This game is TWO MONTHS old.

[Cuillin]

Everyone forgets that WoW sucked when it first was released. I quit 2 months after playing.

[CommonKnowledge]

Welcome to MMO's... hope this experience didn't scar you for life.

 

Can i haz your stuff?

 

And at what point can you judge an MMO? At release? No, too early. After several months? Still to early. A year? Maybe but patch 1.5 is bringing in a load of new stuff - too soon to tell. If MMOs are never finished then then can either never be reviewed or you just have to put aside future development and review what's currently available.

 

What's currently available in SWtoR is less than what's currently available with other MMOs both new and old.

Edited February 23, 2012 by CommonKnowledge

[Oldgrimm]

Welcome to MMO's... hope this experience didn't scar you for life.

 

Can i haz your stuff?

 

Nah, SWTOR goes to the dust-collector shelf to his new buddies AOC, WAR a.s.o..

 

And you have a 25% chance to get my stuff, if you roll an alt on my server and get him to 50.

[itekazzawrrlic]

And at what point can you judge an MMO? At release? No, too early. After several months? Still to early. A year? Maybe but patch 1.5 is bringing in a load of new stuff - too soon to tell. If MMOs are never finished then then can either never be reviewed or you just have to put aside future development and review what's currently available.

 

What's currently available in SWtoR is less than what's currently available with other MMOs both new and old.

 

Well, that is your opinion. I've played way worse at launch. (SWG and AoC come to mind) Is this game perfect? No one ever said it was, at least i didn't. Am i satisfied? Absolutely... Will it get better? Of course. Is it worth $15 a month? It is for me.

 

No one is keeping you here, and in 6 months or a year when you come back, you'll think it's worth it too.

[itekazzawrrlic]

Nah, SWTOR goes to the dust-collector shelf to his new buddies AOC, WAR a.s.o..

 

And you have a 25% chance to get my stuff, if you roll an alt on my server and get him to 50.

 

Im sure everyone will be crying their eyes out over your departure.

[Dan_McMan]

I'm very glad I'm not the only person who feels some of the detractors for this game need to calm down.

 

I love the game. I'm having a great time. What the game offers that WoW does not is totally worth while for me.

 

I am eagerly awaiting new content like the legacy system, but I can wait. The game got release early in classic EA style, and I don't expect it to get finished NOW.

[Wingfoot]

I haven't played WoW since the Burning Crusade expansion, but I feel the Ops argument just doesn't hold the weight he/she thinks it should. I don't compare this game to WoW, nor will I ever. I also don't compare it to the other MMO's I've played. However, and most importantly, I will point out that there is just no excuse anymore to have the issues this game does at a release in this day and age of gaming, especially MMO gaming. In my eyes, the age of this product is meaningless since the issues this game has should have been fixed in BETA and not fixed after RELEASE. It seems all of the failed MMO's of the last few years have all made this same mistake and there is a reason why they failed. The reason I take that stance is for the following reasons...

 

WoW came out at just the right time, it was a success mostly by when it was released and had a good couple years with really no competition on the same scale compared to what they brought to the table. People can point to the other MMO's that were out then, but honestly they were getting older when WoW came out. Anyway, WoW's release was one of the worst releases I've ever been a part of from all the lag for the first few weeks to queues and everything else in between. What they had though was the luxury of not worrying about their customer base going elsewhere like the current MMO's of the last few years have had to contend with and as a result their subsequent failures that WoW didn't have to worry about.

 

Case in point, Warhammer Online. This game had the chance more than any other MMO released since WoW to dethrone it simply because of how far reaching the genre was/is, but the release in WAR was such a cluster that they lost their playerbase in the first 30-60 days never to return. Did the game get fixed and turn out to be pretty good? Yes, it did, but it was just too late by then. Why? Because in 2008-09 there were so many other choices in MMO's and gaming in general that they just couldn't get the playerbase back as WoW never had to worry about in 2004.

 

The fact that the Bioware team didn't learn from the countless MMO failures over the last 7-8 years is rather mind boggling, especially when you had Bioware take over Warhammer, you would think they would have used that model to learn from it. With that being the case, you would have thought Bioware would have pulled the great things WAR had, especially the customizable UI, which was the best UI system I've seen in an MMO without having to use addons. The immunity timers for CC in PvP, how they reverted to the trash resolve system in SWTOR and not use WAR's immunity timers is a sad thought. I could go on an on, but I digress. To me, there just is no excuse anymore to release an unfinished product of this magnitude. It would be fine if it were just some bugs the players were dealing with, but when you compound the major issues SWTOR has it just makes me want to shake my head. The UI/GTN are really alpha versions more than release versions. When you take a look at the PvP woes, these are all issues that games over the last few years have all taken a beating on and yet the devs in SWTOR have made the SAME EXACT MISTAKES! How is that even possible is beyond me...

 

The thing that will hopefully be the only saving grace for this game and buy Bioware some time is the Star Wars Universe which the game takes place in, because quite honestly some of the failed MMO's over the last decade have been much much better than this game and yet still failed. I am still subbed and want this game to succeed, but there just is no excuse to release what they did in this day and age of gaming, ESPECIALLY with the feedback they were given over Beta.

 

And to compound matters for Bioware, Guild Wars 2 just released a 48hour beta signup, so the clock is most definitely ticking, because it seems GW2 is taking their time with their release to get it right as opposed to rushing and pushing an unfinished game out to the masses. WoW didn't have to compete with this, so they had the time to make their game the success it turned out to be, they had the luxury of a couple years of no real MMO competition or other big games that had the draw to pull away their customer base like the last 5 years have had.

Edited February 23, 2012 by Wingfoot

[itekazzawrrlic]

I haven't played WoW since the Burning Crusade expansion, but I feel the Ops argument just doesn't hold the weight he/she thinks it should. I don't compare this game to WoW, nor will I ever. I also don't compare it to the other MMO's I've played. However, and most importantly, I will point out that there is just no excuse anymore to have the issues this game does at a release in this day and age of gaming, especially MMO gaming. In my eyes, the age of this product is meaningless since the issues this game has should have been fixed in BETA and not fixed after RELEASE. It seems all of the failed MMO's of the last few years have all made this same mistake and there is a reason why they failed. The reason I take that stance is for the following reasons...

 

WoW came out at just the right time, it was a success mostly by when it was released and had a good couple years with really no competition on the same scale compared to what they brought to the table. People can point to the other MMO's that were out then, but honestly they were getting older when WoW came out. Anyway, WoW's release was one of the worst releases I've ever been a part of from all the lag for the first few weeks to queues and everything else in between. What they had though was the luxury of not worrying about their customer base going elsewhere like the current MMO's of the last few years have had to contend with and as a result their subsequent failures that WoW didn't have to worry about.

 

Case in point, Warhammer Online. This game had the chance more than any other MMO released since WoW to dethrone it simply because of how far reaching the genre was/is, but the release in WAR was such a cluster that they lost their playerbase in the first 30-60 days never to return. Did the game get fixed and turn out to be pretty good? Yes, it did, but it was just too late by then. Why? Because in 2008-09 there were so many other choices in MMO's and gaming in general that they just couldn't get the playerbase back as WoW never had to worry about in 2004.

 

The fact that the Bioware team didn't learn from the countless MMO failures over the last 7-8 years is rather mind boggling, especially when you had Bioware take over Warhammer, you would think they would have used that model to learn from it. To me, there just is no excuse anymore to release an unfinished product of this magnitude. It would be fine if it were just some bugs the players were dealing with, but when you compound the major issues SWTOR has it just makes me want to shake my head. The UI/GTN are really alpha versions more than release versions. When you take a look at the PvP woes, these are all issues that games over the last few years have all taken a beating on and yet the devs in SWTOR have made the SAME EXACT MISTAKES! How is that even possible is beyond me...

 

The thing that will hopefully be the only saving grace for this game and buy Bioware some time is the Star Wars Universe which the game takes place in, because quite honestly some of the failed MMO's over the last decade have been much much better than this game and yet still failed. I am still subbed and want this game to succeed, but there just is no excuse to release what they did in this day and age of gaming, ESPECIALLY with the feedback they were given over Beta.

 

And to compound matters for Bioware, Guild Wars 2 just released a 48hour beta signup, so the clock is most definitely ticking, because it seems GW2 is taking their time with their release to get it right as opposed to rushing and pushing an unfinished game out to the masses. WoW didn't have to compete with this, so they had the time to make their game the success it turned out to be, they had the luxury of a couple years of no real MMO competition or other big games that had the draw to pull away their customer base like the last 5 years have had.

 

 

I have no interest in Guild Wars 2.

[Sizzurps]

A secretary walks into a store and needs a solid word processor. She has the choice between....

 

A) Microsoft Office

 

B) A new word processor that looks and performs like... WordPerfect 5.1.

 

A fanbois for the new word processor stops her and says... "You should buy B because it has potential." The secretary replies, "Why should I wait for performance and reliability when I can just buy A?"

[Mordyth]

As for bugs, you're very wrong. I don't think you've played many MMOs lol because you sound like you don't know what you're talking about. WOW had entire servers down and the lag was completely attrocious. This game doesn't have NEARLY as many bugs as any other MMO I've played at launch before. If you expect this game to be the same a year from now you've just proved to me you don't know what you're talking about.

 

I love this because the ammount of times that I drowned at the top of a hill in Vanguard was amazing

[CommonKnowledge]

Well, that is your opinion. I've played way worse at launch. (SWG and AoC come to mind) Is this game perfect? No one ever said it was, at least i didn't. Am i satisfied? Absolutely... Will it get better? Of course. Is it worth $15 a month? It is for me.

 

No one is keeping you here, and in 6 months or a year when you come back, you'll think it's worth it too.

 

That's just evading the question. You're dismissing other peoples complaints about SWtoR because it will get better over time, but you don't say at what point enough time will have passed before those complaints become valid.

 

You're right, nobody is keeping me here and perhaps in a years time this game will have caught up with games of today. Of course by then a new bunch of MMOs will be available and SWtoR will have to catch up all over again. No this isn't the worst MMO I've every played - DCUO was way worse - but at the same time it's just average and doesn't do anything new. It's the same gear treadmill MMOs have been using for the last decade, the same tank/healer/DPS class setup and the same questing that WoW was using 8 years ago.

 

Even if you have no interest in other upcoming MMOs that doesn't somehow gloss over all the flaws of this game because you're choosing not to look at other games.

[itekazzawrrlic]

A secretary walks into a store and needs a solid word processor. She has the choice between....

 

A) Microsoft Office

 

B) A new word processor that looks and performs like... WordPerfect 5.1.

 

A fanbois for the new word processor stops her and says... "You should buy B because it has potential." The secretary replies, "Why should I wait for performance and reliability when I can just buy A?"

 

A lame comparison as MS Office has patches almost on a weekly basis.

[Oldgrimm]

Discussion with fans is futile ... yet amusing.

[itekazzawrrlic]

That's just evading the question. You're dismissing other peoples complaints about SWtoR because it will get better over time, but you don't say at what point enough time will have passed before those complaints become valid.

 

You're right, nobody is keeping me here and perhaps in a years time this game will have caught up with games of today. Of course by then a new bunch of MMOs will be available and SWtoR will have to catch up all over again. No this isn't the worst MMO I've every played - DCUO was way worse - but at the same time it's just average and doesn't do anything new. It's the same gear treadmill MMOs have been using for the last decade, the same tank/healer/DPS class setup and the same questing that WoW was using 8 years ago.

 

Even if you have no interest in other upcoming MMOs that doesn't somehow gloss over all the flaws of this game because you're choosing not to look at other games.

 

Im not dismissing anything... im saying put your money where your mouth is and leave. THe funny part is most people aren't willing to do that, they just "threaten" to move on to another game as if the whole community is going to start crying over their departure. You think the game is sub-par... fine... Im ok with that. Having to read the deadhorse posts everyday im not.

 

It is what it is, and for the most part, people are happy with the finished product, and that is what grinds your gears... Deal with it or move on.

[Oldgrimm]

Im not dismissing anything... im saying put your money where your mouth is and leave. THe funny part is most people aren't willing to do that, they just "threaten" to move on to another game as if the whole community is going to start crying over their departure. You think the game is sub-par... fine... Im ok with that. Having to read the deadhorse posts everyday im not.

 

It is what it is, and for the most part, people are happy with the finished product, and that is what grinds your gears... Deal with it or move on.

 

Who is forcing you, to read this topics again?

[CommonKnowledge]

Im not dismissing anything... im saying put your money where your mouth is and leave. THe funny part is most people aren't willing to do that, they just "threaten" to move on to another game as if the whole community is going to start crying over their departure. You think the game is sub-par... fine... Im ok with that. Having to read the deadhorse posts everyday im not.

 

It is what it is, and for the most part, people are happy with the finished product, and that is what grinds your gears... Deal with it or move on.

 

Nobody is forcing you to read, reply or in any way engage with my posts. Equally I could say to you "well if you like the game go and play it rather than wasting your time on the forums." Bioware isn't going to break down into tears if I tell them I think their game was launched too early and they don't need you to protect them for the big bad internet trolls.

 

Equally you still aren't answering my questions with anything other than "don't like it then leave." If you're going to tell people their opinions are wrong because the game is new then at what point does the game stop being new and those opinions become valid?

Edited February 23, 2012 by CommonKnowledge

[moneky]

Funny how a game 2 months old can cause players on a certain server to stop War Zone'ing for a whole month. Hey! thats like half the lifespan of this game! A whole month of no war zones.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=322003

[Terans]

I love this game and I won't be quitting, but the argument that it's only two months old is wrong.

 

It's been in development for years and I agree with the people who are shocked that this game didn't have all the standards an MMO nowadays have.

 

Such as a customisable UI.

[Uruare]

Why people expect Bioware to have managed to develop more in their development period than another company has in 7 years of extra development time, I'll never know.

 

Vanilla TOR has slightly more content than vanilla WoW. So Bioware is apparently slightly faster at developing new content. To expect them to suddenly pull 7 years worth of extra development content out of thin air is ridiculous.

 

Yes, TOR is competing with WoW in its current iteration.

 

To use the car analogy however, it's not at all like a 2011 car competing with a 2004 car.

 

It's more like a new company trying to compete with Ford, only the new company has never made a car before, they've only made toy cars up to that point. And none of the other car companies are going to tell them how to build one either. And it's illegal for them to pull apart the other car to see how it's made. And they're not allowed to use the same parts that the other companies use.

 

 

Not quite. You're on the right track to a certain extent with the point you're making, but it doesn't carry through definitively. Here's why.

 

 

They wouldn't have to reverse engineer other games to playtest them, experience the systems people love and hate alike and get a firsthand feel for what MMO gamers are using, liking, hating and -why-.

 

From Blizzard, they'll never get WoW's telemetries on user data, but there is -nothing- stopping them from logging in and giving it a good play as it is -right now-, to get a good feel for what is being used, what is working and what things look like at the ground level -right now-.

 

Yeah, it's like the lead engineer of a new car going and sitting in and test driving the successful competition. Actually, physically using it themselves and then contrasting that information against all the data the mathemeticians compellingly present based on their near total lack of social psychology qualifications that might make the math's contexts relevant to the intention of user satisfaction.

 

 

--

 

 

Here's an example of where they clearly didn't burn test things: speeders.

 

How bloody underwhelming. 10% incremental increases on speed per rank and unquantified improvements on durability under attack?

 

Why didn't they give speeders a HP total that you can see while riding it?

 

Why did they keep the speed increases so small?

 

Simple answer: Because you won't see how useful a selling point something like a visibly superior HP total on your money sink vehicles might be if you never use such things in your own intended contexts for use. And in the case of the fractional speed increases, it offers a numerical benefit that doesn't drastically alter zone completion times beyond a predictive median with an absolute minimum time investment per zone.

 

 

Here's another example: The absolutely feature-void static UI.

 

Nobody, and I mean -NOBODY- that's ever actually played a modern MMO extensively and even half-heartedly tried to excell in one is going to find the release state of TOR's UI acceptable. To hail back to the car analogy, it'd be like that new car manufacturer releasing one car with no power windows even as an option, no air conditioning, no stereo (and not even a aperture to install your own), bench seats with an absolute minimum of functional placeholder-spec polish and plain white upholstery without so much as a single color option.

 

 

--

 

 

Are they working on more robust UI features? Statedly so, but who in their right mind takes their new car to market before even basic user functionality and quality of life features are ready, especially when that car is priced and designed to appeal to the same demographic as some of the most feature-rich, functionality-packed and QoL-enabled offerings in not just the demographic, but in the industry period?

 

You take a car in that state to market and you'd be damned lucky if you didn't get some enraged person that believed your years of hyping your product running you over with your own prototype, as that's all it would essentially be in that state.

 

In MMO translation, yeah, it's a different industry. Yeah, they're statedly working on not just UI improvements, but functionality and QoL features across the boards.

 

Nobody's disputing that they're working on those things. Frankly, I don't think anybody of a reasonably appointed opinion would go so far as to say they didn't know that such things were important and would be in absolute demand in the first place.

 

 

--

 

 

Doesn't change the fact that somebody, probably EA mandating a release-or-die date, dropped the bag.

 

I can't see Bioware failing to grasp basic premises of what a game should include.

 

It looks a lot like they didn't ask the right questions, or interpret the answers given correctly, or seek their info from the right places and sources...but more likely still?

 

More likely than that Bioware pulled a hundred amateur mistakes out of their hat and slapped themselves upside the head with every single one of them?

 

They were rushed and had to get something that could be driven at all on the floor right now, or heads would start rolling.

 

And it's really sad, from a professional vantage point. Bioware is left holding the 'Kick Me' sign when, in all probability, they should probably be congratulated for getting their 'vehicle' out the door in the working order it released in under the all too probable conditions of dictation the fatcats upstairs demanded.

 

Still doesn't change the fact that the vehicle hit the market in such a barebones state that anyone -not- expecting a certain degree of backlash and outrage probably lives so deep in the closet of delusion that they're having adventures in Narnia.

Edited February 23, 2012 by Uruare

[itekazzawrrlic]

Nobody is forcing you to read, reply or in any way engage with my posts. Equally I could say to you "well if you like the game go and play it rather than wasting your time on the forums." Bioware isn't going to break down into tears if I tell them I think their game was launched too early and they don't need you to protect them for the big bad internet trolls.

 

Equally you still aren't answering my questions with anything other than "don't like it then leave." If you're going to tell people their opinions are wrong because the game is new then at what point does the game stop being new and those opinions become valid?

 

Because there is no answer... It's all subjective... I never said it wasn't. Hence the "get over it, or leave" attitude cause you're just grinding your gears.

 

Like i said, it's not the fact that the game doesn't live up to your expectations that burns you, it's that some people actually enjoy the game despite your gripes.

[Vecke]

I've been in a few launches and played quite a few MMOs (too many, really). In my opinion, this is the best launch I've seen in my very limited experience with MMO launches. In regards to the other MMOs I've played, it's better in many ways and worse in some other ways.

 

None of that impacts my decision to play, though. If the game is fun enough to warrant a monthly fee, I'll pay it. If it's not, I won't. That's it, for me.

 

But it's a little silly (IMO) to tell people they shouldn't compare this game to its current competitor. ToR isn't competing with WoW 7 years ago. You can't quit TOR and go play WoW Vanilla. TOR is competing with the version of WoW that is currently available to players. It's silly to ask them to NOT compare the game to its current competition.

 

For me, TOR is far more enjoyable than WoW was. For the record, I hated WoW. Played it for a week and quit. Hated the art style (among other things). But to someone that loves WoW, they have to decide which game gets their money, so why on earth would they make that decision based on a game that no longer exists?

 

Bottom line, if they like WoW - as it is today - better than they like TOR - as it is today - they have every right to say so. And they have every right to go play the game that's better.

 

TOR would be idiotic to try to compete with a game as it was 7 years ago. They are competing with a game that exists today. In my opinion, they're winning by leaps and bounds. To others, they are not. But the only version of WoW that should be compared to TOR is the version that is currently competing with TOR. And that's the version that's out right now.

Edited February 23, 2012 by Vecke

[CommonKnowledge]

Like i said, it's not the fact that the game doesn't live up to your expectations that burns you, it's that some people actually enjoy the game despite your gripes.

 

Hardly; the more competition in the MMO market the better as it results in higher quality due to them having to compete with one another. If people want to enjoy the game then that's fine and I'm not going to say that they're wrong. It's people like you who tell others that they're wrong when they criticise the game that's the problem because it always results in blind loyalty and factionalism. I haven't played a single MMO where there weren't at least some people so enamoured with it that they defended it at all costs.

 

This game has problems. Bioware has had all of Beta and three months since launch to fix them. Yet what's actually changed since launch? Well there's a 50 PvP bracket which somehow manages to be even more imbalanced than the 10-49 one. The UI flashes a lot more than it used to and most worringly of all classes have been nerfed meaning they prioratise cosmetic PvP balance rather than core issues like faction imbalance.

 

I've already said the game is average but nothing special and people can disagree if they want. However there's a distinct lack of game plan on Biowares behalf; are they focusing on content? balance? bugs? They just seem to focus on short term patches rather than long term goals. I guess that's fine if you only play a few hours a week but for a lot of people they wanted a new MMO they could call home and play reguarly - this game simply isn't it.

[oakamp]

If any of you have been around launches of other MMOs (which I doubt many people here have), you come to realize that they aren't going to be perfect at launch.

 

remind u, today is year 2012.

dont live in the past.

[ROSS-]

Not quite. You're on the right track to a certain extent with the point you're making, but it doesn't carry through definitively. Here's why.

 

 

They wouldn't have to reverse engineer other games to playtest them, experience the systems people love and hate alike and get a firsthand feel for what MMO gamers are using, liking, hating and -why-.

 

From Blizzard, they'll never get WoW's telemetries on user data, but there is -nothing- stopping them from logging in and giving it a good play as it is -right now-, to get a good feel for what is being used, what is working and what things look like at the ground level -right now-.

 

...

 

 

Except that what you get when you log onto WoW right now, is somewhat contraversial. Some people believe that LFG and LFR have ruined that game. There are some that post that think addons/macros/combat logs/dps meters should never be a part of this game. I'm not in that crowd, but I have read their posts.

 

I can understand BW taking a cautious approach at launch...

[CommonKnowledge]

Except that what you get when you log onto WoW right now, is somewhat contraversial. Some people believe that LFG and LFR have ruined that game. There are some that post that think addons/macros/combat logs/dps meters should never be a part of this game. I'm not in that crowd, but I have read their posts.

 

I can understand BW taking a cautious approach at launch...

 

I imagine that if you ask the people who think LFG ruined the game that what they actually dislike is the X-realm aspect of it. People say LFG ruined server communities, well no, the fact that it grouped you with people you would never meet again ruined the community. If a server wide LFG was put in why would that impact on the social aspect of the game? If you meet someone you like add them to your friends and all of a sudden you get groups that much faster.

 

I don't see why people would be adverse to mods. Maybe the "must have 11k DPS" aspect put them off but the customisable UI is pretty basic.

Edited February 23, 2012 by CommonKnowledge