Current state of the game from MMO'ers PoV

[Spatology]

I preface with my experience, I don’t have much:

EQ, Warhammer, WoW, Swtor (sequential order) console games sprinkled everywhere up in there. I play a SS Vanguard and tank for my guild. I also have several other 50's.

 

After really getting to experience everything that the Operations have to offer, I love it. The first tier was easier and is meant to train newer players on how and what to do in an Operation. I also feel that many of the Flashpoints have some basic mechanics that after learning how to deal with them, can be applied to Operations. I love this. With the progression of difficulty in Explosive Conflicts, I can honestly say, Bioware did something right.

 

After stabilizing and building my guild's core, we have 2 raid teams I feel confident can push cutting edge content. To top it off, I’ve grown to love these guys and really enjoy spending nights just doing whatever people in the guild are working on. To me, this is an important contributing factor to weather or not someone enjoys the game. If they don’t have some carrot to chase at the end of the stick, playing the game becomes trivial to them. Its these people that go out and get what they want, so to say, that I personally want to be around. This game has awesome potential for those "lone wolfers" who like to go out, advance their character, and then come back and show off for each other on raid nights.

 

Having these levels of gear progression that aren’t directly affiliated with only raiding also was a good step imo. With the augment system, people can potentially stack enough stats to be wearing a whole another piece of gear. Its a great boost for people who are having trouble with content atm. Who just barely are having the bomb explode on the kephass fight in EC, or cant push the necessary burn on Toth and Zorn when they start the soft enrage mechanics below 10% in HM. Its these responses to player performance and close attention to metrics I really appreciate. You guys have put out challenging content and given people the tools to complete it, more over, you even gave people advancement outside of raid content with the Black Hole commendations available from the LFG tool.

 

We've had EC on clear for roughly 8-10 weeks and have gotten the core group full campaign. I've had time to go back and experience the PVP available in game. I'm really enjoying slowly trading off pve items for Battlemaster and Warhero pieces and can tell the difference in performance. The grind in the pvp area is a little longer and arduous than I would like. Though, if pap where my main activity in game, I can see how you would want the grind in place. The contribution and hours of games you have played should entitle you to some advantage at least. I find even in recruit gear, if you know the mechanics of each game and make it a point to play by the rules and try to win the objectives, its possible.

 

Personally, the lack of fluff content is great for me. I hated holiday events in wow. People throwing stuff on me in Stormwind making my character do things I didn’t want them doing....this just personally offended me and annoyed me to no end. The additional thing that annoyed me about this is the advancement people would get from these hastily pasted together holiday events. They where loot piñata’s. Too much of this entitles people. They expect loot to fall out of the skies and just appear in their mailboxes. This is a bad direction to go in. You give instant gratification to those who wont have any lasting interest in the game anyway. What does this mean for people who went and died repeatedly and spent credits they earned to actually beat a main storyline and goal in the game? It was this mentality that turned me off WoW and made my choice of Swtor so easy.

 

To sum up what I’m trying to get at here....Thank you Bioware. You've provided engaging and fun content. I can actually, to some extent, live out my dream of being a stormtrooper. You have released more new content then blizzard has in 2 years. I can say, as a person who bought the game as a Starwars fan/mmo fan and wasn’t around for early access. I have enjoyed the hell out of the past 4 months and am looking forward to years of enjoyment, the force willing!~

[sspayne]

and I couldn't agree more with the TC

[LordRoth]

I feel pretty much the same way. This game is letting me live out my SW fantasy while also enjoying great storytelling, visuals, gameplay and player interaction. I believe this game is going to attract it's own niche of players, regardless of how sizeable a population that is. I won't say Bioware has been perfect but I can probably blame EA for most of that. Regardless,

 

Thank you Bioware and I hope you keep up the good work.

[Tarbacca]

I prefer the raiding experience on this game more than WoW's and SWG's old heroic instances. I find that HM Denova is fun and not a big wipe fest compared to DS 10 H on WoW.

 

Honestly, I think this game would be doing fine if it wasn't for EA. EA loves to ruin other gaming companies, even the ones they own.

[Spatology]

Thanks for the responses guys, its good to know im not alone. I felt the forums had enough random useless negativity.

[DJayB]

Couldn't agree more!!

 

Just wish there was more communication about future expansions, currently working on my third character and loving the story lines of all of them so far

[Sungas]

I know I am really appreciative that the combination of WH gear and groupfinder have allowed me to participate in content that I would have never otherwise sniffed.

 

My valor is at 68 and I just now got social to 2. It wouldn't have ever advanced past 1 if not for groupfinder and WH gear. It wasn't a " freebee" grinding that WH gear either.

[mavsynchroid]

Fun fun fun love it love it love it

[Sindorin]

Finally some good opinions.

 

/waitsforprofessionalcomplainers

[SRTtoZZ]

I just signed up a few days ago and so far I am blown away by the quality especially considering this is a brand new MMO. I was hesitant to sign up because ive been through them all, from UO to SWG to WoW etc. Dont get me wrong, I still love WoW and I sub to that too but the way Bioware integrates story into the MMO is brilliant. Bioware, I may have been upset at the ME3 ending but that doesnt mean anything when you continue to push out quality stuff (ill excuse DA2 and ME3 ending for now). Thanks Bioware, you have a long time subscriber here... Edited July 23, 2012 by SRTtoZZ

[TheBetty]

Thanks for the responses guys, its good to know im not alone. I felt the forums had enough random useless negativity.

 

I love the game as it is, and look forward to the massive amount of content to come. Even though I don't get any gear from our current OP runs (bolstering numbers and gear levels for 16 mans and HM EC) I really enjoy it. The ops are well designed and I'm in a very social guild. I look forward to our Progression HM EC runs

[Jazshen]

I prefer the raiding experience on this game more than WoW's and SWG's old heroic instances. I find that HM Denova is fun and not a big wipe fest compared to DS 10 H on WoW.

 

I definitely agree here. I was a pretty hard-core raider throughout all of WoW; and what finally killed my enthusiasm was the addition of Heroic versions of raids. To this day I can't put my finger on why I consider Ulduar's hard modes my favourite raid of all time, and yet why doing heroic Icecrown, Blackwing Descent, Twilight etc etc etc made me want to weep tears of boredom and hate.

 

And yet I like how things are in TOR. Story mode so you can see the content; hardmode so you can get a fun challenge. Looking forward to Nightmare Denova and what changes in that.

[VulcanLogic]

Having a great time but would like to see more mini games (Pazaak in particular as I consider it the easiest to implement) and cheaper appearance customization (300k for swapping mods into two campaign pieces is ridiculously overpriced). That, and give us a better UI for tracking personal debuffs, along with TidyPlates style name plates and I'm good for a long, long time.

[Sporin]

I'll filling up! It's all soooo awesome & fluffy! Hugs and cuddles are just super fun! Thanks BW, your our only hope!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now read it 50 times without snickering (snickering... is it even a word? I'm betting the chocolate bar emote is in the game cause the real word would be upsetting and used wrongly).

[TKMaster]

Thanks for the responses guys, its good to know im not alone. I felt the forums had enough random useless negativity.

 

Your not alone, most of us are to busy playing the game to get on the forums TBQH, the trolls, both paid and amature (yes i said paid, but thats another story) are really the only regulars here. I'm here simply waiting on the servers.

[Sabatron]

I couldn't agree more with OP. I got the same excitement. I am really glad about the rate of fixes BW put effort in, and definitely I think the whole game goes to the right direction.

 

As always, haters gonna hate, so see ya online

[Jakarn]

Was going to start a thread like this myself, just seeing what sort of reaction I would get on these forums. Get sick of reading all the negative ones (a lot of the time you can't tell by the title I read about 2 posts and go play the game ).

 

I have just started getting into the flashpoints etc they are a lot of fun, and with the group finder it dosn't take long to get into one. I was invited to the beta of TSW and GW2 so I have been playing those and I started to miss TOR. It is the little things in this game that really make it stand out I feel.

 

The VO and the cut scenes make you feel apart of the game, I love being able to choose what my character is going to say and than hearing the way he says it. TSW and GW2 both have VO, TSW your character dosn't even speak just sits there like an idiot. GW2 you go to another screen with some weird background, and the two characters talking, you don't get to choose what you are going to say. You can't be good or bad, or make some smart comment. I missed that playing these games. I also noticed the high quality of the VO acting in SWTOR, if you played GW2 without playing SWTOR you would not even notice it, but it stood out.

 

Another thing that SWTOR does that the other games don't have is your crew, I know it is an MMO and it is fun with a group, but a lot of your time in any MMO is going to be spent soloing and having a companion along makes it a lot better. I know their coments can get a bit monotonous, but there is a good proportion of them that still bring a smile to my face.

 

SWTOR crafting system I love, I actually have maxed it out on my main, and I think that is the first time in any MMO I have done that. I love that you can get crafting materials while adventuring, but you don't need to if you don't want to, and your crew does your crafting for you. GW2 has a lot of inovations in it's game but I can't believe they stuck to the old method of crafting, gather crap, sit in front of a graphic of some machine making stuff, boring. At least with SWTOR you can play the game and leave the crafting up to your crew. I don't mind that it takes 50 mins to do one craft mission. I'm not fiddling with it every 5 mins. TSWs was just stupid.

 

They say that SWTOR is a clone of WOW and they should have introduced something new, to the progression system. After playing those 2 betas I'm glad SWTOR stuck with the tried and true. I think SWTOR is the better of the 3. On the topic I find it funny that they call it a WOW clone, when WOW first came out nothing in it was original all taken from other games (and no it was not the first MMO, just the best at marketing). The thing I find silly is if you go and look at FPS forums or RTS forums most of those have basically the same formula, but rarely do they say it is a clone of another game, it is the formula that works the best, and new games add a little bit more to it, they don't go and radically change it like is requested they do with MMOs.

 

Anyway I got a little off topic and compared the 3 games, but if you look at the state of the game, I also feel you have to look at what else is out there. I hope it added something to the title.

[TheBetty]

Was going to start a thread like this myself, just seeing what sort of reaction I would get on these forums. Get sick of reading all the negative ones (a lot of the time you can't tell by the title I read about 2 posts and go play the game ).

 

I have just started getting into the flashpoints etc they are a lot of fun, and with the group finder it dosn't take long to get into one. I was invited to the beta of TSW and GW2 so I have been playing those and I started to miss TOR. It is the little things in this game that really make it stand out I feel.

 

The VO and the cut scenes make you feel apart of the game, I love being able to choose what my character is going to say and than hearing the way he says it. TSW and GW2 both have VO, TSW your character dosn't even speak just sits there like an idiot. GW2 you go to another screen with some weird background, and the two characters talking, you don't get to choose what you are going to say. You can't be good or bad, or make some smart comment. I missed that playing these games. I also noticed the high quality of the VO acting in SWTOR, if you played GW2 without playing SWTOR you would not even notice it, but it stood out.

 

Another thing that SWTOR does that the other games don't have is your crew, I know it is an MMO and it is fun with a group, but a lot of your time in any MMO is going to be spent soloing and having a companion along makes it a lot better. I know their coments can get a bit monotonous, but there is a good proportion of them that still bring a smile to my face.

 

SWTOR crafting system I love, I actually have maxed it out on my main, and I think that is the first time in any MMO I have done that. I love that you can get crafting materials while adventuring, but you don't need to if you don't want to, and your crew does your crafting for you. GW2 has a lot of inovations in it's game but I can't believe they stuck to the old method of crafting, gather crap, sit in front of a graphic of some machine making stuff, boring. At least with SWTOR you can play the game and leave the crafting up to your crew. I don't mind that it takes 50 mins to do one craft mission. I'm not fiddling with it every 5 mins. TSWs was just stupid.

 

They say that SWTOR is a clone of WOW and they should have introduced something new, to the progression system. After playing those 2 betas I'm glad SWTOR stuck with the tried and true. I think SWTOR is the better of the 3. On the topic I find it funny that they call it a WOW clone, when WOW first came out nothing in it was original all taken from other games (and no it was not the first MMO, just the best at marketing). The thing I find silly is if you go and look at FPS forums or RTS forums most of those have basically the same formula, but rarely do they say it is a clone of another game, it is the formula that works the best, and new games add a little bit more to it, they don't go and radically change it like is requested they do with MMOs.

 

Anyway I got a little off topic and compared the 3 games, but if you look at the state of the game, I also feel you have to look at what else is out there. I hope it added something to the title.

 

I like how you focused on some of TOR's best features.

 

In regards to the wow clone point this is my response to everyone who constantly keeps spouting the wow clone attack against tor...

 

You complain that TOR is a WoW clone.

Then complain that TOR doesn't have the content and/or features of WoW.

Then you wonder why Bioware doesn't listen to you?

 

Confusing logic is confusing >.>