SWTOR is a success now, and I love it.

[Infernixx]

It's unrealistic and unfair to compare TOR to WoW in a lot of ways.

 

WoW is a polished game with a number of years worth of steady development under its belt. It's an old engine, but they've managed to squeeze a great deal out of it, far beyond what was expected. They have a loyal die-hard fanbase that'll stick through just about any kinda crappy expansion that gets put out. Witness: Cataclysm and Pandaria. Both are bad in numerous ways and they've suffered through it, losing millions of subs, but millions more remain.

 

TOR is a new game. It's still going through its growing pains. There are problems, there are glitches, there are things that should be better, all very true. But it was so much worse at launch and they've worked their butts off to get the problems resolved as they show up.

 

Persistent problems combined with today's 'fickle' gamer fans means that TOR can't rely on a stable sub-based revenue stream. Relying on the subbed community nearly killed the game. Only going F2P saved the game and, I might suggest, has led to its revival.

 

Long story made short, I see great things in the future for the game. It has built up a good head of steam and is marching forward. I expect we'll see many great things for TOR in 2013.

[Khalij]

You are kidding right?

YOu are forgetting all the PVP items in the market on gw2... Unless they removed those in the last 3 months

 

I haven't played GW2 in about 5 or more months, so there may be things on there that I may not be up to date on. What are these PvP items?

[ninjonxb]

They are... pets is the wrong name but items that attack along side you in pvp. If that isnt P2W idk what is...

[Kilora]

I was the same way, but a few things of note:

 

1. They've added a lot of additional content.

2. No subscription or pay to win. Their store (Cartel Market equivalent) actually only sells superficial items. Unlike the CM which sells XP bonuses, game access, armor with stats, etc.

3. SWTOR's longevity relies on grinding dailies, raids, and the same 3 maps of unbalanced pvp.

 

 

SWTOR is adding more content regularly. I do hope they ramp it up, or put out a much larger expac.

 

GW2 has the PvP crap -- and the same grab-bags that the CM has.

Ontop of that -- game access are NOT P2W. That's what we call pay-to-play -- because F2P should NOT get the same as subscribers unless they pay. Different business model =\= P2W. XP Bonuses are not pay-to-win. They're pay to have a slight increase in leveling and take slightly less time to hit cap level. The amount of $$ you toss into the game has no affect on your ability to play it -- and doesn't give you an actual advantage. The lower level armor with stats I could slightly agree -- although you aren't competing with anyone directly. Armor now gives NO benefit in PvP unless you're at end-game, in which case you can't buy gear with $. You can't buy end-game PvE gear with $. With the exception on having a slightly easier time when leveling (which is already dead simple) you have no added benefit for pissing away RL$ in SWTOR.

 

How is PvP unbalanced? I'd like a real answer -- I'm curious if there's something I'm completely missing. As far as grinds, welcome to an MMO. Yes, they need more content. But there will always be people who finish all of the content much more quickly than it's possible to make. If EAWare had the money to pay for a dev team the size of WoW -- I doubt we'd be seeing any more lack-of-content than Wow is.

[Anysao]

I must say, I'm very impressed. I've subscribed since launch (and impatiently waiting ROTHC), and I watched TOR blossom. I'm proud to own my "Founder" title.

[Khalij]

It's unrealistic and unfair to compare TOR to WoW in a lot of ways.

 

WoW is a polished game with a number of years worth of steady development under its belt. It's an old engine, but they've managed to squeeze a great deal out of it, far beyond what was expected. They have a loyal die-hard fanbase that'll stick through just about any kinda crappy expansion that gets put out. Witness: Cataclysm and Pandaria. Both are bad in numerous ways and they've suffered through it, losing millions of subs, but millions more remain.

 

TOR is a new game. It's still going through its growing pains. There are problems, there are glitches, there are things that should be better, all very true. But it was so much worse at launch and they've worked their butts off to get the problems resolved as they show up.

 

Persistent problems combined with today's 'fickle' gamer fans means that TOR can't rely on a stable sub-based revenue stream. Relying on the subbed community nearly killed the game. Only going F2P saved the game and, I might suggest, has led to its revival.

 

Long story made short, I see great things in the future for the game. It has built up a good head of steam and is marching forward. I expect we'll see many great things for TOR in 2013.

 

I understand what you're trying to say, but I vehemently disagree. It's completely fair to compare them. I've been with SWTOR since beta; a lot of their current subscriber base has. People left because the game was half-a$%ed from an MMO-structure standpoint. WoW had issues, but it was innovative. Blizzard borrowed some concepts from games like Ultima, but built their own game with their own very strong lore.

 

SWTOR decided to directly copy WoW's design. If they had developed an innovative MMO system like Guild Wars did, the fans would have been much more forgiving of bugs(GW players LOVE ArenaNet, and were much more forgiving of issues they had when GW2 launched). They didn't, however. They used something that was already tried and proved successful, and failed hard at plagiarizing it. They released what would basically equate to vanilla WoW on an unfinished, unstable engine; which is unacceptable.

[Andryah]

1. Yeah, there are many players on every planet - guess why. There are 1/10 servers online that were online at launch.

 

2. The PvP in 2.0 is horrible. And so is the new bolster, sorry.

 

And yet.. you are a subscribing player.

[Andryah]

I have been on the starter planets lately and do see a lot of beginner / new player questions in chat. Most of the time they are answered and answered well and in a supportive manner. I have also seen positive responses to requests for help. So +1 to the community,

 

I agree.

 

I park a couple different characters on starter planets and log in a few times a week and just spend an hour or so answering questions and observing the players. While there are always abusive personalities in /general... for the most part they get ignored and productive chat continues.

 

Fleet though is a whole different challenge.

[ninjonxb]

I agree.

 

I park a couple different characters on starter planets and log in a few times a week and just spend an hour or so answering questions and observing the players. While there are always abusive personalities in /general... for the most part they get ignored and productive chat continues.

 

Fleet though is a whole different challenge.

 

Ironically. Fleet I have had the "best" experience with planets being the worse. maybe it is server based or something.

[Andryah]

I've been around the block a few times and this game does get a lot of undue nerd rage against it. I haven't quite seen people get so pissed that this game is still going than I have seen in quite a while.

 

Yeah... the forums are very tame compared to a year ago.

 

Some of the chat in game... meh... about the same I guess. But there are many more players... and so this tends to drown out the negative chatter in general cha channels.

[LovarBoy]

TOR is a new game.

 

Long story made short, I see great things in the future for the game. It has built up a good head of steam and is marching forward. I expect we'll see many great things for TOR in 2013.

 

TOR is not new. It's 1,5 years old and for the mmo business it's "very old" in many ways. WoW is a leviathan in comparison.

 

We see great things? What kind of? We know nothing - the SSSP has vanished long ago and there is nothing announced. And that's a rather bad sign in my opinion.

 

And yet.. you are a subscribing player.

 

I am, yes. What's the deal?

[Kilora]

TOR is not new. It's 1,5 years old and for the mmo business it's "very old" in many ways. WoW is a leviathan in comparison.

 

We see great things? What kind of? We know nothing - the SSSP has vanished long ago and there is nothing announced. And that's a rather bad sign in my opinion.

 

I am, yes. What's the deal?

 

The deal is, why are you paying for a game you clearly hate? You could leave, and find some enjoyment in life. But unless you're truly masochistic, I don't understand whats going on here.

 

I still call TOR new. The company has never made an MMO before -- and they're being run by cash-hungry morons. Not that any of that matters -- I personally enjoy the game, and don't appreciate people flaming it for ridiculous reasons. Instead of comparing it to WoW, you could be -- GASP! -- playing WoW!

[Khalij]

Give me a break. WoW was almost an exact clone of EQ. There hasn't been a single MMO released in the last 10 years that has done something "innovative" and actually pulled a reasonable number of subs away from WoW. The ONLY "innovative" thing they managed was their own lore. What about FFXI? THAT was quite different -- one character could learn all of the different classes. You could have your own home. Etc. Etc. -- all on their own lore.

 

GW2 is a "specialized" MMO in my eyes. It's a boring game and I absolutely hate playing it. But I understand people like different things.

 

SWTOR is hardly a COPY of WoW. They made a horrendous mistake when choosing an engine, absolutely -- but somehow I think EA is to blame. Cheaper engine = more chance for profit (if you don't understand game dev).

 

You are free to believe it is unacceptible -- but CLEARLY we are not alone in enjoying the game. You're paying a sub, aren't you? Why? If they failed so poorly, why haven't you returned to WoW, or stopped giving them your money?

 

Compare them all you want -- but what's the point? Mature Adults who dislike the game wil stop giving EA their money, and move on to another game. There's no reason for the "haters" to continuously spew their opinions in the hope of upsetting others or getting them to leave the game. I've never seen such a hate-filled community as those who are against SWTOR. I hate what Blizzard has done to WoW, but I don't continuously hope they fail. I couldn't care less, because I'm playing a different game that I enjoy.

 

TL;DR -- If you think WoW > SWTOR -- why are you paying to play SWTOR? I will continue to hand over my $ for as long as I continue to enjoy the game. I don't feel the need to compare it, because I have interest in this game and not in another.

 

You obviously didn't read my first post. I clearly state that I play, and have continued to play, this game is because it's Star Wars. The point is that the developers hardly implemented ANYTHING that was original (most of the lore is already there for them). All they had to do was do a "good" copy-paste of WoW's mmo structure, and write some fan-fiction from a pre-existing universe, but they didn't; they failed hard.

 

Strip away Star Wars and what would this game be? This game wouldn't have seen 3 months of success. I play because it's Star Wars, period; even if it's through a significantly dissapointing MMO.

[tekhiun]

So, PvP is horrible because it now requires skill?

 

Or is it because fixing a bug created a new bug that they're going to fix. . .

 

PvP is terrible because of the ridiculous TTK , which got even lower than it was.

[LovarBoy]

The deal is, why are you paying for a game you clearly hate? You could leave, and find some enjoyment in life. But unless you're truly masochistic, I don't understand whats going on here.

 

I still call TOR new. The company has never made an MMO before -- and they're being run by cash-hungry morons. Not that any of that matters -- I personally enjoy the game, and don't appreciate people flaming it for ridiculous reasons. Instead of comparing it to WoW, you could be -- GASP! -- playing WoW!

 

Sorry, but you are the part of the community that help sinking this ship...

 

I just mentioned WoW, I never compared them here.

 

PvP is a stun fest and the resolve bar works worse than before. The bolster system is quite encouraging and unfair at the same time. Some overpowered classes ( thanks to the miserable balance ) make PvP quite... exhilerating. More reasons?

 

PvP in SW:TOR is all about stuns and you can be stunned 10 seconds or more at one time. That's nonsense.

Edited April 12, 2013 by LovarBoy

[CosmicKat]

Seriously.. I had so much hope for this game at launch, and like everyone was somewhat let down. For me it was the lack of brackets and gear imbalances in PVP, as well as the tedious grind. Everyone has their own reasons, but universally most agree it fell short.

 

I came back a few weeks ago and have been astonished at how this game has grown up, and improved. Similar to how STO was crappy at launch, and now is quite the gem to play. F2P model is a success, and will continue to expand this game.

 

On the starter worlds I am seeing 100, 150, even 200+ people. KAAS City was so busy last night it looked like a real city with packs of people wandering around! This is fantastic stuff.. The queues are very fast now, rarely over a couple of minutes - even as a DPS. Fleet routinely has 150-200+ in it - at most hours, and rarely under 75 even off peak. The PVP BOLSTER PATCH was remarkable! No longer are overgeared players face stomping newbs.. I see skill being more of a factor than it was before, and this is a huge positive! The easier leveling is just what me and the kids enjoy, buying the cartel leveling pack, and using boosts has really made things tolerable for us 'casuals'.. All great improvements!

 

There are lots of things to go, lots of things to see, and stuff I want to experience everywhere! I have resubbed myself and my 2 kids that play, and they are enjoying it as well. I have plunked down about $100.00 on cartel coins for all of us, and are really enjoying what the market has to offer.

 

Bravo on the game, I hope it continues to expand!

 

Well really the numbers are about exactly where they were shortly after the merges to "super servers". The same patterns are still pretty obvious, the higher up the levelling path you go, the lower the population of the worlds. These are also similar numbers to shortly after launch when there were 10+ times as many servers.

 

On the bright side though, the populations do seem to be staying relatively stable and we aren't seeing the massive swings up and down that we were seeing every time a patch came out.

 

They managed to stop the bleeding. Let's hope they work on retention next.

[JimG]

Last I checked though. Unfortunately there is a problem with people not making it past the first couple planet. But I (mostly) blame the community for this.

As soon as you are wherever you will be after getting your ship. The community skalds you for asking a question.

This community needs to loose their elitist attitude. If you don't want to help someone fine, but don't call someone out because they are asking a question.

I definitely agree with you that general chat is pretty bad as far as people getting jumped all over for asking a simple question....there are helpful people around, but most people seem pretty hostile to new players (yet they are probably the ones complaining there aren't enough players for group finder or planets feel "empty").

 

However, all leveling games have the issue of players who don't play past the early levels. It takes more and more XP to hit higher levels so the leveling process slows down significantly as you get to the higher levels. A lot of people just aren't going to commit the time necessary to level characters to max levels no matter what they do.

1. Yeah, there are many players on every planet - guess why. There are 1/10 servers online that were online at launch.

Actually, the amount of servers was increased dramatically after launch (or at least after the game was released through early access)....because there were so many whiners about having to sit in queues to log in. Most sensible players realized the number of concurrent log-ins would settle down after the first week or two, but the impatient people screamed as loud as they could until BW caved and created a whole bunch of new servers. Then when the player log-ins settled down and were more dependent on players who consistently logged in, everyone complained that there weren't enough players on their servers. It was BW's mistake for caving in on that, but they fixed that mistake by consolidating servers. These servers can hold much higher player pops than the original servers though. So 1 server now is not equal to 1 server at launch in terms of the amount of players it can hold.

[paowee]

I agree for the most part. However the PVPers have to have their cookie and should be rewarded in some form or another given that BOLSTER puts everyone in equal footing. Just my 2cents. Perhaps glowing and radiating EWH gear?

 

Like this : http://www.swtorstrategies.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/swtor-jedi-consular-progression.jpg

 

Or is there a cookie for the hardcore PVPers already that I do not know of?

Edited April 12, 2013 by paowee

[Athan-Won]

[...] For me it was the lack of brackets and gear imbalances in PVP,[...]

 

The PVP BOLSTER PATCH was remarkable! No longer are overgeared players face stomping newbs.. I see skill being more of a factor than it was before,[...]

 

Are you joking right? And is it balanced now? They released an expansion which was already tested on the PTS, problematic. They accepted that Bolster doesn't operate as it should be and they admit one bug after another.

Edited April 12, 2013 by Athan-Won

[Tiaa]

I'll believe this game is a real success ...

 

...when people aren't making infomercial style post trying to convince themselves it.

 

I suppose I like some of the changes minus the pvp. Has convinced some players they are going to be better in pvp...

 

...if you weren't good before, this is not going to save you.

 

Makeb is not even an expansion. It's DLC. It's the update players asked about yet were charged for it.

 

It's not even enough story in it to level me to 55 with doing repeat dailies.

 

But I agree to some extent. You see, I've come to expect little from Bioware that...

 

...the bar for success is at a very low bar.

[Khalij]

I'll believe this game is a real success ...

 

...when people aren't making infomercial style post trying to convince themselves it.

 

I suppose I like some of the changes minus the pvp. Has convinced some players they are going to be better in pvp...

 

...if you weren't good before, this is not going to save you.

 

Makeb is not even an expansion. It's DLC. It's the update players asked about yet were charged for it.

 

It's not even enough story in it to level me to 55 with doing repeat dailies.

 

But I agree to some extent. You see, I've come to expect little from Bioware that...

 

...the bar for success is at a very low bar.

 

This and more of this. Some of these people would take 1st place in professional limbo competition their bars are set so low...

[Athan-Won]

Makeb is not even an expansion. It's DLC. It's the update players asked about yet were charged for it.

 

Very true.

By the way I reported the previous two inappropriate posts and it is nice to see that forum moderators took action.

They deserve the credit.

Edited April 12, 2013 by Athan-Won

[Infernixx]

It really pains some people that people are enjoying the new expansion.

[Athan-Won]

It really pains some people that people are enjoying the new expansion.

 

Everyone is entitled to have their own opinion. If something works for you it's fine. It's nice to see people enjoying the game because the more people enjoy the game the better for us. (The game will have more and more players).

That doesn't mean though that all things work. What's fact it's fact.

Edited April 12, 2013 by Athan-Won

[LtBombshell]

Glad to see someone else in the word that loves this game.