Let´s be honest. SWTOR is pretty solid MMO arround.

[Akkela]

Speaking for myself, I was (and am) actually looking forward to planetary stories and side quests on alts to see what the responses / possibilities were.

 

For example, out of my 4 Republic Characters (haven’t started Empire yet) for side quests, the attitude of how I respond is =

 

Jedi Knight = Paladin like, can I help, for free, and give you money for it.

Trooper = For the Republic, no survivors, betrayal is met by deadly force

Jedi Consular = Falling to the darkside, self-involved hostile smart ***

Smuggler = All about the money, with no limit

 

I am doing the same thing for all my characters (in fact my trooper has that same outlook). I don't focus on doing just light-side or dark-side responses...my responses are determined by my character's personality. It makes it so much more enjoyable for me, even after the 4th time through the same mission.

[Sparklehorse]

It affected EVERYONE to a degree and most people had their client frozen. It was early on, the vast majority hadn't even reached that high level yet at that point for them to be affected so yeah, of course it didn't affect people who didn't level fast from early access.

 

You do realize you contradict yourself with these two sentences?

 

A more accurate way of saying this, not to mention a more honest way would be...

 

At release there was a severe memory leak on Taris that affected a large number of people who leveled fast. This leak was plugged within a few days of release and had little to no impact on the majority of the player base as they were not high enough level to even be in the zone yet.

 

The people who were most impacted by this bug were the people who started the game early such as those with pre-orders. The vast majority of people who started the game on the actual release day never even knew this bug existed.

[ConradLionhart]

You do realize you contradict yourself with these two sentences?

 

A more accurate way of saying this, not to mention a more honest way would be...

 

At release there was a severe memory leak on Taris that affected a large number of people who leveled fast. This leak was plugged within a few days of release and had little to no impact on the majority of the player base as they were not high enough level to even be in the zone yet.

 

The people who were most impacted by this bug were the people who started the game early such as those with pre-orders. The vast majority of people who started the game on the actual release day never even knew this bug existed.

 

Not to mention SW:TOR had one of the best launches in MMO history. To just nitpick issues like that one you are referring to, is a great injustice.

[Jederix]

You looked at five minutes of GW2 combat and think that makes you an expert on the game?

 

*********** pathetic

 

They are attempting to move away from the standard MMO combat formula. I don't need to see anything else, this is enough to turn me away.

[Jederix]

That is a fanboy response dude.

 

So is everything that doesn't agree with you, it would seem.

[Reico]

They are attempting to move away from the standard MMO combat formula. I don't need to see anything else, this is enough to turn me away.

 

GW2s combat is the standard hotkey mmo style. The sad part is it's very boring. I actually found TERAs combat to be much much more interesting.

[Touchbass]

Alt+ tabbing in this game with loading screens on the return is one thing they really need to fix

[Jederix]

I'm almost certain some people said that 2 months ago.

 

And in 2 months, they will be saying it again. These people are a broken record.

[Sparklehorse]

 

An MMO released just as we hit 2012 with such hype and grand promises that fell far short of its own pre release description. Thats more like the review it should get.

 

 

Except for the part where they delivered exactly the game they advertised.

 

Seriously, every single feature was discussed to death prior to release. If the game failed to live up to a persons expectations it was because they had the wrong expectations.

 

They then went on to have the largest, cleanest MMO release in the history of MMO releases,

 

What color is the tint on your glasses?

[Roechacca]

Ok lets be honest now.

 

This game needed tons of work before release it never got

 

Server population planning was mishandled

 

Missing key components like 3D space and end game material was a bad call

 

crafting was a disaster

 

They did manage to make the game look pretty however.

[Touchbass]

Ok lets be honest now.

 

This game needed tons of work before release it never got

 

Server population planning was mishandled

 

Missing key components like 3D space and end game material was a bad call

 

crafting was a disaster

 

They did manage to make the game look pretty however.

 

I am really curious of their gamble to release the game early will pay off financially. After the inital "it's new and cool!" rush no one talks about it at work, most people are bored with it and play it to kill time. A few new co-workers were thinking about trying it and decided not to once they heard how demanding the game is on your lower end computers and there is nothing to do at 50.

[TUXs]

This was a response to the person who's solution to the massive low pop. server problems was to just "reroll to the Fatman server".

 

The analogies were meant to demonstrate that such a solution is hardly acceptable. Choosing a server, rolling toons and having no one around on each planet at every level is not MY FAULT. Either fix the problems from a technical standpoint by allowing transfers or server merges or fix the probem from a design standpoint by creating a game that fosters community. In any case asking me or anyone else to reroll a character in order to get the "massively multiplayer" experiences is assenine and a sure-sign of a mindset that is all too primed to drink the kool-aid.

 

I apologize. In that context, you're correct. If this were the first month of the product, I'd agree that re-rolling was an acceptable solution...but not now, not after 5 months of character(s) development.

 

Bioware is acting too slowly on some key issues (PvP!) - the population drop is one of many they need to have some urgency on. Instead...we get a family flow chart...

[Roechacca]

I am really curious of their gamble to release the game early will pay off financially. After the inital "it's new and cool!" rush no one talks about it at work, most people are bored with it and play it to kill time. A few new co-workers were thinking about trying it and decided not to once they heard how demanding the game is on your lower end computers and there is nothing to do at 50.

 

I understand but honestly could care less if BW gets away with it financially or not. All I want is the issues pointed out to be addressed by the company. If the game dies, I loose because I want a Star Wars MMO.

[Quintan]

I understand but honestly could care less if BW gets away with it financially or not. All I want is the issues pointed out to be addressed by the company. If the game dies, I loose because I want a Star Wars MMO.

 

It's pretty sad cause it didn't have to fail this bad if the devs had made better choices.

Edited April 5, 2012 by Quintan

[Shingara]

You do realize you contradict yourself with these two sentences?

 

A more accurate way of saying this, not to mention a more honest way would be...

 

At release there was a severe memory leak on Taris that affected a large number of people who leveled fast. This leak was plugged within a few days of release and had little to no impact on the majority of the player base as they were not high enough level to even be in the zone yet.

 

The people who were most impacted by this bug were the people who started the game early such as those with pre-orders. The vast majority of people who started the game on the actual release day never even knew this bug existed.

 

Glad someone else noticed that, id reply to his remark back at me but its just meh as you have also pointed out, but pro tip. Insult people with words the csrs dont understand and you wont get an infraction aparently

[BCBull]

You do realize you contradict yourself with these two sentences?

 

A more accurate way of saying this, not to mention a more honest way would be...

 

At release there was a severe memory leak on Taris that affected a large number of people who leveled fast. This leak was plugged within a few days of release and had little to no impact on the majority of the player base as they were not high enough level to even be in the zone yet.

 

The people who were most impacted by this bug were the people who started the game early such as those with pre-orders. The vast majority of people who started the game on the actual release day never even knew this bug existed.

 

Glad someone else noticed that, id reply to his remark back at me but its just meh as you have also pointed out, but pro tip. Insult people with words the csrs dont understand and you wont get an infraction aparently

 

Nooot so fast. there were 1 million preorders correct? There are 1.7 million playing now right? That means the majority of players are preoders.

[ArlindoGMNeto]

I am trying to review SWTOR as objective as possible. I rerolled to Fatman recently so I could play SWTOR as it´s meant to be played. And my final impression is SWTOR is pretty solid as both, game and MMO.

 

First of all, I´d like to notice we just didn´t have many SFI MMOs arround to compare.

 

These are positive features of SWTOR I compiled through my 300 hours gameplay.

 

1. SW lore is cool. This is it. It´s very difficult to make SW lore unintresting, and this is not a case. Bioware nailed quite well the overall look and feel of Star Wars universe. Environments and backgrounds are fantastic, really of the best looking arround. After Witcher 2, SWTOR environemnts are the best ones.

 

2. Voiceovers really make the difference.

 

3. The dialog options are so good for a MMO. Really. Morality choices are of the best I played before. You can be very evil, neutral or good. Only a few games arround offer this kind of choice, and none of them are MMOs. You may say those choices didn´t matter but they mattered to me, and to many others. Those choices defined my character and myself. I choosed the dark path and I still have remorse for taking some heartsplitting decisions. For the first time, I hadn´t just level up my character but I defined him with my choices too. WoW doesn´t offer this.

 

4. SWTOR offer more chalenege. Heroics and Flashpoints are more difficult that the similar areas from WoW. You must group to complete them and this feature push people together. It´s good thing.

 

5. SWTOR is the most grouping-friendly games I played. People are grouping in this game quite easily. I tried WoW sometime before, and got to level 30, but mostly I played solo. I tried to group with other people, but they plainly ingnored me. During my playthrough in WoW, I couldn´t group not even once, and I was in guild with 50 people.

In SWTOR is quite opposite. If you want to do Heroics, you must group with somebody. The groups usually are of 4. It´s pretty easy to group. I just throw a message to General Chat "Anyone for that heroic" and "LF1 more for <heroic>", and people usually always repond. In WOW, I actually never saw something similar to Heroics.

On Fatman, you can actually find a body even for a single player missions.

 

6. SWTOR is a quite polished game. Seriously, in comparison to other MMO launches and many single player games SWTOR is shiny polished. I haven´t confronted any bug yet, only get stuck sometimes when jump from the cliffs which is quickly resolved with /stuck command. But I recognize that some bugs exist, I read in forums that some people have bugs. And some features present in WoW are misssing which will be solved with the upcomming patch.

 

7. Graphical presentation of SWTOR is stunning. As I already said environments are of the best. Some face animations and acting are even superior than in ME3. Right now, SWTOR is one the best looking MMOs arround. Well... if you have a powerful enough PC.

GW2 may eclipse SWTOR, but not so much. GW2 will not have voiceovers and cutscenes for every in-game quest.

 

8. SWTOR community is great and friendly. Go on Fatman you will see. The main public of SWTOR is the people who seek for pieceful cooperative experience. There is a guild boom right now, every one tries to create one. SWTOR is a perfect game for people who mostly played single player games and are affraid of MMO. There is no elitist jerks arround, at least by now.

 

9. With the upcomming path, we´ll get more PvsP content.

 

Well. Let´s analize now about the main complaints about SWTOR:

 

1. No end content for 50s.

 

Well... the solution here is just...waiting untill a new big expansion is released. Many 50s will unsubscribe for sure, but new players will come eventually too. SWTOR is one of the most friendly communities arroud, and very perfect for the people who want to try theirselves in a new genre. I was one of them.

 

Certainly 1.7 million population will drop to, let´s say, 1 million eventually. But still 1 million is good number for a starter MMO. Actually this reflects the real worth of SWTOR, not the hyped one. And it´s more than enough to keep the game alive and Bioware happy. And this number, 1 million, will be steady with all ebbs and flows of subscriptions untill a new new big full expansion comes out. After that, the community may be expanded to a few more servers and again stay static.

 

I am not planning to play SWTOR for years either. Eventually I will stop, but my place will be taken by someone else. It´s a natural thing. When a new real expansion comes one I will certainly resub.

 

2. World is not actually open.

 

Well. It´s not like WoW for sure. But areas are very big and extensive and every planet takes me some 20-30 hours to complete. The only difference is there is no gate to pass to another realm, But this is SW, you take a ship and travel to another planet. If you actually want SWTOR world be like WoW then the whole action must take place on one planet which is not ver appealing and plausible and characteristic for SW universe.

 

3. I will not discuss the problem with pop to avoid the closing of my thread. Just rerolled. Try a new alt. Or just wait for a migration tool. No other solution is available.

Rerolling is a natural reaction of SWTOR community for the self preservation. The most of SWTOR community in US is concentrated now on Fatman.

 

Please don´t discuss this topic in my thread to avoid the merge with other threads.

 

Ok...Now lets check briefly the main competitors of SWTOR.

 

I will put them in groups-

 

1. WoW. Terra. GW2

 

Here comes the biggest flaw of this trio. They are not ScFI. This is it. SWTOR already reserved for itself a big chunk of players. I know a lot of people who scpecifically need light sabers, blasters and and tech stuff, they will not come back to sword, shield and magic again.

 

WoW.

 

The people who still playing it will keep playing it. No big loss. The people who stopped playing it will not come back because of Pandas. WoW population will drop eventually to some 7-8 milllions. But WoW will keep the biggest population arround.

 

It will not affect SWTOR population at all. If you like Star Wars, you will like Star Wars. No pandas will change that. Besides new WoW expansion is all about the same. The same everything. Totally not ground breaking or innovative.

 

Terra.

 

Its like WoW but with Pokemons. Yes, and a better combat. The rest is the same: NPCs with excalamation sings floating overhead, text boxes for the missions, no voiceovers.

 

If you like Korean MMOs with pokemons go and try it, but people who are into Star Wars and ScFi will not follow you.

 

GW2.

 

Well it´s the strongest competitor. But is it really so ground breaking ? I watch so many video and read so many previews about it.

 

The main atraction is World vs World vs World. Yep. Cool stuff.

The graphical presntation is awesome.

The combat is new and fresh.

 

Its flaws.

 

It keeps being like WoW. Yes...more mature...better combat...choices affect the world but...NPCs have excalamation sings floating overhead, text boxes for the missions, no voiceovers, killing stuff by hundreds.

 

And it´s not SCFI.

 

Equally, this one is the best looking among all competitor and I will certainly try it.

 

2. Secret World.

 

A very shady horse. It may be a great success or another Age of Connan.

 

Its flaws.

 

It has standard WoW-like mechanics. No groundbeaking there.

Graphically it didn´t impress me.

Secret World lore must compete against STAR WARS. Every new lore has a huge risk to suck. This is a fact. Check the Kindoms of Amalur.

 

Well. This is it. This thread is subjected to further updates.

Update 1:

 

I am not saying that SWTOR is the best MMO ever. I am not bashing GW2, Tera, and Secret World.

 

But I just point to your attention that none of the upcomming MMOs will be ground breaking. They will not be enourmously superior to SWTOR, but only in some aspects, and in other aspects SWTOR will be better. This is it.

 

At the end, what MMO to play will depend on your fancies, there will not be a clear winner.

 

If you like swords and magic, you will certainly move to WoW, Terra or GW2. SWTOR just doesn´t have all allures to keep everyone.

 

But SWTOR holds monopoly on ScFi and SW, so a good chunk of players will stay with SWTOR .

 

Please, don´t do drugs!

 

SWTOR is drowning in its own blood and we all know it.

[ArlindoGMNeto]

SWTOR is a good single player game, however its a mediocre at best MMO. Certainly not living up to the pre-launch hype of a innovative next generation MMO that will last years.

 

Listen to the man, he knows what he´s talking about.

[Kailthir]

Ok let me add my 2 credits worth. I do not see this game as an MMO. Least not on the 2 servers i am on. When I started on these 2 servers the population was average and spiked at heavy. Same as other servers at the time in decemebr. Now... hardly anyone is ever on.

 

For those on fatman server and the other heavy servers, I am sure the expirence is an MMO for you. But for the rest of the community on the other 70 some odd servers it isn't, and this is a sad oversite by BW.

 

The fix to this is not moving to the 2-3 servers that have a viable population in order to have a SW MMO expirence. Doing this will only OVER populate those few servers, and lag or crash them for all. Not to mention most people really do not want to start all over again with new characters, especially if they already have a few alts. Not fun at all.

 

The fix would be to offer FREE server transfers to certain other low populated servers. Then take those servers that were emptied offline and saved for a future date if needed. This would save BW money in the long run. They wouldn't have to run so many dead or low used servers.

 

As of right now it saddens me that I am missing out on a large portion of the game. No flashpoints, WZ's, Heroics, world PvP etc. My servers just do not have the population to make these things a reality. The only MMO content That I have done is the starter worlds and 1 or 2 worlds after that. Low population servers=no MMO expirence.

 

I shouldn't have to be forced to move to a server in order to play with others, and discard my toons. I have worked to hard to give them a life of their own in the game world. As of right now, this is the only option left to us, if we want to play with others. I think it sux

[MisterData]

No...

[CorellianWannabe]

Except for the part where they delivered exactly the game they advertised.

 

Seriously, every single feature was discussed to death prior to release. If the game failed to live up to a persons expectations it was because they had the wrong expectations.

 

They then went on to have the largest, cleanest MMO release in the history of MMO releases,

 

What color is the tint on your glasses?

 

Really? They delivered the graphics shown in trailers and review sites? I thought they claimed they weren't available (and players thinking they were was due to a "bug" in the settings).

 

I would call screenshots that aren't possible within the game to be false advertising and thereby not delivering. What would you call them?

[Shingara]

Nooot so fast. there were 1 million preorders correct? There are 1.7 million playing now right? That means the majority of players are preoders.

 

Your point is what exactly, just cos they were a majority of pre orders does not entail they all hit that bug, the biggest bug that did effect pre orders with taris was the memory leak and the only thing that did was create lag spikes not make peoples clients crash.

[Tyraelium]

to the OP:

 

to each his own I guess. For a game that was touting its story and roleplay/immersion, I found the stories to be very boring. The voiceovers were annoying and a pain. The choices you make are inconsequential to your character, its all just fluff, none of it matters in the end.

 

WoW had plenty of group quests in the first two expansions, fun ones, long ones, and great story arcs/attunements. SWTOR's group quests are boring and optional.

 

The game lacked any polish whatsoever at launch. It was horrendous IMO, they were not prepared at all, and the game wasn't ready for launch. I was expecting much better quality from the company. The game should've been in beta for another year, or been released 7 years ago.

 

Nothing new or innovative about SWTOR to set it apart from other MMOs, so thats why it is just an average game.

[Shingara]

to the OP:

 

to each his own I guess. For a game that was touting its story and roleplay/immersion, I found the stories to be very boring. The voiceovers were annoying and a pain. The choices you make are inconsequential to your character, its all just fluff, none of it matters in the end.

 

WoW had plenty of group quests in the first two expansions, fun ones, long ones, and great story arcs/attunements. SWTOR's group quests are boring and optional.

 

The game lacked any polish whatsoever at launch. It was horrendous IMO, they were not prepared at all, and the game wasn't ready for launch. I was expecting much better quality from the company. The game should've been in beta for another year, or been released 7 years ago.

 

Nothing new or innovative about SWTOR to set it apart from other MMOs, so thats why it is just an average game.

 

Ow you mean the group quests in wow that were phased quests meaning that if you were infront or behind other people you could not help them or be helped as you couldnt see them, those group quests.

[Tyraelium]

Ow you mean the group quests in wow that were phased quests meaning that if you were infront or behind other people you could not help them or be helped as you couldnt see them, those group quests.

 

What are you talking about?

 

Because I am talking about Classic/TBC

 

Have you done the Onyxia Lair key quest?

UBRS Key?

AQ Scepter?

 

Phasing didn't come into play until WOTLK? And by then there weren't many group quests left at all anyway..