Eurogamer re-reviews SWTOR

[Tenceriker]

"BioWare has developed some of the most embarrassing freemium approaches since Vindictus started selling sexy lingerie and calling it 'Inner Armor'."

 

Pretty much sums up everything that F2P conversion has been so far.

[BadOrb]

Yea, and fanbois have been wrong.

 

Those saying it is a dieing ship have been right every single time.

 

Track record says you are wrong and I am right.

 

Sorry if that in some way harms your delicate sensibilities. Its only a game. Look on the bright side, another Star Wars MMO will be in the works as soon as Disney oks it in the spring. Hope springs eternal.

 

When is your month CC sub running out ? I will celebrate on my dying ship Quick spend your CC before we sink! What a joke. Remember that all MMO's begin to die after launch as do all animals. The game hasn't died yet and won't for a good long while , what's your next MMO ? ESO ? Hero engine again .

 

Cheers,

 

BadOrb.

[Zampano]

One of the comments sums this up perfectly

 

"it's hard to shake the impression that while EG got caught up in the hype pre-launch, they now feel obliged to jump on the TOR-bashing train, thus demonstrating their credibility!

 

Critizing factors that it once lauded (story for instance) for no other reason than a year has passed and it is now "cool" to bash SWTOR seems to highlight the absurdity of the article.

 

There are issues with F2P, but there certainly aren't enough issues to warrant an 8 becoming a 4 in the space of a year unless the reviewer has an axe to grind.

[-Alma-]

I started the game during beta, played endlessly at launch, farming warzones on multiple characters till my eyes bled, then left the game for 7 months. Came back, and as a subscriber, am having a great time purely doing all HM Flashpoints/Operations that I missed out on thru doing too much PVP all those months ago.

 

I think swtor is a great game for PVE, just avoid doing too much stuntor PVP and its mostly an enjoyable game. swtor has its fair share of problems still, just like any other MMO does, new or old.

 

i think the review is from a butthurt player tbh.

[yoomazir]

Bad decisions is what sinked this game, God knows if Bioware had a real pvp dedicated team they would still had the number of subscirbers over a million, but nooooooooooooooo, pivipi is fine, we, at Bioware are super happy seeing our customers moving onto GW2 for their pvp needs.

 

This game had already flaws from the beginning, trying to make story classes in a mmorpg was bad, most of the players like to fabricate a past for the characters, bringing companions felt like playing a single player game, the choice of playable species are laughable (basically humans with alien appendices) and most of the stories were forgetable.

 

Then we see the pvp, reason number 1 most of the subscribers keep playing a game, a complete disaster, lack of proper class balance, over the past year they have used misinforming metrics, over the past year they have often picked the worst decisions possibles, and over the the past year: PLAYERS WERE/ ARE /WILL BE leaving, all of that because not a single Bioware dev is able to properly balance the pvp part, and God knows it would take only one day for them to understand it if they played their own game.

 

So many wrong decisions, but the thing is, I can't belive I am the only one who see them, are you going to tell that that at Bioware no one saw the flaws and tried to fix them? Somehow I don't belive it, so what's the ehll is going on over there?

Edited November 26, 2012 by yoomazir

[tzagheru]

One of the comments sums this up perfectly

 

"it's hard to shake the impression that while EG got caught up in the hype pre-launch, they now feel obliged to jump on the TOR-bashing train, thus demonstrating their credibility!

 

Critizing factors that it once lauded (story for instance) for no other reason than a year has passed and it is now "cool" to bash SWTOR seems to highlight the absurdity of the article.

 

There are issues with F2P, but there certainly aren't enough issues to warrant an 8 becoming a 4 in the space of a year unless the reviewer has an axe to grind.

 

cool or not cool to bash swtor, a 100 milion dollars game went f2p after 11 months, that is enough for me to justify the rate from 8 to 4. and 4 is too much for its curent state (f2p and sub).

[Korusus]

Pretty much spot on. I play for the personal storylines, they are literally the only part of the game that's worth paying for so it's kind of funny that they're the only part of the game BioWare gave away for free. I've pretty much exhausted those though. And I know that Makeb without class stories and some new warzone that we've been waiting on for a year aren't going to get me to stay. And the boost from F2P will die if BioWare doesn't ease up on all these idiotic restrictions, and you know actually irons out all the bugs associated with F2P.

[ptwonline]

I think the article is pretty bang-on, but the score (4) seems unfair despite that.

 

For what it is, TOR is pretty decent. Not spectacular, but ok.

 

Where it lacks is what it isn't. As an MMO it is very lacking in this day and age where everything is becoming less static and more dynamic (or at least the illusion of dynamic) and where games have more frequent content updates. It would have been a great MMO for 2007. 2012? Not so much.

 

I think a more fair review of this game would have been to separate it to 2 scores: one for playing it like a KOTOR game, and another for playing it as a conventional MMO. As a KOTOR game I'd probably give it quite a high score (9ish). As an MMO I'd give it a somewhat low score (about a 5-6), especially when you consider the rather insulting F2P model.

 

Seriously, who thought up this F2P model? I'd be more likely to pay for things that add fun, or allow me to customize more, or gives me more cosmetic or playstyle options. Instead the things they ask F2P players to pay for is to make the game less of a PITA to play. Really? That's your business model?

 

I'm going to have to rush to finish off the other class stories. If I take my time the game might not be around for me to finish. Imperial Agent, Sith Warrior, and Bounty Hunter still left to do.

[Izorii]

Everything they said seems correct. That said the game hasn't changed a lot and 11 months ago TOR was getting 8, 9 and 9.5's out of ten. I just assume the basics are still there but the game really failed to grow in the last 11 months. It could have been a great game but they went for a WOW clone when WOW was thinking bigger and better things.

[BadOrb]

cool or not cool to bash swtor, a 100 milion dollars game went f2p after 11 months, that is enough for me to justify the rate from 8 to 4. and 4 is too much for its curent state (f2p and sub).

 

Biased are we ? FYI the sub game when 1.5 dropped is a lot better than it was in 1.4 , the prices for removing mods is at about the 10th of the price prior , we also get speeder piloting 1 at level 15 and we also get 500 Cartel Coins per month stipend.Not to mention all the other changes they have made since they gave it 8/10. The review or reviewer is flawed and so is your justification for it getting a 4/10 for just going F2P.

 

Cheers,

 

BadOrb.

[Korusus]

Everything they said seems correct. That said the game hasn't changed a lot and 11 months ago TOR was getting 8, 9 and 9.5's out of ten. I just assume the basics are still there but the game really failed to grow in the last 11 months. It could have been a great game but they went for a WOW clone when WOW was thinking bigger and better things.

 

And the industry has changed a lot in the last 11 months. The problem isn't so much that TOR is stuck in 2007 (and it is in every aspect except class stories). It's that BioWare Austin has shown no inclination to actually update the game and push it forward. Instead we're getting tiny little content patches for small stuff that should have been released months ago, instead they got shoved to the side for F2P. So that's awesome. So we get another planet with another batch of circa 2007 WoW quest's with voiceovers...and then what? /shrug What direction is BioWare taking this game? What was working a year ago may not work anymore, and they aren't taking it seriously.

[Nydus]

Four.

 

I think four is a bit ludicrous.

 

- Arcada

[johnxtreeme]

Let me tell you why it's ludicrous.

 

The game has improved in the year it's been out, and yet they drop it down 4 points. Sure, drop it one or two because of the content drought and the F2P model IF YOU WANT, but 4 out of 10 makes them lose credibility.

 

If they rated it 5 or 6, I can understand this, but 4?

 

Ridiculous

[neocoma]

What improvements do you speak of? Dungeon Finder? lol, a must have these days. What else? Well, there's another warzone and that's about it. The game is till full of bugs, the engine is still not fixed, probably never will be.

 

He mainly ranted against the F2P model and guess what, he's damn right about it.

[maestruljedi]

I review with my wallet. I'm a subscriber of SWTOR over all other mmos out there. Go figure.

[tzagheru]

Let me tell you why it's ludicrous.

 

The game has improved in the year it's been out, and yet they drop it down 4 points. Sure, drop it one or two because of the content drought and the F2P model IF YOU WANT, but 4 out of 10 makes them lose credibility.

 

If they rated it 5 or 6, I can understand this, but 4?

 

Ridiculous

 

can you tell us what exactly has improved since launch? or was just a cliche for the sake of it.

[Roechacca]

I would of honestly rated it a 5 with the potential of a 6 but meh, what ever.

[Brutus]

I review with my wallet. I'm a subscriber of SWTOR over all other mmos out there. Go figure.

 

A-freaking-men!

 

I, for one, will keep paying for this game for the forseeable future and beyond.

[wrmrstacrdwower]

I would of honestly rated it a 5 with the potential of a 6 but meh, what ever.

 

I think with as little that has been added to the game any score of mediocre is lowered due to how restrictive the F2P model is with its arbitrary restrictions like the med probes, Ui lock and a few other things.

 

If I could rate the game with teh F2P model I would give it a 3/20 stricktly for how forceful the F2P model is to get players to subscribe instead of encouraging them to like it should.

[Vlacke]

I review with my wallet. I'm a subscriber of SWTOR over all other mmos out there. Go figure.

 

Exactly.

[Macroeconomics]

The rating makes no sense without stating before hand what the frame of reference is.

 

For a new player, this game is a 10/10. Huge amount of content, great stories and yes if you use F2P, you can still access all that sub-50 content. ToR always was a great game for sub-50s. With F2P, it is even better.

 

For existing casual players, I'd give the game a 8/10. If you are playing an hour a day, there is probably still content you haven't accessed. There is probably plenty of gameplay still to be had by re-rolling opposite faction toons.

 

For existing hardcore players, the 4/10 rating seems appropriate. One new wz after 12 months is a horrible content add rate for pvp and that doesn't even take into account the elimination of open world pvp. In net, pvp content addition has been NEGATIVE since the game's launch. One new Flashpoint and two new Operations is only a slightly better track record on the PvE side. It's clear that far too many resources were spent on the two one-off content events (Rakghoul and Scavenger Hunt) rather than fixing the underlying issues with the game engine (such as inability to deal with large numbers of players at once).

Edited November 26, 2012 by Macroeconomics

[Goretzu]

I think with as little that has been added to the game any score of mediocre is lowered due to how restrictive the F2P model is with its arbitrary restrictions like the med probes, Ui lock and a few other things.

 

If I could rate the game with teh F2P model I would give it a 3/20 stricktly for how forceful the F2P model is to get players to subscribe instead of encouraging them to like it should.

 

 

Yeah in fairness it must be pretty bad trying to play SWTOR actually for free.

[Tatebomb]

To me, this reads like a review of the F2play options, rather than the game. And as such, I'd have to agree that they are worth around a 4/10.

 

I'm a subscriber (obviously) so didn't really know much about the restrictions, but some of them are way too draconian,now I see them written down.

 

This. F2P looks like garbage from what I am reading.

[BadOrb]

"Does it matter ?" Swtor

 

"iv'e missed you so much honey bunch" Euro Gamer

 

"Honey bunch my shield is down , what am I going to do?" Euro Gamer.

 

End of story.

 

Cheers,

 

BadOrb.

[Angedechu]

Consider it on life support - and not the cool Darth Vader kind. The NHS kind. Surrounded by nurses who won't shut up about BUPA

 

Ouch.