Fun comparison

[kufa]

A truly good game has features that the players didn't know they wanted.

[RabidPopcorn]

A truly good game has features that the players didn't know they wanted.

 

QFT. If only more people agreed with that instead of saying "learn to live with it".

 

But SWTOR UI wise I can't really think of anything spectacular off the top of my head, not saying that it didn't have any improvements/innovations... just can't recall them.

[Fairell]

the amount of ignorance people put up these days is ridiculous. while i would like to see many of wow's features in swtor, i know that it is simply not possible.

 

you CANNOT compare games development to cars, computers or anything else. think of it like it is building a city.

 

wow- 4 years of building behind closed gates, 8 years of additional work

 

swtor- 5 years closed development, 2 months of polishing

 

programming hours are programming hours, everything you want to see is weeks and months of coding. did they see what wow and others games have done good? im sure. and im also sure they would like to implement lots of those features.

 

now do simple maths. convert the years wow has been in development + the time its been out and convert them into coding hours.

 

do the same for swtor. everyone with a bit of intelligence would see that BW would have had started with 2 additional studios to be on par with wows 12 years of development.

 

now try to forecast the costs and the resulting subscription fees. would you like to have swtor to have surpassed wow in every possible area for 50bucks a month and 300 for the game itself? i doubt it.

[Sleed]

When was released Wow again ? its easy to copy paste. Its hard to do it initialy, what swtor created ? Nothing.

 

They haven't even copied the best part of the game like dungeon finder, yeah of course it would break the community, oh wait there is none on swtor

 

This game is ok for a month then most people drop it, i know i did

 

Like it or not Swtor is dead

[gaalon]

Maybe you say "but everyone knows that endgame content is important! They should prioritize it over the other stuff!" But then what do we get? A game where levelling is slow, boring and unfun because every quest is the same [...]

 

And this would be different to the current SWTOR levelling experience how exactly?

 

All quests are the same old crap that were boring in WOW and will still be boring in 10 years. The mediocre dialogues/voices don't make the game play any less boring while questing... it's just a 2 minute (extremely expensive) time-sink before every FedEx or Kill X of Y crap quests.

 

I would have preferred them to not waste time on stupid levelling content that nobody gives a flying f##k about in 2 months time and rather invest the wasted money on a decent UI, reactive game play, end-game content and perhaps a forced sterilization of at least half the dev team (in the interest of the human gene pool).

[xfreidax]

WoW launched in 2003...

 

Really? Comparing a launch from almost 10 years ago to a launch now?

 

Newsflash! In older mmo's, a camp of mobs for groups to grind on was considered content!

 

There was no fast travel, you run everywhere! Leveling was a group activity and it took months even for hardcore players!

 

Does that mean these first gen mmo's sucked? No. They were fun at that time. But things change...

 

TL:DR Games can launch today with all these new features we've come to accept as standard and still be a steaming pile of poo.

[Fairell]

When was released Wow again ? its easy to copy paste. Its hard to do it initialy, what swtor created ? Nothing.

 

They haven't even copied the best part of the game like dungeon finder, yeah of course it would break the community, oh wait there is none on swtor

 

This game is ok for a month then most people drop it, i know i did

 

Like it or not Swtor is dead

 

you sir are not just ignorant, you are just dumb.

 

easy to copy paste, ya ofc it is....you know blizz has their source code all over the internet

[Therrak]

I apologise for misinterpreting your post and the SWTOR team and I both agree that bug squashing is a priority, but what I'm saying is the game should have shipped with a UI that functioned like it had the "creature comforts"/"bells and whistles" of a 2011/2012 MMO (e.g. 2011/2012 WoW); same goes for character responsiveness, these are issues that should have been properly dealt with before release because they're the bare minimum; the problem arises when people act like SWTOR's UI/responsiveness is good enough and is intended to be that way, or when people say things like "learn to live with it".

 

And I agreed to that in my first sentence. My post was directed at the people who keep complaining about content. Not people who have legitimate complaints about how horrible the UI is or how buggy their gameplay is. That said, I don't think TOR needs every bell and whistle that WoW has. As far as the UI goes, the game should have released with the ability to scale and move each element of the UI individually and the GTN should be more functional. That would have improved the UI for release considerably. Things like a built in threat meter aren't necessary at this point.

[RabidPopcorn]

the amount of ignorance people put up these days is ridiculous. while i would like to see many of wow's features in swtor, i know that it is simply not possible.

 

you CANNOT compare games development to cars, computers or anything else. think of it like it is building a city.

 

wow- 4 years of building behind closed gates, 8 years of additional work

 

swtor- 5 years closed development, 2 months of polishing

 

programming hours are programming hours, everything you want to see is weeks and months of coding. did they see what wow and others games have done good? im sure. and im also sure they would like to implement lots of those features.

 

now do simple maths. convert the years wow has been in development + the time its been out and convert them into coding hours.

 

do the same for swtor. everyone with a bit of intelligence would see that BW would have had started with 2 additional studios to be on par with wows 12 years of development.

 

now try to forecast the costs and the resulting subscription fees. would you like to have swtor to have surpassed wow in every possible area for 50bucks a month and 300 for the game itself? i doubt it.

 

So it's not reasonable for us to expect SWTOR to have a UI/responsiveness that's at least as good as WoW?

 

Oh and btw, if starting with 2 additional studios was what was needed, then I'm sure the brains at EA knew that - it was a conscious choice that they didn't want to invest that much and raise the stakes.

 

Building a city: pretty sure many developing countries are taking much less time to get to where developed countries are due to technological improvement over the years plus all the learning experiences of developed countries.

Edited February 21, 2012 by RabidPopcorn

[Jamus_Divinus]

SWTOR was great for 2 months, but let`s be serious - 2012 game should look like that:

 

 

No it shouldn't

 

I much prefer TOR's graphics. It's subjective I know but GW2 doesn't look great to me. It looks good, not great.

 

If you instead mean the game's features I'll have to wait for more info. So far the little i've seen 'confirmed' doesn't inspire me to buy it. I'll take another look after it's launched this summer.

[Fairell]

So it's not reasonable for us to expect SWTOR to have a UI/responsiveness that's at least as good as WoW?

 

Oh and btw, if starting with 2 additional studios was what was needed, then I'm sure the brains at EA knew that - it was conscious choice that they didn't want to invest that much and raise the stakes.

 

Building a city: pretty sure many developing countries are taking much less time to get to where developed countries are due to technological improvement over the years plus all the learning experiences of developed countries.

 

i agree on UI/responsiveness.

but what you are seeing wrong on the city analogy is, that developing countries receive technologies and help from others since they have something developed countries want (natural resources)

 

now i doubt blizz would send bw its source code for some features. im not that much into programming atm, so i dont know how easy is it to throw things together build on different engines eve if they did.

[GhostKamui]

Yes let's take a look at the release of both games:

 

 

Difficulty:

>>>>>WoW: Handful of guilds worldwide completed Naxx 40 man <<<<<<

SWTOR: Farming nightmare

 

 

 

 

I'd be embarrassed if I was a part of this game and the only saving face we had was to compare it to games seven years prior (Which it can't even fully compare to WoW at seven years prior!!).

 

~Give them time~ What six years and 200+ million wasn't enough time? I will give them time, time to admit they failed on this MMo.

 

 

Pretty odd how you say "don't compare to WoW 7 years ago" but yet that's what YOU just did...Maybe it is because Dragonsoul would just shoot to many holes in that one huh?

I didn't Quote the other remarks about character models or classes ,but seriously. You can change the character models in TOR to Dif shapes or forms, WoW has the same thing as far as all models are humanoid based but not changeable for model and there are 4 archetypes but 8 classes. I play both , WoW is a nicely polished game but it is dieing slowly has been since WoTLK. This Game needs Work too, but only time will tell what will happen personally I am still waiting to see.

 

 

 

Either way someone else said it already .... Way to jump on the bandwagon of E-Cool

 

 

P.S. Next time try harder.

[RabidPopcorn]

i agree on UI/responsiveness.

but what you are seeing wrong on the city analogy is, that developing countries receive technologies and help from others since they have something developed countries want (natural resources)

 

now i doubt blizz would send bw its source code for some features. im not that much into programming atm, so i dont know how easy is it to throw things together build on different engines eve if they did.

 

You may be right on the 'source code' thing but isn't it the job of the programmer/engineer to reverse-engineer? i.e. The EA team looks at WoW and tries to do it with their own code.

[Harabek]

Ford T (1908): No Airbags

VW Golf (2012): Airbags

 

Ford T (1908): No Power-steering

VW Golf (2012): Power-steering

 

Ford T (1908): 2 speed Transmission

VW Golf (2012): 6 speed Transmission

 

Those arguments "for" ToR get really old. SW:ToR was released 12/2011. It has to live up to the current gaming and MMO standards.

 

And even if i go by your list.. Add customer support.. or bugfixing.. or ingame GM support. Say what you want about them, but Blizzard has an excellent customer support and had from the very start.

 

And next time compare SW:Tor to some text-based adventures ! About as valid and it makes look ToR even better!

Edited February 21, 2012 by Harabek

[Fairell]

You may be right on the 'source code' thing but isn't it the job of the programmer/engineer to reverse-engineer? i.e. The EA team looks at WoW and tries to do it with their own code.

 

i cant argue on that since, like i said i just started with webpage programming so i dont know crap about that object oriented (hope the translation fits) stuff and in particular which role the engine plays. with web stuff it is easy, since you can copy paste the html code of every site since it is available to everyone, but it is just the basic framework. you can guess on the other stuff made with php, css and js but you have still to code it yourself.

 

perhaps someone experienced with C++ stuff (i heard somewhere wow is coded in that language)can enlighten us how it works for games

[Fairell]

Ford T (1908): No Airbags

VW Golf (2012): Airbags

 

Ford T (1908): No Power-steering

VW Golf (2012): Power-steering

 

Ford T (1908): 2 speed Transmission

VW Golf (2012): 6 speed Transmission

 

Those arguments "for" ToR get really old. SW:ToR was released 12/2011. It has to live up to the current gaming and MMO standards.

 

And even if i go by your list.. Add customer support.. or bugfixing.. or ingame GM support. Say what you want about them, but Blizzard has an excellent customer support and had from the very start.

 

And next time compare SW:Tor to some text-based adventures ! About as valid and it makes look ToR even better!

 

 

dumb comparison. airbags and such are technologies you can pay a license fee and use it, so every ford, vw, blabla can easily have it. for games it is a completely different story.

 

those are not pro swtor arguments. those are arguments on how game development works.

 

i fully agree with you on the customer support and ingame gms though.

[Ohnoto]

Raid Encounters:

SW:ToR: Shipped with 2

WoW: shipped with 2 (though 1 of those was a single boss encounter).

 

Technically, Karraga's Palace was a one boss fight at launch. The 4 extra bosses were added in during patch 1.1

 

I'd add various dungeon and raid modes.

[LonefoxSwe]

SWTOR doesnt have free expansions, they add patches just like WOW and seems like "major" patches are much smaller than in WoW.

 

Well.....there hasn't been one yet...

But the Q has been asked and the answer was that they will be included with the fee.

And the future is yet to come.

 

But to be frank.

Any MMO that charges for the expantions doesn't diserve my time. What am I paying for each month? For them to sit and roll their thumbs so we can pay EVEN more to play?

Then I'll rather look at GW that charges for the game and comming expantions but has no minthly fee.

It should be either way.....not pay for both. But then again....... I'm old..... I know...

[Harabek]

dumb comparison. airbags and such are technologies you can pay a license fee and use it, so every ford, vw, blabla can easily have it. for games it is a completely different story.

 

That was the whole point. Both my list and the OP list are about as useful.

Edited February 21, 2012 by Harabek

[RabidPopcorn]

Well.....there hasn't been one yet...

But the Q has been asked and the answer was that they will be included with the fee.

And the future is yet to come.

 

But to be frank.

Any MMO that charges for the expantions doesn't diserve my time. What am I paying for each month? For them to sit and roll their thumbs so we can pay EVEN more to play?

Then I'll rather look at GW that charges for the game and comming expantions but has no minthly fee.

It should be either way.....not pay for both. But then again....... I'm old..... I know...

 

If expansions are truly going to be free then that's a BIG plus (I agree with how we're paying them each month, surely some of it could be dedicated to free x-packs), especially if SWTOR's expansions makes it at least as large in scale as current WoW; but the question is, when?

[Ansultares]

So many of those comparisons are incorrect.

[Apoxie]

Good post, puts it into perspective. If SWTOR can retain some paying customers for 1-2 years, im sure it will rival WoW in features.

[Forsbacka]

In response to the 'car analogy' posts I offer an alternative.

 

Why would you buy an 8 year old rotting tasteless economy hamburger when you can buy a nice fresh juicy steak?

 

WoW was and still is to some extent a very successfull game. But its based on a mind numbing grind first from level 1 to level 85 and then from one peice of gear to the next. Then the base numbers of HPs, Damage etc are scaled up to make that gear obsolete to force you to grind all over again for more gear only to have the numbers scaled up again so you have to continue ad nauseum.

 

WoW is a hamster wheel.

 

SWTOR at least, and despite its many flaws, offers an entertaining story for each of the classes. Thats enough for me.

 

For amny of us TOR has exactly same boring grind and exactlysame kind a quests. Only difference is that WOoW uses quest log and TOR has voice over quest log.

[drwebs]

rabble rabble rabble I am mad!

[DigitalDreamz]

Good post, puts it into perspective. If SWTOR can retain some paying customers for 1-2 years, im sure it will rival WoW in features.

 

It puts in perspective how SWTOR cannot create a game to satisfy today's standards.

 

GW2, Tera, Archeage and The Secret World all are able and up to the challenge of competing with titles in current release. They don't need a 'LET ME GET IT RIGHT' phase. They know their competition, they have skilled developers and know what gamers of today want. They are full ready to release a title and try to take subscribers from other games because they're game can compete with TODAY'S STANDARDS. That includes all necessary UI modifications, macros, a host of personal player touches, a decent working engine, high res graphics and much more.

 

Also at the rate SWTOR is going, one to two years they'll finally get high res textures working.

 

SWTOR cannot compete with ANY mmo out currently. Nor does it even do well in comparisons of games seven years prior. It's appalling to release a game and excuse it from competing in today's market. The amount of apologizing done for this title is quite frankly embarrassing.

 

I can't imagine in ANY market where you release a product and it's o.k to compete with products seven years prior: TVs, Cars, Radios, Cell Phones, Games, Computers,

 

Imagine if Apple released a new iPhone. This 'new' phone was in development for six years and Apple spent 200+ million dollars on it. When it was released there was a delay for each number you push when trying to dial, no touch screen, no app support, no high res screen and no access to iTunes.

 

You think it'd be a good idea for Apple to say "Well if you look at phones ten years ago they didn't have this stuff so we kinda have more than those phones back then!" Same thing you SWTOR apologists are doing. It's ridiculous for that scenario and it's ridiculous here.