The question of the month: Will you keep your subscription up? and why?

[lorefultv]

Love the game, it is only going to get better with time. I will likely ALSO play GW2 with a friend but unfortunately in GW I cannot fly through the air with a lightsaber.

[Acherom]

Seeing as the "other game" threads are all being re-directed here, figured I should toss my two creds here.

 

I will be continuing to sub to SWTOR.

 

+Still having fun with the game, still have friends who are having fun with the game; and seeking a guild to join with and see end-game stuff.

 

+I will also be picking up my Glorious Blue and Gold emblem again in a few months when a certain game makes its triumphant return. (I will not be quitting SWTOR to play, they are two very different genres, and both can be maintained)

 

+Got an opportunity to test GW2 a few weekends back. For all the hype and praise the game has been receiving; I was wholly underwhelmed by the experience. (But this would turn into a multi-page post to point out all the specifics of why; I'll just leave it with, "I am completely and 100% unimpressed with the games current iteration.")

 

+Former Aion player: have not yet looked into the 3.0 changes as SWTOR has been occupying my time. (Chanter is the best class I have gotten a hold of since the Mezmers of old)

 

+Tested a bit of D3; it remains as iconic as ever and the combat is a bit better then D2. But unless you are going to exploit the ever loving @#%& out of the Real-money-market I can't recommend touching this game with a 10-ft pole.

 

The only game on the market that I've been looking at but haven't gotten to test is TERRA. But honestly; I don't know how many of my friends I could get interested in it. And without my RL crew; I just don't see it being worth the time.

 

Not to say my time in SWTOR has been perfect; because it hasn't. I'm still slightly irritated at how healing is handled in this game. I believe pvp needs some major balance work. (I also believe Resolve is fine) And I am still very disappointed with how the rewards of the Rak-outbreak event were handled. (Companion customizes specifically) There's my rant; for all of its anecdotal worthlessness. You haven't driven me off yet BioWare; lets see how far we can take this thing.

Edited April 25, 2012 by Acherom

[FSA_shadow]

Been subbed for aobut 5 months now. Don't plan on ending anytime soon.

[Puremess]

Unsubbed today, sadly.

 

I did like the game a lot (awesome story/quests). But missing something to do outside killing stuff (crafting and that jazz isnt really something to keep my playing 100%, just saying )

What I want is housing, fluff and more out of combat suff. Tired of endless grinds. I will roam around and the forums/homepage check for future plans they have and might resub.

 

But for now an other game got my attention.

[Katreyn]

I still enjoy the game a lot, but all my friends seem to have decided not to play it anymore. Been playing without them for 3~ months now, and its getting kind of stale, even though I have tried to make some new friends. Only so much you can do solo. lol

 

Seems the "other game's" offer for account reinstatement was quite tempting to a lot of my friends. I mean in reality getting that much free stuff is a good deal I suppose.

 

On top of that, time of the year where my job really gets busy, 6 pm - 6 am shifts. I think I may have to retire the game for now. D:

 

I have had much fun in this game, and want to see where it goes, but atm I will have to take a break it seems after my sub runs out, with that maybe I can drag couple of friends back (kicking and screaming if I have to >.>).

[STD_Skindancer]

Guild Wars 2

 

if you havnt checked it out yet, you should. its the furthest thing to a WoW clone out there.

[Shaidown]

it's obvious that you do not want to overthink this.

you just want to play something and have some fun. (Snip)

 

Please someone explain why its bad that someone is enjoying playing the game?

 

Lots of people enjoy the game, your gripes do not invalidate their opinions.

 

First World Problems...

[JediRyuk]

I don't know.. I've been very adamant and passionate with TOR. Sadly, the lack of a proper LFG system means I'm playing the chat-channel game. I wouldn't be complaining if this game had a global LFG system that allowed me to do other activities while I had to wait for a FP. I realized that since I was waiting around for a group, I was playing another game on a separate screen. The sad realization that I'm not actually playing TOR itches me to end my sub.. for now.

 

I honestly plan to return to TOR when/if it gets a better LFG system. (That's if I leave. Not sure yet. Might just sub to another game with cross-server dungeon finder's so I can run a few dungeons on that game while I wait to find a FP group for TOR. I know, sad right? )

[Mizue]

I'll keep playing. Ajunta Pall is a awesome server with awesome ppl =] I'm looking foward to see the stuff bioware is going to bring to us. So yes, i'll keep my sub.

[Esquire]

Sadly no as I just canceled last evening in fact (1 day before I would of received the free 30 days).

 

I got a guardian to 50, a sage and sent to mid 20s, and a smug to 11, but could not get the guard passed the end game boss (kill the emporer). For me anyway, the developers have so many things going in that instance that I had terrible lag (due to the game engine as I have a fully dedicated T-1 line and play on a Alienware Area 51, with dual quad, 12 gigs of ram, 7200 HD, 2 1-gig Vid cards, etc). If it takes more than that to play this game, I give up.

 

I still can not fully grasp the "interupt" system. I have 4 tool bars full of powers/buffs. Most that do not "turn on" as whatever pre-requisite for their usage just does not happen. With the global cool-downs, I have to look at nothing but the bars to find out when I can use the next power and what exactly "lights up" and can not keep up with what the boss is doing on their little bar as when and if to use what interupt where. May be my age (55) and past MMO combat systems I've played that I've gotten used to but this game just ends up being frustrating and that is not something I want to pay for as a consumer. I get enough frustration from every-day life.

 

Guards have a large problem with the tanking builds they have put out. I was in an OPs group a couple of days ago and when they asked for "tanks" I was passed over for 1st a shadow, then a commando, and even a gunslinger became the main tank rather than have a guard tank for that group. Even the community knows how the Guardian class lacks and acts accordingly. Ev1 knows, it would seem, except BioWare.

 

I played a LS/grey jedi for 7 years+ in SWG so ranged really doesn't appeal to me (probably why the smug and sage didn't appeal to me). I tend to play a main toon with alts to back up the main. I regard leveling as more of a necessary evil than an entire game.

 

As a defense build Guardian really is about the only prof I know well, the problems as I see them are;

 

Way too many specials/powers in this game, most that do not work due to whatever has to happen 1st.

They have the engine trying to do too much due to the "coolness" factor and detracts from gameplay because of it

Guardians are not "tanks". Tanking systems are based off of taking away (interupts) powers from other profs/NPCs and not skills/stats obtained in the game.

I do not see enough social aspects to this game to keep me interested for the long term, IE housing, deco, etc - everything is combat.

Crafting system is more of an exchange system (hand in mats - get item) The 1.2 orange gear was a welcome addition but there is simply not enough of it.

 

So meanwhile, I'll keep an eye on TOR (continue to keep up with patch notes) to see if they ever get my specific problems fixed and return if they do unless I find another MMO that keeps my interest as SWG did. I did transfer my guild over to another player before I left as I was in a guild where the guild leader left without doing so and started this 1 due to that fact.

Edited April 25, 2012 by Esquire

[Vicen]

I still play it but not as much as I did when it first came out...I really wish they would open up free transfers or at least a dungeon finder...

[Valkirus]

I don't know.. I've been very adamant and passionate with TOR. Sadly, the lack of a proper LFG system means I'm playing the chat-channel game. I wouldn't be complaining if this game had a global LFG system that allowed me to do other activities while I had to wait for a FP. I realized that since I was waiting around for a group, I was playing another game on a separate screen. The sad realization that I'm not actually playing TOR itches me to end my sub.. for now.

 

I honestly plan to return to TOR when/if it gets a better LFG system. (That's if I leave. Not sure yet. Might just sub to another game with cross-server dungeon finder's so I can run a few dungeons on that game while I wait to find a FP group for TOR. I know, sad right? )

 

It is sad. There is sooo much potential with TOR. A bit like having a fine racing horse and keeping him at a park for kids to ride while mom or dad hold thier hands.

[JoanneK]

Subscription cancelled: I did all this level, gear, rep, add nuaseum etc grind with WoW, I have no motivation to do it all again in a game this stale and limited. If this game came out 10 years ago it would have been borderline reasonable, but for a modern release!? there's hardly anything in the game other than a pile of sound files and a couple of hours worth of storyboards, I sincerely cannot help but be bamboozled as to what exactly the development time was spent doing!?.

 

This game falls woefully short of any measure of acceptability for me, I would have still cancelled had this game been free to play, that is frankly how dire and narrow this game is in my opinion. I am staggered by the complete lack of features and innovation, you cant even call it cookie cutter as half the features of a cookie cutter MMO are missing. If you take off the voice over nonsense and the star wars wrapper you're left with something that would have been scrapped a decade ago and described as pathetically unfinished, yet somehow we're being charged prime rates for it!? no thanks, not doing that nonsense anymore, how many times do we have to go through this kind of half-arsed half-baked nonsense before game developers get it, how many times are people gonna say "its a new game give it time" thats what development time is for! to get rid of all the nonsense glitches and make sure everything is present and correct, I'll be damned If I'm going to pay to alpha-test another damned game again.

 

Even if you diregard all of the above, this game still has all the issues that you would associate with a major MMO release but with the depth and scope of an iphone app. I'm not sure what age some of these so called game developers are living in, or what the target market is for this particular game, but frankly, to say you have dropped the ball would imply you had actually picked it up in the 1st place and in all honesty the game proves time and time again that you never actually even had a ball to pick up so.. I hate to see things fail/flop/go south etc but <insert chosen deity here> couldn't ressurect this mess in time to save it in my opinion. Ubisoft tried making people play single player with a permanent online thing a couple of years ago, you've just done the next logical step, put multiple people in the same single player game then throw in some 'multi'-player content at the end of the worlds quickest levelling system and charge prime rates for the priviledge of the arduous task of sitting through the debacle.

 

This maybe a bit unfair perhaps but should illustrate things reasonably well: SWG had 32+ professions on launch (all fully dynamic in terms of selection), WoW had 9 classes and 27 talent trees, Rift had 4 classes with 32 user selectable trees, SWTOR has 4 classes and 20 trees on launch. SWG at launch had no direct means to assess peak level as there were numerous options and factors to consider but 3+ months wasn't uncommon due to the nature of multiple xp types required, WoW 1-60 took over a month minimum excluding crafting/gathering professions, Rift I've only played trial so level 20, but that took me a good couple of days without touching the crafting/gathering side of things, this game!? my 1st char with no prior knowlegde took 10 days to get to 50 complete with 2 gathering and 1 crafting profession all maxed at 400 with the personally useful schematics to blue/artifact level.

 

In short I played this game to the point of personal boredom within the free 30day period that comes with the game, I only paid for my second month due to the misplaced hope that 1.2 would fix the issues and alleviate the tedium. I wont hold the monumental messup that was Friday 13th April against anyone, we're all allowed a monumental messup from time to time and it was sheer comedy that of all days to make a pigs ear of things it had to be on friday 13th lol.

 

Imagine buying a brand new washing machine, the delivery guys come round and only part plumb it in, they leave the waste pipe sticking out over your nice expensive carpet, would you accept excuses like, "well we've yet to figure out how to attach it to your waste water pipe" or "we'll have that fixed next week for ya"!? no you wouldn't, yet that is pretty much what most major games releases expect from us. Waht we seem to be prepared to accept from games publishers/developers we would call unacceptable cowboy/con artist behaviour in just about every other aspect of society.

[Valkirus]

Subscription cancelled: I did all this level, gear, rep, add nuaseum etc grind with WoW, I have no motivation to do it all again in a game this stale and limited. If this game came out 10 years ago it would have been borderline reasonable, but for a modern release!? there's hardly anything in the game other than a pile of sound files and a couple of hours worth of storyboards, I sincerely cannot help but be bamboozled as to what exactly the development time was spent doing!?.

 

This game falls woefully short of any measure of acceptability for me, I would have still cancelled had this game been free to play, that is frankly how dire and narrow this game is in my opinion. I am staggered by the complete lack of features and innovation, you cant even call it cookie cutter as half the features of a cookie cutter MMO are missing. If you take off the voice over nonsense and the star wars wrapper you're left with something that would have been scrapped a decade ago and described as pathetically unfinished, yet somehow we're being charged prime rates for it!? no thanks, not doing that nonsense anymore, how many times do we have to go through this kind of half-arsed half-baked nonsense before game developers get it, how many times are people gonna say "its a new game give it time" thats what development time is for! to get rid of all the nonsense glitches and make sure everything is present and correct, I'll be damned If I'm going to pay to alpha-test another damned game again.

 

Even if you diregard all of the above, this game still has all the issues that you would associate with a major MMO release but with the depth and scope of an iphone app. I'm not sure what age some of these so called game developers are living in, or what the target market is for this particular game, but frankly, to say you have dropped the ball would imply you had actually picked it up in the 1st place and in all honesty the game proves time and time again that you never actually even had a ball to pick up so.. I hate to see things fail/flop/go south etc but <insert chosen deity here> couldn't ressurect this mess in time to save it in my opinion. Ubisoft tried making people play single player with a permanent online thing a couple of years ago, you've just done the next logical step, put multiple people in the same single player game then throw in some 'multi'-player content at the end of the worlds quickest levelling system and charge prime rates for the priviledge of the arduous task of sitting through the debacle.

 

This maybe a bit unfair perhaps but should illustrate things reasonably well: SWG had 32+ professions on launch (all fully dynamic in terms of selection), WoW had 9 classes and 27 talent trees, Rift had 4 classes with 32 user selectable trees, SWTOR has 4 classes and 20 trees on launch. SWG at launch had no direct means to assess peak level as there were numerous options and factors to consider but 3+ months wasn't uncommon due to the nature of multiple xp types required, WoW 1-60 took over a month minimum excluding crafting/gathering professions, Rift I've only played trial so level 20, but that took me a good couple of days without touching the crafting/gathering side of things, this game!? my 1st char with no prior knowlegde took 10 days to get to 50 complete with 2 gathering and 1 crafting profession all maxed at 400 with the personally useful schematics to blue/artifact level.

 

In short I played this game to the point of personal boredom within the free 30day period that comes with the game, I only paid for my second month due to the misplaced hope that 1.2 would fix the issues and alleviate the tedium. I wont hold the monumental messup that was Friday 13th April against anyone, we're all allowed a monumental messup from time to time and it was sheer comedy that of all days to make a pigs ear of things it had to be on friday 13th lol.

 

Imagine buying a brand new washing machine, the delivery guys come round and only part plumb it in, they leave the waste pipe sticking out over your nice expensive carpet, would you accept excuses like, "well we've yet to figure out how to attach it to your waste water pipe" or "we'll have that fixed next week for ya"!? no you wouldn't, yet that is pretty much what most major games releases expect from us. Waht we seem to be prepared to accept from games publishers/developers we would call unacceptable cowboy/con artist behaviour in just about every other aspect of society.

 

I read the whole post. Blunt...harsh...but accurate for the most part. *shrugs. I knew the crafting in TOR was not going to be up to SWG's level...but I do remember reading it was going to be better than WoW's. What a mislead. It is not as good as WoW's.

[RolyartNala]

I've seen most of what SWTOR currently has to offer---Republic side, at least. I doubt I'll roll Imperial since my friends are Republic. It's a good game with some fun features, but when my 6-month sub is up I'll have to take a hard look. It's not that SWTOR isn't worth a sub, but that there will be a lot of games out knife fighting in the mud for my time and money. May the best game win!

[kevlarto]

Yes, and once again why not ? even though there are many mmo's out there they are all old and tired to me, new games coming out, more sword and board, and after checking them out in detail nothing really new, or intresting.. Might as well stay put and grow with the star Wars universe..

[spcdog]

I've defended this game for a long time, mostly parroting the "it's a new MMO, WoW sucked when it was first released, things will get better..." mantra. But we're coming up on the 5-month mark since launch.

 

The simple fact is that WoW, and many other MMOs, improved over time. Bugs got fixed, things became more stable. It didn't happen overnight, but there was clear forward progress, without regressing existing functionality. This has not been the case with SWTOR; quality seems to backslide a little with each major patch. Not to mention that there are still a bunch of serious issues that still remain from launch, which are being completely ignored as far as customers can tell.

 

It's clear that BioWare's QA team is either incompetant or woefully understaffed. But I'm also starting to have serious doubts about the competency of the devs as well. BioWare games have always been a little "quirky", but you overlook that when it's a single player game that you paid a flat fee for. Unfortunately, "average" doesn't fly when you want people to pay a monthly subscription -- you have to step up and deliver something of above-average quality, and that's just not happening here, nor is there such a large volume of new content coming in as to make up for it.

 

Thanks to a billing issue (that BioWare never notified me about), it looks like I'm going to get screwed out of my free 30 days of game time. If that happens, I'm probably gone too, since I was planning to use that time as their "last chance" to get things in a better place.

[xTaynex]

Well, to be honest I have no idea what I am going to do. Swtor is my very first mmo ever. I was really hooked on this game when it was announced, watching every trailer dreaming of the possibilities this game would offer. Waiting like the rest of my fellow subs for this game to finally come out so I can spend countless hours of my life to play and enjoy the universe bioware had manufactured us players to eat our hearts out.

 

Instead, the longest I ever played swtor was more than thirty minutes at a time. I had a group than consisted of my fiance and three really good friends who have had plenty of experience from wow and other mmo's. Slowly the fell and stopped playing one by one simply because swtor got old and boring fast. I noticed that the republic side had been out numbered and most of the population had went sith. I can't blame them but for the people who do not want to play sith simply because there are so many on the opposing faction. Repub fleet is a graveyard. There are hardly ever 20 plus players there. And if you do not have a guild or perhaps have one but your guild is no where as active as you want, again your expectations are once again have come short due to the lack of players. And as the day goes on more and more drop the population. They claim that their subs have not majorly declined however its simple people have yet to cancel. Which they will.

 

Second, space seems some what over looked or perhaps rushed into the game just so we can have a ship for our selves. Space is one of the major aspects of the star wars galaxy. How about a guild ship or maybe some open world type of experience to travel to your destination. Give me a spacecraft that doesn't look like my friend. Let me customize my characters wardrobe using a color I create and not some pre selected armor color. Give me something to be excited for once again. This game is a book that has an exciting and vibrant colors and encourages you to open it and read on however once you get half way through the book its becomes less attractive and the feeling of mystery and pleasure dies shortly after.

 

Swtor, you have so many attributes to keep this game better than the rest, for instance you have arguably one the greatest universe that have ever been created. STAR WARS, how could you possibly fall short on a title as grand as that. BIOWARE and LUCASARTS the two powerhouses who created KOTOR the game that inspired this mmo as well as a truly ground breaking game in the RPG style video game. Along with these credentials you seem to forget things like SERVER TRANSFERS, customization's, lack of crafting development, and so many other things that seem mandatory for an mmo, which I have never played but yet do not understand why this game proceeds to fail and fall short of so many of its subs expectations.

 

Long story short I have not decided on whether to renew my sub or cancel it but I can say that I am leaning toward canceling it. Diablo III is right around the corner, and I can assure you more people will cancel along the way. Games will always come out that will attack the population of this game and once enough have finaly took there leave this game will fall and fall faster than any other. I shake my head at this game now looking back. I can not fathom what the devs were doing in the time it took in creating this game. Ok we got star wars, lets make an mmo. Well IMO the wait was not worth it along with what I am paying atm. Sorry swtor I just thought you would be something more.

[Striker_KOJ]

I stupidly re-subscribed a couple weeks ago after having taken a break for a couple months. I wanted to give 1.2 a chance, even though I had kept tabs on the changes and still wasnt really convinced. I figured one more month to try things out with a clear mindset couldn't hurt.

 

I have logged on maybe 4 times in the last two weeks, and have logged off after 10 minutes. I have no desire to do ANYthing in this game. Ive run a few characters to 50, done some crafting, done some flashpoints. PVPed as much as I could before I had unsubscribed, but with the PVP changes in 1.2 I have no desire to start from the bottom of the gear treadmill AGAIN, and with apparently a class/spec that is no longer competative. Ill be ****ed if I am grinding ANOTHER 50 through the same crap again.

 

This game is just boring. I really really really wanted to like this game. I used to love this company. I used to love Star Wars. I used to love MMOs. But this game fell flat on all points for me. The voice acting, and the story, aren't even that good. With all the arrogance and flip attitude from the developers, I never expected the product to fail to hold my attention this much.

 

So I guess Bioware wins in some sense. You pulled another 15 dollars out of my pocket, and you dont even have to worry about me taking space on your servers.

[KangasCollective]

Love this game.

But unsubscribed 2 weeks ago when I realized 1.2 changes have likely made war zones unfun for a long time.

It's Team Deathmatch now. It's more about killing than about objectives. Time to kill is too low.

 

I have a 50 Sorc (madness) and a 50 Powertech (iron first).

Not having Multi-spec shortened the life of the game for me because I would like to dedicate as a full tank sometimes and a full healer sometimes but still be able to play warzones in dps. And paying to respec multiple times a week and going through the headache of sorting out toolbar and keybinding changes is a pain.

 

Also I lost my will to pve for rakata gear etc because not enough friends playing. And trying to insert myself with a new guild of strangers for a 3rd time not worth it.

 

Unsubscribing is not a good idea if you love the game. It will kill the rest of your desire to login. So be cautious about this step even if you are just "trying to send a message" or "voting with your credit card"

[GreySix]

Wife and I still play every afternoon, so think we'll keep the subscription.

 

When we get bored with the game, we'll unsubscribe and move on to one of our many other activities.

 

And won't waste time posting here about it.