Am I just MMO'd out?

[Sarfux]

After much deliberation and seeing what you have written on behalf of the glorious game that is SWTOR I have come to this conclusion:

 

Yes

 

Farewell o/

[Criosdh]

I think devolpers have a skewed idea about the features players want. they are making single player games with online features. Games that had multiple starting cities a large variety of races and did not focus on a funnel structure seem to have longer sub cycles . Devolpers need to prove to investors its better to have400k subs consitent for a year then sell 1 million copies and have 200 k stable subs and the rest leave or churn in 30 day increments. the problem is publishers wont alow that as they get 100% of box sales and split the subs between devolper and I.P. .Big sales mean big qrtr for the publisher, it does nothing for the community or the player , they dont reup invetment into the game until 6 to 9 months after release, then they usally green light funds for a expansion. TOR will not grow much in the next year if the player base thinks they will get a Rift like patch cycle with content you will once again be dissapointed.

 

I could not agree more.

 

Skyrim with a global chat for everyone who is playing at that moment does not make a healthy MMO. It might sell alot of copies but it won't keep people subscribed. I remember MMOs having healthy subscription bases 1 year or more after launch without releasing a single expansion. (DAoC). Now days developers roll out trashy expansions just to sucker a few quitters back into a 1 month subscription again.

 

I'm betting there are alot of companies that would love to have DAoC or EQ subscription fees instead of their whopping initial sales for a now dying game.

[Plexas]

this game is so ridiculously simple and barebones that it just made be bugger off to EVE. too bad i went with a 3 month sub... i should know better.

[Vaalix]

Whoever reads this may think im nuts but I think most of us are being affected by some outside influence in relation to 2012. And no the mayans never said its the end, just that now is a time of great changes to our conciousness. The days seem faster, driving the speed limit seems like a snails pace.. There is great change and upheveal all around us in the world.. We would be ignorant to think its not affecting the gaming industry.

 

We as mmo gamers need something fresh and new.. I knew tbe wow model would not hold people in this.. Even though the diehards of that game said otherwise for the past year.

 

I dont have all the answers but its goimg to take a completely new mmo philosopy and design to appease the new concioisness we are experiencing. Its evolution my friends.. We are changing but our mmos are lagging behind due to the nature of how long they take to make.

[Floydshayvious]

People have moved away from the social aspect of the game... and for MMORPGs, the whole reason you would even play one was for the social aspect. It has indeed turned into a single-player game and is not that much different than playing say a RPG game online. You don't socialize in those games either...

 

Cutting the quote short but I've got to agree with this whole post right here as being a big aspect of the problem for MMORPGs right now, but not all of it. On my last log in I was looking at the droves of 50s standing around the fleet PVP daily box and every single one I inspected was social rank 1. I was taken back a great deal by that realization. When you cant run for 5 seconds in a 2 month gold MMORPG without seeing dozens of 50's that dont even need to socialize/group in the slightest to get there a whole new level of "hmm..." sets in for where the genre is heading and why for me. Sometimes I wonder if the internet is turning humans into some kind of zombie species.

[Vaalix]

Cutting the quote short but I've got to agree with this whole post right here as being a big aspect of the problem for MMORPGs right now, but not all of it. On my last log in I was looking at the droves of 50s standing around the fleet PVP daily box and every single one I inspected was social rank 1. I was taken back a great deal by that realization. When you cant run for 5 seconds in a 2 month gold MMORPG without seeing dozens of 50's that dont even need to socialize/group in the slightest to get there a whole new level of "hmm..." sets in for where the genre is heading and why for me. Sometimes I wonder if the internet is turning humans into some kind of zombie species.

 

Probably why bioware austin is trying to hire a social engineer on their career web page.. Imo, its way too late as he would of needed to be involved from day one. And it won't matter who they hire, theres only been one game that hit the mark on socializing in mmo's, and it was because of Raph Koster.. I think he did UO too..

[Floydshayvious]

Probably why bioware austin is trying to hire a social engineer on their career web page.. Imo, its way too late as he would of needed to be involved from day one. And it won't matter who they hire, theres only been one game that hit the mark on socializing in mmo's, and it was because of Raph Koster.. I think he did UO too..

 

I cant speak of UO because I have so much nostalgic bias towards it it's not even funny - but I agree with you on both points (UO and Consciousness ).

[Manigma]

Cutting the quote short but I've got to agree with this whole post right here as being a big aspect of the problem for MMORPGs right now, but not all of it. On my last log in I was looking at the droves of 50s standing around the fleet PVP daily box and every single one I inspected was social rank 1. I was taken back a great deal by that realization. When you cant run for 5 seconds in a 2 month gold MMORPG without seeing dozens of 50's that dont even need to socialize/group in the slightest to get there a whole new level of "hmm..." sets in for where the genre is heading and why for me. Sometimes I wonder if the internet is turning humans into some kind of zombie species.

So they have a low social rank, they still are in a group of players in the warzones and plenty of times I have chatted to certain players after the match or wanted to queue up with a premade.

 

I don't think social rank has much bearing on what you are trying to get at, servers are small enough that you often see the same players over and over in warzones too.

[gurugeorge]

Speaking as one of the "haters," it sounds like you and I agree more than we disagree. My experience was similar to yours - CoH was my first MMO as well, and it felt perfectly normal to team up with others. I still play it for that reason.

 

I was actually very surprised to find that very few other MMOs supported teaming nearly as much (IME, only Guild Wars came close to CoH in that regard). It's fine to say that's "par for the course" for MMOs, but that misses the point of the complaint.

 

Near as I can tell, WoW pretty much sets the bar for the industry, simply due to its size. Problem is, the bar is set low, and gets pushed down regularly. You may be resigned to that, and accept it as industry standard. I don't - and that seems to be where we disagree.

 

Whether it's teaming, graphics, gameplay, UI, whatever, there are so many cool innovations scattered around the MMOsphere, tucked away in niche games or games that suffered for other reasons. Bioware, a known company with a solid fanbase, sitting on a great IP and backed by a powerful publisher, apparently opted to ignore all that (plus its own system used in KotOR) in favor of the tired and overworked "industry standard." Do you really regard that as acceptable?

 

Well, the thing is, I was so puzzled about the CoX situation that over the last few years I've done a fair bit of research into it, and I've come to the conclusion that:-

 

1) it was a fluke, since

 

2) Cryptic didn't even know what they were doing - they created some non-norm synergies accidentally (I say this because CO, Cryptic's successor game was dreadful for teaming, and much more like the "casual = solo" standard of most MMOs); and Paragon have also somewhat mishandled CoX since - it's no longer the game it was, and, again, is falling into the trap of equating casual with solo. Also

 

3) I think this idea of "casual = solo" is actually ingrained in the old skool rulebook of making massively multiplayer games. I think the original idea in games like UO and EQ was that the game ought to be so difficult that you have to team up with people you meet in your travels to do quests (forced teaming), and thereby you made friends and socialized, and then maybe formed guilds. As people started to want MMOs to be easier, the burden of making the game social fell more onto guilds, and guild-making became more a "thing" to promote socializing. Hence the idea that "social = guilds", so the inevitable corollary was "casual = solo".

 

4) It's my belief that this subtle idée fixe amongst developers has poisoned the well, so to speak. If you've never played CoX to a decent level, you just won't "get" just how social a game it was for casual players, and how much casual players LOVED THAT. But this lesson from CoX just hasn't been absorbed by the industry - they're still hell-bent on the idea that "casual = solo".

 

5) It's the solo-ification of MMOs that's really rotted the whole genre. I don't mean to go back to forced teaming, but MMOs need to have the option (I don't mean just the bare option, but the fostered culture) for casual players both to solo and to PUG. Then the PUG becomes more like the field for friendships to grow again, and then lead to solid guilds made of friends.

 

(I agree about GW by the way, it's got a bit of that "PUG heaven" thing going for it, as also does DDO. But none of them can hold a candle to CoX in its heyday for being a game that casual players could play with other casual players, in groups, day in and day out, as the normal culture of the game, and without being forced to.)

 

Re. your last question: yes, it's acceptable, in the sense that the result is fun for me. It may only be fun for me for a few months, but that's good enough, and it's fun enough for me to pay the subscription for that time. Personally, I could care less about BioWare and whether, if there's a lot of "churn" from people who just play it for a few months then drop it, or whether it goes f2p or whatever - why should I care? BW do what they do, make their decisions, and live with the consequences. However, I think SWTOR will be a success for a good few years, so it's moot for me

Edited February 20, 2012 by gurugeorge

[CrackrJakz]

It's called Getting Older.

 

^^ This

[Eonz]

Nope, SWTOR just blows.

 

your opinion is just that... while the game feels incomplete, it is still much more fun then many games i've played in 2011... save for skyrim and Portal 2 (crysis 2 was epic as well)... but as far as MMOs go, this game is far superior to many other at launch... LoTRO was awful at launch... RIFT wasnt terrible... and for the fanboys... WoW was godawful.... ToR was smooth and now it will just take some time for servers to merge and transfers to be available before the population can flourish...

 

want to cancel your account because of the flaws? see you 3 months with subpar gear wishing you'd have been play the whole time.

[teambff]

who knows, or cares.

 

only you can answer that question.

 

if you're not having fun then try playing less so you're not so burnt out with it, i'm usually a hardcore mmo'er in the sense that i play around 6 hours a day when i play an mmo but i quickly realized that this isn't the type of game where one would play that much and so i scaled back my routine and i play casually with this game and i have enjoyed my time.

 

this isn't the typical mmo, where you would play 6 hours a day and grind and grind and constantly be trying to go further and further and get the carrot on the stick, etc.

 

i would suggest for anyone out there to cut back on playing so much if you find yourself not having as much fun.

 

also it's essential that one really gets into the storylines as that's basically the main aspect of the game.

 

my theory on the game is that it's a secondary game for the hardcore mmo fan, it's a casual game and not meant to be played like how the hardcore gamer would normally approach an mmo.... i would suggest that one plays 2 mmo's, 1 main one and this one as a secondary one.

 

the pvp/space quests/flashpoints aren't fleshed out enough yet to really satisfy the "hardcore mmo player" urge to constantly play and play and play.

 

so.. yes, my suggestion would be to go for this game and maybe 1 other or just a rotation of single player games.

 

if you don't think that's worth paying 14.99 for, then it's probably not worth it for you.

[nicejedi]

I think the issues are many. Too many infact.

 

As an adult SW fan, I personally feel more drawn to the characters and stories of when we were kids, the origional trilogy chars. But BW can't do anything about that. Hence a lessor impact on the adult players in story...which is suppose to be the most compelling part of SWTOR. Now the story's are decent, not superb, but interesting enough. But when the story is over, the game becomes very meh.

 

Secondly, the lack of customization to char, armor, appearance, ship, vehicles...all spell trouble for long term holding. Experienced players want ALOT of things to mess around with besides grinding daily's and re-running the same HM's over and over again. We like houses we can decorate, ships we can modify and decorate, a unique trinket or gear piece or buff item we can quest after. We like complex heroics/raids. Things with puzzles the jog our brain, not just our combat reflexes. We like complex and viable crafting, that has a wider variety so not every crafter has the same set of wares even though they are the same craft prof. Each crafting prof should have some seperate mastery skill.

 

Yes this game feels very single player ish, with the only reason to guild up is to tackle HM's. Which is something I absolutely hated about WoW. It creates no loyalty, and no comraderie, as everyone guild bounces to get into a better slot or better raid group. Which intensifies the lack of cummunity feel, as the players love you while you help them attain their goals, but are all to ready to jump ship when it may benefit them more. And it just feeds people's ego's and animosity towards each other. Rather than bringing people together for a rewarding long term game experience.

 

Set classes and talent trees are teh suq, and should of never been used. Skill based is the way to go, so every player is not cookie cutter with their talents. Level systems are single player methods, and it's sad BW took this approach. Skill based leveling is much more interesting and rewarding. And it makes it easier to add in new skills in future patches and expansion, rather than adding in more character levels for no reason, because set trees are a pain to adjust for expansion.

 

I could go on and on about why this game is subpar in so many ways. But I won't spoil the ToR lovers fun with my disdain any longer. And yes I will most likely be hitting the unsub button after I play out my fav class story's to 50, and go play swgemu and thesecretworld for a while. I may even go back to college so I can get a game designers degree so I can deliver the world something worthy of their long term entertainment.

 

BW had such a wonderful epic world & story model to build from, Star Wars...it doesn't get any better than the star wars universe for entertainment. But sadly, this opportunity was squandered on trying to copy much from WoW and adding in Voice acting. From a financial view point, I can understand why. As an adult gamer loves complexity, what a disappointment swtor is.

[Kunra]

Now don't get me wrong, SWTOR is probably one of the most polished MMOs I've ever played.....yet

 

Having played most MMOs since the days of UO and EQ I'm starting to flag in hours logged in. Having played most classes I find everything post level 20 (when you stop gaining "new powers" and instead getting upgrades to existing ones) a bit similar to the last 3-4 levels.

 

The storylines are great, but even that doesn't seem to draw me in.

 

I suppose its due to the old MMO mechanics of Tank/DPS/Healer (which even if the game allows different tactics, most parties end up playing in defined roles) and no matter if I'm fighting in a secret Imperial Manufactering plant or the Dungeon level of Lord British's castle.....the setting differs but the game "feels" similar. The last few MMOs have given me the same feeling of being a retread. Its nothing to do with Devs not being bothered to come up with something new, more they satisfy what the customer wants.

 

It give me pause to consider the term MMO, is it in fact a genre rather than a term used to describe its capabilites. Sure there's lots of different types of MMO, but the more popular ones all seem to "play" in a similar manner.

 

So as an MMO player am I fated to have a number of years playing the big guns of the MMO world before settling down to drift between niche MMO in the search of new gameplay?

 

I guess it all boils down to what the majority of the customers want. And I guess the big subscription numbers lie in not changing too much from a proven formula.

 

 

....but then again, if could just be that I'm MMO'd out

 

I was enjoying SWG more then I enjoy SWTOR. While I didnt expect this game to replace SWG, I did expect more then what was offered.

 

Money+Development=High expectations.

 

I didnt expect SWG, I expected more then WoW. Or anyother game released since WoW.

Edited February 20, 2012 by Kunra

[Caith]

If you think SW:ToR isn't an MMO.....I question your intelligence...

 

But back to the OP. I have been kinda in the same boat. I played swg for the 3 years, then wow for 7, and I havent been able to look at wow since I got into the october Beta weekend. Like, I logged on once, wandered around Org while waiting on the 40 minute random dungeon que, then logged out after 10 minutes.

 

I havent been able to play wow since. Its not even installed on my computer anymore.

 

Now I am basically reaching the same wall with TOR. I have been spending time playing other games alot lately to try and keep it fresh and it seems to be helping.

 

Oh...another thing to add to the 'TOR is not an MMO' crowd:

 

The last year or so I could have logged onto WoW and pretty much have gotten all the gear I got, epics and all, without EVER talking to a single player.

 

TOR at least I have to ask in general or guild for that kind of thing.

 

Just sayin.

[Madprophetus]

@OP -

 

Right there with ya bud. Started MMOs with EQ closed Beta after getting an invite from a friend in the gaming press.

 

I've been scratching my head with swtor trying to figure out what exactly it is that I don't like. A lot of it is that copying wow is typically a pretty good idea in a lot of regards, but it looks like they copied a bad phase of wow (burning crusade). The talent trees are completely uninspired and felt old before release.

 

The server community could and should be the strongest feature of this game. Given that there's no cross-server PVP or PVE, there's huge opportunity here to leverage the fact that we are interdependent within a server to bring people together. Instead, we get a smaller group size, an entirely solo-driven game/story model, monster do-it-all hybrid classes and a lack of interdependency.

 

I think that games should be looking more toward EQ and less toward WOW to drive the model forward again. If they could get it right with a 6+ person group, most content requiring a group, and real interdependency between the roles, it'd be a much more cohesive game world and players would have more purpose.

 

Not saying that everything from the EQ model (hell levels! *shudder*) should be copied, but the laissez faire approach to class and role design is really something that wow didn't do right by its ancestor and inspiration.

[shooterguy]

I'm getting MMO'ed out. It's the same reason I don't play FPS games any more. Just been there done that for everything. Same with RTS games.

 

I like SWTOR. It has faults like all MMOs, but I posted long ago that I knew I'd get MMO'ed out in short order.

[GOCOLTS]

there he is again, yet he is still paying to play a game that blows... lol @ you!

 

I agree with him and I'm not paying for it.

[Amp_]

Leveling is fun and different, but once you reach end game SWTOR becomes generic. It's possible it's even more noticeable since the leveling experience was so good.

[Renzetsu]

SWTOR is probably one of the most polished MMOs I've ever played

 

you made me lol