

This is the result of a fast leveling curve. I never understood why these companies put in such fast leveling to max when they don't have any solid end game content other than expecting people to raid excessively.

 

The early games took an extremely long time to get to max level so the only people you had to be concerned with for end game was hardcore players, which tended to be large raiding guilds. They were appealed to by making extremely difficult (flawless execution required) raid content that kept them busy while new content was being developed.

 

The casual players (people who played 20-30 hours a week), usually were just hitting cap or had a few more levels to go by the time an expansion was released (expansions ran every 6 months and were FULL featured and rather large expansions).

 

The only problem was that back then, most games dealt with leveling by using "mob exp" as the means to drive progression, so as games that began to use "questing" as the vehicle, content became more of an issue as it took a bit more time to produce the questing content (story, scripts, etc...) than it did simply placing an area with a bunch of mobs to kill.

 

These days however, the technology exists to fast pace quest design and implementation allowing them to fill the gaps of the content needed to provide a long leveling experience. So why don't they?

 

Because there are multiple factors to which discourage them.

 

1) They already are providing much less content and releasing it in much longer intervals. People keep buying the games, so there is no incentive to provide more.

 

2) They have found a means to provide the same type of grind content of the older game systems (mob grinding), but through gimmick concepts such as token collection, faction grinds, etc...

 

3) Most people playing these games these days do not have the tolerance for long term development. They want their game to progress like a single player game (40-80 hours and they have won) and object to it taking a long time between levels (even if there is plenty of content between them).

 

1 and 2 are more of the result of number 3 these days. People want to see the levels fly by or the game to progress fast because it makes them feel like they are achieving something. They have a narrow view as to what they think they desire in the game and this is often joked and criticized as being impatient or having a sense of entitlement. That is, people tend to have short attention spans and believe that fulfillment in a game is should be consistent and timely reward mechanism. Problem is, nothing easy is ever satisfying.

 

 

Until they go back to much longer leveling curves (with valid content, not gimmicks to fill the content), people will surge to the max levels quickly and expect the same fast paced progress and reward as they experienced leveling up. This can not be achieved as the amount of effort and time required to provide such would be so enormous that a company could not sustain it.

 

So, we get 1 and 2 as the solution. Less content and more pointless mind numbing grinds.

 

Funny how we came full circle. We started early MMOs by killing mobs over and over for hours on end to doing the same thing, but simply having a repeatable quest with a token as a carrot.

 

Personally, if I am going to do pointless grinds, I prefer it to be spread out over the entire game so that at least I always have some aspect of progression to look forward to. Spending hours farming for gear that will be invalidated by the next content release is not simply pointless, but insane.

[MegaBubble]

This is the result of a fast leveling curve. I never understood why these companies put in such fast leveling to max when they don't have any solid end game content other than expecting people to raid excessively.

 

The early games took an extremely long time to get to max level so the only people you had to be concerned with for end game was hardcore players, which tended to be large raiding guilds. They were appealed to by making extremely difficult (flawless execution required) raid content that kept them busy while new content was being developed.

 

The casual players (people who played 20-30 hours a week), usually were just hitting cap or had a few more levels to go by the time an expansion was released (expansions ran every 6 months and were FULL featured and rather large expansions).

 

The only problem was that back then, most games dealt with leveling by using "mob exp" as the means to drive progression, so as games that began to use "questing" as the vehicle, content became more of an issue as it took a bit more time to produce the questing content (story, scripts, etc...) than it did simply placing an area with a bunch of mobs to kill.

 

These days however, the technology exists to fast pace quest design and implementation allowing them to fill the gaps of the content needed to provide a long leveling experience. So why don't they?

 

Because there are multiple factors to which discourage them.

 

1) They already are providing much less content and releasing it in much longer intervals. People keep buying the games, so there is no incentive to provide more.

 

2) They have found a means to provide the same type of grind content of the older game systems (mob grinding), but through gimmick concepts such as token collection, faction grinds, etc...

 

3) Most people playing these games these days do not have the tolerance for long term development. They want their game to progress like a single player game (40-80 hours and they have won) and object to it taking a long time between levels (even if there is plenty of content between them).

 

1 and 2 are more of the result of number 3 these days. People want to see the levels fly by or the game to progress fast because it makes them feel like they are achieving something. They have a narrow view as to what they think they desire in the game and this is often joked and criticized as being impatient or having a sense of entitlement. That is, people tend to have short attention spans and believe that fulfillment in a game is should be consistent and timely reward mechanism. Problem is, nothing easy is ever satisfying.

 

 

Until they go back to much longer leveling curves (with valid content, not gimmicks to fill the content), people will surge to the max levels quickly and expect the same fast paced progress and reward as they experienced leveling up. This can not be achieved as the amount of effort and time required to provide such would be so enormous that a company could not sustain it.

 

So, we get 1 and 2 as the solution. Less content and more pointless mind numbing grinds.

 

Funny how we came full circle. We started early MMOs by killing mobs over and over for hours on end to doing the same thing, but simply having a repeatable quest with a token as a carrot.

 

Personally, if I am going to do pointless grinds, I prefer it to be spread out over the entire game so that at least I always have some aspect of progression to look forward to. Spending hours farming for gear that will be invalidated by the next content release is not simply pointless, but insane.

 

I'm MegaBubble, and I approve this message.

[Silversable]

The only problem was that back then, most games dealt with leveling by using "mob exp" as the means to drive progression, so as games that began to use "questing" as the vehicle, content became more of an issue as it took a bit more time to produce the questing content (story, scripts, etc...) than it did simply placing an area with a bunch of mobs to kill.

I don't see the "quest factor" as a problem in itself.

 

The problem is, most quests do not change the fact that the point is to grind mobs (as long as you have an "X" in a quest objective...). It merely gives you a set number of mobs to kill and extra XPs to do it.

 

Now "go kill the bandit leader" is a different thing entirely - you will still have to kill several bandits and an undefined number of wildlife specimen in order to achieve the quest objective, but the quest is NOT about grinding mobs - if you manage to work your way around most of them and can reach your target without a fight, more power to you.

 

Most kill quests should be single target. I'll use a single player analogy (because non-group, non-public quests in MMos are pretty much like watered-down single player game quests anyway) : remember one of the first main storyline quests in Morrowind, when you must retrieve a Dwemer cube from a ruin and turn it in ? This is a good quest : you have a single target as a goal, and how you achieve it is up to you. I must add that a significant part of the fun is that you do have directions, but the map does not tell you where the darn thing is. In the end, unless you can sneak around and are eager to find some shortcuts, you end up killing a good number of mobs... but none of them is a quest objecctive, all are merely obstacles, to be circumvented or removed according to your own choices.

 

That is, people tend to have short attention spans and believe that fulfillment in a game is should be consistent and timely reward mechanism. Problem is, nothing easy is ever satisfying.

As a matter of fact, I think that the move originated from the game designers - and, more specifically, from the game psychology analysis they did as feedbacks. Nevermiind the supposed "short attention span" of people, games can be analysed from the point of view of the user by how you feel at certain points during the game. They realised that there was a spike in satisfaction when a game objective was achieved, and a lull (and dissatisfaction) when the time span between spikes lengthened. From then, it is easy to infer that games that "feed" achievements at a deliberate pace are perceived as "more satisfying" than others.

 

The problem is, once you set in that kind of pattern, you tend to get comfortable with it : what you once perceived as "good" is now "normal", and "good" is something you only get less frequently - a more important reward, less often. At the same time, since games become faster-paced on the average, the average playing session duration is reduced, which means the spikes must be higher and the pace even faster. And so it goes, with game designers trying to "do better" than their previous production (provide a faster pace with higher "satisfaction spikes" and the average consumer feeding from that and getting used to everything so much that it dulls his sense of accomplishment.

 

Is it possible to turn back the clock ? I think yes, but in order to be well-received, it must be premeditated and it must fit the game mood perfectly. The game has to provide *something* that will replace a fast satisfaction curve - it must provide deep, long-term interest in what occurs in the game.

 

In my opinion, story is part of that, but Bioware did not go the right way because it focused on *character* story, which is bound to be slaved to the general pace of the game, and because they relied on classic mechanics of gear acquisition and character power increase. The game was a fast-paced grind almost from the ground up, because of the IP, the traditional Bioware focus, and the model they chose - the 800 lb MMO gorilla.

 

Could someone else do it ? Yes, with the right setting mood, the right choices of progression mechanics, an emphasis on *world* story as opposed to *character* story (character story being what your character thinks of what happens in the world and how he fits in it, and how he acts on those choices) with more *small-scale* impact and less *large-scale* impact. It is possible to slow the pace down, if the player feels his time is not wasted, if he feels there are places to go and choices to make - even if they have little large-scale impact - what is important is how it defines the place of the character in the world.

In SWtOR as in most other MMORPGs, all characters have the same place in the world - stereotypical heroes, faceless killing machines, out of touch with the world itself. You could remove the scenery and NPCs and replace it with signposts, vending machines, and opaque gray obstacles and they game would basically be the same.

 

And when it's down to that kind of bare bones, if it is not fast, you can bet people will get bored with it pretty quickly.

 

Will someone else do it ? I doubt it. Which is sad.

[Gustomucho]

Step 1: Make some friends.

 

Step 2: Start or join a guild.

 

Step 3: Benefit from the expanded possibilities of content that you cannot accomplish solo.

 

Step 3: Be less bored.

 

Done done done done.

 

What's next?

 

Sure I can continue to fish for rakata gear, but the problem is : in some case it is a downgrade instead of an upgrade. Farming for downgrades are not what I play RPG for. Spending hours to wipe on bugs, or wasting hours farming dailies for repairs and getting downgrades is not my idea of fun. Yeah a drop, get to vendor.. what is this **** +50 accuracy -40 defense rating -10 absorption rating ? In the bank you go ****** token

Edited February 9, 2012 by Gustomucho

[Darkhosis]

I'd say that is an accurate assessment. The true game here is in the middle...

 

Probably would have just been better to make KOTOR 3. But if this had been KOTOR 3 I'd already been through the game more than once and almost done.

 

With this MMO model I have only completed one storyline and almost done with my second. After that I have plans to explore the many other class stories. So as dollar value goes I've already surpased KOTOR 3 in value for me.

 

Once I'm done with all the stories and if they don't expand the 50 experience. Well when you've done all you want you're done. No matter how much you like a game.

[Gustomucho]

This is the result of a fast leveling curve. I never understood why these companies put in such fast leveling to max when they don't have any solid end game content other than expecting people to raid excessively.

 

Sorry to disappoint but raiding takes 3 nights at top to clear. So raiding is not enough either, plus items are not good, not good stats and not good look.

[MaGicBush]

This is the result of a fast leveling curve. I never understood why these companies put in such fast leveling to max when they don't have any solid end game content other than expecting people to raid excessively.

 

The early games took an extremely long time to get to max level so the only people you had to be concerned with for end game was hardcore players, which tended to be large raiding guilds. They were appealed to by making extremely difficult (flawless execution required) raid content that kept them busy while new content was being developed.

 

The casual players (people who played 20-30 hours a week), usually were just hitting cap or had a few more levels to go by the time an expansion was released (expansions ran every 6 months and were FULL featured and rather large expansions).

 

The only problem was that back then, most games dealt with leveling by using "mob exp" as the means to drive progression, so as games that began to use "questing" as the vehicle, content became more of an issue as it took a bit more time to produce the questing content (story, scripts, etc...) than it did simply placing an area with a bunch of mobs to kill.

 

These days however, the technology exists to fast pace quest design and implementation allowing them to fill the gaps of the content needed to provide a long leveling experience. So why don't they?

 

Because there are multiple factors to which discourage them.

 

1) They already are providing much less content and releasing it in much longer intervals. People keep buying the games, so there is no incentive to provide more.

 

2) They have found a means to provide the same type of grind content of the older game systems (mob grinding), but through gimmick concepts such as token collection, faction grinds, etc...

 

3) Most people playing these games these days do not have the tolerance for long term development. They want their game to progress like a single player game (40-80 hours and they have won) and object to it taking a long time between levels (even if there is plenty of content between them).

 

1 and 2 are more of the result of number 3 these days. People want to see the levels fly by or the game to progress fast because it makes them feel like they are achieving something. They have a narrow view as to what they think they desire in the game and this is often joked and criticized as being impatient or having a sense of entitlement. That is, people tend to have short attention spans and believe that fulfillment in a game is should be consistent and timely reward mechanism. Problem is, nothing easy is ever satisfying.

 

 

Until they go back to much longer leveling curves (with valid content, not gimmicks to fill the content), people will surge to the max levels quickly and expect the same fast paced progress and reward as they experienced leveling up. This can not be achieved as the amount of effort and time required to provide such would be so enormous that a company could not sustain it.

 

So, we get 1 and 2 as the solution. Less content and more pointless mind numbing grinds.

 

Funny how we came full circle. We started early MMOs by killing mobs over and over for hours on end to doing the same thing, but simply having a repeatable quest with a token as a carrot.

 

Personally, if I am going to do pointless grinds, I prefer it to be spread out over the entire game so that at least I always have some aspect of progression to look forward to. Spending hours farming for gear that will be invalidated by the next content release is not simply pointless, but insane.

 

Wow awesome post, wish some lead game designers would read this.

[Lethality]

Look.

 

I absolutely loved my characters storyline. The 1-50 in this game is awesome, and for that reason alone I'd recommend it.

 

That's fine. But you just can't call 1-50 the best "MMO" ever because it really doesn't play out as one during the leveling/story process.

[chaosmadness]

If you play 8 hours a day no new MMO can keep up with your content consumption. Not now, not ever.

 

Idd.

 

I'm at lv 47 and i'm enjoying a lot the leveling/gaming in sw:tor. I play about 4h per day and for those who work it's a generous time, eheh

 

I think the problem of many ppl here it’s the time they spend in playing per day..

 

I see many ppl that have +1 char at lv 50 making a lot of dramas here, and i dont understand..How can they have so many chars at lv 50 ? lol... They have real life ? I mean, they work, study ?

 

Give at BW time, i think we have a good MMO

[Necrolepsy]

Got rank 41 in pvp on my commando

 

Cleared EV and KP normal

Cleared 4/5 EV HM

 

Progressing the rest on HM and yet to start Nightmare mode

 

I have plenty to do. In fact I have too much to do and don't have time to do it all :\ Frustrating.

[AHChrist]

The problem with current MMOs is they are linear. You go from point A to B. Once you done A, you really never go back. You eventually get to B and if there is no further progression, you get bored. All the huge leveling areas never really get re-visited by a majority of the players because they are all sitting at max cap and max gear till the next expansion comes out.

 

What someone needs to develop is a MMO that is always changing. I know most people are oppose to this, but age limit with characters might be a good idea. The benefit would be, you would always have players to level with. Leveling would most likely be easier and you could try any combination of class, race, faction, etc. The goal would be to see how much you could accomplish in your character's lifetime. Maybe every 5 deaths takes away from your constitution so you don't live as long. Your first of characters will suck because you will die a lot. As you got better and better, your characters would get further and further. You could even get rid of leveling caps. You would have to make choices with your character. Do I want to be the best crafter in my lifetime, do I want to have the highest level, do I want to have the most PvP kills, do I want to be the only group to survive their hardcore dungeon, etc. You could give some pretty hardcore rewards also. Let's say you did eventually finish this hard dungeon, you could get some limited super weapon as a reward that made you really powerful. You could pvp with it but if you die in battle, the weapon is returned.

 

Just a thought, maybe some developer will read it and come up with an idea for endgame that is ever changing and fun. I will be interested in GW2 endgame. Three factions fighting over the same land. It changes every two weeks so one faction can never completely wipe the floor with the other two. All I know is we don't need more of the same, gear grinding. WoW beat that to death.

Edited February 9, 2012 by AHChrist

[harpuax]

Don't know what you are talking about This game has as much if not more than every other MMO AT LAUNCH has had. Most I have tried have had far less, and the only one with about the same was Rift.

[AHChrist]

Don't know what you are talking about This game has as much if not more than every other MMO AT LAUNCH has had. Most I have tried have had far less, and the only one with about the same was Rift.

 

Yeah, and computers ran at 1/10000 of the speed they do now days. I for one would like to see stuff progress not regress.

[Drakkenfeur]

From everything I've read here the end game woes in this game are the exact same end game woes of every pay 2 play MMO.

 

"Grind"

"not enough to do"

"Lack of content"

"leveling too fast."

 

I think I also read something very laughable about someone playing 20-30 hours a week being a 'casual' gamer. That tells me, monday to friday someones parking their @ss infront of a computer screen playing one game for 5 to 7 hours a night. THAT IS NOT CASUAL. Hate to break it to you, just the facts ma'am. 5-7 hours a night is NOT Casual, that's about as constant as you can get gameplay wise assuming you eat, sleep and maintain a fulltime job and family. Basically every waking moment you have to spare monday to friday is spent there. NOT CASUAL. (repetitive but i gotta drive that nail home somehow.)

 

Now, obviously, when someone is spending every waking moment weekly playing something, yeah they're gonna run out of stuff to do. These are woes that EVERY MMO has. These are woes that EVERY MMO WILL have. WoW has been losing subs steadily for the last 3 years because of it. Guild Wars 2? Will fail because it's made by the same people that made Guild Wars 1. And 'MMO' where you didnt need to play with other people, could load an entire party with NPC hirelings, and max level was 20 through 3 expansions and a mini expansion. (NO END GAME CONTENT?) Think the devs learned ANYTHING from that? Course they did, make people pay for it and its 'better.'

 

Ragnarok online? (nice name drop) Lets open that nutshell. Their biggest 'end game' feature is to level up from 1-99 over and over again and end up with a stronger 'extended class.' The only quests in that game were for gear where you would grind items with a 0.001% drop rate, turn in 1000+ of them and get your reward, which would break if you upgraded it to the BiS capability, at which point you had to do it again.

 

All I'm gathering from this is a bunch of people in the 'now' generation wanting it NOW, getting it, and still not being satisfied. So if you're spending 5-7 hours a night in front of your computer, you should probably find MORE hobbies to occupy that abundance of time.

 

NO. SINGLE. HOBBY. GAME OR OTHERWISE. WILL SATISFY THAT.

 

That being said, 1-50 is awesome? every one agrees. Is it a completely different game with different visuals and different system, at 50? Try the space battles, max out your ship, make alts, *cough*(go outside and get a tan or play with your kids.)

 

My 'humble' 2 cents.