Do people realise this is a new game?

[Aethyriel]

All I'm saying is it takes time to add features. Just because it's 7 years later doesn't mean that SWTOR had the development time to include 7 years of new features that Wow has had. Wow has had 7 years to add those features sure they also spent time on new content. My point is you can't expect a new MMO to have everything other established MMO have. Period.

 

As for Rift, yes they had more features but they have far less content.

 

Personally I would prefer a game to spend time on content before addons like a LFG tool.

 

Now the one feature they probably should have included in launch was a customizable UI. I was surprised when I played the beta and couldn't move stuff around. It was something that I expected because it's been in every MMO I've ever played prior to SWTOR.

 

This is simply not true about Rift. They had just as much warzones added, they also quickly had 1 10 man raid and 2 20 man raids out (where loot didn't bug like hell or was given random to players). You had a reputation system on top of thatand just as much heroic dungeons. In addition, Rift constantly (!) had world events with new rifts and raidrifts or grprifts and for collectors there was a pretty fun (even if it took very long) artifact collection to gather.

 

On top of the somewhat more content Rift offered they also had the best class system I've seen thus far. A total of 32 classes where you could combine 3 out of 8 per base class any way you wanted and they made it work. Their customizable UI was also great. The system around dungeons and rewards that you could gather through commendations was also way better, crafting wasn't awesome (I've yet to see a game besides EVE that gets this right) but you had dailies at least and epic schematics that you could work for.

 

Overall, Rift had a smoother launch, quickly added and fixed what was neccesary and all that while having a much smaller budget... that's what I can't understand. You have such a big company with THAT franchise and you deliver an unpolished game with less features and little less content than Trions Rift, that's just dissapointing.

 

People always talk about content, but content is worth nothing if you can't experience it. What good would 5 new heroic FPS do if you have to sit around on the fleet all day looking for a grp? That's what an lfg tool is for: you can do other stuff while automatically having the LFG tool spam "lfg FP xy" for you. It's not like LFG destroys the community because you miss the great oppertunity to whisper someone with "inv" when their "lfm" matches your goal.

 

Nobody expects SWTOR to be as polished as WoW, but we are talking about key features that are missing and that have been around for years now, it's not like all the stuff was just recently invented by Blizz and WoW is definetly not the only game to have those features. What did they spend their time on then? Fixing Ilum all the *********** time without ever getting it right? Reminds me of Wintergrasp open pvp crap that never worked out either. Did they design exciting new ways to complete quests? Nope, same old stuff you've seen anywhere else you just can listen to every guy who wants you to kill somebody for him or disable some turrets or whatever and answer the exact same way, 90% of the time.

 

They just got lazy because SW, the name itself, attracts a huge crowd, but it won't last forever. I really like the story part of the game and would love to see it continue, reason I stick around, but BW seems to be overextended with mmo design, all their SP games were somewhat the same... great story and all, but bugs to no end, crappy programming, bad balancing, weird combat mechanics....

 

but, doesn't matter any way, in the end we'll just have to wait and see.

[gurugeorge]

I suggest everyone go to the AoC, EQ 2 and LoTRo forums and read some of those posts that havent changed on bit over the years.

 

There is nothing wrong with the game.

Anyone saying anything bad about the game should quit and go back to WoW.

The company is working on the game so you have no reason to complain.

 

All are F2P, have 1/10th the playerbase it did at release and they sound just like many people here...blinders, they will stay on until the game is dead instead of actually HELPING get Bioware to listen to players and try to improve the game.

 

A complaint, doesnt mean the person HATES the game and wants it to FAIL. A request or demand for some kind of content is not a reason for you to complain they are asking for it.

 

Take the blinders off, work WITH people to improve the game...its YOUR game as well and YOU stand to benefit from it also.,,but you can also suffer for it by trying to stop people from getting Bioware to actually start LISTENING to what is being said. They havent throughout beta, ignored a TON for over a YEAR...if you allow it to continue, you are only hurting yourself.

 

This game needs a lot of content, the kind many games release with.

 

The time for excuses is over.

 

You are looking at "reasonable" critical posts, but I think most of the fanbois here are sick of the "x doesn't work therefore SWTOR is a giant FAIL and BW are Nazis and ate my babies, and the world is ending!!!!ZOMG111!!!!" type posts, of which there have been a substantial number over the past few months.

 

Sometimes good critical points get caught in the backwash, but meh, who cares, it's not as if any of the points are great mysteries that take a genius to figure out.

 

In fact, I'll wager that most things players come up with as great ideas have probably already been thought through by devs about a dozen times and either discarded or put on various piles from "possible" to "unlikely".

 

The game is the way it is:-

 

a) deliberately, by design, and

b) under constraints of time and money and publisher pressure.

 

As to content, it's not like that's some mysterious thing either. Of course more content is going to come. However, to suggest that SWTOR on launch was content light is ludicrous.

[evidlante]

The thing about this game is that there is a lot programmed into this game. Not all of it likes to work together.

A great example would be the voice acting for every character. Take that and put in a small cut scene, facial movement and body movement. Now imagine the amount of programming it takes for something like that and give it to every quest giver in the game. One one planet, your looking at maybe 20+ Npcs that give quests that when talked to, starting up a cut scene for each and every single player and making it so its their personal scene. On top of that, there are choices that change the route of the cut scene.

The same could be said for space combat and other features. Little to no MMOs have ever tried to do something this big.

[Astron_]

The thing about this game is that there is a lot programmed into this game. Not all of it likes to work together.

A great example would be the voice acting for every character. Take that and put in a small cut scene, facial movement and body movement. Now imagine the amount of programming it takes for something like that and give it to every quest giver in the game. One one planet, your looking at maybe 20+ Npcs that give quests that when talked to, starting up a cut scene for each and every single player and making it so its their personal scene. On top of that, there are choices that change the route of the cut scene.

The same could be said for space combat and other features. Little to no MMOs have ever tried to do something this big.

 

Don't know if serious and just completely ignorant about how programming and game-design works or trolling. At least you gave me a good chuckle, thanks.

Edited February 13, 2012 by Astron_

[GalacticKegger]

The majority realise this is a new game. The minority who don't care are the ones screaming the loudest. They'll eventually hyperventilate and pass out. Fortunately it's limited to a handful on the forums and isn't representitive of the in-game community.

 

http://www.galactickegger.com/SWTOR/Screenshot_2012-02-12_18_29_28_062500.jpg

 

To answer OP's post, the argument that "every other MMO has robust content and features so it should have been there at launch for SWTOR" doesn't fly with anyone who's ever toiled on the back end of one of these. Features aren't shareware apps one can simply download and plug in. They are created from scratch, and with scratch programming comes debugging - endless debugging. The two most compared MMOs are SWG and WoW. Technologies newer than theirs will never replace the time and resource requirements to draft, model, program, test and implement them. That is unless the code either writes itself, or SOE and Blizz feel compelled to share their source code and programmers with BioWare. Then I could see having more of their stuff in place and working right away - assuming that's what BioWare wants. Otherwise those expectations are pipe-dream unrealistic.

Edited February 13, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[Thando]

hahahah O M G i am crying to the dude who said the game is designed the way it should be ....He clearly is sucking someones ...lolipop at BW. or he has never sat 1 foot in the damn game as there is so many problems and issues in the game that its just downright freaking horrible to charge people 15.00 a month for beta.

 

If you would like I can name probably a dozen different things off the top of my head that is just horribly wrong that they have tried to fix patch after patch after patch and it just keeps getting worst. These guys clearly have no clue. The problem is, there is really no other game out there cept WoW and majority of us hate it, so they get our 15.00 a month for the next month or so in hopes that these idiots hire someone who knows whats going on and actually starts fixing things startin with major issue 1 then major issue 2 and actually fixing it the FIRST TIME round for that individual. Sadly that will not happen. This game will die in 6 months MAX...it will be F2p if they do not fix the majority of these issues come Marchs patch. Mark my words, write it down, take a picture Why you think so many servers are dead and people are crying adn re rolling to the mor populated servers??

 

WAKE THE F#$K up BW and fix your sorry ***** game already. 150.00 for CE of the game and all the people that bought it should be enough to actually get your freaking patches correct. Here is a thought that you should pass on to your Devs... USE THE MOTHER****ING TEST SERVER since you have one?!?!? Just a freaking thought you clueless idiots.

 

Sincerely,

 

Ron

[Traven]

ToR has PvP which is an unbalanced mess.

 

Open world? Don't make me laugh. The worlds are a bunch of corridors, and the worse part are they are utterly dead...no ambience, no life, no atmosphere that sucks you in.

 

Space gets boring after 3-4 space-missions. A 2012 200-million dollar budget and all they came up with is a standard 1990's arcade railshooter?? Hilarious.

 

Endgame is same old same old....dungeons filled with boring trash. There's nothing new and original and the boss-mechanics have been seen hundreds time before in WoW.

 

Don't even go into the crafting bit in SW:ToR. Crafting is useless post-50, there's no economy nor any incentive to build one because of this fail design and the GTN-UI is so bad most people are scratching their heads in disbelief on how this could have been cleared for launch.

 

QFT.

 

Not to mention the worlds seem abosolutely lifeless. I would like there to be day cycles, wind, rain, snowstorms,random sounds(birds singing etc.) Anything that would make these planets feel alive.

[stormie_sarge]

You're off your rocker if you think the customers are the ones responsible for providing themselves with a proper product.

 

I'm not even sure you truly grasp the meaning of what you wrote.

 

I grasp what I wrote, what I am comparing to is the peopel that think everything should be done for them without any effort. They want easy loot, easy groups, no interaction, and all the benefits that are provided. People demand that they have everything WOW has brought about through many years of playtesting and such. You expect a competitor to copy all these long tested innovations in the industry (which if they copied the code from blizz, it is one hell of a lawsuit). SO they have to heavily playtest the concept until it is stable enough to be launched. Also given that I suspect that there is alot of other innovations other then copying other MMOs being developed by BW, I would give them time and enjoy the product they have out now instead of skipping everything just because you only enjoy one aspect. If that is your goal why are you playing this game to begin with? if you want you WOW, SWG, wtc in new game form?

[Beergogglez]

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?

 

Do you write hallmark cards btw?

[GalacticKegger]

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?

You forgot the part where the cake enthusiasts trash the bakery and spit on its customers. Edited February 14, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[RhettMelton]

In response to the OP,

 

I feel like it's a combination of the new MMO community and people's short attention span.. people expect so much for $15/month, and it's totally impractical. If you take into account how long computers alone have been around, and what software actually is (along with how the development process works), then you'll see this game as a masterpiece. Its aim was to represent the Star Wars universe in an MMO, and so far it's done that. Unfortunately, the spoiled adolescents that play MMO's these days can't appreciate it, and if it's not up to their (unrealistic) standards, then they don't want it.

 

What's ironic is, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes was damn near the perfect MMO, but because people wouldn't give it a chance, it didn't have the money to fix the bugs and sustain a healthy infrastructure. The software was there, the creative minds where there, but the greedy, short-attention spans of the target audience (MMO players in general) made it impossible to survive.. it's sad, it really is.

 

So, in short, blame it on this new generation of unrealistic-expectation/short attention span having adolescents, because they're the reason that WoW is still dominant.. I mean seriously, Pandas? ...pandas? Give me a ****in break.. The casual audience has taken over the industry like a plague, and it deeply saddens me..

[DigitalDreamz]

In response to the OP,

 

I feel like it's a combination of the new MMO community and people's short attention span.. people expect so much for $15/month, and it's totally impractical. If you take into account how long computers alone have been around, and what software actually is (along with how the development process works), then you'll see this game as a masterpiece. Its aim was to represent the Star Wars universe in an MMO, and so far it's done that. Unfortunately, the spoiled adolescents that play MMO's these days can't appreciate it, and if it's not up to their (unrealistic) standards, then they don't want it.

 

What's ironic is, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes was damn near the perfect MMO, but because people wouldn't give it a chance, it didn't have the money to fix the bugs and sustain a healthy infrastructure. The software was there, the creative minds where there, but the greedy, short-attention spans of the target audience (MMO players in general) made it impossible to survive.. it's sad, it really is.

 

So, in short, blame it on this new generation of unrealistic-expectation/short attention span having adolescents, because they're the reason that WoW is still dominant.. I mean seriously, Pandas? ...pandas? Give me a ****in break.. The casual audience has taken over the industry like a plague, and it deeply saddens me..

 

Another example of the SWTOR community. Personal attacks, finger pointing and crying. If this development team can't compete against professional software companies who CAN release titles that stand up to present day standards. Well then they need to stick with indie games or get a new profession.

 

If I asked you which game was released in 2012 without you knowing either title, only information you had was this:

 

single threaded engine 32 bit client directx9 vs. multithreaded engine 64 bit client directx11.

 

Which would you think was the newer game?

[GalacticKegger]

Another example of the SWTOR community. Personal attacks, finger pointing and crying. If this development team can't compete against professional software companies who CAN release titles that stand up to present day standards. Well then they need to stick with indie games or get a new profession.

Or some of us will simply play it and some of us won't. Edited February 14, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[TonyACT]

In response to the OP,

 

I feel like it's a combination of the new MMO community and people's short attention span.. people expect so much for $15/month, and it's totally impractical. If you take into account how long computers alone have been around, and what software actually is (along with how the development process works), then you'll see this game as a masterpiece. Its aim was to represent the Star Wars universe in an MMO, and so far it's done that. Unfortunately, the spoiled adolescents that play MMO's these days can't appreciate it, and if it's not up to their (unrealistic) standards, then they don't want it.

 

What's ironic is, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes was damn near the perfect MMO, but because people wouldn't give it a chance, it didn't have the money to fix the bugs and sustain a healthy infrastructure. The software was there, the creative minds where there, but the greedy, short-attention spans of the target audience (MMO players in general) made it impossible to survive.. it's sad, it really is.

 

So, in short, blame it on this new generation of unrealistic-expectation/short attention span having adolescents, because they're the reason that WoW is still dominant.. I mean seriously, Pandas? ...pandas? Give me a ****in break.. The casual audience has taken over the industry like a plague, and it deeply saddens me..

 

Sorry, Vanguard was pretty much an unplayable piece of dross at launch and for some time thereafter.

 

Been playing MMOs for years before I bought it and was very disappointed.

 

Nothing to do with a short attention span - there are too many games out there as alternatives for a new game to compete with if it is not pretty good at launch.

[Morthis]

So, in short, blame it on this new generation of unrealistic-expectation/short attention span having adolescents, because they're the reason that WoW is still dominant.. I mean seriously, Pandas? ...pandas? Give me a ****in break.. The casual audience has taken over the industry like a plague, and it deeply saddens me..

 

Can you actually give me some sort of explanation as to why pandas in a game is such a bad thing? It's not like WoW takes itself seriously, I'm really not seeing why they're such a terrible race, except that it's a bit goofy (but as I said, WoW doesn't exactly take itself seriously, it's filled with goofy stuff).

 

The thing about this game is that there is a lot programmed into this game. Not all of it likes to work together.

A great example would be the voice acting for every character. Take that and put in a small cut scene, facial movement and body movement. Now imagine the amount of programming it takes for something like that and give it to every quest giver in the game. One one planet, your looking at maybe 20+ Npcs that give quests that when talked to, starting up a cut scene for each and every single player and making it so its their personal scene. On top of that, there are choices that change the route of the cut scene.

The same could be said for space combat and other features. Little to no MMOs have ever tried to do something this big.

 

Just so you know, a graphics engine includes animations normally. All the people designing these things have to do is use some tools to tell the engine how a character should move, and the animation engine blends the various animations together. They are not writing code to do this, they use tools. There's a big difference between people writing code, and people doing the design. The designers use tools provided by the coders, their expertise is how a good class is made, how a good area is designed, how good quests/stories are written, etc, not how to turn all that into code. This is why for designers, experience (especially with shipped products) is key, you can't exactly get a degree in how to design a good and original concept for a class.

Edited February 14, 2012 by Morthis

[DigitalDreamz]

Can you actually give me some sort of explanation as to why pandas in a game is such a bad thing? It's not like WoW takes itself seriously, I'm really not seeing why they're such a terrible race, except that it's a bit goofy (but as I said, WoW doesn't exactly take itself seriously, it's filled with goofy stuff).

 

The community here believes it's the trendy thing to do. Which is to attack a game that sports 7 times the sub numbers this game has. Also it's very funny watching these apologists say how bad WoW is when SWTOR openly admits to copy/pasting WoWs mechanics.

[TonyACT]

Can you actually give me some sort of explanation as to why pandas in a game is such a bad thing? It's not like WoW takes itself seriously, I'm really not seeing why they're such a terrible race, except that it's a bit goofy (but as I said, WoW doesn't exactly take itself seriously, it's filled with goofy stuff).

 

Plus pandas have been in Warcraft since way back when in the RTS days.

[oakamp]

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. The game has some fantastic unique features, the dialogue quests and storyline being one of the biggest. Is it perfect, no, but then is any game at Launch?

 

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?

 

do u have a job ever?

in our country, we care less about noob,

if u cant do ur assignment ASAP,

then ur supervisor will yell at you and fire u ASAP.

 

same situation with this game, BW, EA.

[GalacticKegger]

The community here believes it's the trendy thing to do. Which is to attack a game that sports 7 times the sub numbers this game has. Also it's very funny watching these apologists say how bad WoW is when SWTOR openly admits to copy/pasting WoWs mechanics.

Out in force tonight I see. Well you kids have fun and be sure to clean up after yourselves. Time to go play. Edited February 14, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[Knewt]

I'm having a déjà vu moment here. This discussion feel so familiar. It's almost like we've we've had pages and pages of this exact discussion but on a different day.

[RhettMelton]

@TonyACT

Vanguard was definitely a buggy mess, but it got loads better after about a year. My point was that it had tons of great content, and alot of potential, but it simply couldn't survive because everyone wrote it off from the start.. hell, it was even great 6 months after release. I stuck with it for over a year, but most people won't do that. My point is that software will never be perfect from the start, and people have to support potential when it's staring them in the face.. SWTOR isn't perfect, but it's a very stable foundation to build off of, and if people will just stick around I can see this game getting alot better.

 

@Morthis

Pandas just seems outlandish right off the bat..

I played WoW for two years, starting on the day it was released, and it was awesome.. it was buggy, and content was bare, but I stuck with it and it got pretty damn awesome.. then the expansions started coming, and it's gone downhill ever since. And now it's gotten to the point where Pandas are being introduced, and all I can do is laugh at it. It just doesn't seem like a step in the right direction is all I'm saying.. WoW used to be for hardcore gamers, and now it very clearly isn't.

[TonyACT]

@TonyACT

Vanguard was definitely a buggy mess, but it got loads better after about a year. My point was that it had tons of great content, and alot of potential, but it simply couldn't survive because everyone wrote it off from the start.. hell, it was even great 6 months after release. I stuck with it for over a year, but most people won't do that. My point is that software will never be perfect from the start, and people have to support potential when it's staring them in the face.. SWTOR isn't perfect, but it's a very stable foundation to build off of, and if people will just stick around I can see this game getting alot better.

 

@Morthis

Pandas just seems outlandish right off the bat..

I played WoW for two years, starting on the day it was released, and it was awesome.. it was buggy, and content was bare, but I stuck with it and it got pretty damn awesome.. then the expansions started coming, and it's gone downhill ever since. And now it's gotten to the point where Pandas are being introduced, and all I can do is laugh at it. It just doesn't seem like a step in the right direction is all I'm saying.. WoW used to be for hardcore gamers, and now it very clearly isn't.

 

Hey again - agree with you re Vanguard - came back after a year but it was empty - much better, but empty.

 

My point is, there are so many great alternatives out there that if a game doesn't have its act together very early, then I won't pay for a year of fees to subsidise its improvement - much better things to do with my money, and judging by Vanguard, AoC, STO etc etc lots of other folks feel the same way.

 

I just hope this one isn't heading the same way - kinda had fun so far - but not enough to pay for another month just yet.

[RhettMelton]

All I want is for people to stop jumping from MMO to MMO and support something with potential.. it's like the thought process is "Nope, this isn't perfect. Time to go back to WoW".. as if the laws of capitalism don't exist.

 

Support someone other than blizzard is all I'm advocating.

WoW is a nice and polished game, but it's no longer fun because it's to damn casual.

 

Give another company some money, let them grow/correct mistakes, and allow some competition to develop.

[-dtheartist-]

Can you actually give me some sort of explanation as to why pandas in a game is such a bad thing? It's not like WoW takes itself seriously, I'm really not seeing why they're such a terrible race, except that it's a bit goofy (but as I said, WoW doesn't exactly take itself seriously, it's filled with goofy stuff).

 

Not to mention the casual player base is what you want to target in today's MMO market. The Hardcore or those that think they are makes up a very small percentage of the overall community in any MMO.

 

SWTOR seems to have tried to compete directly with the setup games like WoW, EQ, etc have been based on. However without the tools that have been developed for this (LFR, dungeon finder, UI addons, etc) they come up short on what they can offer. I was surprised when reaching end-game it turns into your typical mmo game of gear grinding in hardmodes and/or operations or warzones. On the end-game front they cannot compare to the other MMOs of this style out there.

 

I had really high hope for SWTOR prior to launch, hell even bought the CE, but like someone mentioned in an earlier post usually nowadays a new MMO game has about 3 months average to show what they got and try and hold the player base. In today's economy it doesn't cut it anymore to stick with a game that is trying to improve itself in the coming months and expect its customers to pay a monthly fee. Hence why the rise of F2P is popular with gaming companies since they can take the time to continue to make their game better without asking for a monthly fee as a standard.

[TonyACT]

All I want is for people to stop jumping from MMO to MMO and support something with potential.. it's like the thought process is "Nope, this isn't perfect. Time to go back to WoW".. as if the laws of capitalism don't exist.

 

Support someone other than blizzard is all I'm advocating.

WoW is a nice and polished game, but it's no longer fun because it's to damn casual.

 

Give another company some money, let them grow/correct mistakes, and allow some competition to develop.

 

I have gone back to EQ2 to support them for a while, a game with realised potential. People will continue to jump while there are better games to jump to.

 

As for 'too damn casual' - this game is the epitome of that.