Do people realise this is a new game?

[Katharis]

The main argument is because it is 2012, there has been plenty of previous examples of mmo's to look at and learn from. Look how far car technology/designs have come in the last 7 years (bad example i know)

 

Perhaps an imaginary cake analogy.

 

Imagine an Imaginary Cake House. After you pay the entry fee, you must then pay to maintain your place at the Cake Table while the chefs serve you cake. The cake looks very good! MM-mm! Look at all that rich, luscious icing and all those fancy decorations! And the candles! Oh, my! And then you discover that - Alas! - the cake is not only half-baked, the chefs barely even mixed the cake batter before half-baking it. Look, here's a whole egg, still in the shell! (Arguments ensue, as they so often do, among the cake enthusiasts as to whether the egg was put there intentionally as a Hidden Surprise). If you, O hypothetical cake enthusiast, come to the conclusion that the egg was NOT put there intentionally, do you continue to pay to maintain your place at the Cake Table and eat your portion of half-baked cake while waiting for the chefs to figure out how to crack an egg, or do you go somewhere else and get delicious pie with ice cream?

[Eszi]

It's like comparing CoD1 to BF3 and saying that CoD1 had bad graphics during launch

[Halvos]

Instant fix, mass consumption and then moves on.

 

How about just actually fixing something they claim is "fixed"? Patch after patch they claim to fix certain things only to either break a bunch of other things or not actually fix what they intended.

 

Of course this isn't an easy job and fixes take time, but some companies are better at it than others. BioWare is one of the worst I've seen.

[Mephismo]

The main argument is that it is 2012 and people have extremely short memories. They don't remember the complaints about "lack of endgame content" that followed the first six months of just about every single MMO released in the past 10 years.

 

They do remember but complaining is so much fun

[marshalleck]

This isn't a new game. This is every other MMO that has come out in the last 7 years, and all the same mistakes. Very few improvements. It's like Bioware simply copied features because that's what other MMOs do, without ever taking the time to ask why other devs did what they did with their games. And Bioware's lack of insight and experience with MMO as a genre shows with their crazy, directionless patch/update process.

[knightblaster]

I get what people say, we are less patient - how do we expect games to truly last if we don't give them a chance to eveolve?

 

There isn't enough end game content - There never is, WoW had next to none, infact some would argue that until the first expansion, unless you were in a 'hardcore' guild you never saw the endgame regardless.

 

there are to many bugs - If this was truly an issue no MMO would ever survive, yet to see one launch completely cleanly.

 

At the end of the day people will do as they please it just frustrates me that MMO's no longer have the opputunity to be truly great as they are no longer shown the patience they once were.

 

GW2 is a common thought to replace this one, but as soon as people have picked it up from the shops they'll be on the forums talking about how they are now waiting for the next thing to come along, probably as GW2 is loading on to their PC.

 

How do we expect to truly see the next 'big game'/'wow beater' if no game truly gets a chance to develope?

 

Post-WoW, this looks like it is not going to happen for a subscription-based game. WoW is the only MMO in history that has managed to maintain a broad, large fanbase for years -- every other MMO has a small group of hardcore fans (small compared to WoW) playing it -- even quality releases like Rift faced the exact same fate. The reason is that you can't out-WoW WoW itself, and WoW *is* the subscription MMO market now, full stop. It owns it.

 

This means there is room for (1) non-subscription games like GW2 and (2) niche games with smaller budgets that are aimed at a smaller, niche market, and can live with that due to being cheaper to make. For AAA-budget MMOs, however, competing with WoW is looking like a repeated failed business model. You can't be better at being WoW than WoW itself is at this point, and in the minds of many (clearly a majority of MMO players just based on numbers) WoW = subscription MMO standard.

 

My guess is that we're living through the end of subscription-based games, and are transitioning to a B2P and F2P model going forward. If GW2 is any good at all (not holding my breath on that one), it will help ease that transition along.

[Elwacko]

A lot of the MMO old school community know what to expect.... this game was far worse than what was expected. More bugs, glitches, balance issues than should have been released.

 

MMOers are fickle now, we expect better from a company. And it will only be tougher in the future for companies.

 

Stone wheel... wooden wheel.... metal wheel... rubber wheel.... The shape doesn't really change, but the materials used to make it does.... a stone wheel covered in rubber just doesn't cut it.

[darkcerb]

Games compared to their current competitors and not the release of a game 7 years ago?

 

Madness.

[JerokTalram]

The main argument is because it is 2012, there has been plenty of previous examples of mmo's to look at and learn from. Look how far car technology/designs have come in the last 7 years (bad example i know)

 

It doesn't matter that it's 2012, It's still taken WoW an additional 7 years of development to become what it is today. You can't expect a new MMO to include those 7 years of development at launch.

Edited February 12, 2012 by JerokTalram

[darkcerb]

It doesn't matter that it's 2012, It's still taken WoW an additional 7 years of development to become what it is today. You can't expect a new MMO to include those 7 years of development at launch.

 

expecting the same content would be foolish, the same features is not.

[Lethality]

I've been looking over the forums to get a feel for my class, possible alts and the game in general and am amazed how quickly people have written this game off. Its a brand new game, barely 2 months into its life. People are already writing it off and looking for the next Fix.

 

Why are people so quick to write games off these days rather than give the developers the time to take what was, in essence, a relativly smooth and successful launch and build upon it with increasing content to cover each player types preferences, weather that be additional PvP options, extended storylines, more proffesion linked options or indeed additional FP's etc?

 

It's not the bugs or lack of content... that is expected of a new game. But I think what is hitting most people is the lack of quality of life features and what have become standard, basic game systems like guild progression, guild banks, etc.

 

Some players aren't willing to wait for a game to "grow up" while they're paying for it, when they've likely already done that in another game.

Edited February 12, 2012 by Lethality

[Tic-]

It may be a new MMO, but its the same ol, same ol, "big budget" MMO, and hardly feels "new" at all. And now, they add more of the same 'ol... great!

 

I've done all this.

 

For me it boring and tired.

 

Theres others to play that step outside the box some.

Edited February 12, 2012 by Tic-

[JerokTalram]

I guess the big difference is that when wow came out they had to invent/develop a lot of the technology because it didn't exist. They did the most they could with the available technology.

 

BS, the technology existed. What Wow did was make a Theme-park MMO that required only an average system to play. Computer that couldn't play SWG well, could play Wow. They made their game more accessable than others and that's big reason for their success.

[Edzew]

 

I find it funny that everyone goes on about how great WoW, or EQ or SWG, etc, etc, etc were and yet you all came here.

 

ill tell you right now if the NGE never hit SWG i would still be there playing and the game would have never died!!! and most likely we wouldn't have had TOR. if they would have just worked on debugging SWG it would have been a great game instead lukasarts came in and made it more "star warsy!" and killed the game!

[JerokTalram]

expecting the same content would be foolish, the same features is not.

 

No because every feature you add takes time to code. It's not Poof there it is. So for every feature you add, you either have to delay the release or take something else out like content.

[JerokTalram]

ill tell you right now if the NGE never hit SWG i would still be there playing and the game would have never died!!! and most likely we wouldn't have had TOR. if they would have just worked on debugging SWG it would have been a great game instead lukasarts came in and made it more "star warsy!" and killed the game!

 

The problem was that WOW came out and showed everyone that settling for 300K of subs was unnecessary. So Sony/LA decided they wanted more subs and thought they needed a simpler game with a jedi base class to attract the masses.

[knightblaster]

BS, the technology existed. What Wow did was make a Theme-park MMO that required only an average system to play. Computer that couldn't play SWG well, could play Wow. They made their game more accessable than others and that's big reason for their success.

 

It was a big part of it -- also it was released simultaneously on Macs as well, which further increased the playability for "non-typical gamers", which was the real target audience. It also hit at just the right time -- broadband was becoming more commonplace in North America, at least, the LOTR movie hype was in full swing and it was almost the perfect time to release an accessible online fantasy pew-pew type game. That singular moment has now passed, and the trouble is that developers/investors keep trying to recreate it, and are not really finding themselves being able to do so.

[Aethyriel]

It doesn't matter that it's 2012, It's still taken WoW an additional 7 years of development to become what it is today. You can't expect a new MMO to include those 7 years of development at launch.

 

You don't get the point with these 7 years...

 

It's like this: Current lv cap in WoW? Still 85? Doesn't matter. So you can lv 35 more levels in WoW which is still faster than leveling in swtor. So, your maxlv, what can you do? In WoW, you have some raids for lv 85, other things like dailies, dungeons, reputation, achievements etc but nobody cares anymore about any content from 60-80 besides leveling there. All these 7 years of content are unsued for the most part exept some achievement junkies that will take a day or two to complete some grinding stuff which is not really considered content.

 

It's the small things people care and complain about... the obvious things, lfg tool or at least a lv 50 worldwide char like Rift had it in the beginning, addons or at least more sutomization options for the UI (Rift had that, too and it was a somewhat recent launch). Swtor lacks all the small obvious things and is completely out of date, this 2012, the programming standart is more like 2004 at best.

 

Say you want to start making a basketball game with the NBA and whatnot, you'd also have to compete with 2K, and I asure you nobody will give a damn how 2K did things 7 years ago, they will compare your new game to their new game and if you'r is like theirs was 7 years ago, what's the point? For the most part this game still stays alive because of the story and because it's Star Wars, they need to work very hard in order to compete or give it up and just cater to the SW fans, which will probably still beprofitable enough, but they can't compete with WoW (and I think it'S their intention to equal their sub.numbers some day) by staying 7 years behind all the time.. hell, this game is programmed worse than Rift which was made by a way smaller company with very little budget, this is unaccaptable, heads would roll if I had anything to say about it @ BW for failing so hard thus far.

[Goreson]

This game has Story™... o.O

 

Sadly that is all it has,not enough to keep me p(l)aying once the story is finished.

 

So you've played all 8 stories in less than 2 months... impressive!

 

The main argument is because it is 2012, there has been plenty of previous examples of mmo's to look at and learn from. Look how far car technology/designs have come in the last 7 years (bad example i know)

 

Cars for most parts still have (just) 4 wheels... where are those flying cars they suggested us here in the future would have? (Could it be that maybe they got smart and noticed that with the current skill of drivers there would be a constant rain of car parts and garbage falling down on people living/walking on the ground?)

 

2012 is a much more crowded, competitive MMO market than 2004 was, and that is reflected in player behavior. In the post-WoW market, a game has a 2-3 month "window" to show something before many people move on (back to WoW or to some other game). This cycle has repeated itself in other MMOs released in the past 3-4 years, really. You don't get as much time to "make it better" as you used to, because there is more competition now, and you can never unmake a first impression.

 

And guess who is to blame for this? Not by any chance as NoxiousAlby suggested the players?

Because players have become less tolerant & patient over the years, ... But the sad fact is many players wont allow BW the opportunity, we are refering to the now crowd who wants everything perfect and they want it now.

 

It's a sad fact that people these days don't like challenge! If something isn't 'instant gratification' to them it's not worth it...

 

A develloper now has the choice: do I want to provide something for that shallow ma/ess (which happens to present the biggest customer potential) or do I want to provide quality that will only attract a few?

 

If I had to venture a guess BW may have (unwittingly?) done the best thing possible:

 

Hit the market with a hyped game, make as much cash as possible, wait until all those 'instant gratification babies have moved on again... and then make the game what it really should have been.

 

Because BW will not let this game fail!

 

How else do you explain that DAoC is still running despite no longer being Mythic (but BioWare Mythic after being EA Mythic) and the subscriber numbers were apparently as low as 5,000?

 

How do we expect to truly see the next 'big game'/'wow beater' if no game truly gets a chance to develope?

 

Well said! And now act upon it!

 

Seriously, playing an MMORPG should be considered much like marriage. Remember that bit about 'I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health.'? Of course not... 'instant gratification': if the couple has a fight within the first 6 months, the marriage was a failure and divorce is to follow ASAP... *shrug*

 

The common denominator is that there are really only three "flaws" to the game

 

1) The end game content has too many bugs and not enough reward. This is being addressed somewhat.

 

2) PVP has bugs and some FPS issues for some people and the bag system was an unmitigated disaster that caused a lot of needless angst. Compounding this was the admission that the devs didn't expect PVP to be popular, and it shows with stumbles on Ilum.

 

3) The perception -- correct or not, doesn't really matter -- that the game does not measure up to what would be expected after $150 million and 7 years. The hype around this game was several light years high, and too much of the pre-release content advertisements simply did not say "This is a game about story primarily and all other systems are going to feel completely tacked on for at least six months".

 

I think there is really just one 'flaw' to the game: It lets players get to the 'endgame' too fast...

 

If you solve that, hey, you are pretty set on resolving any other potential issue... because now you actually have the time to do so and don't need to worry about pleasing the 'instant gratification' crybabies...

Edited February 12, 2012 by Yvin
removed quote + reply

[JerokTalram]

Do you Op realize that every single patch BW adds only implements more bugs to this game?

 

exggerate much?

[marshalleck]

So to recap Goreson's fanboy defense:

 

1) it's the players' fault for not liking bugs and shoddy/outdated designs which didn't work well in other games years ago

 

2) we should be "married" to a game, in terms of commitment. Despite the fact that we're paying for a product, and not a pairing of mutual consent. I wonder if Goreson is paying someone to be his wife?

Edited February 12, 2012 by marshalleck

[Warjhinn]

A lot of the MMO old school community know what to expect.... this game was far worse than what was expected. More bugs, glitches, balance issues than should have been released.

 

MMOers are fickle now, we expect better from a company. And it will only be tougher in the future for companies.

 

Stone wheel... wooden wheel.... metal wheel... rubber wheel.... The shape doesn't really change, but the materials used to make it does.... a stone wheel covered in rubber just doesn't cut it.

 

Your example is apples and oranges.

 

No one wants to play a jazzed up version of Ultima Online" The Stone Wheel". The time make the wheel is what is being discussed.

 

You want a wheel thats better than the last best wheel. You want it now. Should be able to walk in there and get it. Then you find out that the machines need retooled to make it, and before that, there has to be a good plan for it, and some one to program the machines, ETC ETC...

 

The machines can make cool modern wheels faster than they used to, but you want it NOW!!!!!

 

This release was fantastic by comparison to the majority of prior MMO releases. It even beat out the current giants as release goes. It has been 2 months, stuff's happening, changes and additions are being made... but you want it Yesterday, and at the very latest, NOW!!!!

 

Go down to the car dealer, desscribe the perfect car that you want, and without making any compromise to your vision, see just how long it takes to get it. I bet it's not NOW, unless of course you want to make a few compromises and just buy what they have already made.

[IIII-IIII-IIII]

How about just actually fixing something they claim is "fixed"?

 

You mistook my usage of the word "fix". That wasn't in relation to repairing an issue but rather the mentality of todays gamers: instant fix...then boredom sets in, moves on.

 

A.D.D. gamers.

[Edzew]

The problem was that WOW came out and showed everyone that settling for 300K of subs was unnecessary. So Sony/LA decided they wanted more subs and thought they needed a simpler game with a jedi base class to attract the masses.

 

and killed the game!!! wow and swg wer fighting for subs and they were both close. then nge hit and everyone left and went to wow. LA is the one to blame. them and good ole george.

[gurugeorge]

The argument that "it's 2012 waaah waaah" doesn't hold much water. Also, any analogy to widget-making of any kind is inept. Games aren't as much like widgets as they are like works of art with some widgety aspects.

 

Making MMOs is still the pinnacle of the game-maker's art, still the hardest possible type of game to make. It hasn't really gotten any easier in 7 years.

 

The degree of polish and finish SWTOR launched with compared to WoW is about right - i.e. SWTOR was a bit more polished, etc., on launch than WoW. That's about what you can expect for 7 years of progress in this most difficult art.

 

If you don't understand that, then MMOs aren't the genre for you.