Design decisions and why the game engine hurts TOR

[Quraswren]

And how exactly different is your post? I see me me me everywhere. You even know what do all of 1.7m subscribers want. Hehehe

 

 

 

Thanks for helping me make my point as both posts are mainly personal opinions and offers little worth, yet people love to run there mouth (or keyboard).

 

The OP's post is generally worthless as it does nothing but provide personal opinion and nothing much to fact.

 

When he does try to talk fact, he changes gears back to personal opinion or comparisons to WOW which offer nothing.

Edited February 20, 2012 by Quraswren

[TUXs]

Ah! OK. So GW2 will run better on its engine because it's in beta...that's your excuse?

[RoadtoArkham]

Thanks for helping me make my point.

 

The OP's post is generally worthless as it does nothing but provide personal opinion and nothing much to fact.

 

When he does try to talk fact, he changes gears back to personal opinion or comparisons to WOW which offer nothing.

 

The facts are pointless. What is important is a vast well of negativity here on the forums, other gaming forums, and even in game.

 

In a population of millions, it is probably safe to assume that one person posting on the forums, with valid complaints and personal opinions, speaks for, at least, a hundred people, who likely share the same views.

 

Personal feelings and opinions have everything to do with it. That's what decides if people continue to subscribe.

[Icebaron]

I saw all this coming when they announced space combat on rails. I knew right then that this was going to be a letdown. Not just because space is on rails, it's because that one act told me that Bioware was not out to amaze or wow anyone with the game, they just wanted to tell their story and hope it was enough.

 

To be fair, SWTOR is one of the most ambitious RPG's ever made, but it just doesn't FEEL like an mmo.

[BrotherJohn]

Tera is not a console game and that will destroy this game come May.

 

http://tera.enmasse.com/

 

another sword and board BORING!!!!!!! ok back to op

 

while i absolutely agree with the engine issues and there are tons of them they i am sure are spending a lot of time and effort on optimizing the game engine. there is no way in hell they arent. a quick and easy fix which is in every mmo i have ever played is the options to turn down or off particle effects. This alone would help. another HUGE issue is the constant system spam in all PvP instances. They are a huge source of lag and need to be turned off or options in preferences to turn the crap off. i dont need to know each time someone dies or is near a capture point.

 

for raid design they are what they are and i dont care who you are or what mmo you play they will always be the same. just learn the mechanics and have fun. and those that complain there isnt enough raid end game. give me a break even the megalopolis of mmos was super limited at launch.

 

They made poor choices and are workign them out. is it perfect nope and for any mmo its like that for a year or more in some cases. I am sure they will correct the issues and things will be greatly improved.

 

and for all those posting the newest rage of mmos its just the same old same sword and board bs. lame and already outdated before its released.

[Drewser]

The facts are pointless. What is important is a vast well of negativity here on the forums, other gaming forums, and even in game.

 

In a population of millions, it is probably safe to assume that one person posting on the forums, with valid complaints and personal opinions, speaks for, at least, a hundred people, who likely share the same views.

 

Personal feelings and opinions have everything to do with it. That's what decides if people continue to subscribe.

 

Not really since this is tiny percentage of the player base.

 

If all someone did was read the forums and never play a game, they would think every MMO was total crap with all kinds of problems like:

 

unbalanced classes

too hard

too easy

not enough content

Devs favor ______________ (Fill in faction, craft, class, etc...)

FPS sucks

game breaking bugs

leveling is too fast

leveling is too slow

rare gear drops too much

rare gear doesn't drop enough

character creation stinks

raids are boring

raids are too long

raids are too short

[Agarwaenn]

Is Tera a fail game? Maybe, it's not out yet. BUT even if it is, that is not the point. The point is it looks many times better then SWTOR, can handle more people around you better than SWTOR, and has better combat then SWTOR. Does that make an entire game? No.

 

The questing in Tera is ahem, Tera-ble. So what does that mean for this game engine argument? Nothing!

 

The engine running SWTOR is inferior graphics/performance wise when it comes to the Unreal 3 engine being used in Tera and Blade-n-soul. Even fanboys can not deny that based solely on a performance standpoint.

[Quraswren]

The facts are pointless. What is important is a vast well of negativity here on the forums, other gaming forums, and even in game.

 

The facts are everything. Make up what you want in your own little head and it might apply to you, if your not lying to yourself cause you're one of those gamers that thinks its all about them. However, in the end when it's not the game thats broke but the self-entitled, "must have it all my way" gamers that are broke.

 

You say "vast well of negativity" of posts here on the forums as if it's not been proven, more people don't post that are having fun than the ones that claim to hate the game. So I say that Vast group of people you're talking about is really pretty small but they do like to yell to make themselves feel big.

 

Given the majority of reviews for the game (and that post is around here somewhere) this game is well received, played and enjoyed buy so much more people than you seem to think. I guess that reason is cause you read these forums as if people are honest or truthful and not just thinking of themselves or beyond what they dreamed of having VS what they got.

 

In a population of millions, it is probably safe to assume that one person posting on the forums, with valid complaints and personal opinions, speaks for, at least, a hundred people, who likely share the same views.

 

While I think that correlation to numbers might work I feel on most gaming forums it would be more like thousands to ONE odds.

 

I see thousands more enjoying the game to the few posts here that actually debate problems and not a self conceived problem that is really a personal want and not a real problem at all with the game.

 

Personal feelings and opinions have everything to do with it. That's what decides if people continue to subscribe.

 

 

To right but because everyone has them, making a massive post about how you want things on a personal level VS someone else that has a different personal opinion gets you nowhere and results in a post that brings nothing to the table. Just the OP's post.

 

It brings little if nothing to our table of contention/discussion cause I disagree with the majority of what he says.

 

Case in point: We are no longer talking about the drivel the OP posted but how opinions are viewed. When it's that easy to get off topic the OP's post is usually crap and didn't have enough weight to warrant discussion anyway.

Edited February 20, 2012 by Quraswren

[wifeaggro]

Not really since this is tiny percentage of the player base.

 

If all someone did was read the forums and never play a game, they would think every MMO was total crap with all kinds of problems like:

 

unbalanced classes

too hard

too easy

not enough content

Devs favor ______________ (Fill in faction, craft, class, etc...)

FPS sucks

game breaking bugs

leveling is too fast

leveling is too slow

rare gear drops too much

rare gear doesn't drop enough

character creation stinks

raids are boring

raids are too long

raids are too short

Drew i personaly hope your right. honestly i do i hope that people do stick around so EA will release more funds to expand this game evolve its game play and make it better. But from playing multiple MMO's from launch and following the communities pre and post launch. the retention rate is going to be not so great.

Based on engine problems and shallow end game a good portion of MMO vets will not make the 90 day mark on subs. If you think tor is gonna retain those 1.7 million subs your very very hopeful. they sold over 2 million copies and with in 11 days form december 20th to december 31st over 400 k players spit this game out before they were even asked to put their credit card number in. with that said i dont hink TOR will be a failure not by a long shot but i do not see it retaining the Veteran MMO crowd and in all honesty those are the ones that sub for long cycles and dont churn in and out with the facebook generation of gamers.

[Sentanta]

I read every word of your post and just wanted to congratulate you on a very well written post and to politely ask you to get out of my head!!!!! Everything you have in there is exactly what I am thinking -

 

I HATE the armour design - after lvl 50 is sooo boring - I am on my 3rd alt and even that is getting boring - the performance issues are just awful (I too spent a lot of money on a new pc specifically for this game and I cant run it at its full capacity as the screen kept freezing up on me) - the social aspect is pretty much non existent - traveling is needlessly complicated - etc etc etc.

 

I fully agree with everything you have in here and I just hope its not too late and they manage to sort it out before they just decide to cut their losses and pull the plug - I doubt it will ever go f2p - I don't believe Lucas Arts would allow their brand to be devalued in this way.

[darkonnis]

I enjoy playing with my friends now, and thats it. I've pretty much quit outside of logging on, raiding and logging back off. I occassionally spend 20 minutes on the AH to earn the money required for repairs.... for ops.

 

However, my guild went 4/5 Nightmare mode in EV last night... So how much longer ops have left in them... I honestly don't know.

Edited February 20, 2012 by darkonnis

[gurugeorge]

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.

 

Yes, and judging by what he's said, his definition of "fun"would be: like WoW after 7 years of development from launch.

 

It really is laughable, all these people who have come fresh from WoW as their "magic" MMO experience - no game will ever please them, because the entitlement mentality of today, combined with ignorance of the fact that you can never get that "magic" feeling back after your first MMO, combined with a superficial understanding of things like "game engines" gleaned from the internet, mean that any MMO that ever comes out is going to be considered as a "fail MMO" for those people.

 

That's why BW isn't really interested in them. This is the point, everyone thinks that a new MMO coming out has to elbow in on Blizzard's turf and try to filch bored ex-WoW-ers, but that's not the case at all. There are hundreds of thousands of players out there for whom SWTOR is going to be their first MMO, the MMO from which they get their "magic first MMO feeling". They maybe tried an MMO before but didn't like it because of the hamster wheel nature of the gameplay; but when the hamster wheel is sufficiently well-disguised with a good story, dialogue and grouped dialogue, it may be more palatable.

 

Do you understand that, all you bored ex-WoW-ers? For all the subscriptions that WoW has, there are hundreds of thousands of people who tried WoW and DIDN'T LIKE IT. Hundreds of thousands of people, maybe a few million, for whom the prospect of competitive endgame at max level, no matter how well implemented, wasn't enough to entice them to play WoW past level 10 (statistical fact).

 

It's those people, and people who have never tried any MMO before, that BW are aiming at, by making the levelling experience itself, the first thing people encounter, better than any other MMO at the moment.

 

Endgame needs to be there, no doubt - because eventually even the new players will get there. But it clearly wasn't the priority for BW on launch, the priority was to get the early part of the game perfected, precisely to entice the kinds of players I'm talking about.

 

Which is why all this drivel from pseudo-MMO-experts is completely irrelevant, off the mark, and why it will continue to be confounded by SWTOR's performance.

Edited February 20, 2012 by gurugeorge

[RoadtoArkham]

The facts are everything. Make up what you want in your own little head and it might apply to you, if your not lying to yourself cause you're one of those gamers that thinks its all about them. However, in the end when it's not the game thats broke but the self-entitled, "must have it all my way" gamers that are broke.

 

You say "vast well of negativity" of posts here on the forums as if it's not been proven, more people don't post that are having fun than the ones that claim to hate the game. So I say that Vast group of people you're talking about is really pretty small but they do like to yell to make themselves feel big.

 

Given the majority of reviews for the game (and that post is around here somewhere) this game is well received, played and enjoyed buy so much more people than you seem to think. I guess that reason is cause you read these forums as if people are honest or truthful and not just thinking of themselves or beyond what they dreamed of having VS what they got.

 

 

 

While I think that correlation to numbers might work I feel on most gaming forums it would be more like thousands to ONE odds.

 

I see thousands more enjoying the game to the few posts here that actually debate problems and not a self conceived problem that is really a personal want and not a real problem at all with the game.

 

 

 

 

To right but because everyone has them, making a massive post about how you want things on a personal level VS someone else that has a different personal opinion gets you know where and results in a post that brings nothing to the table. Just the OP's post.

 

It brings little if nothing to our table of contention/discussion cause I disagree with the majority of what he says. Case in point. We are not longer talking about the drivel the OP posted but how opinions as viewed. When it's that easy to get off topic the OP's post is usually crap and didn't have enough weight to warrant discussion anyway.

 

It is all about me. That is precisely how a gamer should look at it. I don't play and pay for someone else, do I?

 

My point is that a person will unsubscribe over a personal problem, just as they would a technical problem. We can have constructive debates all we want, and God knows I've tried for the past two months, but it changes nothing.

 

The bottom line is that people are unhappy. And people won't pay for a service when they're unhappy.

 

As for the individual that stated that the complainers on the forums are only "a small percentage of the population"...I was using the same argument, up until I really thought about it. There is no data proving that statement. And if you keep track of the complainers, or just the poor individuals in the Customer Service section, you'll rarely see the same names pop up all the time.

 

I agree that the people who absolutely must have it "their way" are obnoxious and poor human beings. But they're also part of the base that is paying for this game to continue.

 

A final point: Everyone is ignoring the fact that complaints aren't just confined to this forum. The complaints can be seen on other gaming forums, on Facebook, even in-game.

[purrcatnip]

OP was completely on it. I do not see this game succeeding long term. They will retain their 200-500K players but they arnt going to make any huge dents in the industry. They simply have too many areas that are to far away from even being 'up to par' with the likes of Rift and WoW (mind you Rift came out from a no name company and is seldom over a year old, but leagues beyond SWTOR in terms of Polish even a month after its release).

 

Meanwhile new games are on their way out. GW2 so far seems extremely promising, as does Tera. How is it SWTOR is going to survive new games coming out when its already like hemorrhaging lots of its current player base back to older games?

 

If you say the game isnt loosing players, I do not know what to say. The last time I logged in before I unsubbed on Rubalt Crytal at prime time (6 pm pacific) there were 20 players on the imperial space station, and 30 on dromound kas. Compare that to a few weeks in where you hand over 200 on the station and 100+ on dromound. No one I know still plays (out of a guild of 30+ friends) and it wasnt due to being busy, just bored.

 

IMO the game designers and producers for this game need to get fired.

[Itukaaj]

I still play the game. I am having fun despite the problems but OP was 100 % spot on with the problems. The difference between OP and me is that my great guildies can amuse me do the 6 month window I gave Bioware. And playing this game is still cheaper than going to the bar.

[Andryah]

The bottom line is that people are unhappy. And people won't pay for a service when they're unhappy.

 

I hope so, because the last thing people enjoying a game want is a minority of haters crapping up the virtual side of things. The sooner they move on to the next MMO and crapfest there instead, the better.

 

 

A final point: Everyone is ignoring the fact that complaints aren't just confined to this forum. The complaints can be seen on other gaming forums, on Facebook, even in-game.

 

In game, which is the only metric that actually counts as far as I am concerned, I see and hear people enjoying the game and having fun. Only rarely do I ever see the kind of biased venom that is so common on internet forums. And so far, even the rectalhat wearers don't seem to thrive more then a few days before they are driven from /chat by the community in game. I'm sure that's not true on every server (cough, PvP servers, cough) but on the three PvE servers I play on that is what I see.

 

As for the wall of text from the OP, nothing new and different from the many other walls of text. He does not enjoy the game, he should move on. Sure, the game has issues, I acknowledge that. The difference is that none of them negatively affect my enjoyment of the game, so I continue to play and enjoy the game. So I continue to subscribe, while the OP and others like him choose to unsubscribe. Which is exactly what they should do, because it would be crazy to play a game you do not enjoy. It's just that yet another wall of text pretense on exit from the game is needless really.

Edited February 20, 2012 by Andryah

[Quraswren]

It is all about me. That is precisely how a gamer should look at it. I don't play and pay for someone else, do I?

 

No you do not , yet expecting changes to be made because of you is not going to happen either. Cause I don't play this game for you, now do I?

 

My point is that a person will unsubscribe over a personal problem, just as they would a technical problem. We can have constructive debates all we want, and God knows I've tried for the past two months, but it changes nothing.

 

And my point is, if you cannot look at the game in a broader scope, then your doomed from the start, as no game will every tickle all your funny bones so to speak. As a gamer, you have to give up the "It's all about me" mentality and hope most of the game fits you.

 

Constructive debates only happen on topics that are true issues. Let's says, game bugs or PVP.

 

Thats something everyone has to deal with and is worth compiling and discussing. What the OP posted is mainly worthless banter at best.

 

The bottom line is that people are unhappy. And people won't pay for a service when they're unhappy.

 

The bottom line is someone got there panties in a wad over something they didn't like and assumed the majority of other gamers felt the same. I say that's simply not true since we know you cannot go by whats posted on the forums as a majority of gamers. Cause the majority of SWTOR gamers don't post and they are playing and enjoying the game.

 

While I agree that people will not pay for a service they are unhappy with, thinking the service will change to fit your personal taste when said service is for 1.7 million players who have there own personal wants is more than a stupid line of thinking.

 

As for the individual that stated that the complainers on the forums are only "a small percentage of the population"...I was using the same argument, up until I really thought about it. There is no data proving that statement. And if you keep track of the complainers, or just the poor individuals in the Customer Service section, you'll rarely see the same names pop up all the time.

 

Actually at one point on the WOW forums a blue made reference to this and just how few people actually posted on the forums given how negative and terrible those forums were. I bet it's no different here.

 

I agree that the people who absolutely must have it "their way" are obnoxious and poor human beings. But they're also part of the base that is paying for this game to continue.

 

They are part of the player base by default only as a paying subscriber. However, they are not good for the game nor the player base cause they can't stop thinking about them selves and what they want. Just like the OP. Out of all his ranting he has about 2 things worth discussing and the rest is worthless "ME ME ME" stuff.

 

Thats not good for any game.

 

A final point: Everyone is ignoring the fact that complaints aren't just confined to this forum. The complaints can be seen on other gaming forums, on Facebook, even in-game.

 

I dare say most of them the same minority of people as well. Complainers rarely just yell to one person. They have to much self-entitlement to stop at just one place.Got to have more people looking at them.

 

The only thing you really read about is bugs and PVP from other places and yet the game is rated hugely successful right now with the added blurb of when those 2 things gets worked out it will be an amazing game in all areas.

 

If the OP's post had contained more actualy problems then this thread might have went a different direction but alas, there is no good discussion to come of it.

Edited February 20, 2012 by Quraswren

[VorpalK]

Hear this Bioware, buy wows engine or that unreal, save your face, admit that your engine is poor. Start over, make us a real game not this joke.

 

ps. I disagree with the travel thing

 

They're not going to re-do the entire game around a new engine.

 

They're not going to stop everything and start over.

 

It's not going to happen. The game has launched.

 

Hopefully they can improve the current engine where it needs it.

 

Asking for them to throw the entire game out and start over is ignorant at the very least.

[Satanski]

Thanks for helping me make my point as both posts are mainly personal opinions and offers little worth, yet people love to run there mouth (or keyboard).

 

The OP's post is generally worthless as it does nothing but provide personal opinion and nothing much to fact.

 

When he does try to talk fact, he changes gears back to personal opinion or comparisons to WOW which offer nothing.

 

There is no other thing then personal opinions. The only worthless thing is your statement that posting opinions is worthless becouse i want to read what people have to say about the game thus invalidate it.

[Drewser]

Drew i personaly hope your right. honestly i do i hope that people do stick around so EA will release more funds to expand this game evolve its game play and make it better. But from playing multiple MMO's from launch and following the communities pre and post launch. the retention rate is going to be not so great.

Based on engine problems and shallow end game a good portion of MMO vets will not make the 90 day mark on subs. If you think tor is gonna retain those 1.7 million subs your very very hopeful. they sold over 2 million copies and with in 11 days form december 20th to december 31st over 400 k players spit this game out before they were even asked to put their credit card number in. with that said i dont hink TOR will be a failure not by a long shot but i do not see it retaining the Veteran MMO crowd and in all honesty those are the ones that sub for long cycles and dont churn in and out with the facebook generation of gamers.

 

Dude, you are going back to this again after being proven wrong 100s of times?

 

The 1.7m number is as of Feb 2012, not Dec, 31, 2011. So 300K leaving in the first 5-6 weeks is nothing unusual.

[oursacrifice]

I want to chime in and say that I agree with everything you've said. Especially this paragraph and the last sentence. I can only say that every bad thing is a blessing in disguise. If this game means that we will finally see the death of so many mediocre and ancient mechanics, then so be it. I only hope that all of the MMORPGs in development or just in the idea phase, scribbled on a cocktail napkin somewhere, take notice of what's happened here and strive to avoid it.

 

The MMO community is very vocal and it's clear what the community as a whole wants and doesn't want. Too many developers ignore these "requirements" for the sake 'of the greater good' and to preserve the false notion of server communities and stuff.

 

The insentive to continue to play sub-par games is dwindling more and more as time passes. When you literally have a juggernaut MMO on the market that covers a HUGE range of the gaming population from casual to "hardcore", as a developer, you absolutely have no excuse to ignore the popular features that the fanbase absolutely loves.

 

For one example:

There's a reason why various tools were created and it wasn't so Blizzard could troll WoW players. It was because there was a clear and focused calling for them.

 

For Bioware to state during developement that they have no intentions of adding those tools because of "server community" then, a month after release say they're adding them - well, that simply shows they had no clue what they were doing, and they had no clue what the MMO market was actually like.

 

People want to be able to play on their own time, they want to be able to experience more than just quests. They want to run "dungeons", a lot want to "raid" they want to pvp whenever they log in, etc... Blind developers like Bioware fail to understand that, and they get bit for it.

[Drewser]

It is all about me. That is precisely how a gamer should look at it. I don't play and pay for someone else, do I?

 

My point is that a person will unsubscribe over a personal problem, just as they would a technical problem. We can have constructive debates all we want, and God knows I've tried for the past two months, but it changes nothing.

 

The bottom line is that people are unhappy. And people won't pay for a service when they're unhappy.

 

As for the individual that stated that the complainers on the forums are only "a small percentage of the population"...I was using the same argument, up until I really thought about it. There is no data proving that statement. And if you keep track of the complainers, or just the poor individuals in the Customer Service section, you'll rarely see the same names pop up all the time.

 

I agree that the people who absolutely must have it "their way" are obnoxious and poor human beings. But they're also part of the base that is paying for this game to continue.

 

A final point: Everyone is ignoring the fact that complaints aren't just confined to this forum. The complaints can be seen on other gaming forums, on Facebook, even in-game.

 

Sure there is. Just look at the numbers.

 

2+ million games sold

 

In general and customer service there a total of about 100k threads and 1.2m total posts.

 

Even if every thread was started by a different user, that is still 5% of the number of boxes sold. We all know each thread was not started by a unique user so the percentage is well below that.

 

If you use general alone, about less than 3% of the buyer have started a thread here.

 

If you look at total posts there are less than 1m in general so again we have not even reached 50% of the box sales if each post was by someone different. Now factor all the people with more than 100 posts and see how quickly that percentage diminishes.

Edited February 20, 2012 by Drewser

[Goretzu]

People want to be able to play on their own time, they want to be able to experience more than just quests. They want to run "dungeons", a lot want to "raid" they want to pvp whenever they log in, etc... Blind developers like Bioware fail to understand that, and they get bit for it.

 

 

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.

[gurugeorge]

The MMO community is very vocal and it's clear what the community as a whole wants and doesn't want.

 

The "MMO community" is irrelevant in this instance, because BW are obviously not interested in a quixotic crusade to entertain a a bunch of bored people who are jaded with MMOs and basically will never be happy.

 

They're interested in getting new players who don't have many preconceptions, and who couldn't give a toss what the famous "MMO community" thinks, because the famous "MMO community" isn't even on their radar.

[Satanski]

[...]

Endgame needs to be there, no doubt - because eventually even the new players will get there. But it clearly wasn't the priority for BW on launch, the priority was to get the early part of the game perfected, precisely to entice the kinds of players I'm talking about.

[...]

 

Sory but i just rofled. The early part of this game is too simplyfied for a singleplayer and not enough mmo to be paid for. Perfected is the last word i would use.