SWTOR Vs WoW: Blizzard gets it

[RabidPopcorn]

Easy to explain. The MMO market is saturated, with all competitors trying to take pieces of a largely unchanging pie, the biggest piece still belonging to Blizzard. If you expect to poach customers from a competing product, you should have feature parity. Note that I didn't say be a clone, but overlooking well received quality of life features is a colossal mistake.

 

This makes so much sense yet is so poorly understood.

[Ishko]

Here is something you folks can't grasp. You aren't competing with wow from classic, it's wow today. A customer doesn't look at wow and say, "i wonder what this game was like 7 years ago," he can't play the game from 7 years ago, he can't buy the game from 7 years ago. He's buying the game today. None of this "WoW didn't have this at launch" matters to the customer. He only cares about what he can enjoy now. Not something that happend 7 years ago that he probably wasn't even a part of, nor will ever be a part of.

 

And yes, ToR is competing with WoW. The vast majority of customers looking to play an MMO are going to choose one in the long run. They might try both to see what they like, but they'll probably dedicate themselves to one. And when he looks at which one he likes more, again he won't give a rats *** about what each game was like on launch, only on what it has to offer now.

 

If your stupid argument did hold up, then every other MMO should have blown wow away because customers were only going to look at "well wow didn't have what this game has at launch, so I'll go with (insert name of free to play MMO that died to wow)." But guess what, they don't last because no one judges an MMO on what it used to offer, they judge it on what it does offer. In fact, no one judges any product on what it used to offer, they judge it on what it offers now.

Edited March 25, 2012 by Ishko

[Jett-Rinn]

Here is something you folks can't grasp. You aren't competing with wow from classic, it's wow today. A customer doesn't look at wow and say, "i wonder what this game was like 7 years ago," he can't play the game from 7 years ago, he can't buy the game from 7 years ago. He's buying the game today. None of this "WoW didn't have this at launch" matters to the customer. He only cares about what he can enjoy now. Not something that happend 7 years ago that he probably wasn't even a part of, nor will ever be a part of.

 

And yes, ToR is competing with WoW. The vast majority of customers looking to play an MMO are going to choose one in the long run. They might try both to see what they like, but they'll probably dedicate themselves to one. And when he looks at which one he likes more, again he won't give a rats *** about what each game was like on launch, only on what it has to offer now.

 

If your stupid argument did hold up, then every other MMO should have blown wow away because customers were only going to look at "well wow didn't have what this game has at launch, so I'll go with (insert name of free to play MMO that died to wow)." But guess what, they don't last because no one judges an MMO on what it used to offer, they judge it on what it does offer. In fact, no one judges any product on what it used to offer, they judge it on what it offers now.

 

The problem is.....

 

Wow of today is boring to me. I don't care about my character I don't care about what drops and I certainly don't care about the next lame *** pop culture reference. it amazes me that all folks can do is praise WoW but they are never out playing it just hanging out on the competitions boards telling everyone how great it is.

[Obi-Shinobi]

WoW=8 years? maybe more

 

Swtor=4 months...

 

 

People that compare a noob to a pro are idiots. Give them a year or more then compare.

[Frostvein]

The problem is.....

 

Wow of today is boring to me. I don't care about my character I don't care about what drops and I certainly don't care about the next lame *** pop culture reference. it amazes me that all folks can do is praise WoW but they are never out playing it just hanging out on the competitions boards telling everyone how great it is.

 

The game is stale because blizzard stopped giving two *****, thats why.

 

However, the framework is second to none.

[MaverickXIV]

Here is something you folks can't grasp. You aren't competing with wow from classic, it's wow today.

And WoW today is a free ride to 80 followed by farming the same few dungeons for two weeks before you get all of the gear you need. Then you either run out of content and quit or you start raiding. At this point, you'll log on for 3 - 5 hours a few nights a week to raid, and you'll do absolutely nothing else otherwise.

 

Yeah, competing with WoW today isn't too difficult.

[Maigrey]

Bioware trying to emulate wow... is a vast understatement. SWtor is a wow clone through and through. Which IMO is a bad thing, I for one am spent on the wow format, I just don't understand what kind of players SWtor is trying to attract with a wow clone that is inferior to the original.

 

 

This is the key to me. SWToR is simply an inferior version of WoW, the game is so amazingly similar it is almost a reskin, except the fact that it doesn't have enarly as many features and is not nearly as good. If this game didn't have the star wars brand, no one would be playing it.

 

I want this game to succeed so much, but it just makes me sad, everytime I play, at all the wasted potential.

[Itukaaj]

Becuase over 10 million people play wow and becuase probably 20 million had some time with WoW (people who tried it one time or another) Swtor will be judged by people like myself who played WoW for a long time becuase that is the percentage of people who are interested in MMo's and willing to spend money on them.

 

I Love SWTOR but this is what got me hooked on WoW. Vanilla WoW a long long time ago....

 

Walking through Ashenvale learning that other gamers were watiing to kill you. Bumping into people who taught you to get off the roads to avoid getting ganked while you levelled. While hugging the mountains finding a secret tunnel between areas. Being able to seemlessly enter a zone that was higher level to test your mettle. EXPLORING.

 

 

Honestly, the Maps in TOR suck. Sorry love you guys but your zones suck. What would have been a better idea would be just one Planet that Imperial and Republic were fightng over. Instead of a galactic battle the gameplay occurred in an active corner of that war and then the expansions could add the planets, Instancing Sucks. No fun sorry. And that time wasted watching a splash screen instead of playing will give people time to think how much time they are wasting. You could have spent time making this one noninstanced planet more creative and caused both factions to collide into each other satisfying the world pvp group instead of contriving to be good with Ilum.

 

Honestly the layout of Ilum was cool. It should have been one Super Ilum with all the size and scale on one extended playing field.

 

But WoW also ended the relationships of Vanilla and now is all about disposable relationships. Which is one reason I no longer play. Players don't help anyone new in that game. If you never played an MMo or wow for years you better be good at gaming or your screwed cause that community. NO ONE IS GONNA HELP YOU period/. It's a game for a bunch of haters and epeens. WoW is way more polished now but what won me over they lost sometime at the end of the Lich King. And that is the advantage SWTOR has over it.

 

Bioware needs to work on the coding. On travel and any future planets need to be better designed.

 

My levelling was enjoyable but not as epic as WoW in Vanilla becuase I couldn't try out harder zones or mobs becuase frankly it's a pain in the ***. SWTOR developers seem way more responsive but have a learning curve on coding and designing.

[genesiser]

Honestly, the Maps in TOR suck. Sorry love you guys but your zones suck. What would have been a better idea would be just one Planet that Imperial and Republic were fightng over. Instead of a galactic battle the gameplay occurred in an active corner of that war and then the expansions could add the planets, Instancing Sucks. No fun sorry. And that time wasted watching a splash screen instead of playing will give people time to think how much time they are wasting.

 

That's actually a great idea. Too bad you weren't on the development team when they were creating the game. That would have been much better than the system they came up with.

[Bekumu]

That's actually a great idea. Too bad you weren't on the development team when they were creating the game. That would have been much better than the system they came up with.

 

Except Star Wars has always been about the numerous different planets.....

 

hence the name.

 

Star. Wars.

 

To restrict it to one planet is just silly and bad for story telling purposes, but everyone who rants and raves about the game always forget that the story is a main part of this game. Its multiplayer Kotor, not space-WoW. Yes the instancing is bad, but not everyone wants to play on a pvp server. Not everyone wants other people stealing their loot/kills.

[Garrum]

The reality now is that if you make an MMO and you hope to attempt compete with WoW, even as it slides down the backside of it's peak, you launch with full features, period. Content doesn't have to be wall to wall at launch, people will overlook at least some instability at launch, and minor balance issues can wait for a short time, but if you launch missing key features and then drag your feet putting them in, you are just wasting both your and my time.

 

The state of many of TOR's servers should have sirens and flashing lights 24 hours a day at BW/EA headquarters until they get free transfers/xserver pve and pvp queing up and running. They didn't bother to have features in place to help correct population issues, and now everyone that isn't on the 6-8 high pop servers is suffering for it, and BW/EA are doing their best to ignore it as much as they can.

 

While I think that the game engine and it's inability to deal with more than 20 or so people at once without flaking out is the nail in the coffin, the population/barren server problem is what insured the game would be in the grave.

[Silversable]

Except Star Wars has always been about the numerous different planets.....

They could have divided the current number by two and still come off with a reasonable number of interesting planets instead of the hodgepodge of soon-forgotten unimaginative mediocrity we have now.

 

Or done it the ME way : a handful of major planets, and a whole bunch of "minor" planets, less developed but open for those who like out-of-the-way places.

 

During levelling, you cut throlly count.ugh planets like a hot knife through butter. They both seem uninspiringly boring while you're there (I'm looking at you, Taris, Balmorra, and most of the "urban planets" landscapes) and easily forgotten when you're done with them. They serve no lasting purpose except as pit stops along the way.

 

Having planets for the sake of having planets does nto serve any purpose. In most cases, the tale that is told on that planet could easily have been told using another backdrop.

 

Honestly, as far as I'm concerned, they should have made the distinction between "major" and "minor" planets very clear, focus the levelling and endgame on major planets and expanding the maps for those so that they felt like real worlds, and leave aside the minor planets for exploration and side projects.

[Wrender]

I hate to beat a dead horse too much, but the obvious fight going in the MMO space right now is between WoW and SWTOR.

 

When SWTOR came out there was a vocal minority arguing that what SWTOR is now is better than WoW at release. They reasoned that SWTOR offers more to players than WoW did at release, their comparisons are often driven towards saying, "yeah - SWTOR did this wrong at release, but WoW did it worse when it was first released." The argument relies on the idea that developers cannot compete with 10 years of ongoing development, that features and content in WoW now was developed over 10 years.

 

This is of course all rubbish, and Blizzard seems to get that:

 

 

 

Whilst the criticism is certainly in keep with Blizzard "post-competitor release PR machine", he's damn right. He couldn't be more right if he tried. I do not PvE... at all... aside from raids I run with my guild. Why? Because finding a group is so very tiresome, especially considering that in most MMOs today the feature to find a group easily is center stage. A lack of Dunegon Finder is a big thing, a big omission, something that should be in 1.2. We're not getting it in 1.2, that's obvious, and we'll get it at some point in the future, but it's such a big thing that SWTOR is half a game for not having it.

 

That's a bit part however. 1.2 goes a long way to bringing SWTOR in line with modern MMOs, as opposed to being 10 steps behind them. Bioware obviously knows that they are competing with WoW now, not WoW at launch. 1.2 and 1.3 are likely to add in pretty much every major feature that WoW has on SWTOR, and we're likely to see more in the way of gameplay variety coming in the future.

 

I'm not suggesting that Bioware should be trying to emulate WoW. I am saying that Bioware should be looking at WoW and other MMOs and seeing uniform features - like dungeon finders - and saying "yeah, that's something we should have had at launch, and something we should get into the game asap." And it was foolish of Bioware to release the game in the state it was in. Whilst it's certainly an accomplishment to have made SWTOR, it's also a testimony to the failures of the team. I'm hopeful - as are many others - that they've come to realise their folly.

 

 

My god people! If you want to group type/who and fill in the blanks and everyone else who wants to group ..do the same. Our dungeon finder works great when people USE IT!

[TKMaster]

Becuase over 10 million people play wow .

 

No, no they dont, theres 10million or so paid subs....

[Poogination]

Funny that the first post is always spam and doesn't read the OP.

 

Completely agree with the assessment; this game's launch was lacking. People who are okay with it by comparing it to WoW's launch are backward thinkers. This game needed to launch with much more if it wanted to be the most successful MMO available.

 

The lurking nerds always get 1st post. Not surprising to be completely honest.

[illgot]

No, no they dont, theres 10million or so paid subs....

 

and I'm sure 100% of the people with subscriptions to TOR are playing TOR.

 

And need anyone state the obvious. 10 million subs is the low points for Blizzard. Bioware doesn't even seem to be able to get even 1/3rd of that.

[Rooks_THX]

My god people! If you want to group type/who and fill in the blanks and everyone else who wants to group ..do the same. Our dungeon finder works great when people USE IT!

 

OMG, You can use a pair of scissors like a knife and a brick like a hammer! Stop whining and just USE THEM!!11!!1!

 

If the tool is inferior or just plain sucks, then people won't use it. The archaic style lfg box this game fits both of those categories. If it was "great" then people would use it. It's garbage, so it gets ignored.

[Itukaaj]

No, no they dont, theres 10million or so paid subs....

 

And of those subs I imagine just about all of them have seen the features of the game. Enough to make comparisons to this game. The Sub v players argument can be made by this title as well.

 

WoW has much of the technical aspects right.

 

 

But it is design. there was an interesting wrap up post by the other games lead dev. He had a lot to say about what they wanted to accomplish with reagrd to features, tuning the encounters and levelling. Honestly I think they failed with levelling. More fun in SWTOR so we have that as a strength. But in that same watercooler they spoke about the failure in creating all these interesting realms that were not cohesive except for hubs. See? even Blizzard got it wrong in Cata. But, it was even more worng here.

 

I am not talking about the fantasy of space travel I am talking about playing an MMO and what creates good results.

[Slobozache]

Unfortunately the developers don't seem to understand the need of a LFG tool.

 

If this game actually had a LFG tool, grouping for flashpoints would be easier. Making us wait for a LFG tool that might be implemented at some point will not stop people from unsubscribing.

 

A LFG tool should be available in patch 1.2 and not later.

[Allakazzam]

Honestly, the Maps in TOR suck. Sorry love you guys but your zones suck. What would have been a better idea would be just one Planet that Imperial and Republic were fightng over. Instead of a galactic battle the gameplay occurred in an active corner of that war and then the expansions could add the planets, Instancing Sucks. No fun sorry. And that time wasted watching a splash screen instead of playing will give people time to think how much time they are wasting. You could have spent time making this one noninstanced planet more creative and caused both factions to collide into each other satisfying the world pvp group instead of contriving to be good with Ilum.

That would only raise the question of why would they make a Star Wars game if you can't even go into outer space. Or the question of why you have to spend your time on the same planet when both sides are fighting over an entire galaxy. Your idea isn't bad, but this is entirely the wrong franchise in which to apply it. Maybe if they made a World of C&C or something...

[Vahzl]

WoW has 10+ years of development behind it, as well as 7+ years of player feedback daily on their game. This has allowed them to polish the stanky poop it was on release. I don't care what anyone says, Vanilla WoW was awful, it was unplayable and broken to all heck.

 

Star Wars has 5 years of Star Wars Galaxies to take it's cue from, and all the stuff in other MMo's to take ideas from too. I honestly don't care what is stolen from what game, as long as it all locks together tightly for a fantastic play experience. SWTOR has the lore of one of the most fantastic space operas of all time behind it, and the ingame story is nicely developed, but at the moment, as a level 26 Jedi Knight, I feel all I am doing is stopping many many gangs from doing various naughty things, like selling drugs, slave exploitation or crime rings, the problem being, they are all in the same tech themed corridors. WoW's zones all have charm and a very unique feel to them, Star Wars zones, so far, do not. They all look the same, either have crumbling cityscapes, metropolis, or barren wastelands, with metal tech corridors beneath them all, all filled with variations on the humanoid models.

 

The game needs alot of variety to pip WoW at the post, and good lord get a dungeon/pvp cross realm finder in the game please. PLEASE!!!

 

I am happy with SWTOR as it is, but unless it gets a lot of much needed attention, it probably won't hold my attention for long enough to warrant staying with it for more than a few months.

Edited March 25, 2012 by Vahzl

[Itukaaj]

That would only raise the question of why would they make a Star Wars game if you can't even go into outer space. Or the question of why you have to spend your time on the same planet when both sides are fighting over an entire galaxy. Your idea isn't bad, but this is entirely the wrong franchise in which to apply it. Maybe if they made a World of C&C or something...

 

I don't feel like I am flying in space now. I feel like I am crossing the border between east and west Berlin in 1955. Yeah the buildings look different but i can't just walk across.

 

Well, maybe you fly yourself via your ship mount to those other planets and a more limited number rather than zoning 15 times. I only speak of this becuase maybe you want to put your toe into a zone without the committment of zoning 6 times.

 

 

The idea of exploration is why I speak of that. I mentioned 1 planet as a starter only to talk of how it should feel and be implemented. Maybe this "one planet" has a space zone. wouldn't it be more epic to walk up to a ship that you landed in the middle of the desert of Tatooine a la qui qonn jinn at a location of your choosing and take off for destinations of your choosing?

 

Now a ship dropping out of the sky can cause other issues. which is again why 1 or a few massive planets with both factions occupying. They can still have those zoned tunnels/miniadventure areas so that loot is not stolen/overcompeted for.

Edited March 25, 2012 by Itukaaj

[Durasturan]

It's just as accurate. The comparison states that as technology advances the product has to advance. If you release a product and compare it to the release of a product 10 years ago, your product will fail to please the masess.

 

How many cell phone companies tout that their brand new cell phone is just as good as one they had last year, or the year before that, or 7 years before that? None.

 

 

Is English your primary language?

[Roechacca]

Is English your primary language?

 

when you cant win an argument go for the grammar right? I'm surprised you didn't try for the race card.

 

 

...oh wait

Edited March 25, 2012 by Roechacca

[Vahzl]

One big positive SWTOR has over alot of other MMo's on the market are the Datacron hunts. I really enjoy these, I don't really care what anyone says about having "mario in their mmo", it adds a nice little feature and gives you something to do while PvP queueing (even though the queues are instant pretty much always on my realm).

 

I have been out and found 7 datacrons outside of ones I have stumbled upon while questing, and love the fact that Bioware promote the scaling of their world, instead of either glueing you to the ground (pre-flying WoW and most other mmos) or restricting access to everything.

 

It's got a very sandbox feel to it in this respect.