Design decisions and why the game engine hurts TOR

[oursacrifice]

I'm not convinced any MMO will out-WoW WoW........ I'm not convinced WoW 2 will even (and I suspect Blizzard isn't either - hence them trying to do anything but make WoW 2).

 

I'm pretty convinced that if any (western) MMO beats WoW for maximum subs it will be something different to WoW though.

 

I don't believe that.

 

All it would take is a developer with enough intelligence to realize that they are NOT a special snowflake in this genre. Your level of uniqueness can only be limited to the setting/story. You absolutely cannot skip the plethora of tools that WoW has pioneered through the years and expect any level of success in the long term.

 

You need to come right out of the gate with a strong and well polished foundation on which to build your game on.

 

A lot of WoW players are looking for something better/different to play. All it takes is a polished product with the "mandatory" feature-set, a unique setting and bam you have a viable alternative to WoW.

 

Instead, we get these developers trying to be special making games that aren't even complete at a launch leaving people with the overwhelming feeling of being screwed with their subscription fees when they can simply pay the same amount and have all of the features and polish in another game.

[gurugeorge]

Trying to appeal to a "new" crowd with a MMO is a stupid business decision.

 

Tell that to Blizzard.

 

You do realize they focussed on what people didn't like about EQ in an attempt to get more players interested?

 

I think that BW are doing the same thing, only utilizing their particular area of expertise (story, VO, dialogue). People don't generally like MMOs much, compared to the mass of gamers, even hardcore gamers. Even 11m players is a drop in the ocean of games players in general.

 

i.e., instead of asking the wrong, the stupid question (why do people like WoW?), BW have asked themselves the correct, the clever question: why DON'T people like WoW? Same as Blizz asked why don't people like EQ.

 

In this context, the opinion of a bunch of bored MMO bittervets is really quite irrelevant.

Edited February 21, 2012 by gurugeorge

[Veticor]

I agree with the OP, my playtime has taken a nose dive the past few weeks for many of the same reasons.

 

Tor just feels like a F2P mmo with its engine.

[Kaelshi]

in all fairness

 

I love tor and the engine.

 

why would your own personal opinion on something trump mine?

[Ratior]

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

 

That's how I see it too.

[Uruare]

I don't know enough about game engines to speculate much on where it succeeds, fails or winds up looking like the girl at the party that's passed out drunk under the picnic table by 5:30 PM at a party.

 

What I do know is that I agree with the gist of many other of the OP's points.

 

And for those prattling on to the tune of 'haters gonna hate', get over your trailerpark wit; there's a monumental difference between dissatisfaction and hatred.

[Ratior]

I think everyone who doesnt like this game is welcome to go back to WoW, and realise why your views were parcial in 1 to 2 weeks of boredom.

 

I started off with liking this game. I still play almost everyday, but if BW doesn't listen to us, or even provide timely responses to sensible suggestions and gripes, my liking of SWTOR will further deteriorate.

 

I went through a lot trying to get 2 copies of the CE before launch, as SWTOR is not officially released in my Asian country. I had to ask relatives from another country to order for me online. That's how much I wanted to play SWTOR. Also in the original SWTOR forums and also in this forum, my earlier posts were all for SWTOR.

 

If BW does not at least provide responses, it would seem that our cries are falling on deaf ears. If players do not enjoy the game, they would leave. I know I would leave, but"

 

I do not play WoW.

 

I would pick up Guild Wars 2, and so would my SWTOR team mates from neglected Asian countries.

Edited February 21, 2012 by Ratior

[Autorch]

Well stated, OP. I hope it gets read and taken to heart where it counts.

 

I like the game a lot, but two months in, I'm starting to lose interest.

 

I paid for a 6-month initial I liked it so much, and that's no big deal--hell, I spend that much eating out in a week and a half or so.

 

But I can foresee myself just logging off and not coming back for a good long while until and unless they get these things straightened out. My position has been changing from "I'll wait and see" to "I don't see why they waited until after release to implement/fix these issues that seem so incredibly obvious".

 

There's just a bunch of stuff that this game is reasonably missing, and it's at a point for me where they need to either put this stuff in or get ready to lose some subscribers.

 

To me it's mostly content that they're missing. The 1-50 leveling path is extremely linear, more so than many single-player RPGs. And they've put in about half the content you would have expected for that situation--to level an alt you're doing about 90% of the same content, in the same order.

 

If you level an alt of the same base class but different advanced class, you're doing about 100% of the same content in the same order. And I'm sorry, but choosing light/dark or different other options on a different playthrough is superficial at best. It's not actually different in any way that makes it feel different enough to justify the time spent on it.

 

At first I thought the fully voiced content and class story was cool, and it is, but its replayability value has turned out to be low for me. At this point I'd be willing to trade having class stories at all in exchange for double the number of planets/zones and the ability to take whatever path I wanted through them from 10-50.

[skaidar]

Well stated, OP. I hope it gets read and taken to heart where it counts.

 

I like the game a lot, but two months in, I'm starting to lose interest.

 

I paid for a 6-month initial I liked it so much, and that's no big deal--hell, I spend that much eating out in a week and a half or so.

 

But I can foresee myself just logging off and not coming back for a good long while until and unless they get these things straightened out. My position has been changing from "I'll wait and see" to "I don't see why they waited until after release to implement/fix these issues that seem so incredibly obvious".

 

There's just a bunch of stuff that this game is reasonably missing, and it's at a point for me where they need to either put this stuff in or get ready to lose some subscribers.

 

To me it's mostly content that they're missing. The 1-50 leveling path is extremely linear, more so than many single-player RPGs. And they've put in about half the content you would have expected for that situation--to level an alt you're doing about 90% of the same content, in the same order.

 

If you level an alt of the same base class but different advanced class, you're doing about 100% of the same content in the same order. And I'm sorry, but choosing light/dark or different other options on a different playthrough is superficial at best. It's not actually different in any way that makes it feel different enough to justify the time spent on it.

 

At first I thought the fully voiced content and class story was cool, and it is, but its replayability value has turned out to be low for me. At this point I'd be willing to trade having class stories at all in exchange for double the number of planets/zones and the ability to take whatever path I wanted through them from 10-50.

 

Same! I was also so optimistic at the beggining...

In the beta I was "omg this game have great potential and I look forward to play it in the next few years!"

In the oficial release I was "Meh, still some problems they will get fixed soon, they are working hard"

The last month "They already released few patches, why isn't anything important adressed, what are they doing anyway"

Now "What was I thinking, this whole game is a mess, and can only be repaired with additional 6 to 12 montsh development, in this state it is just an insult to all real gamers..."

[Goretzu]

I don't know enough about game engines to speculate much on where it succeeds, fails or winds up looking like the girl at the party that's passed out drunk under the picnic table by 5:30 PM at a party.

 

What I do know is that I agree with the gist of many other of the OP's points.

 

And for those prattling on to the tune of 'haters gonna hate', get over your trailerpark wit; there's a monumental difference between dissatisfaction and hatred.

 

 

 

I think they'll get to grips on the engine to a degree eventually (WARs engine had serious problems on release, but steadily improved under Mythic, Bioware-Mythic and then Bioware).

 

The question is how quickly they will and how much other stuff they can fix quickly as well.

[recsa]

@ OP ... Bravo! 100% Agree, the Hero has beaten Bioware.

 

Looks like ALL things in game are constrained and revolve around Hero Engine not being capable so they have to look for alternate ways of achieving them:

 

1- small shards

2- Instanced planets (ilum1, ilum2, ...) when theres not even enough ppl for a decent fight

3- No open world PvP because 90% computers out there cant handle it, even with ridiculously small number of players on screen

[VegaPhone]

@ OP ... Bravo! 100% Agree, the Hero has beaten Bioware.

 

Looks like ALL things in game are constrained and revolve around Hero Engine not being capable so they have to look for alternate ways of achieving them:

 

1- small shards

2- Instanced planets (ilum1, ilum2, ...) when theres not even enough ppl for a decent fight

3- No open world PvP because 90% computers out there cant handle it, even with ridiculously small number of players on screen

 

I think the issue is also that fps are spiking too high, and the GPU is trying to do too much while the computer is suddenly overloaded with cpu calculations.

 

I am not a computer expert (but I do know that setting FPS to a better general performance makes games perform smoother), but I think there is too much fluctation power demand between GPU and CPU. The GPU is processing as much as possible and then throttling for sudden spikes in CPU calculations.

 

I tried to use V-sync to see if there was an improvement by locking my fps to 60, but while in v-sync it would bounce around to above 60 and way below.

 

So imo, I think there should be some kind of configuration that sets the fps better not for all pcs but a per PC case scenario.

 

So if I set my fps to 60 it should perform better overall with less fluctuations.

 

However with someone who struggles to even reach 60 fps they can set it something a bit different.

 

So there should be a cap that can by adjusted as people see fit depending on thier hardware.

Edited February 21, 2012 by VegaPhone

[recsa]

I think the issue is also that fps are spiking too high, and the GPU is trying to do too much while the computer is suddenly overloaded with cpu calculations.

 

 

Im neither a cumputers genius, but ive done some testing and i really cant understand whats going on:

 

1- While on Beta i had terrible FPS everywhere, mostly Fleet, but since i was most of the time leveling in the wilderness, i really didnt care

 

2- Then game was released so i started the lvling again, so still no worried

 

3- Some time later i got to 50 and started to spend more time at fleet and .... ilum

 

4- Did some research on forums and went for a hardware/software improvement, 32 to 64 bits, 4 cores CPU (had 2), 6 Gigs RAM

 

5- At same time BW released a patch with fleet performance improvements, dunno if it was the patch or my changes, but i have now a way way way better performance in fleet and everywhere ... BUT ilum Open PvP

 

6- There, even in fights with less than 15 ppl in each side my FPS drop below 10

 

7- Warzones are just OK, nothing fancy, but i can play them, right now its just ilum, but the amazing part is:

 

 

After reading on forums i checked this, while FPS are crap at ilum, my GPU is not at maximun load at all, but my CPU is totally overloaded :eek: Why is the game so much CPU demanding while GPU is still underloaded?

 

Is it BW code problem? Hero Engine code problem? I could say ita my CPU problem, but from forums posts, looks im not alone at all in this.

[Dezziedc]

I read through most of the posts in this thread. There are some good points from the OP and some good points from others disclaiming these points.

 

People forget that this game has been out how long? 2 months? Why all the doom and gloom for a game that has barely been released? You can't fix all of these things in this list in a 2 month period. And if it really is the engine causing issues, then its bigger than a 2 month fix. Surely you can't expect this game to be bug free and working 100% at this early stage in it's life. If you do, you are being completely unrealistic. You can argue that things should have been fixed or included in release, but you are only speculating why they weren't included or why certain decisions were made. Nobody other than the BW management team can confirm these sorts of details.

 

I agree BW have made some mistakes with the game as well as making some bad decisions. But they have also done some good and innovative things as well. And they are making an effort to fix things and add some new things that people have requested. So you can't say that they aren't making an effort or that the requests are falling on deaf ears.

 

There are issues with the game, I agree. However people need patience. You can't list a huge list of problems and say "I'm not playing anymore because this list hasn't been fixed" for a game that has been out for 2 months.

 

I have also been looking forward to GW2, but I have no doubt that it will lack certain gaming aspects that others 'expect' to be included, it will contain bugs, aspects of the game will be clunky etc. People need patience or they will be dissappointed every single time.

[oursacrifice]

Tell that to Blizzard.

 

You do realize they focussed on what people didn't like about EQ in an attempt to get more players interested?

 

I think that BW are doing the same thing, only utilizing their particular area of expertise (story, VO, dialogue). People don't generally like MMOs much, compared to the mass of gamers, even hardcore gamers. Even 11m players is a drop in the ocean of games players in general.

 

i.e., instead of asking the wrong, the stupid question (why do people like WoW?), BW have asked themselves the correct, the clever question: why DON'T people like WoW? Same as Blizz asked why don't people like EQ.

 

In this context, the opinion of a bunch of bored MMO bittervets is really quite irrelevant.

 

Blizzard focused on hardcore and casual gamers with WoW. EQ didn't cater to casual gamers. Blizzard understood the principles behind creating a wildly successful MMO playerbase with their goals of trying to make it so anyone could play and level. They admittingly failed at the raids, and it wasn't until Wrath of the Lich King that they started to fix the ability for less-hardcore players to see endgame content. Blizzard understands how this niche industry works, why any developer would deviate from that insanely successful formula is behind my capabilities of reasoning.

 

Casual gamers are the largest market of consumers in the gaming industry. If you don't appeal to the casual MMO player, it's better you don't even bother unless you can make the best hardcore-focused experience money can get (EVE).

[Ansultares]

After reading on forums i checked this, while FPS are crap at ilum, my GPU is not at maximun load at all, but my CPU is totally overloaded. Why is the game so much CPU demanding while GPU is still underloaded?

As I understood it, WAR had a similar problem; I always assumed it was my old machine, but after all the steps I've taken to optimize for this game, I wonder how much better performance I could have gotten there.

[souloferdrick]

Its a solid game, its just not living up to the hype. It also doesn't feel like a Star Wars game despite obvious things like lightsabers and so on. Its signature feature is underwhelming once you experience it from 1-50 (no replay value) and there isn't enough random adventure to be had.

 

It seems most of the criticism is being geared towards the lack of fluffy gimmicks like guild perks and such but those would be less of an issue if the core aspects of MMO play were more engaging.

[ddot]

now how bout a positive post about the stuff you do like:D

[twinionx]

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.

 

I agree that the poor LFG tool is one contributing factor to people leaving. But I think the other reasons are :

 

1.) Too easy to level, causing many players to super-level to 50.

 

2.) Little or no end-game content (the poor LFG tool contribute to that, because people cannot find others to group with for flashpoints)

 

3.) The inability to switch AC. Players who do not want to re-roll quit because they are stuck with a class they didn't care for.

[Vikassi]

Very good post, too bad they wont listen ...

[Pravis]

The OP has tons of exaggerations and incorrect assumptions that drown out the few valid points he makes.