Why im bummed about 2.0.

[CharleyDanger]

rawr rawr rawr rawr rawr, Jawa, pew pew, LFG, LF2M, LF Heal then g2g, rawr rawr, pew, rawr, pew..... Ga-nite!

[Costello]

Makeb design was set years ago. This isn't some willy nilly random thing they are throwing out there. They pushed this with a LOT of thought. This is their vision for the game. Behind closed doors they have a set vision and rollout plan. No, they aren't sharing it with you.

 

They are not sharing their plan for the game but you Know that they have one and its been carefully thought out, How? Did they share it with you but not anyone else?

 

We are not the enemy here they don't need to keep their plans safely guarded and secret for fear we will out flank them. We are paying customers in a very competive luxuary market. What does that mean, it means if people feel they are being cheated or the time they have invested in the game so far is being made worthless they leave.

 

If anyone at Bioware needs any proof of this all they have to do is look at their Subscriber numbers, how the game hasn't blown WOW out of the water, that EA have laid off a lot of staff cauing restructing and the game went free to play within a year of launch. Now 15 bucks is nothing so I doubt very much it was a couple of bucks that caused people to stop subscribing to a game they really enjoyed. More than likely they weren't enjoying the game and felt the development team weren't likely to turn that around any time soon.

 

And now we find in Patch 2.0 with a major overhaul of coms and gear (making much of the stuff people have worked for over the last year worse in comparison) yet other than alienating people that have put a lot of work into getting the current top tiers of equipment I'm not sure what the design plan is. It seems to create a two tier end game one at 50 and another at 55 yet little end game content. Most of which is ment to be repeating content already in game at new difficulty levels. As level increases go it seems to be for the sake of grinding than adding new content and maps and zones to the game. Instead more Coms to grind, more augments to craft and more (but the same) flashpoints to grind through. All this so we can experience one new operation and one new planet (provided you purchased it) though I am not sure how much of the planet will make it into end game or if it is just to make getting from 50 to 55 easier.

[CharleyDanger]

They are not sharing their plan for the game but you Know that they have one and its been carefully thought out, How? Did they share it with you but not anyone else?

 

We are not the enemy here they don't need to keep their plans safely guarded and secret for fear we will out flank them. We are paying customers in a very competive luxuary market. What does that mean, it means if people feel they are being cheated or the time they have invested in the game so far is being made worthless they leave.

 

If anyone at Bioware needs any proof of this all they have to do is look at their Subscriber numbers, how the game hasn't blown WOW out of the water, that EA have laid off a lot of staff cauing restructing and the game went free to play within a year of launch. Now 15 bucks is nothing so I doubt very much it was a couple of bucks that caused people to stop subscribing to a game they really enjoyed. More than likely they weren't enjoying the game and felt the development team weren't likely to turn that around any time soon.

 

And now we find in Patch 2.0 with a major overhaul of coms and gear (making much of the stuff people have worked for over the last year worse in comparison) yet other than alienating people that have put a lot of work into getting the current top tiers of equipment I'm not sure what the design plan is. It seems to create a two tier end game one at 50 and another at 55 yet little end game content. Most of which is ment to be repeating content already in game at new difficulty levels. As level increases go it seems to be for the sake of grinding than adding new content and maps and zones to the game. Instead more Coms to grind, more augments to craft and more (but the same) flashpoints to grind through. All this so we can experience one new operation and one new planet (provided you purchased it) though I am not sure how much of the planet will make it into end game or if it is just to make getting from 50 to 55 easier.

 

I stopped reading after you wrote "We are paying customers"

 

Being a paying customer only entitles you to the content that Bioware has provided. In no way does it give you the right to any part of the development process. What if every iPhone customer called up Apple and said "Hey fellas, let me see what you have planed for the iPhone 6. Get out your notepad Mr. Apple-Nerd and take some of this golden feedback Ima bout to give ya"

 

Its real simple, you are a video game player, and Bioware is a video game developer. If they develop a theme park MMO, and you do not like it, then you have the right not to buy it. Now if you would like to suggest changes then fine. That is why the forum is here. If you want to play the "I am a paying customer, therefore, I deserve to know everything" then you do not understand how the world works.

Edited February 23, 2013 by CharleyDanger

[ElitehunterDS]

Nope. 2.0 is also RotHC, its been confirmed by the devs. So at the moment we do not know which things on the PTS will be available for everyone and which things will be gated by the purchase of RotHC. From the advertising it looks like the 51+ content will be gated.

Make sense to me.

[TheNahash]

We are not the enemy here they don't need to keep their plans safely guarded and secret for fear we will out flank them. We are paying customers in a very competive luxuary market. What does that mean, it means if people feel they are being cheated or the time they have invested in the game so far is being made worthless they leave.

 

They did once. They shared their plan about Makeb. Then they changed their mind and instead of a new planet we got something that you can call expansion or addon, or DLC or whatever that we have to pay for.

Look at how people reacted to that shared plan and it's not really hard to see why they keep everything a secret.

 

If anyone at Bioware needs any proof of this all they have to do is look at their Subscriber numbers, how the game hasn't blown WOW out of the water, that EA have laid off a lot of staff cauing restructing and the game went free to play within a year of launch.

 

I'm surprised people still use the WOW analogy, tbh.

 

They marketed it as "the game that was going to bring down Wow". Big deal. ALL companies market their latest product as a godsend that will cure diseases and solve world hunger. (spoiler: they never do)

 

People overhyped it. They expected the Second Coming and all they got was a rushed game that had major issues and didn't cater to everyone's needs. So naturally a big part of the initial population left. Does that mean the game will never reach 12mil subs? Yes. Does that have any effect on us, as players and not investors? Nope. Server merges have provided a very stable population that's growing and that's high enough for us to be able to complete all new content without having to look for a group or wait for a PvP queue to pop for hours. That's all that matters.

 

And as for the Wow analogy itself, why is it so hard for people to understand that times change, markets become saturated and people's "OMG have to try this" phase eventually wears off?

 

Wow reached 12mil players because it was the first MMO that appealed to a wider audience, by including a lot of the things that could be found in many different MMOs and presenting them in a well-loved mythology. Blizzard was lucky (or perceptive) enough to do all that during a time when the market was still young and looking for a big hit. Those days are over. It didn't happen because Wow was "better", it happened because Wow was a huge, brand new experience for a lot of people.

Edited February 23, 2013 by TheNahash

[MariaD]

I was really hoping that as future expansions for Swtor came out and it started to stand on it's own two feet it would start to move more and more away from the EQ/WoW style of gameplay.

 

Why would developers change the gameplay from under their existing, large and growing player base? I have a certain happy familiarity with the galaxy far, far away - AS IT IS. I really don't want to log into the game one day to find it mutated into sandbox, FPS, or some other genre. There are other games for all that.

 

I want some surprises on Makeb, but not big ones.

[kevlarto]

you will have to purchase the expansion in order to progress to 55, the 2.0 patch is the groundwork changes to the systems, otherwise people who didn't pay for the expansion would be playing a totally different game ( still have Tionese,Columi,Rakata, etc.) this makes it to where the same game is available, but there is a lock placed on 51-55 and makeb to any who don't pay for the xpac.

 

This page of answers are the only ones that made any since to me, this is what I thought all along, but the first part of this thread made no since at all.. I just wanted to make sure i did not miss something here.. thanks for the answers..

[Arkerus]

I stopped reading after you wrote "We are paying customers"

 

Being a paying customer only entitles you to the content that Bioware has provided. In no way does it give you the right to any part of the development process. What if every iPhone customer called up Apple and said "Hey fellas, let me see what you have planed for the iPhone 6. Get out your notepad Mr. Apple-Nerd and take some of this golden feedback Ima bout to give ya"

 

Its real simple, you are a video game player, and Bioware is a video game developer. If they develop a theme park MMO, and you do not like it, then you have the right not to buy it. Now if you would like to suggest changes then fine. That is why the forum is here. If you want to play the "I am a paying customer, therefore, I deserve to know everything" then you do not understand how the world works.

 

I'm glad you got to the response before I did. Pretty much summed it up very well.

[rbkrbk]

If they do allow people to level to 55 without buying RotHC what it would mean is that people who don't buy it will be able to get to level 55 but they will have to do so through the existing content and probably the new HM Fps and maybe the new OP. We currently earn xp doing 50 content but we can't progress so all we get is the legacy xp part of it.

 

If you don't buy ROTHC, you won't have access to the new HM FPS or the new OP.

[BanJoGG]

Everyone keeps banging the "SWTOR isn't as good as WOW" drum. WOW has been going for over 10 years SWTOR is only just a year into development!

 

I played WOW when BC came out and IMO SWTOR is better at levelling your character as there is a storyline running through it.

 

Yes there is a lot BioWere could do and as stated in other posts there will be a development plan. You think EA and the other investors would sink their money into the project without one?

 

Give it a couple of years at least before you start thinking that its not going anywhere. Personally I think it's a fun and interactive GAME and please remember that it is just that a game. If you don't like it play something else.

[anstalt]

Everyone keeps banging the "SWTOR isn't as good as WOW" drum. WOW has been going for over 10 years SWTOR is only just a year into development!

 

You're missing the usual point when you spout this kind of crap.

 

As a customer, I have money to spend on MMOs NOW. That means I will go out and compare the products that are available on the market right now.

 

I don't care that SW:TOR at launch was better than WoW at launch because that does not help me make an informed purchasing decision right now. All I really care about are the features that each various game can offer me, and then I can make a decision about which game suits me.

 

You can apply all the comparisons you want between different games at release, but such comparisons are truely meaningless. All that matters to us, the end consumer, is which game currently on the market can offer us the best consumer experience. Developers have to make a product that is superior to their current competitors, not what their competitors released 8 years ago.

 

 

 

So, that is all you need to worry about: does SW:TOR currently offer you what you want from an MMO?

 

If yes, great, good for you! If no, is there an alternative out there for you instead? Personally, SW:TOR doesn't offer me what I want from an MMO. I waited / played for a year hoping that the game would improve and because there was a lack of alternatives. I have now cancelled my subscription because 2.0 has proven an unwillingness to improve so I no longer hold any hope for this game being what I, personally, want.

[Urael]

As a customer, I have money to spend on MMOs NOW. That means I will go out and compare the products that are available on the market right now.

 

...

 

Developers have to make a product that is superior to their current competitors, not what their competitors released 8 years ago.

 

...

 

Personally, SW:TOR doesn't offer me what I want from an MMO. I waited / played for a year hoping that the game would improve and because there was a lack of alternatives. I have now cancelled my subscription because 2.0 has proven an unwillingness to improve so I no longer hold any hope for this game being what I, personally, want.

 

^QFE.

 

Indeed.

[UltimateKrucible]

Everyone keeps banging the "SWTOR isn't as good as WOW" drum. WOW has been going for over 10 years SWTOR is only just a year into development!

 

I played WOW when BC came out and IMO SWTOR is better at levelling your character as there is a storyline running through it.

 

Yes there is a lot BioWere could do and as stated in other posts there will be a development plan. You think EA and the other investors would sink their money into the project without one?

 

Give it a couple of years at least before you start thinking that its not going anywhere. Personally I think it's a fun and interactive GAME and please remember that it is just that a game. If you don't like it play something else.

 

 

But you've just hit the problem right there - SWTOR is just WoW remade at a time when people are getting turned off WoW-type games.

 

WoW set the template and SWTOR followed it - far too slavishly in a lot of people's opinions. I'm lucky in that I didn't play WoW so have stuck around, but I can see why lots of people got turned off playing a game that's been around for years and years and left.

 

SWTOR doesn't have years to grow, and unless there's a radical overhaul or lots of investment - what we have now is what we've got: A gear-grindy WoW in space clone.

 

If it had even launched with some form of unique mini-games like pod-racing, pazaak or meaninful space battles (possibly space PvP) it might have been different. But it didn't even launch with a barbershop.

[Urael]

SWTOR doesn't have years to grow, and unless there's a radical overhaul or lots of investment - what we have now is what we've got: A gear-grindy WoW in space clone.

 

^QFT

 

Indeed. But, EA and EAware don't seem to see this.

[BanJoGG]

SWTOR doesn't have years to grow, and unless there's a radical overhaul or lots of investment - what we have now is what we've got: A gear-grindy WoW in space clone.

 

If it had even launched with some form of unique mini-games like pod-racing, pazaak or meaninful space battles (possibly space PvP) it might have been different. But it didn't even launch with a barbershop.

 

Now you rais an interesting point. PVP space missions or Pod racing would be a really really intesting way of engaging new subs to the game. And from a development point, the pod racing could be done relatively quick as Lucas Arts have the code for this from the stand alone game that came out years ago! This would be a welcome 'distraction' from the gear grinding.

 

Good point well made Sir. I conced:)

[Dawginole]

Explain to me how its not an expansion?

 

-You pay for it.

-Level increase.

-New gear.

-New talents.

-New zones.

 

Isn't that what a expansion is?

 

2.0 is really more of a game reset with a massive content expansion than a true reset. They basically used the last year to determine how they wanted to do dailies and weeklies and it was a big test. And now they are changing all of that to be the way it goes from 2.0 forward.

[BanJoGG]

2.0 is really more of a game reset with a massive content expansion than a true reset. They basically used the last year to determine how they wanted to do dailies and weeklies and it was a big test. And now they are changing all of that to be the way it goes from 2.0 forward.

 

Now if we look at it this way, it makes some seance about all the changes in comms and gear since the game went live. I hope this is now the start of the proper development.

 

As I mentioned- I remain a big fan of both the SW universe and the SWTOR game. Come on BW get it right please!

[Asuka]

There is nothing "new" about those games. Upon careful analysis those game are just "repackaging" a "gear grind" or more importantly "stat grind". SWTOR is already a WoW clone. You expected something different? Everything they implement is a WoW knock off in some shape, way or form. But, pretty much everyone else is doing the same thing.

 

I don't have the answers. But, it seems like those in the game industry that make games don't either. We will have to "wait for the chosen one" to be hired by some company. May this be you dear reader?

 

Everything in WoW is a knockoff of something else that came before it and everything after it is a knock off of everything before it. WoW only exists because games like EQ that came many years before it spawned it's existence.

[OddballEasyEight]

*sigh*

 

Its dumbfounding that so many people get this wrong.

 

2.0 is a PATCH.

It will NOT include the level cap increase and the new skills. Those will be part of RotHC, but are being tested on the PTS.

The new areas and most of the content from RotHC is not being tested on the PTS, but in a closed test server.

 

So parts of what is currently one the PTS is from RotHC but most of it is just the patch.

 

 

You dont pay for the patch, you get that for free, but if you want the level increase and makeb (and all the other goodies in RotHC) you have to pay.

 

 

Also, please note that not everything on the PTS will be in the final patch (that goes for all patches being tested on the PTS) so dont take the PTS changes as unchangeable.

 

EDIT: just to be clear, the patch will increase the level cap, but you cannot level past lvl 50 without RotHC so in effect the level cap is still 50 if you dont buy the expansion.

Edited February 26, 2013 by OddballEasyEight

[Rafaman]

Well... it is the same old, same old. And I'm not talking about the game.

 

Look. I'm not sure what some of you where expecting... innovation? A revamp of the genre? 2.0 is exactly what I expected, a refined SWTOR but more of the same. The patch is simply a mechanic improvement and so much the better. The content will come from Makeb. And that is just fine.

 

Gamers and in particular MMO gamers are always looking for that mythical immersion experience that captures everything they want. But the player base is schizophrenic. Some want a sand box, some want a theme park, and some want something totally new. Some want more difficulty, some want easier progression, and some want to ride around on banthas.

 

So... what to do? Well you begin by improving on the code base and mechanics you have. That is the game. Then, you add layers. You don't revamp the game into something new in version 2.0. And... there will be dissatisfaction no matter what you do.

 

BW, you have made great strides with 2.0. Stick with it. Keep adding layers. Those looking for new shinies will come and go.

Edited February 26, 2013 by Rafaman

[snowmon]

I was really hoping that as future expansions for Swtor came out and it started to stand on it's own two feet it would start to move more and more away from the EQ/WoW style of gameplay. But everything ive seen is the same old gain a few levels and then grind gear till next year. There are no new types of gameplay or progression, no new things to do at endgame, no new types of world interaction or exploration. It's just the same old hamster wheel gear grind that appeases the raiders and the latest gen of MMO players that grew up with WoW (And maybe not even them anymore if you look at the amount of ppl looking or a return to Sandbox style MMO's)

 

 

sounds to me that you have not even logged on to the PTS.

 

o and anotherthing, its perfectly possible for anyone to get full Dreadguard gear without stepping foot in an Operation.

[danielearley]

I have to ask what the alternative is to this style of game play?

Is there a game in which you don't progress, you don't get anything new, there are no new challenges?

If there is, frankly I don't want to play it, just want to know why people are playing it!

 

I thought the basic premise of all games was to progress and get better things to make you OP, whether that be RPG, MMO, Grand Turismo etc...

 

If there is a better more fun game play out there please let me know the format, as I haven't seen it. And if it's something no one else is doing, I'm sure I can get the Capital to create something Brand new that is this amazing game you think there should be!

 

Hmmm thinking I should create a new Thread to get all your idea's on how the game should run?

[Illyean]

if lvl55 is in the Makeb Expansion but not in 2.0 then how will you get the POINTS to spend in the new talent tree's they are given by level, correct? I assume a cartel purchase will grant points for non expansion players to continue the nickel and dime. Since beta the people managing this produce have really provided a truly epic demonstration of appalling product management and communication, to this day they still can not present a set of facts about their product that are clear and well communicated.

[anstalt]

BW, you have made great strides with 2.0. Stick with it. Keep adding layers. Those looking for new shinies will come and go.

 

What great new strides have they made in 2.0? They've done some class balancing and another tweak to expertise. The expansion also doesn't seem to change or add anything beyond 5 levels and a new planet. The game essentially stays exactly the same, you'll just have a 1-2 weeks break of grinding 5 new levels before returning to the same old flashpoints/ops/warzone grind.

 

I agree with your statement that MMO developers should strive to improve existing functionality and then add layers, i.e. keep your existing playerbase happy and then try to attract new players with new shinies. I just haven't seen any evidence of Bioware doing this.

[spectreclees]

2.0 is free to all players. You don't have to pay for it, and you can level to 55, get new skills and new talent trees. Everything that is on the PTS will be free for everyone, not the expansion.

 

ROTHC is the expansion and requires you to pay for it.

 

You just made absolutely no sense whatsoever.