Five things you need to know about The Old Republic's Future [ARTICLE]

[GalacticKegger]

I reported several bugs in beta that would literally take 5 minutes to fix. Stuff like typos and such. None of them have been fixed. Not a single one. You really expected them to fix the stuff on that list when they didn't even fix a couple of typos?

Yet you just joined our community a week ago. How is that possible?

 

So good to see that the UI overhaul is underway. That is the only serious complaint I have with what is otherwise in my opinion an amazing game.

 

The Old Republic has the potential of easily becoming the greatest MMO experience of all time.

Yessir! Having a blast and it keeps getting better. Edited March 10, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[Vexera]

This right here will kill this game in mine, and many other's, eyes.....

 

"......but the biggest game-changer is lined up for patch 1.3. That patch will allow you to use the legacy system to purchase permanent XP boosts for each of your characters that emphasizes a single area of gameplay. If you want to roll a new Sniper character and only PvP with her, you’ll be able to buy a massive XP boost for PvP content and be able to level super quickly that way. The big thing here is that doing this will let you skip the redundant planet quests that you’ve done before. The developers said that with these boosts, you’ll have no problem just doing your class quests and PvP or Flashpoints to level up at a normal rate."

 

Awesome, why don't they just let this game play itself? You just log in name a character and off it goes, coming back when it is fully geared and level 50. The game is already easy enough! I am on my 4th character taking it to 50 because of the lack of end game, and how easy it is. I don't play every day, I have a family and my career....

 

I guess I just want an MMO that doesn't have that PvP gear grind, because PvP should be about the PvP. I also want a game that isn't My Little Pony hold my hand Care Bear easy...

 

/rant

 

So I take it you have finished all the end game content already?

 

Because you have 4/5 hours every day to level characters, does not mean everyone else does. My Sorc is level 39 now, with 3 days game play. I am not even a completion'ist. And you are levelling your 4th already?

 

Maybe you need to go out with your friends and family sometime.

 

This is a good thing for the game. The XP boosts will encourage people to level alts, which means higher populations in PvP zones and FPs at the lower levels.

[GalacticKegger]

So I take it you have finished all the end game content already?

 

Because you have 4/5 hours every day to level characters, does not mean everyone else does. My Sorc is level 39 now, with 3 days game play. I am not even a completion'ist. And you are levelling your 4th already?

 

Maybe you need to go out with your friends and family sometime.

 

This is a good thing for the game. The XP boosts will encourage people to level alts, which means higher populations in PvP zones and FPs at the lower levels.

39 levels in 3 days? Was that leveling every half hour for 6½ hours a day? Or was it a level every hour for 13 hours a day? Or maybe a level every 2 hours with no sleep for 3 days? How does 39 levels in 3 days happen without speed hacks? Edited March 10, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[Vexera]

39 levels in 3 days? Was that leveling every half hour for 6½ hours a day? Or was it a level every hour for 13 hours a day? Or maybe a level every 2 hours with no sleep for 3 days? How does 39 levels in 3 days happen without speed hacks?

 

3 days /played... ><

[todorovh]

Bioware will not force anyone to use the XP boost, if you don't like it - don't use it.

 

For example there are people who are re-rolling in order to fill a specific need for their raiding team, those people want to get to end-game as soon as possible, that is the purpose of their character, why should they NOT be allowed to do that ?

 

It's really selfish of people to be demanding certain features are implemented or not, there are a lot of different people playing this game, the best Bioware can offer is OPTIONS, everyone can play the way they want.

[GalacticKegger]

3 days /played... ><

But how does making 39 levels in 3 days happen? Or are you referring to a literal 3 days = 72 total hours? Even then that's more than a level every 2 hours. Maybe can see doing that by skipping all the dialogues, doing no farming and having ubers rifling the toon through FPs to power level ... maybe. But certainly not from simply playing the game. Edited March 10, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[FrostyDroid]

Have you ever thought that it wasn't BW's fault? If they had a majority of the control, they wouldn't have released the game till it was ready, EA probably wanted them to rush it so that they could sell it during the holiday season.

 

I would say the very existence of some of these areas is due to EA.

 

EA: "game X has an open world PvP area, put it in TOR"

 

EA: "game X has endgame raids, put them in TOR"

 

etc

 

BioWare didn't make a very good job of them, because they are outside their area of expertise.

[Vexera]

But how does making 39 levels in 3 days happen? Or are you referring to a literal 3 days = 72 total hours? Even then that's more than a level every 2 hours. Maybe can see doing that by skipping all the dialogues, doing no farming and having ubers rifling the toon through FPs to power level ... maybe. But certainly not from simply playing the game.

 

 

I am saying actual in game time, so 3 days, 10 hours odd of actual play time. I don't skip any dialogue and my skills are all above my level. I still think this is a long time to get to level 39. My lower levels were completed by purely doing PvP and also try complete bonus missions. It's not my first Sorc though (previous one was level 28). I rerolled to a new server, so I suppose that could have shaved off some time.

 

If this is quick, then you are just reinforcing my point to PostalTwinkie.

[DalrisThane]

Deleted. No point. Everyone is TLDR these days. +See Sig. Edited March 31, 2013 by DalrisThane

[Tiaa]

I've read this thread and seen things like "It's not Biowares fault!" and "How were they supposed to fix these problems before launch!?" and I must say...you people will defend and make excuses for anything they do.

 

Most ,if not ALL these things wrong with the game, were highly protested. AFTER LAUNCH.

 

Ilum ESPECIALLY. People already KNEW what was going to happen and Bioware, the developer is supposed to understand the game THEY made more than we do. But I guess

 

Ilum is EA's fault too? I guess everytime Bioware says they fixed something in a patch and it's not fixed that's EA's fault too? Server population EA's fault? ...

 

Recap:

 

Operations are buggy, and are not as difficult as they’d hoped.

 

Is this new? Things like BOSSES standing at the starting zone, Gharj platforms not spawning, having your whole raid DIE randomly and etc were all AT LAUNCH and after.

 

I had to lead groups and keep it together because people were getting sick of it.

 

Go figure no body knew it because Bioware didn't test it properly and didn't give beta players a chance to.

 

Open World PvP, especially Ilum, is completely broken.

 

Wow! They just figured this out? The whole CONCEPT of Ilum was STUPID. Period. And nothing they changed made it better. So instead of trading machines, it went to a laggy zerg fest in which most Empire players doing PvP were able to get Battlemaster in ONE day.

 

Only safe time for most Republic was at around 12 am in the morning where they would then half to farm arrangements. Which takes HOURS.

 

Worlds need to be more interactive.

 

News flash! There are no "worlds". Only linear maps. Nothing they do with them will be good enough because they were a bad idea to begin with. And by "interactive", I assume they mean "ACTIVE" because most "worlds" are dead zones.

 

Guild features in-game are “bare bones.”

 

I wasn't expecting much with guild features and only have played ONE MMO that launched with a guild bank. I don't think guild features is one of the biggest issues though. Same with UI.

 

You know...I really, REALLY would like to like this game but Bioware is clueless and filled with a bunch of staff members that OBVIOUSLY do not know much about MMOS. For all I know, they probably hate games.

 

They just do whatever they want, not testing it or seeing how the majority of their community is going to feel about it.

 

I like that it's "casual" but I don't like dealing with tons of broken features and doing the samething over and over...

Edited March 10, 2012 by Tiaa

[Tiek]

im glad to see bioware acknowledging problems and having plans to continue to improve swtor. i really think this game could be perfect and there would still be people preaching about all the bugs they found in beta that they reported and got ignored.

[Tenceriker]

Speaking fro the so called Fanbois it isn't as cut and dried as you make it out to be; often times most testers are treating the game like a free to play; they have no interest in giving feedback and those that do are such a small number you really can't get a decent metric of what's wrong; also knowing how players are going to react to something is about as easy as driving a needle through granite.

 

Finally if you really want to point a finger you may want to start not with Bioware but the mega corp that owns them

 

Obviously you weren't in Beta because there were huge threads and discussions on everything the poster you quoted mentioned. Its a good rule of thumb not to post if you weren't there.

 

ALL things considered the game launch was fine. Once millions of people got into it the bugs were more exposed than in testing.

 

Don't pretend like you or anyone else knows more than bioware does. They coded the game, they are well aware of the problems.

 

Considering I have seen MMO launches from OTHER companies pan out much worse I think bioware did just fine. WoW's launch was just as buggy and broken. Don't pretend it doesn't happen. That doesn;t make it right, it just makes it real life.

 

If some whiney people couldn't put up with some bug fixes it was their right to leave. However, I suspect many of us didn't want them here anyway.

 

Yeah, screw people for wanting functional content and creative gameplay from one of the best SciFi IPs ever created. Not like there were huge threads on every issue here that Bioware polietly ignored. And stop bringing the launch of WoW into this because for its time it did well. Not that the launch was smooth but it didn't have the type of competition this game has. You never make excuses for a product that has to compete in a different time than another simular product in an earlier time period. Welcome to 2012, make a 2012 MMO or go bust

Edited March 10, 2012 by Tenceriker

[DarthKhaos]

So what have they been doing for the last 5 years? not working their butts off, with limited content, instanced worlds missing basic features I would say they haven't done much in 5 years besides copy and paste what WOW did when it started. Oh but wait 1.2 is coming with everything that should of been at launch so everything is alright.......We all know when they release something *cough* illium there wasnt any game breaking bugs or anything.

I wasn't going to get involved in this thread but this statement irked me. You truly have no idea the amount of work that went into what was released at launch NOT counting voice overs.

 

Copy and paste WoW. ~smh~ I'm glad you're just a peon and not influential in any game design.

[Cancrizans]

I would have found this post heartening except for the fact that the author talks about the Legacy system "blowing your doors off" then goes on to cite the idiotic racial and skill cross overs as evidence for this.

 

No one asked for this garbage, and whether people are willing to admit it or not, this stuff WILL make the game feel less believable and less authentic Star Wars.

 

Very sad and unimaginative implementation of this heralded "Legacy System" IMO.

[DarthKhaos]

giving force choke and races and all the lore breaking crap is a really stupid idea that they should be coming out with a few years from now when the game is in dire straights. wow didnt have to break lore for several years until after its release.. im really disappointed in 1.2

You know it's not lore breaking. You can only get the abilities if you're blood related. Basically that character is an untrained force sensitive person where the force manifests itself as X or Y ability. What's lore breaking with that?

 

 

Unfortunately the Christmas season is the absolute worst time for a game like this to launch unless it is completely 100% polished in the way Blizzard's stuff has been during the holidays.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha....

~gasp for air~

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha....

Edited March 10, 2012 by DarthKhaos

[Sporin]

We may come back for 1.2, but it may be too little, too late cus' it seems a lot have flown the coop.

Guilds on our server went from 150 to 100 to 50 to 5, when last weekend was our most on & that was 11 players (in a month), you know something is missing & missing badly.

As per the post & them admitting errors, there was a ton of stuff they got told about both was bugs & ideas that would have made things so much better, and yes, it's hard to add/fix things right away... But 5 years to fix things?

It's like they never listened at all, had they, then everyone "may" have been a lot happier (doubt it though, some people you just can't please!).

At least they're trying eh?

[Lunablade]

Time is ticking for Bioware tik-tak , tik-tak.

 

They yet need to prove to the playerbase that they are capable enough to fix all this issues we now all know that exist because players dont need words or PR talk about fixing those problems , they need concrete fixes in the game.

 

Nobody wants to continue to pay for the game to just play the beta.

Edited March 10, 2012 by Lunablade

[KrelosDarksky]

giving force choke and races and all the lore breaking crap is a really stupid idea that they should be coming out with a few years from now when the game is in dire straights. wow didnt have to break lore for several years until after its release.. im really disappointed in 1.2

 

OH NOES!!!!

 

Something different than WoW? WHAT were they thinking?!?!?!?

 

If you're so disappointed delete your toons and uninstall the game.

 

[KrelosDarksky]

Obviously you weren't in Beta because there were huge threads and discussions on everything the poster you quoted mentioned. Its a good rule of thumb not to post if you weren't there.

 

 

 

Yeah, screw people for wanting functional content and creative gameplay from one of the best SciFi IPs ever created. Not like there were huge threads on every issue here that Bioware polietly ignored. And stop bringing the launch of WoW into this because for its time it did well. Not that the launch was smooth but it didn't have the type of competition this game has. You never make excuses for a product that has to compete in a different time than another simular product in an earlier time period. Welcome to 2012, make a 2012 MMO or go bust

 

And for it's launch, SWTOR is doing well .. even competing against the ALL POWERFUL LOLWoW.

 

There's no mass exodus and there is no fall off on new subs.

[KrelosDarksky]

My favorite part about these type of threads are reading the hater posts.

 

You know .. the doomsayers that hate the game and can't stand the idea that it isn't designed to cater to their personal needs OR what they believe to be the needs of every other subscriber.

 

They hate it so much they ....

 

. .... keep subscribing.

[Zilliztra]

A good read, but I have to agree that the whole point #2 with bugs they admitted, was reported during beta testing, and still did not get fixed.

 

Some people blame the testers, but the truth is that thise issues was reported on test forum, then ignored. This game would have been better, if biowere had listened to the testers.

 

For me, 1.2 will be make or break, either they get their **** sorted or I am out of here and will never return. A long line of faliures for Biowere now. DA2, ME3 and now TOR?..

 

They need to shape up..

 

---

 

 

Addendum: The only reason why PvP is so popular is because your PvE content is broken, boring and to easy. There is litterly ZERO to do in this game post level 50, so OFC people PvP.. But I guess the DEV's say: WOW people are pvping we must have done something right in that area. Well no. You ****ed up in PvE so people are playing the only content that is worth a damm in this game atm: PvP

Edited March 10, 2012 by Zilliztra

[DarthKhaos]

Addendum: The only reason why PvP is so popular is because your PvE content is broken, boring and to easy. There is litterly ZERO to do in this game post level 50, so OFC people PvP.. But I guess the DEV's say: WOW people are pvping we must have done something right in that area. Well no. You ****ed up in PvE so people are playing the only content that is worth a damm in this game atm: PvP

I beg to disagree. A lot of people do PvE and there's a lot of complaints that there's only 3 warzones. People who are into the PvP just love to PvP and aren't doing it because PvE is broken.

[Therrak]

There is only so long that a game can be in the oven anyway. Absolutely no company can afford an endless dev expenditure without counterbalancing revenue.

 

This is a thing that a lot of people don't understand about software development. Sometimes you just have to shove the game out the door instead of tacking on more features, otherwise you end up with a Duke Nukem Forever.

 

That said, there are still a few things that should have been added or dealt with before the game was released.

[Deewe]

Well first step is to acknowledge it, which they have done where they go from there who knows, but coming out like that and saying you didnt do well is a hard ting to do for any company, while we may not hear the inner details of every specific idea least we know from this they intend to do something

Do they really have the choice?

Don't think so.

 

They have been cornered and have their back to the edge of the cliff there is only one viable route for them and it's certainly not jumping.

 

Why do you think they made a guild summit only?

It wasn't to get feedback, they've got it since October, 2008.

They perfectly know what works and what doesn't in TOR.

 

It was PR management: talk to one guild leader who'll spread the word to many guild mates ; multiply that by 150 and you get the picture.

They didn't even give the guild leaders time to consult themselves and agree on the good questions to be asked. Look we even had questions about same sex romance. How many iterations on this topic did we have yet? How many times the devs already answered?

 

Nah, it was only a marketing move. And I dare saying not that well managed. There wasn't any official topic created before hand: to ask questions, nor the discussion topics were unveiled and finally not even one dev posted something on the forums just after the summit.

 

All in all the summit won't help making the game better. Or should I say not better than all the feedback they already got on the forums and during the beta.

 

Would I be in charge I would have invited:

- Guilld leaders

- Guildless pug players (half of it who never posts on the forums, and half who post constructive posts, like you)

- And most importantly: players that quit

 

Then only 1h max would have been about presenting 1.2 and further in the works features.

After that workshops would have started with experienced facilitators.

 

That would have delivered and helped making the game better, for everyone.

[lainewell]

'll read this when i get home.