Design decisions and why the game engine hurts TOR

[Daeborn]

Well damn, I guess this horse isn't dead for some...

 

This game in many ways is much better then most I have played a few months in since release. If you don't like the game then let your money talk by taking it elsewhere and leaving it to us who have no problem paying and waiting for more improvements.

 

Bye...

Edited February 20, 2012 by Daeborn

[Ironspeed]

Some very, very weird points.

 

I don't think companions were ever supposed to be used for Flashpoints; they are very useful for Heroic quests though. If you turn off their AoE they won't break CC and they have pretty good AI.

Me and my wife are level 45, we have never grouped with anyone else yet, Mako heals for us.

 

Apart from a few tricky places (hk47 in foundry) we dont need anyone else, this is ofc normal mode.

All we needed so far was to use ctrl+2 to turn companions on passive now and then..

 

Companions for anything pre HM flashpoints seems pretty decent (except colicoid, wich we failed miserably on and never went back to).

[Temad]

What sunk things for me was when I realized that the best part of the game, the class/companion story lines, could all be experienced on Youtube in about 20 minutes. Once you remove that part you also realize that while this "MMO" is not F2P and likely won't be any time soon because it would be such a corporate fiasco, you also understand that there are a good half dozen F2P MMOs that play much, much better than SWTOR.

 

Bioware tried to create something different and for that I give them all the credit in the world. It just didn't work and I can't see anything but a redo fixing it which also isn't happening.

 

My sub ends in 2 days, good luck to you who stay and for the rest of us leaving, here is hoping something arrives for us soon.

[Drewser]

lol... so you're the one lover of 2 hour long instances filled with thash instead of real content?

 

We ran EV in an hour this week. That is simply too short for one of the games two operations.

 

Flashpoints can be done just as fast.

 

Why do you think so many are complaining about nothing to do at 50?

[Alluriss]

Once I read that, I discounted his whole post.

 

It is just a disguised "I quit" thread.

 

Given the depth of the OP's points and what his post covers it should be obvious if you have even read the entirety of the post that it is certainly not a 'I quit' post. In RL I am the OP's girlfriend and we both have the same view on the game and we are both huge fans of Starwars and Bioware games. We had both purchased new pcs for this game, both have collectors editions and really wish to love this game. We both have 6 month subs and wish to logon regularly, but do not at present do so given the points he raises in the original post.

 

The OP's views on the game is something that he wanted to express given his love for all things Bioware, nothing more.

[Frostvein]

just wanted to say something about the fps.

i have an ok pc ,nothing special,i have never even once encountered a fps drops,nowhere,ever. Smooth 60-90 fps regardless of how many people on screen.

WZ,FP,even the imperial fleet on veela where it gets to about 180 people .

Not saying it doesnt happen but its not as widespread as you claim ,imo

Never been to ilum so cant comment there

 

Can you post your specs then?

 

I just find a hard time believing I can't get over 60 FPS anywhere on my brand new machine.

[Valkirus]

Can you post your specs then?

 

I just find a hard time believing I can't get over 60 FPS anywhere on my brand new machine.

 

If you have Vsnyc on and your monitor refresh rate is set to 60 hz..you will not get over 60 fps.

Which by the way any thing over 30 fps is perfectly fine for playing a computer game....any.

Edited February 20, 2012 by Valkirus

[hugor]

I'm yet to find a Flashpoint - normal or heroic - that takes me more then 30-45m to run. There is so much you can avoid\skip, and using 'sap' (operatives\assassins cc) or smuggle you can avoid a lot more.

 

As far as your post goes, i agree entirely with your Engine analysis, that really was a bad choice by Bioware, but i consider you to be completely wrong on others. Dissing out the Warzones available? Huttball has to be the most entertaining and original warzone\bg i played with the pass the ball ability. Yes, it can get annoying with the knockbacks\whatnot, but the concept is by far the best. And there were domination (alderaan) and ctf (huttball) maps long before wow's arathi basin and warsong gulch... so that's just a ridiculous observation. Or do you really think WoW invented them?

 

Companions do what they said they would. You can easily run a hm fp with a companion healer\dps, even a tank if you take your time and play safe. Yes, they can react slowly when you pull them back, but that's not a major issue at all. And obviously, turn off their aoe abilities if you're having issues with them breaking cc , lol.

 

anyways, valid points, and others just turned into swtor bashing, wow-loving propaganda.

[Rollcageuk]

Quote:

My guess is that you didn't even read more than a sentence or two. It wasn't an "I quit" thread as much as a "I don't play anymore, and here's why". He even claims that he is waiting to see how 1.2 does when released to see if playing again is an option for him.

 

Get off your high horse and "LISTEN".

 

--------

Lol, Actually i did read his post and his feedback is in fact very valid. I said so in my post. "LISTEN" works both ways!

 

But instead of trying to give BW this feedback, he's come onto the general forum, (not suggestions )and he's said he is quitting. I don't play anymore is the same as I quit.

 

And even though he says he is waiting on 1.2, he also said he does have high hopes for it, so he's already made his mind up.

 

OP is attention seeking, proven by the fact he hasn't actually tried to tell BW all this, only a group of poeple who are still playing the game(for the most).

 

Add to that the fact there are already a pile of "I quit" threads on this forum, why not post in one of those? is his opinion so important he needs a thread of his own? That's quite an ego if he thinks so.

 

So my high horse is perfectly fine, thank you.

[Drewser]

Can you post your specs then?

 

I just find a hard time believing I can't get over 60 FPS anywhere on my brand new machine.

 

That sounds odd.

 

I had a system built in Oct and I get between 70-100 FPS. Granted I don't PvP so that would likely be lower based on the comments here.

 

My system is an i7 3.4 GHz, Nvidia GTX 560 TI, 16 GB Ram - yeah overkill for a game but I need it for work.

[Alluriss]

Quote:

My guess is that you didn't even read more than a sentence or two. It wasn't an "I quit" thread as much as a "I don't play anymore, and here's why". He even claims that he is waiting to see how 1.2 does when released to see if playing again is an option for him.

 

Get off your high horse and "LISTEN".

 

--------

Lol, Actually i did read his post and his feedback is in fact very valid. I said so in my post. "LISTEN" works both ways!

 

But instead of trying to give BW this feedback, he's come onto the general forum, (not suggestions )and he's said he is quitting. I don't play anymore is the same as I quit.

 

And even though he says he is waiting on 1.2, he also said he does have high hopes for it, so he's already made his mind up.

 

OP is attention seeking, proven by the fact he hasn't actually tried to tell BW all this, only a group of poeple who are still playing the game(for the most).

 

Add to that the fact there are already a pile of "I quit" threads on this forum, why not post in one of those? is his opinion so important he needs a thread of his own? That's quite an ego if he thinks so.

 

So my high horse is perfectly fine, thank you.

 

Well sorry to say you are completely wrong, the first thing the OP did prior to posting here was to send it to the Feedback email for Bioware after receiving the 'we appreciate your feedback email' Bioware sent recently to people. He wrote the post hoping the feedback would be useful to the dev team in some way. He posted the same here just in case it was useful for others. How do I know this? I am the OP's girlfriend Please don't jump to conclusions so quickly.

Edited February 20, 2012 by Alluriss

[Frostvein]

That sounds odd.

 

I had a system built in Oct and I get between 70-100 FPS. Granted I don't PvP so that would likely be lower based on the comments here.

 

My system is an i7 3.4 GHz, Nvidia GTX 560 TI, 16 GB Ram - yeah overkill for a game but I need it for work.

 

I have nearly the exact same setup.

 

Must be a bottleneck but I can't imagine where.

[Valkirus]

I'm yet to find a Flashpoint - normal or heroic - that takes me more then 30-45m to run. There is so much you can avoid\skip, and using 'sap' (operatives\assassins cc) or smuggle you can avoid a lot more.

 

As far as your post goes, i agree entirely with your Engine analysis, that really was a bad choice by Bioware, but i consider you to be completely wrong on others. Dissing out the Warzones available? Huttball has to be the most entertaining and original warzone\bg i played with the pass the ball ability. Yes, it can get annoying with the knockbacks\whatnot, but the concept is by far the best. And there were domination (alderaan) and ctf (huttball) maps long before wow's arathi basin and warsong gulch... so that's just a ridiculous observation. Or do you really think WoW invented them?

 

Companions do what they said they would. You can easily run a hm fp with a companion healer\dps, even a tank if you take your time and play safe. Yes, they can react slowly when you pull them back, but that's not a major issue at all. And obviously, turn off their aoe abilities if you're having issues with them breaking cc , lol.

 

anyways, valid points, and others just turned into swtor bashing, wow-loving propaganda.

 

Good post. I think the issues some have with companions may be in some situations, they have picked the wrong one to run with the class they are playing and they donot manage them correctly. My friend is a tanking spec Trooper who is using a companion who heals some, but he has her set to dps more. My player is a smuggler who is healing spec and he uses a companion set to tank and hold aggro too because if he dies , it is ok if I can keep the rest of the group up. We both have thier aoe skills shut off and I use a CC for one elite mob. With this combo, we do 4 man heroics succesfully often.

[ahnog]

Yes, the game needs improvement, WoW did too when it came out. All you, and the other posters like you, are doing is discouraging those who see the potential in the game. I refuse to be discouraged and choose optimism instead.

[Derfmiolleh]

I won't play F2P games. I want the game companies to make a nice profit off of MMORPGs so they will invest time and effort to keep the thing running strong. F2P games have the same upset customers complaining about the same list of gripes.

[Valkirus]

I have nearly the exact same setup.

 

Must be a bottleneck but I can't imagine where.

 

As long as the game looks great and plays smooth, I suggest you turn off the FPS display. You may enjoy the game more and worry less about the FPS.

[Frostvein]

As long as the game looks great and plays smooth, I suggest you turn off the FPS display. You may enjoy the game more and worry less about the FPS.

 

It looks mostly ok, but when (if ever) high res textures comes out I expect with the money I dumped into the machine (1500 before peripherals - not a ton, but enough) I should be able to enjoy it with 60 FPS on max settings. I fear that I'll dip down to 30 or so on average. Currently, I get 60 everywhere except for fleet and probably PvP. I'm befuddled.

[Rollcageuk]

Quote:

He posted the same here just in case it was useful for others

 

--------

If he has as you say actually given this feedback to BW then that is a good thing and hopefully some of his points will be read by the dev team responsible.

 

But..

 

How is telling others the reason you are quitting helpful in anyway?? You don't like the game, it isn't for you? why is telling me that you don't like it going to change or help my game experience?

You don't post a review of a game to the people that are already playing it, that's like giving a film review to the auditorium while the end credits are running.

I know what i think about the game, i'm playing it!

Want to do a review, go to metacritic and tell the people who aren't actually playing the game yet.

 

So, I'm not jumping to conclusions.

[gurugeorge]

OP is reasonable and well-written. As usual with these types of posts, I agree with some criticisms and disagree with others. The game certainly has some problems. But with some of them, I don't think they're as devastating to the future of the game as posts like the OP are predicting, and with others I think they will be sorted in good time.

 

But at the end of the day, it's just another post from an experienced MMO player wanting SWTOR to be more like their previous favourite MMO. Many of the critical posts are like this - it's either "this game should be more like WoW (than it already is)" or "this game should be less like WoW and more like SWG".

 

As a general point, the warning flag for me with such posts as the OP is when the poster starts talking about "the engine", as if they knew what they were talking about. Especially these days, lots of people play games a fair amount, and do a superficial bit of reading, and fancy themselves as experts.

 

But really, it's just an end-user's opinion, and they have no way of knowing whether the game's problems (and of course there are some) are down to "the engine" or a host of other things.

 

So yes, if we cleared these kinds of posts of the pompous pseudo-expertise of "engine"-drivel, and the hysteria of "I like x, x isn't in the game, therefore the game is fail, BW are fail, and the sky is falling", there are plenty of points that BW need to address in one way or another. OP succeeds in avoiding the latter, but not the former.

 

The long and the short of it is that with any other MMO, these kinds of predictions of d0000m would probably have some effect on the community. But as I see it, SWTOR is going to be played mainly by people who have no interest in the opinions of MMO bittervets, bored ex-WoW-ers, wistful ex-SWG-ers, and the rest. SWTOR is opening up a new audience to MMOs. And that's why it's going to continue to baffle the neatly-cultivated, formulaic opinions of these pseudo-MMO-experts.

 

Because for most players of this game, the voices of these pseudo-MMO-experts aren't even on the radar.

 

A possible valid counter-argument to this is "well, ok, but even your supposed new audience will eventually discover the problems these "pseudo-MMO-experts", as you so rudely call them, have already found". I reply: not if BW get their act together, and so far as I've seen, they've been very active in sorting out genuine problems (i.e. not pseudo-problems arising from our pseudo-MMO-experts' dislike of the game not being more like WoW or SWG).

 

So contrary to the f2p predictions, I predict that the game will continue to be improved, and continue to be successful, and will probably grow moderately over the next couple of years.

Edited February 20, 2012 by gurugeorge

[Drewser]

Well sorry to say you are completely wrong, the first thing the OP did prior to posting here was to send it to the Feedback email for Bioware after receiving the 'we appreciate your feedback email' Bioware sent recently to people. He wrote the post hoping the feedback would be useful to the dev team in some way. He posted the same here just in case it was useful for others. How do I know this? I am the OP's girlfriend Please don't jump to conclusions so quickly.

 

It doesn't belong here.

 

It is in no way useful to people in general.

[Kryptorchid]

...

 

But at the end of the day, it's just another post from an experienced MMO player wanting SWTOR to be more like their previous favourite MMO. Many of the critical posts are like this - it's either "this game should be more like WoW (than it already is)" or "this game should be less like WoW and more like SWG".

 

...

 

Don't dismiss the OP's post by stating "he wants the game to be like his previous MMO." That is not the case at all. He just wants the game to a) work at an acceptable level, and b) be fun.

[Rabenschwinge]

I read all those performance complaints and I must say I find them hard to believe. But since neither of my computer isn't exactly the latest state of the art, the one can run the game with all options against the wall, and the elder runs smooth if I disable shadows - and in some rare situations set to the simpler shader model (thus disabling bloom as well).

 

There are certain fog effects that are particularly difficult with the more complex shader model - a typical example would the first boss in Karaggas palace or the space mission "The Impossible Sector". If you find your computer performing not well enough under these circumstances use the simpler shader model.

 

I don't know exactly which shader model is being used when you set the shader complexity to high - but I believe it's simply a more sophisticated model than in most other MMOs so far. If you want the same behavior as in such games, I'd recommend setting the shader complexity to low. Effects like ambient occlusion seem to be directly integrated.

 

However, a video game cannot possibly damage your computer - assuming you have enough vents to supply the graphics card with fresh air. And you don't really need more than 30 fps - modern display typically display up 60 frames per second, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was really just 60 fields resulting in 60 images. A Blu-Ray has typically 24 fps (even though a recorded video is admitedly something different from a real-time rendered video game scene). Your graphics card is made to work under full load, that's why it has a vent that works as fast. That you card goes to maximum speed in a modern video game is absolutely normal. The game should use whatever resources it finds to render the scene as good as it may, as long as you don't deliberately deactivate effects. Under full load it becomes louder, but it is designed to operate under full load. If your vents do not go up with different video games, that means you have unused rendering resources and those games don't use the full potential of your system.

 

The comparison with the Unreal Engine is a little unfair, for it is primarily used in single player games. Which means that there is only a very limited amount of actors, particle resources and effects that may influence each other. Single player games will always perform better than MMOs. Are you certain you have never problems with the computer in very recent games? Especially when there are particular fog or underwater effects or a massive amount of particles?

 

PS: That would interesting to know - does a modern TFT screen with a refresh rate of 60 Hz actually display 60 full and completely different images per second?

Edited February 20, 2012 by Rabenschwinge

[Arkerus]

I wanted to love TOR. I have been level 50 for several weeks, and tried several alts. I have tried all aspects of PVP and PVE. But it is with sadness I admit I am no longer playing.

 

In fairness, I had looked forward to this game for many years. Saved up for a new PC purely for TOR, made sure to get the collector's edition, and blindly applied a 6 month sub on the sheer belief I had in this game. After all, Bioware are my favourite studio. What can possibly go wrong?

 

 

The Engine

The fundamentals of the problems lie with the choice they made on the engine. It is no secret that the Hero Engine was a little known entity in the MMO market when Bioware announced they were adopting it. True, the engine has been recoded immensely, but you cannot escape the fact that the only major releases with the engine have been primarily Free-to-play MMOs.

 

I may not have the most powerful machine, but it is more than capable of running just about every game on the market on max. On this evidence, the TOR engine is clearly terribly optimised. I can freely go from 110 FPS, and drop down to sub 30 fps in the space of about 10 seconds of movement. My graphics card fan will randomly go to max speed (which it does for no other game) in some indoor areas, which is worrying in itself. Primarily, this issue becomes worse whenever there are other players around. This can be seen most evidently whenever you go to the Fleet Stations, or even a Warzone (where I am lucky to reach 25-30 FPS). World PVP on Ilum is where it really hit home to me, when FPS finally fell into single digits. There could not have been more than 15 players per side, but the slideshow completely took all fun out of the encounter. The one Operation I did gave me a blue screen once I closed the game. Some people are pretty convinced that there is some kind of memory leak going on, and there does seem to be some evidence to support this as the game performance does seem to degrade the longer you are on the client.

 

Interviews from Bioware have stated that it is just a minority that have this issue, but this is clearly not the case. Even just a cursory glance at the Customer Service forums shows many are affected by the same FPS issues. Countless Youtube videos complain of the same, and even on social media and gaming sites TOR is getting a bad reputation for it's engine performance.

 

This was highlighted to me even more, when I tried the Tera beta this weekend. At time of logon, I was surrounded by literally hundreds of people. There was zero slowdown. Graphics card barely increased in volume or temperature. Clearly, the Unreal engine runs ridiculously well. This is borne out by even Mass Effect 2 (and 3) which run flawlessly on this PC and my last. The irony is the general chat channel on Tera was inundated with people amazed how much better it ran on their systems than TOR does. Go figure.

 

It is why the decision to go with the Hero Engine originally puzzles me so much. The Unreal engine is clearly much better for the job, and Bioware already had a good working knowledge of it from Mass Effect. Frankly, when I have been running TOR I fear that my machine is going to fail on me due to the unneccesary requirements it seems to put the PC through.

 

If free-to-play MMOs can run better than TOR (and they do), there is a serious flaw here.

 

 

PVP

 

Ilum is a bad joke. Sorry, but it is. The original design of capture points was awful, but at least you could pull that off in a reasonable amount of time. The few times I have been out in Ilum since, I just see people going around in circles looking for spawns of the armaments. Still no real battles going on, except now you'd have to put in several hours of spawn camping or driving around in circles to complete the weekly. Republic seem to wisely avoid the area due to the obvious server faction imbalance we have. (I played Imperial)

 

As mentioned above, the issue with the engine's performance with multiple players on screen really adds to this problem. Why else would Bioware openly admit they were reducing the population cap on Ilum? Certainly, you are never going to see battles with a hundred players on screen. Again, when other MMOs have achieved this you really have to question if they knew the engine could not handle it, why even bother with a world PVP zone?

 

There is also a distinct lack of focus for the endgame PVP. Other than grinding to the Battlemaster sets. Then what? I know they are claiming to add a ranking system soon, but why this was not in for launch is beyond me. It will likely end up like WoW's old PVP rating system, that will require to log on 20 hours a day just to maintain a rank.

 

As for the Warzones, they do feel like uninspired copy/pastes from WoW. Arathi Basin is Alderaan. Strand Of The Ancients is Voidstar. Warsong Gulch is Huttball. They really do feel badly designed the latter of which is completely dominated by Inquisitors and Consulars. Anything with a knockback here has a major advantage, but these two also have sprints and pull abilities. A group of two or three of them actually working together can completely dominate the Warzone.

 

I won't even get into the imbalance of classes, but when you hire the remnants of Mythic to do your PVP it would be obvious you would end up with a broken system like Warhammer's.

 

 

Operations

 

I really did not like the design of the encounters. It really feels terribly outdated and again copy/paste from WoW raids of 6 years ago. (Run out of fire, and get out of LoS... yawn) After years of hardcore WoW raiding, there is nothing here that most of us have not seen before. And indeed, that WoW did infinitely better. I just cannot muster the enthusiasm to raid this content for hours on end like I used to.

 

There are also some pretty terrible bugs evident in them. For example, on approach to the Gharj encounter in Eternity Vault the entire team dropped to death for no apparent reason. This repeated itself multiple times, even down to people dying on the speeder bike and even while outside of the instance on the fleet! Why this sort of thing can hit the live servers, especially after it was supposedly fixed beggers belief.

 

Whilst we are on PVE content, Flashpoints are overly long. The main reason is trash. The amount of trash on the latter FP's (Directive 7 I'm looking at you) really kills the fun for me. When we take near two hours just to clear an instance, the balancing is horribly wrong. You could clear two raids in that time in WoW for example. It's just padding, and it's irritating.

 

But then, when you have the same lead designer for flashpoints/ops as whom does the PVP I am not particularly surprised it is lacklustre.

 

 

Patching

 

Which leads me onto patches. The old adage that patches bring more problems than they fix is still very true and seems to be considerably worse for TOR.

 

There have been three absolute clangers already. The Ilum turret incident, the screen flicker/mini loading screens, and the mouse button crashing. If you look at the credits list, Bioware evidently has a large QA team. My question is, what on earth are they actually doing for obvious things like this to be pushed out onto live servers?

 

Then there is the priority that things are done. For example, the extreme screen flickering rendered many people unable to play (for epilepsy fears etc) and it took well over a week for this to be fixed. And more recently, the UI change that has rendered the UI to look like a strobe effect when on global cooldown. Yes, these things can/will be fixed. But when it can affect the health of your subscribers, you really need to be making a higher priority for such things. Yet we see mini patches changing things such as emoting on speeders, or adjusting Legacy XP for people beyond rank 20 - which likely effects very few people.

 

I understand the desire to want to patch weekly, but they really need to ensure first that what they patch actually fixes what the notes promise, and secondly that the fixes are properly prioritised.

 

 

Armor

 

Armor for the most part looks terrible. Especially on the Empire. The amount of hoods on the Republic side is startling by comparison. Sith really got the short stick in that regard. Admittedly they are aiming to overhaul the mod system to allow more variety, but currently most 50's look near identical in either raid or PVP sets. But then, there really is little else to use orange wise. Most are really not that impressive visually, given they are just recolours of greens.

 

Having played in the beta way back, I know that a full on appearance tab and/or dye system was suggested constantly to avoid just this happening. No-one wants to look a clone. So why did Bioware not listen? And more importantly, where are all those tens of armor sets we saw in some of the early developer videos?

 

 

Travel

 

It's infuriating. For example, on one occassion I offered to help a guildie with a quest on Voss. I was on Belsavis. "I'll be right there." Ha! Fleet pass on cooldown, and quick travel. So I had to mount up, ride to a taxi point. Fly back to the spaceport. Get on a shuttle. Go through the space station. Go through my hangar. Load my ship. Go to the map. Pick my location. Walk out the ship. Load Voss. Walk through the station. Drive to the taxi point. Fly to the distant zone. Then mount up, and ride for another 5 minutes to the other side. All in all, must have took me near 20 minutes to get there.

 

It really is ridiculous. I hate to constantly cite WoW, but I will again. It was tedium like this that made them introduce flying mounts, portals, and gathering stones.

 

 

Companions

 

Whilst their AI overall is ok, they still do some pretty silly things. (Breaking CC etc)

 

My biggest gripe is with Bioware's pre-launch spin on them though. There was much noise made about how they could sub for a missing player and replace the healer etc. In most circumstances this is simply not the case. So many fights require constant movement, such as running out of markers on the floor that they simply become a liability. It wouldn't be so bad but when you actually try to cancel them from combat they move toward you so SLOWLY that even if you react in time to make them move they still get splatted.

 

What's worse is they then implemented instances such as Colicoid War Game where you have switches or turrets that you have no way of getting the companion to interact with. You are basically stuffed, and the promise of using them is basically destroyed by their own design. Myself and my partner were quite enjoying the challenge of trying to duo instances with companions, but it was design decisions like this that lead to disappointment.

 

 

The Story

 

The main pillar of the game, and arguably the main strength of the whole title. Even here though, there are problems.

 

The main class stories, are miles better than the planet quests. They have more decisions to be made, and arguably better characterisation. By comparison, the planet side quests really seem to follow the same formula as the quests they represent. "Oh, thank god you are here. All our team was killed. Only you can do this!" is the general theme of just about every quest. The issue I have with this, is the same that Bioware themselves made when talking about crafting. "Darth Vader does not craft boots." Indeed, nor does he go around picking up random quests from foot soldiers like some common handyman. Admittedly, there is not much one can do to get away from the usual MMO kill quests, but for me the story on the planets does feel extremely tacked on.

 

Prior to release, I was one of the advocates that story would make a large change to the genre, and for the class stories it certainly does. But on your second playthrough, the desire to hit the spacebar becomes overwhelming. Was too much focus put onto story when so many other MMO aspects of the game, notably the end game, were so unfinished?

 

It's pretty clear where most of the budget went to. In my mind though, the story really does not stand up to either Mass Effect or Dragon Age. Or even the original KOTOR. Maybe it is just the disjointed nature of an MMO, but in retrospect I do not think it adds as much to the game as many had hoped. Certainly, once you hit max level the story very much takes a back seat. Once see you see what is left over, that is when you really start to see the glaring holes in the rest of the game.

 

 

Social

 

For a game that relies on people to play with each other, the toolset we are given is horrendous.

 

Firstly, no speech bubbles. It is very easy to miss people speaking to you in 'say' as there is no real difference in font or colours. Certainly, for people on an RP server this kills alot of immersion as well.

 

The guild system also leaves a lot to be desired. No guild bank, no event system, no real tangible benefits as there is no guild reward system ala WoW or Rift, nor any guild tabard/emblem/flag.

 

The social areas are pretty sparse and poorly designed too. I mean, no seats? As I have already gone over in regard to the game engine, Bioware repeated the Dalaran mistake and made fleets for everyone to seemingly gather at the same place. This would be fine, but the engine really struggles, and sitting in the cantina in the fleet is an invitation to give yourself a blue screen.

 

Whether you agree with the server community theory or not, the lack of an LFD tool is criminal. As a result, we are left with people spamming multiple channels (often in the wrong or inappropriate places) trying to find groups. When they inevitably don't, they logoff in frustration - thus adding to the problem. For the casual player, who has little time to play, they need a quality of life feature like this to make experiencing the content possible. I can fully understand why people are quitting, as if they cannot even find a group for flashpoints they will never see the Operations. So why bother?

 

 

Space Combat

 

I'm not going to get into a massive debate about the merits or benefits of rail shooter versus open world exploration. In fact, I found them kind of fun the first few times through.

 

My main issue is this. When you look at all the problems the game has had getting everything complete for launch, I cannot fathom why there was a focus on putting this in? Why spend resources on what is essentially a mini-game, when the main engine clearly has so many issues?

 

 

Conclusion

 

Through fear of wrecking my machine, currently I am not playing the game. Certainly I am keeping an eye on 1.2, but my optimism for most of the above points being addressed is quite low. Beyond changing the actual engine, I'm not so sure the core of the Hero Engine will ever be able to perform to what Bioware envisioned. As such, I will most likely end up cancelling my sub to TOR.

 

This greatly saddens me, as I am a huge Star Wars and Bioware fan. I am really looking forward to Mass Effect 3, and should they ever do an MMO for that universe I pray they have the foresight to use a proven engine. They also cannot ignore the criticisms that have rightly been levelled at them both above, and in many other threads like this on both these forums and others. If even I am bored, I can only imagine what is going through the mind of the average MMO enthusiast.

 

I think at this point, the only word I can describe the game with is disappointment. Prior to launch, alot of commentators were stating that the end game was a desperate mess and that they had only focused on the story. And to be honest this is borne out once you actually hit 50. As others have said, it may just be best to take this game for what it is, and play it as a single player experience just to see the stories. As an MMO, it really does fall at many hurdles. It is like they have lived in a bubble and not taken on board many of the complaints and improvements that the MMO market has addressed over the years. E.g. WoW reduced the amount of trash in raids, Rift's public quest system and dynamic events, DC Universe's excellent character customisation. But with other games coming very soon in the MMO market, such as Tera, Secret World and Guild Wars 2, TOR really needs to up it's game.

 

My main fear is that it is already too late. A quick glance at the /who screen shows how few people are actually playing now. And when it takes me over 20 minutes to queue for a warzone at peak times, it is evident that many people have already left. Bioware tried to copy the wheel, and they ended up with a jagged wheel. Sure it works, but it's no improvement on what is already there. With the budget they had though, it should have been so much more.

 

In light of all of this, I can see TOR going to Free-to-play inside six to twelve months. This saddens me deeply, as I really wanted it to do so well. But I only see a niche market for this game now, and once the more casual audience has completed their class stories I can see them moving on also. It is just a shame that the game engine, and the problems it has created for design choices, has ultimately killed the great potential this game had.

 

May the force be with you folks. For it is not here.

 

If you have fear of wrecking your machine, you shouldn't even be playing computer games.

[Drewser]

Don't dismiss the OP's post by stating "he wants the game to be like his previous MMO." That is not the case at all. He just wants the game to a) work at an acceptable level, and b) be fun.

 

A) Check

B) Check

[JansanRuno]

free to play in 6 to 12 months.. Ok I'll take that bet.

 

 

I don't know how the OP can write something that long in what seems to be well thought-out analysis and points and then at the end say something so stupid like the game will be F2P in 12 months.