Boring Static World of SWTOR

[Thaerakiel]

You can see the true focus of the development was missions/talking NPCs/voice acting.

Not that I don't enjoy that part of the game but everything else seems to have suffered greatly as a result. Especially character design, clothing, worlds ect...

[LeandraNyx]

While I've enjoyed much of the game, sadly I very much agree on this point. I feel like they made the worlds way too big, like they were going for scale to try to impart a feeling of epicness, but in the end it just made them feel empty and tedious to travel through. I know there are other people out there because the chat box tells me Corellia has 35 people on it, but it's rare to actually come across someone else outside of the spaceport. Makes me sad.

 

Also I was surprised to find that I cared about there not being a night/day cycle. I didn't think that would bother me, but now I feel like it's one of the big reasons the worlds feel very static.

Edited February 14, 2012 by LeandraNyx

[Kellindell]

Watch animal activity, or lack there of. Animals dont travel in groups, they dont graze, they dont drink. They dont move outside a small 10 foot circle, if they move at all. The world is pretty horrible, but this really killed it for me.

 

Also, why cant I go anywhere that doesnt involve a quest? Neverwinter nights single player had more open world then this game. Its just flat expanses of land with nothing until you reach the next area to kill stuff for a quest. No empty houses to RP in, no groups of baddies or creatures or monsters that arent required for a quest. Just solo animals that have no "life" to them dotting the countryside here and there.

[Cancrizans]

I can't get these type of complaints at all. The NPCs have the most life like animations and action of any MMO I have played. Where are these NPC events and all the rest people keep knocking SWTOR for in the other popular MMOs? NOWHERE. So what is it that justifies the idea that this game world feels empty while others do not.

 

Personally I do feel they need to allow more players in each planet instance...especially since the low numbers mess with world PvP. But I do not remember encountering more people while leveling in WoW and LOTRO tbh, not significantly more anyway.

 

There is probably some tweaking that needs to be done that would reduce some of this feeling people have about "emptiness" but that feeling is not being produced by the things most people mention, because if you compare the areas of criticism side by side with other games, they do not compare poorly, exactly the opposite.

 

I think there may be some collection of intangibles that gives people a feeling that the game world is "empty"...but don't blame it on the NPCs, because as far as animations and the rest they are top notch.

[RycheMykola]

Watch animal activity, or lack there of. Animals dont travel in groups, they dont graze, they dont drink. They dont move outside a small 10 foot circle, if they move at all. The world is pretty horrible, but this really killed it for me.

 

Also, why cant I go anywhere that doesnt involve a quest? .

 

1.)LOL.

 

2.)You don't need a quest to go to certain areas or planets. Feel free to travel to where you want.

 

Hopefully GW2 has grazing and drinking animals for you. Hopefully the stream is nice and peaceful with lots of flowers too.

[Zag_Stratos]

Forced to greatly agree with this post. The game is amazing but nothing stands out of the crowd. Simple details that we're used to see in pretty much any games since early 2000...

 

- Night and Day

- Weather effects on planets

- NPCs just walking around town and chitchatting...

- Cantinas are well, not very cantina like.

 

However, things that depressed me...

 

When you're on the Empire station, it's neat, there's quite a lot of details even if it's a bit lifeless... When you jump on the Republic one, you immediately see the copy paste in there... However to make it worse, the reflection on the droids or shiny surface are from IMPERIAL station. The kioks where people sells stuff are empty and there's nothing. Compare the Biochem vendor on Empire side and than jump republic... Republic is an empty desk with an NPC and a little table. Empire side has little trees, some used stimps on the desk, dirt and what not..

 

 

Basically, it lacks some severe polishing and I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't make a new Station for republic in the distant years.

[Cancrizans]

Watch animal activity, or lack there of. Animals dont travel in groups, they dont graze, they dont drink. They dont move outside a small 10 foot circle, if they move at all. The world is pretty horrible, but this really killed it for me.

 

Also, why cant I go anywhere that doesnt involve a quest? Neverwinter nights single player had more open world then this game. Its just flat expanses of land with nothing until you reach the next area to kill stuff for a quest. No empty houses to RP in, no groups of baddies or creatures or monsters that arent required for a quest. Just solo animals that have no "life" to them dotting the countryside here and there.

 

Hmm this bit about the animals is probably true, hadn't really thought about it that much.

 

I mean in a way it isn't anything big, but WoW and LOTRO both have some animal behavior, from pathing to basic herding etc, maybe that gives the impression of more "life" to the world idk.

Edited February 14, 2012 by Cancrizans

[Tygranir]

You say the world doesn't feel alive?

 

Looks pretty lively to me.

[Zakua]

You can see the true focus of the development was missions/talking NPCs/voice acting.

Not that I don't enjoy that part of the game but everything else seems to have suffered greatly as a result. Especially character design, clothing, worlds ect...

 

I agree. I hate to come off mean but it's almost like they sat in awe over the voicing and when other aspects came up they said " doesn't matter just listen to all the VOICES!" lol....

 

I hate seeing all the bashing going around and I do not want to be a part of it. I am a huge SW fan and I know any game cannott be all I want and tailored to my style....So I'll sit and hope there's more in store for the future.

 

These guys did a good job with what they have done so far.

[RycheMykola]

Forced to greatly agree with this post. The game is amazing but nothing stands out of the crowd. Simple details that we're used to see in pretty much any games since early 2000...

 

- Night and Day

- Weather effects on planets

- NPCs just walking around town and chitchatting...

- Cantinas are well, not very cantina like.

 

.

There are NPC's walking around town and chit chatting, you can evesdrop on there conversations.

 

Cantinas are very cantina like. The small ones are kind of bland, like a whole in the wall bar. They have a jukebox though.

The larger ones have full bands with people dancing, people drinking, bartenders, people puking, etc.............

Whats your Definition of "cantina like"?

 

Weather effects - Hoth has Blizzards, Dromund Kass has rain, are you hoping for snow on Tattoine?

 

Night Day - true, not in game. hardly game breaking though. Not all planets have a 24 hour day/night cycle. Also, not all planets are like Earth. For example, Venus takes 243 earth days to rotate on its Axis. Mars rotates on its axis every 24.6 earth hours.

[hizzler]

I have to agree greatly with this, and I have posted a couple of threads in the same context. Once I hit 50 and ended my class quest there was nothing to look back to..This game severley lacks depth. No exploration, no day/night cycles, no moving parts within the world itself. No immersion, no dynamics on continuing to play. All you people claiming that this is BW first attempt at mmo. Yes, I agree and it has been successful in some respect, but there are obvious things that exist in FREE (Yeah FREE) MMO's out there that lack in SWTOR. One of the very first complaints I had in beta testing was that afk timeout session. I claimed "If I am going to be paying $15 a month for a game I should be allowed to stand there and be a part of the "living" enviorment around me". Sometimes I like to just sit and examine my stats while things happen around me. In SWTOR there is nothing to catch you off guard or listen to someone negotiating a deal for some armor or just building a camp and chilling out while grinding some levels. Since day 1 of playing this game I wondered what was missing and hoping by the time I finished my class quest I would figure out and I finally have thanks to this post... This game has no soul!! It's the ginger of MMOs. They have taken the strcuture of WoW (which I have never played) and expected people to jump thier ship for WoW in space.

 

Souless. I have hope for this game if devs and community managers see posts like this, and give rightful due props to those MMO's that took the chances, and innovated on ideas to move the mmo genre forward, and not sideways with a different skin and implement some meaningful upgrades to this game. As of last week I have unsubbed, so nuff said.

 

Wait, one last thing, I still remember great PVP: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4hYVEgYDKI

[BobaFurz]

I skipped two whole planets just doing pvp and space mission and the class quests.

[LovarBoy]

Anyone recognised the clon army in cantinas or mob groups? They ALL look the same, just go to the cantina in Alderaan or mob groups in Tatooine - one character model and copied x-times - it is awful.

 

Star Wars - Attack of Copy & the Paste - that should be the real title of the game.

[Lord_Remath]

Cattle don't realize they're lined up at the slaughterhouse until the hammer rises above their heads.

 

Don't sweat it too much.

 

 

This is the same reason why FFXIV failed. Fanboys blind rage and insult people, telling them to quit the game and then they are baffled when the game tanks and it goes free-to-play.

 

Not that I'm saying TOR is tanking, but pushing people away will only hurt us. Never, ever think you can support an MMORPG on your own

[Melkathi]

Where are these NPC events and all the rest people keep knocking SWTOR for in the other popular MMOs? NOWHERE. So what is it that justifies the idea that this game world feels empty while others do not.

 

Want me to post screenshots?

[Melkathi]

Weather effects - Hoth has Blizzards, Dromund Kass has rain, are you hoping for snow on Tattoine?

 

Hoth has blizzards? Never noticed any :/

Edited February 14, 2012 by Melkathi

[utuwer]

Rift started it 1st event in 1.2 (after around 2-3 months), and it was not even any good( it finished even before players were able to realized what was happening). We are at 1.1.3 lol. So just be patient i think.

[LovarBoy]

Rift started it 1st event in 1.2 (after around 2-3 months), and it was not even any good( it finished even before players were able to realized what was happening). We are at 1.1.3 lol. So just be patient i think.

 

 

 

No, it started with 1.1 "River of Souls" ~ 1 month after Release. Have to say that the first time the event started it was quite crashing servers, but they handled it very well.

 

And with 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5 and 1.6 there were other events.

 

 

 

 

1.2 will be implemented in ~ 4-6 weeks and there is NO public testing up to now - what kind of monster-bug-patch should we expect?

[Zakua]

This is the same reason why FFXIV failed. Fanboys blind rage and insult people, telling them to quit the game and then they are baffled when the game tanks and it goes free-to-play.

 

Not that I'm saying TOR is tanking, but pushing people away will only hurt us. Never, ever think you can support an MMORPG on your own

 

Well said!!

[RycheMykola]

Hoth has blizzards? Never noticed any :/

 

Yup. Mind you they aren't blinding or where you can get lost, etc............bet I've seen a couple so far.

 

If Bioware did implement Blizzards where you couldn't see, etc...............the people complaining about weather effects would be the first ones complaining about Blizzards being too strong.

 

This games far from perfect. But saying the game isn't immersive or the worlds are bland because there isn't day/night or weather is ridiculous. This is like me saying WOW is a fail game because my Dwarf Priest wears a cloth belt that is bigger than the WWE championship belt.

[Traumahawk]

I'l repost it then:

 

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

 

Enough on the poorly designed impossible static worlds topic for you?

 

Good post. And the truth of the matter is that I would give up every megabyte of voice over files in exchange for more immersion and a more solid game experience.

[Zakua]

Good post. And the truth of the matter is that I would give up every megabyte of voice over files in exchange for more immersion and a more solid game experience.

 

cheers to that!

[Alpha-Llama]

What game are you playing? Everything is more lively and lifelike than TOR lol. AOC, WoW, EQ2. The fact that you can't loop music in TOR and the seeming lack of music alone hurts it. There's so many things from how there's no smaller wildlife running around or any nature like things going on, no day/night/weather cycles, bad draw on plantlife. it's just laughable, that's not all the little details that are bad either that's just everthing i can think of at the moment.

 

i'll add rift to that list > they have water you can swim in / underwater events, mounts you can ride around, small animals and birds flying around and random npc world events anyone passing by them can jump in on. Oh and festive / seasonal events for halloween , xmas , valentines etc.

 

I love tor but i only want what others want and that's for the game to have more soul to it. imagine the twin suns on tat at sunset and the music piping iin each time it happened.....

im not hatin im just saying make a good game great that's all.

 

good post OP

Edited February 14, 2012 by Alpha-Llama

[RycheMykola]

i'll add rift to that list > they have water you can swim in / underwater events, mounts you can ride around, small animals and birds flying around and random npc world events anyone passing by them can jump in on. Oh and festive / seasonal events for halloween , xmas , valentines etc.

 

I love tor but i only want what others want and that's for the game to have more soul to it. imagine the twin suns on tat at sunset and the music piping iin each time it happened.....

im not hatin im just saying make a good game great that's all.

 

good post OP

Dark Lords of the Sith exchanging valentine's days cards and boxes of chocolates.

 

Awesome.

[Alpha-Llama]

Dark Lords of the Sith exchanging valentine's days cards and boxes of chocolates.

 

Awesome.

 

you say why i say why not

 

if you take your girlfriend irl out do you go to the same place every single time ?

what im saying is add it let people have fun.

 

Join a flashpoint atm and its spacebar spacebar loot spacebar spacebar loot

leave group.

 

Make people feel part of something. Add things that are FUN and make gamers feel like they are escaping into a place they enjoy logging into and they will keep coming back. Other games i have played had fishing and xmas gifts at xmas you could give to your friends ...did i do it ? no but why not have it if other people like it that's cool too.

Edited February 14, 2012 by Alpha-Llama