To put it gently, I agree with these guys..

[Klatzy]

For me, one of the worst design decisions was to make experience gain too rapid. The first 20 levels or so were well-designed and enjoyable. But once I entered the mid-20s I began to outlevel many of the mobs and quests. The tension began to leak away. The rapid level gain coupled with the transparent methods to extend gameplay: i.e. the lack of a direct travel methods, the pretty pointless travel in the class quest line (why travel to Fleet when you have a holoemitter?) broke immersion pretty quickly.

 

Overall I'd say without significant additions the long term replayability forecast is cloudy. I'm enjoying the PVP greatly, despite the serious issues. But I'm not really getting much social interactions outside of warzones. No server forums greatly hinder a sense of community. How are getting server first? Where's the gossip?

 

I enjoy TOR but when alternatives come up it's going to be hard to stay subscribed.

[Darth_Eminok]

It's funny that people keep saying things like this about TOR. TOR is the easiest, most casual friendly MMO I've ever played. It's a complete joke. Anyone who thinks they are "hardcore" because they pay to beta test a game is delusional.

 

key word easiest.

[Koalachan]

Your typical gamers nowadays are entitled, self-important, generally immature (at least as far as their public persona goes), unrealistic, and have no idea what they want out of a game. This isn't a troll or "rude behavior", it's just what I notice on a regular basis.

 

This is about the same feeling I got out of reading the blog. I would guess his playing is like his writing: As quick as possible to get what he wants now without actually working for it.

 

Only a few of the classes felt fun or interesting, and the mirrors were a little too obvious. I can’t, for example, go play a Juggernaut after playing a Guardian. They are the same thing

 

Given this is something done on purpose, so that both factions could look appropriate, and yet still be balanced, I don't see this is an issue. Switching from a trooper to a bounty hunter actually felt fluid, and I didn't need to relearn anything, like I did when I tried an agent (I hate that cover mechanic. Great for people who like it, I don't).

 

No meaningful connection between players. Crafting is pretty much a solo experience.

If you don't want to buy things from other players, that's on you, not them. It's the same as in WoW, if you don't want to buy crafting from people, you don't need to.

 

In many ways, pointless. Only Biochem and maybe Cybertech are useful.

I agree with this part, but at the same time, it is something BW is working on.

 

All but the first dungeon felt very boring to me. I couldn’t bring myself to do them more than once.

They didn’t have that replayability factor that WoW dungeons had — I could run Scholomance a dozen times but I cringe thinking about running a SWTOR dungeon.

Yes I know its a blog, but this quoted is personal opinion. I have a blast in the FPs/Ops. I especially love False Emperor, Foundry, and Maelstrom Prison.

 

I don’t like the Expertise stat at all.

This should really be something he expanded on. His opening paragraph makes it look like he is writing to people who have never played the game. They would have no clue what this means. Lazy writing is lazy. but he is getting his reward now anyway.

 

Combat feels off for me as a Jedi Knight. There’s a disconnect somewhere. Maybe a delay, maybe a GCD issue, maybe the animations

Something BW has worked on, and within 99% reasoning has fixed. Maybe if this were written a month ago I might of believed it. But then, he probably DID start writing it a month ago.

 

There isn’t a community at all. This feels like a single-player game. I rarely saw another player while leveling. People are just crammed into the station.

This one would be hit or missed, based on server. I've seen dead servers. My server I play on now is alive and thriving and is very active with a great community. We have only one troll so far, and all he does is bad mouth the military and tell everyone to vote for ron paul. But still, this blog makes it look like an absolute that there is no community. Guess I'll delete my friends list.

 

No one needs to communicate with or interact with other players on any level.

As opposed to WoW?

 

Players do not have to rely on each other.

As opposed to WoW?

 

Essentially there is no “massively multiplayer” feel.

its got the same MMO as WoW. Sure, you could argue 10million players vs 2million players. But then, WoW is available in more places around the world, and for Mac users. Both things that are being worked on.

 

Pretty much any "valid" argument he puts forth has already been addressed by BW and is being worked on. He is telling you to jump ship as soon as he see's the iceburg, instead of letting the helmsman steer away from it. His other "arguments" are all basically "I didn't want to play with other people, so I didn't, so you should quit this game"

[Yakito]

They didn’t have that replayability factor that WoW dungeons had — I could run Scholomance a dozen times but I cringe thinking about running a SWTOR dungeon.

 

Damn, I have to agree, the Flashpoints are really "OH god I don't want to do them again!!".

There wasn't a single flashpoint I felt in love with, like in Deadmines.

This one time, I did Deadmines about 8 times in a row, I could barely exit one instance before getting invited into another party...

[ROSS-]

Damn, I have to agree, the Flashpoints are really "OH god I don't want to do them again!!".

There wasn't a single flashpoint I felt in love with, like in Deadmines.

This one time, I did Deadmines about 8 times in a row, I could barely exit one instance before getting invited into another party...

 

I assume you are talking about old DM. I would suggest that part of this may be MMO fatigue. I mean really, can any MMO come up with a 2012 version of DM, that had same of effect on you as DM back in the day? Yeah I remember how cool DM was back then, but I'm not sure you can recreate that in 2012. Blizz tried to revamp DM, but the the lvl 85 version fell short.

[Loseriticus]

Your typical gamers nowadays are entitled, self-important, generally immature (at least as far as their public persona goes), unrealistic, and have no idea what they want out of a game. This isn't a troll or "rude behavior", it's just what I notice on a regular basis.

 

BINGO! Give that man a cigar!

[jndca]

http://www.keenandgraev.com/2012/02/14/copy-gold-leader-out/

 

I haven't been keeping up closely with these guys. But Keen is uncannily right in his perceptions a vast majority of the time. Besides his assessments, in addition I can not tolerate the bugs and poor design elements which just make you wonder about the designers professionalism, if not their talent. Also the general game management structure and failure of proper public relations and in game support.

 

It was great while it lasted and save something biblical in effect to change how the game plays and feels, I do not see this title lasting. I'll hang out a while longer, probably go back to an older title like DDO.. I'm sure they've added content by now..

 

Lets see.. they've said they're going to fix stuff, and yet you say public relations stuff. They HAVE added new content and yet you say they haven't. Hmm.. your arguments about design philosophy although correct are an opinion and thus mean again.. nothing. And could you please clarify MOST of the people who play? Because i guarantee, i've seen more people at once on the planet Quesh then i have seen posting in the forums. Just saying. This forums is not the "vast majority of players." It can't be mathematically speaking.

[Dayfax]

What does WoW have that SWTOR doesn't, ranked WZ? Aside from that I think what's being offered is pretty similar. Zones to quest in, instances, raids, and PvP.

 

It's not about the content. The content, for the most part, is fine.

 

It's about the hundreds of design decisions that Blizzard did well that Bioware did not. It's about an attention to detail that is evident in almost every element of Warcraft that doesn't exist in SWTOR.

 

Here's three small examples:

 

In Warcraft, players can interact with every NPC to some degree. They'll turn and face you and spout a line of dialogue. There's even a small Easter egg is you continually right click on them. This lends a degree of liveliness (and humor) to the world, no matter where you are and what you're doing.

 

Outside of vendors and quest givers, how many NPCs can you interact with in SWTOR? None of them.

 

In Warcraft, the crafting professions were all reliant on one another. If you wanted to level enchanting past a certain point, you needed items that only a blacksmith could make. This encouraged a level of socialization and promoted a healthy in-game economy.

 

In SWTOR, there are no such dependencies. Which makes it easier for the players, but a much less immersive experience overall.

 

In Warcraft, instances were embedded into zones and had quest lines and stories that took you into them. If you were questing in a zone, it wasn't uncommon for people to recruit party members for instances in that zone's chat.

 

In SWTOR, not only are the flashpoints physically removed from questing zones (requiring a tedious level of travel & funneling every single player through Fleet), they also have nothing at all to do with the current story you're experiencing planetside. (Why isn't there an Endar Spire flashpoint on Taris? This seems like a gimme, an obvious inclusion because of KOTOR. Why are instances bolted onto Fleet?)

 

Worse, if you want to pick up anything for a daily, you're forced to have the same cutscene dialogue again no matter how many times you've run the instance. For Republic, this means listening to Shatele Shan tell you about Hammer Station an innumerable amount of times and spacebar'ing though her dialogue. Not only does this make zero sense from the point of view of your story, it's incredibly poor fundamental game design.

 

These are only a handful of things I've noticed as I progress through Bioware's game. It's a decent experience, but the more I play it, the more admiration I have for Blizzard. They've made a ton of mistakes over the years, but in the small things, where details add up an enrich the experience, they were just brilliant.

 

(I'm talking mostly about pre-Cata Warcraft. With Cata, Blizzard moved its attention away from detail and content toward convenience "quality of life" gameplay features like Guild Perks and LFR, which I think ultimately hurt the game.)

[Destronicus]

The only thing I fully agree with is the lack of community. There are plenty of people in the game, if you believe BioWare PR, but it seems that most of them are perfectly happy playing this game as if it were single player with a multiplayer PvP option. The utter inability of myself and it seems like many others, going by these boards, to simply get 3 other people to join a group is astounding to me.

 

Can't really blame BioWare for that though, I guess. If people don't want to do group content I'm not sure what can be done about it. If they don't want to do Flashpoints or whatever and are happy in their solo class stories all the LFG tools in the world won't help. It'll just make it easier for those that already do want to group, which does not seem to be a majority.

[Irishbrewed]

I just can't wait for another video telling us how awesome the game is from "random" players...

 

/sigh

[Nightfalll]

Lets see.. they've said they're going to fix stuff, and yet you say public relations stuff. They HAVE added new content and yet you say they haven't. Hmm.. your arguments about design philosophy although correct are an opinion and thus mean again.. nothing. And could you please clarify MOST of the people who play? Because i guarantee, i've seen more people at once on the planet Quesh then i have seen posting in the forums. Just saying. This forums is not the "vast majority of players." It can't be mathematically speaking.

 

The 'new content' should of been there at launch. But was held in an attempt to look like they were adding 'more' content after launch.

 

Many people in the forums are the hardcore base of the game. BY LISTENING TO THE POSTS, IT WILL GIVE YOU A GENERAL DIRECTION IN HOW THE GAME IS DOING.

 

Fact is, there is still many many broken things in game. And the pvp is beyond bad. I could go on and on but really dont feel like it.

[reaperkeepet]

I'm a Troll. I died. I went to heaven, I came here. This thread is heaven. I feast. I play. This thread... "Where a Troll can be a trolll!" *ding*

[RabidPopcorn]

Quite the reverse... we got it too fast.

 

It took me 6 months to hit max level in vanilla WoW. I got two characters to max level (and capped several crafting professions) in 6 WEEKS of SWTOR.

 

That's the problem with SWTOR in a nutshell... most of the playerbase outleveled the content in their free month and found nothing left to do but reroll and do it all over again.

 

Yeah the time it took to level 50 - 60 in vanilla WoW (before the rampant xp boost patches) felt even longer than 1 - 50 in SWTOR. Notice how common it is for people to roll alts in SWTOR because the pve is just not very engaging after a while?

[reaperkeepet]

What happened to the Trolls? On a lunch break?

[Ardelia]

I've never really understood the argument that because a lot of people say it, it must be true. A lot of people say a lot of things.

 

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-popularity.html

[SGadara]

To put it gently, I didn't bother reading their opinions as I am capable of forming my own.

 

So in every matter you only trust your judgement and never read what others have to said ?

[Beachcomberb]

They seem like game hoppers to me.

[Dorin_Kass]

They seem like game hoppers to me.

 

^ this.

[ShaftyMcShaft]

So basically there are several ways you can choose to level your toon, not all involving doing the same quests (which mind you is every MMO I've ever played), but that's not good enough?

 

 

Yeah but in other MMOs the devs got the message that players are tired of "kill X wolves, collect Y boar spleens" and tried to do something else.

 

In SWTOR every single quest is either:

 

Kill X dudes

Collect Y things

Flip Z switches

Talk to A dude

 

That's it. Even vanilla WoW had a few other quest types, like escort quests, or timed quests. And when they redid 1-60 for Cata, they tried to put in more variety, like quests where you get a squad you can control, or vehicles to drive, or stealth missions, or some other mini-game.

 

So, yes, all MMOs are repetitive. But SWTOR is the MOST repetitive, with fewer quest types than even vanilla WoW. They didn't even try to come up with anything new!

 

Same thing with the fight mechanics. There are barely any patrols, and every mob fights to the death every time. Even in vanilla wow a pirate low on health will run away and maybe aggro his pirate buddies to come beat you up. Not so in SWTOR. Every low-life thief fights to the death all the time. Which feels a little odd as a Jedi knight, getting rewarded for murdering a "bonus" 40 smugglers or native creatures....

 

And the zones! Even in vanilla wow you had 3 different same-level zones to choose from. You could level 3 different dudes and barely see the same zone twice! But SWTOR is the same planets in the same order on the same locked-in rails every time.

 

Do I expect SWTOR to be better in every way than modern day WoW? No, but I expect it to be better than wow at launch. And the fact that it's worse in so, so many ways is just shocking. They seriously didn't even try.

[Zaskaszh]

Yet you lay out more pseudo-intellectual, self-important insults. You call everyone "entitled" and "immature" that doesn't share your zealous devotion to this particular product. Apologies but you're stuck in the "Us versus them" frame of mind. I've already stated in this very thread that I don't care if SWTOR fails or prospers. I've already stated in this very thread that this cycle has played out on the message boards of every MMO made in the last decade, but that it's become really, really bad in the last 4-5 years. None of what I said about gamers has anything to do with defending SWTOR, yet here you are, claiming I am somehow "zealously devoted to this particular product. That is part of the behavior which makes me refer to modern gamers as, among other things, entitled and immature. If the shoe fits...

 

 

Yet in your effort to display superiority you simply quote the same clap-trap that has been spouted in game forums for the same purpose with each new game: to insult people that criticise your chosen game. Personal attacks are the standard method of pointless people trying to prove a point. Where have I made any personal attacks against anyone? I have stated on multiple occasions what my opinion is of modern gamers as a whole. I never targeted any one person and said "You're a bleeping bleepity bleep bleep bleepatty! LOLZ!! LMAO OMG FAILZ FAILZ LOLOL!!". And in your case, all I said was that your behavior typified what I thought of gamers as a whole nowadays. And it does. This over-the-top response of yours is prrof of that yet again. Either you've clearly misunderstood what I wrote, or you just have to be right!!!

 

For the record, I wasn't referring to TOR as broken. I know. I never claimed you did. I said that in your response, you used two of the modern gamer's favorite words, "broken" and "useless", and that gamers as a whole need to learn not to think like that or use hyperbole like that because it doesn't do anything to help. Saying that a working and useful game (and I then used SWTOR as an example because it *is* working and it *is* useful) is "broken" and "useless" is so innacurate, exagerrated, and unproductive...but the moment any bug rears its head or any issues isn't solved within hours of being discussed on the forums, it's the first thing out of most gamers' mouths. That you even brought those two words into the conversation- in reference to ANY game, not just SWTOR -reinforces what I believe.

You might have noticed that if in your fervour you had bothered to read the whole post and accept the post's context instead of trying to apply your own context to the post in order to continue what is clearly a pointless debate. It's pointless to you because you have reduced it to a "Me versus him" debate, and it has nothing to do with that...at least not for me. As I again stated in this very thread; I have no stake in the success or failure of any game I play. I don't care how it goes either way. I don't mind people who like this game. I don't mind people who DISlike this game. I just have a real problem with extremists at both ends of the spectrum. So which camp do you think you fit into?[/QUOTE]

[Zaskaszh]

And yet your opinion is as meaningless as theirs....

 

Yes it is, and I know it. However, I am quite pleased that I at least don't appear to be some adolescent throwing a tantrum and making plainly unrealistic and childish demands and assumptions when I deliver my opinion, which is the point they're all missing. It's not really the message they're delivering that makes them the negative force they are in gaming; it's *how* they deliver it.

[Hypernetic]

Yes it is, and I know it. However, I am quite pleased that I at least don't appear to be some adolescent throwing a tantrum and making plainly unrealistic and childish demands and assumptions when I deliver my opinion, which is the point they're all missing. It's not really the message they're delivering that makes them the negative force they are in gaming; it's *how* they deliver it.

 

Yes, you just accept the **** that is being shoveled into your mouth with a grin.

 

Congrats on that.

[Superneko]

The only thing I fully agree with is the lack of community. There are plenty of people in the game, if you believe BioWare PR, but it seems that most of them are perfectly happy playing this game as if it were single player with a multiplayer PvP option. The utter inability of myself and it seems like many others, going by these boards, to simply get 3 other people to join a group is astounding to me.

 

Can't really blame BioWare for that though, I guess. If people don't want to do group content I'm not sure what can be done about it. If they don't want to do Flashpoints or whatever and are happy in their solo class stories all the LFG tools in the world won't help. It'll just make it easier for those that already do want to group, which does not seem to be a majority.

 

When you use the LFG tool, you join a bad pug. When you join a bad pug, a troll from this thread will be there playing the game it hates. When the troll plays the game it hates, it ninja's your loot. When the troll ninja's your loot, you nerd rage. When you nerd rage, you post a rant about bad pugs on the TOR forums.

 

Don't use the LFG tool! Join a guild, and play with your friends!

[Deathrupter]

Because someone else is opinion will change mine.

 

I'm sick and tired of people always ranting just to bring everybody down with them. You don't like the game, then quit.

 

 

 

PS : I immediately stopped reading after he said " WoW".

 

 

So cliche in so many ways. I enjoy this game and I never " Cringe" on any dungeons nor get bored of PVP.

 

 

However, I do agree that when they proclaimed that this game used a very high budget, I wondered where it all went. If this game really had a budget of over 100M, it just look a lot more unique then games that used a 6 million dollar budget.

 

 

I still enjoy the content and I love Star Wars, if you didn't really like it but came here to " replace WoW" then obviously it was not going to work out for you.

[Yozbick]

Because someone else is opinion will change mine.

 

I'm sick and tired of people always ranting just to bring everybody down with them. You don't like the game, then quit.

 

The thing is, some of us were saying this in the beta months before release. And all the fanbois tried to shout down our observations saying that we didn't know what we were talking about. So, yeah, now that the game is released and our predictions have come true, I do take some pleasure in knowing I was right all along (pleasure in being right, despite disappointment that the game did not reach its enormous potential).

 

Hell, several of the fanbois who swore I didn't know what I was talking about didn't even make it a week after hitting Level 50 before they cancelled. They never even started an alt... just quietly walked away from the game. I wonder how much they really "tested" during the beta test.

 

At least I'm still here trying to point out the issues why players are leaving the game. And Bioware at least pretends to care, even if you do not. Otherwise, they wasted a lot of time sending me a survey asking me why I cancelled.

Edited February 25, 2012 by Yozbick