Server populations, the other side of the story

[kosiah]

I agree with the original poster in this thread: the decline is normal. People have "finished" the game. But why isn't the game being sold to new subscribers? Where are the tv and print ads? Internet? More than most games, this one should rely on an influx of new players.

 

There are things ToR does brilliantly. This is the first MMO I've played in forever where I felt like the journey was actually the point. Leveling is fun. Seeing the stories is fun too. I've been through some planets more times than I can count, and although, yes, at times it's tedious, it's a lot less tedious than grinding for experience or killing 10 rats for a fetch and carry quest in the barrens. What's more, although the larger social community is a little lacking, this game is perfect to play with your spouse, your friend across the country, one or two people you've met in the game. The content's very well designed for duoing--more so than any game I've seen.

 

So why not market it as such?

[Star-ranger]

I haven't seen anyone comment on this aspect of why populations are dropping so I'll offer my two credits...

 

Populations are dropping because that is the inevitable result of the game's design.

 

This game appears primarily to be suited and aimed at the casual or "solo" player and those players are not the customers who will ever sustain a subscription model. Those customers do not play games for long. They come, beat it, and leave. That's what they do. This isn't sustainable in the longterm because that sort of player is a "fad" player and the next shiney new game to come along will lure them away.

 

In my opinion, that is why numbers are dropping. It isn't because the game is bad.. it isn't. It isn't because the game is "rushed, buggy, unfinished etc"... it isn't and nobody who has ever played any other MMO from launch would ever think so. The numbers are dropping because you have designed a game that does not have longterm appeal. This was likely a conscious decision to go after the WoW model of a simple, kid-friendly game but that formula has only ever worked for WoW. Every other game that has attempted that model has either failed and died or gone the free-to-play route where "casual" players will spend more money playing for a few months than they would had they subscribed for those few months. There are other MMO's out there that are less schizophrenic and make no bones about being "casual" games. Most of them are better at it too because they make no attempt to appeal to the hardcore audience.

 

I think the best option is to shift the focus from appealing to the "casual" gamer and moving it towards the "hardcore". Stop chasing after the fickle casual gamers, it is an unsustainable market. They will play for a few months and leave no matter how many bells and whistles you add. Make the game harder. Make levelling slower. Make grouping a lot more attractive or even make it required. Add penalties to dying. Add downtime. Add "sandbox" elements. Give your players a reason to play for many months or years because what you have now, as good as it is, is just a solo game and an easy one at that.

 

You need to appeal now and in the future to players who will be playing a year from now. You don't need to be chasing after a market that will be gone in a month no matter what you do.

 

Allow me to disagree somewhat. Casual players come in many stripes.

 

This game simply misses the mark for many casual and hardcore players. It misses the mark not because the game is 'bad', but because it is inappropriately designed for an MMO.

 

After a player reaches the end of the leveling track, there's really not much to do other than grind gear and repeat the same content over and over. The PvP may be initially entertaining but becomes dull after repetition of static content. There's not enough raiding content to keep groups entertained for an extended period of time, what content there is happens to be static (i.e. same thing over and over).

 

The play style of many players is (mistakenly) to rush to the end game as fast as possible because success in PvP is determined by level and end gear. So they shorten their path to the endgame and then the end game is boring so they leave.

 

This game is designed to be mostly solo-able. MMO's thrive on player interaction. If there's no reason to interact with other players there's no reason to hang around once you complete the content unless you're into PvP and Raiding. And again nobody's going to stick around this game for long just for it's current endgame content--you can only do the same thing so many times before you get bored. This game lacks the tools to create strong social bonds between players other than those with OCD. BW sabotaged their own game by making the maximum party size 4 and by including companions to help players so they wouldn't need to group.

 

This game borrows heavily from current Fantasy MMO mechanics and norms. However people looking for something different are not looking for more of the same when they leave their old game. SWTOR should have taken a different tack and made their game unique and different from the other big Gorilla in the room rather than copy it's mechanics.

 

This game is STATIC. The content never changes. There's no randomness to spawns, missions, maps, or pretty much anything else (with the possible exceptions of resource nodes which have slight variations of the same type of resource and loot drops). In a nutshell, once you've experienced the content of one class on one side, you've experienced 80-90% of the content for that side. This lowers replay value, since pretty much nothing will change except your class quests for your alts. There needs to be more dynamic content to increase replay value.

 

Bottom line: this game tries to be a single player game and an MMO. The single player approach is the strongest undercutting the MMO part. MMO players looking for an MMO experience won't stick around this game very long, and single player game players are also unlikely to stick around once they've consumed the main content because they haven't built relationships with other players that will keep them playing.

 

This game's longevity is sabotaged by it's own design.

[Monoth]

The group content 1-49 is optional in this game and given how fast you level you usually blow past the level of any given flashpoint or heroic within a day or two... All the gear drops and rewards makes crafting optional.... So yeah this game is pretty much a solo game 1-49.....

 

End game content is pretty slim and is based around static linear content....

 

1) Operations (3 of them), they are the same regardless if you run them in Story Mode, Hard Mode or Nightmare mode, bosses just get more health)

2) Hard Mode Flashpoints (6 or 7 of them) same regardless of Story mode or Hard Mode

3) Dailies (linear static quests)

 

for PvP there's

 

1) Warzones (4 of them)

2) umm thats it

 

People leave because end game content is BORING.... Bioware spent all their resources in the 1-49 solo levels and ignored group end game content... So when you get to 50 your like zzzzzzzzzzzz

 

I'm hoping Bioware hires some new talented people who can think outside the box and give us some fun dynamic end game content soon.... Otherwise I'm not sure i'll be hanging around much longer....

Edited June 1, 2012 by Monoth

[ivanhedgehog]

I haven't seen anyone comment on this aspect of why populations are dropping so I'll offer my two credits...

 

Populations are dropping because that is the inevitable result of the game's design.

 

This game appears primarily to be suited and aimed at the casual or "solo" player and those players are not the customers who will ever sustain a subscription model. Those customers do not play games for long. They come, beat it, and leave. That's what they do. This isn't sustainable in the longterm because that sort of player is a "fad" player and the next shiney new game to come along will lure them away.

 

In my opinion, that is why numbers are dropping. It isn't because the game is bad.. it isn't. It isn't because the game is "rushed, buggy, unfinished etc"... it isn't and nobody who has ever played any other MMO from launch would ever think so. The numbers are dropping because you have designed a game that does not have longterm appeal. This was likely a conscious decision to go after the WoW model of a simple, kid-friendly game but that formula has only ever worked for WoW. Every other game that has attempted that model has either failed and died or gone the free-to-play route where "casual" players will spend more money playing for a few months than they would had they subscribed for those few months. There are other MMO's out there that are less schizophrenic and make no bones about being "casual" games. Most of them are better at it too because they make no attempt to appeal to the hardcore audience.

 

I think the best option is to shift the focus from appealing to the "casual" gamer and moving it towards the "hardcore". Stop chasing after the fickle casual gamers, it is an unsustainable market. They will play for a few months and leave no matter how many bells and whistles you add. Make the game harder. Make levelling slower. Make grouping a lot more attractive or even make it required. Add penalties to dying. Add downtime. Add "sandbox" elements. Give your players a reason to play for many months or years because what you have now, as good as it is, is just a solo game and an easy one at that.

 

You need to appeal now and in the future to players who will be playing a year from now. You don't need to be chasing after a market that will be gone in a month no matter what you do.

 

The majority of people with problems with pop numbers comes from PVP ers. Pvpers ar notorious for being fickle here today gone tomorrow type. They came in to the game, raced to 50, and pounded away. Many left after levle 50 pvpers were put in their own ques. Many pvpers are only there to pound lower level folks so as to feel superior. They have moved on in their normal fashion to the next big thing. There are a bunch of empty pvp servers. Bioware needs to merge the pvp servers into maybe 25% of what they have now. I am what you would call casual and have just started raiding. I am in a full team every night because I made friends. I dont sit on Belsavis or fleet spamming people constantly lft. One of the great things about swtor is that it is as difficult as you want to make it. Story mode too easy? go hardmode. Bioware wants to keep both hardcore and casual players, they arent about to alienate one of those markets just to suit you.

[Monoth]

I agree with the original poster in this thread: the decline is normal. People have "finished" the game. But why isn't the game being sold to new subscribers? Where are the tv and print ads? Internet? More than most games, this one should rely on an influx of new players.

 

There are things ToR does brilliantly. This is the first MMO I've played in forever where I felt like the journey was actually the point. Leveling is fun. Seeing the stories is fun too. I've been through some planets more times than I can count, and although, yes, at times it's tedious, it's a lot less tedious than grinding for experience or killing 10 rats for a fetch and carry quest in the barrens. What's more, although the larger social community is a little lacking, this game is perfect to play with your spouse, your friend across the country, one or two people you've met in the game. The content's very well designed for duoing--more so than any game I've seen.

 

So why not market it as such?

 

Bioware designed this game like one of their single player RPG's, Like Mass Effect and Dragon Age only so many people want to play them and once they play them they move on to the next big game.... MMO's on the other hand try to create a virtual world where they can keep people paying each month to hang out there.... Problem is SWTOR gives you no reason to pay $15 a month to hang out in this virtual game world once you've experienced its linear static content...

 

It would be like asking people why don't they keep play Mass Effect after they reach the end.... You got the same problem with SWTOR....

[asbalana]

,,,,

 

In my opinion, that is why numbers are dropping. It isn't because the game is bad.. it isn't.

 

Although I disagree with most of what you said and think that you would have to ramp it up a notch to be more wrong, I noted the quoted part of your post.

 

The game is bad and that is the problem. The worlds are mostly dead and colorless. They are linear and for the most case movement is restricted by mountains, walls, and tunnels with no chance of exploration. They are lifeless with the occasional pair of birds in stationary position just flapping their wings. Could anyone have designed something more drab and lifeless than fleet?

 

Questing is linear with the same quests for every class except for a few class quests on each planet. From levels 1 to 50 and beyond, your fight the exact same mobs (sometimes the heads are different) in the exact same configurations and they use the exact same attacks. My (and wifes) feeling after finishing every planet was that I was happy to get off of it and move on.

 

Combat is still flawed with the improved but not fixed ability delay issues. Spells still delay, misfire or not fire at all, and there are still bugs (every so often my wifes SW force leaps sideways and lands far from the target). I stll can hit a mob and have a few second tick before it's health actually drops.

 

Crafting sux and there is no economy. Sit in the auction house in that other game and see the life and play with their auction interface and then stand in front of a dull colored kiosk in SW and try to put up six stacks of ten items in one command.

 

Travel from fleet to the BH dailies. You have time to read a book. Don't even get me started on the variety (none) and qulity of the dailies.

 

Unless you raid, there is absolutely nothing to do at level 50.

 

I could go on and end up with a post many times longer than your original, but simply people are leaving becasue this is not a good game and there is no reason / hook to stay. The initial defections may have led to low pop servers which then started a cycle of unsubs over pop issues, but they were not caused by pop issues.

[CosmicKat]

 

This game's longevity is sabotaged by it's own design.

 

I think the above line sums up what I meant.

[Ghaiana]

You have gamers and gamers, it's just silly to put them in categories and point to one or the other category to blame them for not playing a specific game. If you talk about hardcore players in measures of the time they play, you could talk about people who rush through content, people who play a specific game for 5 years day in day out, people who play several games in the same timespan, people who play all the games they can get their hands on. I'm sure not all of those groups fit in your definition of hardcore, because part of them will leave any game soon anyway.

[RattyRattail]

Here are some of the issues that I experienced at launch, and which I believe led to a lot of people dropping their subs.

• No X-server PvP
  
• No X-server LFG (Flashpoints)
  
• Ilum debacle
  
• No Full Pre-mades for PvP
  
• Failed Ranked WZs
  
• Horrible Item Progression (PvP gear was better than tier 1 tionese)
  
• PvP Equipment Dependant on RNG only
  
• No UI Customization
  
• No Character Copy to PTS
  

 

Some of these issues were resolved when 1.2 hit, but some were not... specifcally the delay on ranked warzones and full pre-made queues. My guilds entire PvP base dissappeared because of this.

 

Also an MMO is dependant on players. If you do not have players then the game will wither and die. At least if they had x-server group and warzones the population/faction dispartiy would not be as apparent.

 

These are my thoughts =).

[MMornard]

You are misunderstanding my use of the terms hardcore and casual.

 

I do not refer to how much time the players have per gaming session, or how often they play. I am referring to what longterm expectations they have from the game.

 

By "casual" I meant someone wanting instant gratification for minimal risk or investment. I guess "powergamer" might have been a better term.

 

By "hardcore" I meant someone in it for the long haul. Someone perfectly happy to play for 2 years, never reach max level, and be perefectly fine with that.

 

Hmm... you seem to have reversed them from my understanding as well.

 

"Casual" to me -- and I am FIRMLY a casual gamer in my own eyes -- is somebody who putzes. I do have one character at maximum, but only one. I'll open an alt, play ten or fifteen levels, then delete it. My skills are scattered around all three subgroups because I picked ones that looked shiny. Not all my upgrades are current. I don't know what my DPS is, nor do I care.

 

"Powergamer" to me is somebody who wants to "beat" the game and get All The Best Stuff . They're the ones who rip through content and scream for more.

 

I've been playing WoW since 2007 and I still don't have even a single character at maximum level.

 

The most decisive characteristics of what I term the "casual" player are twofold:

 

1) An attitude that "it's just a silly game, and if it provides a bit of entertainment that's all I want."

2) Sending our $15 a month marching faithfully off to whoever... because $15 a month is chump change, and if we play a game 5 hours a month and have fun doing it, it's worth it.

 

In my not so humble opinion the "deserters" are the ones who rip through to maximum level and scream that there isn't enough ganking of "n00bs" in PvP, and they go shrieking off to the next game. There is an amazing number of threads here where people have said "I did this game and it suxxors and then this game and it suxxors and then this game and it suxxors and then SWTOR and it suxxors and u r all l00sers and now Im gonna play this great new game lol." At some point, the common thread in all their failed games is themselves.

 

Just my two wuptiupti.

[MMornard]

The play style of many players is (mistakenly) to rush to the end game as fast as possible because success in PvP is determined by level and end gear. So they shorten their path to the endgame and then the end game is boring so they leave.

 

I enjoy this game as it is quite a bit. However, I do have to agree with your above statement.

 

I personally think that the "rush through to level cap because the game begins and endgame" mindset is a hideous evil that should be purged from the Galaxy with cleansing atomic fire.

Edited June 1, 2012 by MMornard

[Lurchy]

You guys need to read the RL news a bit more rather than the forum

 

The real reason why there has been a massive decline in the playerbase is due to the Rakghoul plague, I have copied the article below from http://tinfoilhatnews.com/

 

Shares in the American games company EABioWare were suspended today due to concerns of a class action being brought against them by the families of a significant proportion of their former client base. Apparently, in their game SWTOR they had an in game event called 'The Rakghoul plague'. This event caused the in game characters of the players to contract a deadly plague that would eventually cause the characters to explode and infect anybody surrounding them. Tragically, it seems that the actual players themselves became affected by this terminal plague and SWTOR customers have been exploding in their basements all around the world.

 

On a more positive note, shares in major cleaning companies have been soaring due to the massive surge in business scooping up the exploded remains of the former BW client base from their basement dwellings.

[Naej]

TL;DR anything but the first 2-3 posts.

 

You guys can't be serious when you say that "more grind" will get more people to subscribe. And you can't be serious when you say people are dropping the game because of that.

 

The only problem they have, is that they have too many servers. 125 US servers 6 months into the game, really? WoW had like 25 servers 6 months into the game.

 

And the most common reason people are leaving now, is because servers are dead. We're stuck in a negative spin, where you got people who changed their playing habits (i.e. played 10 hours a day at release and are now playing only 1-2 hours a day) and where the usual people that get a game, try it and don't stick around are gone. That left the servers semi-empty, encouraging people to move to more populated servers, making their old server even more empty, pushing players to play less or leave the game, resulting in dead servers.

 

It just had nothing to do with the total number of subscriptions they have. If you had only 100,000 people playing the game, but over 1 server, it would be very full right? But if you had 1,300,000 playing over 250 servers, that would feel empty (like now) right? It's simple maths and it has nothing to do with the game being a grind or not. It's subscriptions AGAINST number of servers.

 

In my experience, you wanna have a part of the game that is really hard, most of it that is somewhat hard, and a part that is easier. I think they are trying right now to find that balance (although it might not be perfect atm).

 

And WoW was never a grinding game. True, once you got level 60, it was a grind getting your gear to get you into raiding (did Scholomance a good 50 times), but the leveling part was very smooth.

 

I just can't believe that stuff... people asking for more leveling grind... come on.

[Rickwala]

I disagree my server ven zallow prior to 1.2 had on average 100 people on the fleet during evening hours. After 1.2 roughly 2 weeks it had 30 and now 15, that isnt just casuals leaving that is in direct relation to an event...1.2 and its failure to deliver.deliver.

[Mannic]

Bioware wrote a game to cater to SPRPG fans. What do the vast majority of SPRPG fans do when they've played through the story 2 or 3 times? They stop playing it.

 

The strength of this game is also its weakness. It attracts people who love the story-driven content, but the same people quit the moment they get bored with the story. And since there aren't enough MMO elements due to the story-focus of the game, normal MMO fans sure aren't going to stay subbed for long. So Bioware has written a game where even the people who love it most are likely to quit within 6 months. There's no way Bioware's going to be able to keep up with their hunger for "MOAR STORY." They need their hands constantly held, and the game is designed to hold players' hands-- but it's impossible to produce that kind of content quickly.

Edited June 1, 2012 by Mannic

[TheEvilEeyore]

Why is it that anything you have to do to reach max level is called "grinding".

 

This game was specifically designed to be about the journey and not the end game, as is completely obvious. EVERYTHING you did before lvl 50 is the "grind". Too many people have this idea that the game only begins after you beat it. Some games ARE that way, this one is SOOOOOOOOO not.

 

So yeah, if its NOT< then embrace what it is and make it a longer, more fun and challenging journey.

 

This is a good point but it comes back to that not being the design of an mmo. By purely this logic you are accepting the fact taht your player base will play for 1-5 months then cancel because the "jouney" has been experienced.

 

If there was actually enough people on servers to PVP there would be mroe reason for some people to stick around, but as it stand people can only pvp for about 1 hours a night on some server if pvp ever pops at all. The point the OP was making was that the game lends itself to being a solo game. so why are we paying for a subscription model? why not just take the whole thing offline and buy expansion packs as they come out.

[TheEvilEeyore]

Bioware wrote a game to cater to SPRPG fans. What do the vast majority of SPRPG fans do when they've played through the story 2 or 3 times? They stop playing it.

 

The strength of this game is also its weakness. It attracts people who love the story-driven content, but the same people quit the moment they get bored with the story. And since there aren't enough MMO elements due to the story-focus of the game, normal MMO fans sure aren't going to stay subbed for long. So Bioware has written a game where even the people who love it most are likely to quit within 6 months. There's no way Bioware's going to be able to keep up with their hunger for "MOAR STORY." They need their hands constantly held, and the game is designed to hold players' hands-- but it's impossible to produce that kind of content quickly.

 

Lets be honest. the story got boring at level 50.. the ops story is subpar, and we have no real feel for what is supposed to be happening next. We should have something to be striving for through patches 1.3, 1.4, 1.5 etc. but we have no theme right now. we are not fighting back to horde of evil, the story just lacks scope.

[Valerii]

Yes! Let's have a SWTOR version of the NGE, because we all know how well that worked out.

/sarcasm

[Aloro]

It's wrong. I'm what people would safely consider hardcore, and that is not why I unsubbed. Not even in the same solar system.

 

Congratulations! You're an outlier. Anecdotes aren't good evidence though.

[Aloro]

You are misunderstanding my use of the terms hardcore and casual.

 

I do not refer to how much time the players have per gaming session, or how often they play. I am referring to what longterm expectations they have from the game.

 

By "casual" I meant someone wanting instant gratification for minimal risk or investment. I guess "powergamer" might have been a better term.

 

By "hardcore" I meant someone in it for the long haul. Someone perfectly happy to play for 2 years, never reach max level, and be perefectly fine with that.

 

I don't think these are meaningful definitions. First, nobody knows whether they're going to be in it "for the long haul"; always in motion is the future. I think a lot of players get very enthusiastic when they start to play new games, but enthusiasm isn't the same as committing to remain in a game for any length of time. Second, those aren't much in line with the most common definitions of "casual" and "hardcore". Generally speaking, people either use "casual" to mean "someone who doesn't play many hours a day" or "someone who isn't very achievement oriented", while "hardcore" means the opposite of whatever casual means.

 

Anyhow, thanks for the clarification. I think our views are closer than they initially appeared.

[Drom]

 

And the most common reason people are leaving now, is because servers are dead.

 

Right.... and they are dead why? Cos there's no endgame content, except for 4 warzones and 3 operations. You literally can't do anything else. No world pvp, no housing, no multiplayer in space, no guild features/progress, no chat bubbles and working chairs that are critical for RP, no minigames like pazzak or swoops and so on. Crafting is too casual and you just can't invest anything in it to be better than any other maxed crafter. This game is so poor when it comes to endgame. Most lvl 50s just camp fleet and wait for warzone or operation. Poor lobby game.

[Aloro]

If you look at pre-WoW games, they were a lot harder. I mean in EQ, you lost whole levels when you died and it took forever to earn those high levels.

 

<snip>

 

Now, such game designs, generally, kept all player types happy. The reason why is because everyone always had something to do.

 

Um, no. Those games didn't keep all player types happy, not by a looooong shot. Instead, they were "the only game in town" and so players (myself included) put up with the crappy punishing design because we didn't have good alternatives. Take off the rose colored glasses; it's easy to say that gamers have become shallow and entitled, and claim that everything was better back in the day. It's easy, but that doesn't make it true. That is to say, I do agree that gamers have grown a bit more entitled in their approaches, but I regard that as the inevitable result of greater supply. We can afford to be picky now; we could not 13 years ago.

[Aloro]

I didn't bother reading most of the posts because they are entirely in the wrong direction.

 

If you didn't bother to read them, then you're in no position to judge them.

[Aloro]

In my not so humble opinion the "deserters" are the ones who rip through to maximum level and scream that there isn't enough ganking of "n00bs" in PvP, and they go shrieking off to the next game. There is an amazing number of threads here where people have said "I did this game and it suxxors and then this game and it suxxors and then this game and it suxxors and then SWTOR and it suxxors and u r all l00sers and now Im gonna play this great new game lol." At some point, the common thread in all their failed games is themselves.

 

I emphatically agree. Well said.

 

It's terribly amusing to see the same threads appear again and again in every new game. The most vocal members of the same groups of people (hardcore progression raiders/PvPers) will announce the following, without fail:

 

* The game does not have enough content. (NO GAME WILL EVER HAVE ENOUGH HANDCRAFTED CONTENT AT LAUNCH YOU IDIOTS GRRRRR)

* Classes are not balanced for PvP. (Paper is fine! Nerf rock. SIncerely, scissors)

* Many bugs continue to exist even after being reported in beta; clearly the company does not care/is unable to fix things. (Never mind how many bugs have been fixed; people like to focus on the negative)

* Many features from game X are missing. (Those features were almost certainly not in game X at launch, but never mind that!)

* New game Y is coming out soon and will destroy this failed excuse for a game. Mark my words.

 

After the first dozen or so MMOs you play, you start to notice these trends.

[Master_Jeth]

I'm just going to say that I'm basically a mix of the paradigms of hardcore and casual.

 

I see the game as this. Make a main, play to 50, make an alt, play to 50, work on crafting to max and wait for content to come along and let me craft stuff I actually can use for more than 3 nights. PVP in my free time between raiding nights and guild runs. Why I have to pay 15 dollars a month for that, I dont know.

 

Here's where it really goes down hill. I make a third alt a few months into the game's lifespan, and no one's doing flashpoints or heroic missions so I have to level solo to about level 40. I go into PVP on my main and everyone like me who isn't hardcore pvp gets steamrolled in warzones because my gear is bad, so I dont even bother. I make an effort to be on time for raid formup only to find that a healer, a tank, and 2 dps didnt show up, the group spends another hour afk or doing generally very little as we wait for pugs... yuck. The raid gets cancelled and I go to bed. I figure I'll work on getting my level 40 alt to 50 so I do, only to find that there are only 3 members of my guild even on and 5 people total on the planet I'm leveling on. I feel alone, get rather bored and depressed, and I get off and go play another game or pretend that I actually had fun...

 

That's about it.

 

So as you can see. Not much going for this game.

• Little to no social interaction in spite of supposed benefits
  
• unrated pvp makes pvp broken and uninteresting
  
• shortage of players per planet means bare bones questing, no heroic missions
  
• lack of immersion elements makes for boring roleplay, could use chat boxes and TONS more emotes
  
• general lack of motivators in game for me to try something difficult, boring tank'n'spank world bosses and hohum loot from most encounters.
  
• very monotonous boss mechanics and generally boring encounters, would like to feel like my lightsaber or missile launcher is actually hurting the boss who's actually trying to fight for his/her/it's life.
  
• basically, without making this list enormous, this game is WoW's slightly cooler younger brother...
  

 

EA or BioWare dropped the ball somewhere at some time and I'm now hoping that GW2 or something else comes along and makes Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games fun to play.