I Want To Like TOR, But It Just Feels Old

[Rodolfulus]

My entire experience with Rift is about 20 minutes of a free 14 trial.

 

In that time, I saw that the game had

 

- Awesome UI, complete with moveable parts

 

- Good graphics

 

- Good Character Creation

 

Well, yeah, that's only three things, and the game didn't interest me for more than 20 minutes; but still — post-WoW MMOs are launching with features that are currently present in WoW, TOR is behind the curve here

 

So you took the good features out of a game that only interested you for 20 minutes and used them to bash TOR?

.....

........

................

................................ cool.

[Neomale]

Oh and something else, I played WoW for 6 years, bought Cataclysm from the Blizzard store (at extra cost then retailer) because they 'promised' direct play on midnight at launch of Cata. Just had to relog and you would be able to play. I logged out and then it took over 4 hours to log back in because the login servers were overloaded, so don't tell me about no Qs on WoW cos youre talking nonsense then.

 

Also happened frequently when new patches or expansions came out that I had to wait an hour or so to log in.

[Shadysketchy]

There are some points that have a slight resemblance of coherency.

 

It is however blinded by obvious bias. I understand making references to another popular game to clarify points. However basing your entire post by saying "WoW Did it better" doesn't mean a thing.

 

Several of your points have absolutely no ground to stand on though, for example -- Wow quests have more variety than TOR quests -- this was laughable. Seriously? WoW is as bluntly basic as it gets (go collect 10, 20, 30 of blah, or go kill 10, 20 , 30 of blah, throw in a bombing mission here and there, and you're set.) Who are you trying to kid?

 

Unless you leveled a character to 5 on TOR you can't possibly think it's just kill kill kill, I suppose if you were skipping all the dialogue that would be the case.

 

You can preach all day long about your points but reality is, why are you here?

 

You don't like the game, you don't want to play wow.

 

Is Trolling the forums better than ALL other options out there?

 

Last, remind yourself that most of your post is OPINION, not fact, you don't have to be negative to those who don't agree with you.

 

 

P.S. Why are you here again?

 

I'm here because I want TOR to be good, so I can keep playing it

 

Pretty sure I said that in the OP

[Skiy]

I think this thread is completely overlooking that this game was released yesterday. It is - as several people have stated - a base of a game to be worked upon.

 

If you want a fair comparison, compare vanilla wow with swtor, base game compared to base game - I think you'll find that swtor is far superior.

 

It's unfair to expect a newly released game to be immediately as vast and diverse as the longest running most successful game in the world... seriously... give us a break lads

[Shadysketchy]

So you took the good features out of a game that only interested you for 20 minutes and used them to bash TOR?

.....

........

................

................................ cool.

 

 

 

You took a quote completely out of context, and used to to bash my opinion?

 

Cool

[CyberData]

So honestly, I really do want to like this game. And I do think it has some positive features, including Star Wars; I've always like the Star Wars movies. Unfortunately, TOR just feels really old. Even compared to World of Warcraft, which actually is very old (over 7 years now), this feels elderly.

 

The following are some things that make TOR feel old:

 

- No LFG Tool (been in WoW for over 2 years... absolutely baffled as to how this hasn't been developed for TOR yet)

 

- Awful UI; I could make an entire thread about this (and people already have), but for the sake of brevity, I'll just restate that it's awful

 

- Pet AI is horrible, between the delay on commanding their auto attack, their hilarious pathing errors, and many others; it's safe to say giving every Class+Spec a pet was a bad idea, without first giving them AI that's passable in 2011

 

- 2007 graphics

 

- Server queues (Had queues in WoW for Vanilla, BC, and Wrath but not Cata, Blizzard has evolved, BioWare has not)

 

- Lackluster Character Creation

 

- Absurd Leveling curve; the overall process of getting from 1-50 is pretty fast, but the curve for time per level increases at a rate that makes me feel like I'm playing Aion again

 

- Three Warzones, No Arenas (also consider Huttball cannot be taken seriously as Rated PvP). Again; TOR is competing with 2011 WoW (8 Battlegrounds, 4 of which can be done Rated + Arena Content)

 

- No Macros

 

- No mouseover casting

 

- No addon support

 

- No Dual Spec

 

- Taris memory leaks (should have been fixed in Beta, not "overnight" a week after Early Access started for the game's release build)

 

- Lack of variety in quests; everything is kill X amount of Y, unlike WoW where they've added a lot of variation (for better or for worse) in the quests, which makes leveling feel less grindy

 

- Voice Actors voicing too many different people; I don't think I've seen this many Characters with the same Voice Actor, since the first Deus Ex game

 

- Player Character repeating Dialogue from other conversations (My Sith Inquisitor has said "I'll show you what a Sith can do!" like 5 times now, and other less memorably rhyming are equally if not more common)

 

- "Choices" are still just the Blue good guy option, or the Red bad guy option — this was kinda new in KOTOR, and still cool in both Mass Effects; but unimpressive today

 

- No Mount until level 25; it only takes a couple hours to get your first Mount in WoW these days. No idea why this was considered a good idea

 

- Awkward gold; having over 500,000 gold by the time you hit 40 is... silly, and will be a major hassle as the game ages and gold inflation occurs

 

- A vast array of technical errors that BioWare, and easily amused Players will chalk up to "Every launch has issues, go play WoW kid!"; but nonetheless detract from gameplay, and are hard to excuse in a 2011 title

 

- More — I will expand on this as more things pop into my mind, these are the ones currently at the forefront of my thought process

 

Anyway, do you guys feel the same way? Maybe you don't see the logic in some of my points (but you will once you get to level 40+), but you've probably noticed the game feels old. I'm worried that this feeling will plague the launch, and the early days of the game. This will both turn away new players, and create a jaded community; problems that get worse and worse as time goes on. Hopefully the game can be improved enough though, I do like it.

 

TL;DR, I think TOR feels old, what do you think?

 

 

This isn't WoW. Go play that if you want all the features that Blizzard took YEARS to implement. People say "WoW has an LFG system!!" and I'm like does anyone remember meeting stones?! Does anyone remember LFG chat that a player could ONLY access from the main cities? It was like that for 5 years.

 

As for the visuals, get a better computer because the visuals are great in my opinion. You're NOT going to build a photorealistic MMO for the 12 people that buy a 500$ videocard each year. Their engine is built to scale across a wide variety of systems. That scaling, right now, is broken. But that has nothing to do with poor visuals. They just need to continue to optimize their engine performance. An MMO with the visuals of Skyrim will give you an FPS of about 10 when you have 60 players on screen at the same time.

 

In WoW it took till level 40 to get a mount. And that was a 60% speed mount. Not 90%! And only hunters got a 30% foot speed boost. Not everyone at level 10. Give me a break. They want speeders to feel like an accomplishment and as I am currently getting those last few bars until 25, I feel it. If you want everything handed to you...go play Skyrim, press tilde, and type "player.additem [itemname]"

 

The game feels good for what it is. Personally, there's a lot I just don't like. But I'm done with WoW and am willing to accept this game for what it is based on the assumption that this game will be expanded upon over time. Just like every MMO ever made. The game has been out ONE whole day. This is gonna take time.

 

Here are the things I don't like or want to see in the game:

-Chat bubbles: The game needs this. Optionally, of course. And it should be for player dialogue only. This way when someone walks up to me and says something I can clearly see they're talking to me rather than not notice them asking for help because others are talking in general chat so fast that their message for lost in the wall of text.

 

-Civilian clothing/RP clothing. Some may scoff at this, but if I'm roleplaying...I'd like to take off the heavy armor and just wear a shirt, pants, and shoes. Silly, I know...but other games have these items.

 

-Lack of customization. Color crystals were brilliant. A subtle but very compelling element to the game. Why not expand on that. Especially for endgame gear when everyone will endeavour to have the best "sets"/gear. Let players tweak certain visual elements of their armor. I'd love to put my guilds "decal" on my shoulder, for example.

 

-Poor engine performance. It's launch, I know I'll be dealing with it for a while....but this game ISN'T that visually taxing on a modern system. It shouldn't be as sluggish as it is. I see some bugs where I can see under/over the "world" and entire unused elements are being drawn and wasting resources. This will change over time, I'm sure.

 

-Poor Space experience. Space as is it is fantastic...for a 2009 iphone app. I'd rather them just wait and do space right than make an on-rails placeholder. They said our ship is suppose to be our "house". That'd be fantastic if we could buy different ships, customize the interior...etc.

[icanhasraegtiem]

These forums are going to be so hilarious in a month when all those giving the game unwavering praise finally start seeing the cracks others mention now for themselves.

[tarugo]

Some of what the OP said is true but this is still a good game and I am still enjoying playing it. I believe the developers will fix many of the issues stated.

[DentedThimble]

I agree whole heartedly with the OP.

 

I really want to like this game, but it feels half baked.

[Shadysketchy]

I think this thread is completely overlooking that this game was released yesterday. It is - as several people have stated - a base of a game to be worked upon.

 

If you want a fair comparison, compare vanilla wow with swtor, base game compared to base game - I think you'll find that swtor is far superior.

 

It's unfair to expect a newly released game to be immediately as vast and diverse as the longest running most successful game in the world... seriously... give us a break lads

 

As I said in the OP

 

TOR is competing with 2011 WoW, not 2004 WoW

 

Also, telling me to compare a 2011 product with a the 2004 version of WoW is... illogical

[CyberData]

Disclaimer — I do not personally enjoy some, or all of these types of quests

 

WoW has added the following, and more to quest variety

 

- Vehicle Quests

 

- Quests that use phasing to change heavy amounts of the world

 

- Quests involving important Lore Characters

 

- Quests that utilize flying mounts

 

- Dailies designed specifically to be easier on Main-Spec Healers that involve healing wounded friendly NPCs, rather than killing enemies

 

- More

 

And it only took them 5+ years to do so on a large scale.

[Kalendel]

- No LFG Tool (been in WoW for over 2 years... absolutely baffled as to how this hasn't been developed for TOR yet)

Not everyone actually likes the LFG tool in WoW and I'm not terribly surprised that BW hasn't implemented it. I'm sure they'll wait to see how bad queuing for FP's gets before they add it.

- Awful UI; I could make an entire thread about this (and people already have), but for the sake of brevity, I'll just restate that it's awful

I tend to like default UI's. Even in WoW I ended up going back to default after several years just for the simplicity. This is really a matter of opinion. I don't think it's awful, but I agree it could be customizable.

- Pet AI is horrible, between the delay on commanding their auto attack, their hilarious pathing errors, and many others; it's safe to say giving every Class+Spec a pet was a bad idea, without first giving them AI that's passable in 2011

It took Blizz years to get pet AI working properly and BW has already made changes to it. It's still not great, but certainly not a game breaker.

- 2007 graphics

Unfortunately the game was being built around that time, they are kinda limited to that graphics set for the time being. Graphics wasn't a major concern so it didn't get the time that some people would've liked. Again, it's possible to upgrade it later.

- Server queues (Had queues in WoW for Vanilla, BC, and Wrath but not Cata, Blizzard has evolved, BioWare has not)

I'm actually impressed with this. I was on the Harbinger server seeing 3hr queues for a while, but then I switched servers. BW wanted to fill servers completely, knowing full well that populations will drop later (always do for MMOs) without having to merge servers like almost every other mmo has done. This was explained ahead of time.

- Lackluster Character Creation

I'll give you this one, but it's better than some so I won't complain too much.

- Absurd Leveling curve; the overall process of getting from 1-50 is pretty fast, but the curve for time per level increases at a rate that makes me feel like I'm playing Aion again

Again, I enjoy that higher content takes more work, but I'm also the type of player that enjoyed grinding for gear and achievements in WoW.

- Three Warzones, No Arenas (also consider Huttball cannot be taken seriously as Rated PvP). Again; TOR is competing with 2011 WoW (8 Battlegrounds, 4 of which can be done Rated + Arena Content)

Even Blizz has admitted that Arena's were a mistake and they wouldn't do it again if they had the choice. Three warzones is a little low, you're right, but I'm sure that'll change. Blizz added more BG's with each xpac too.

- No Macros

Completely agree, macros add a lot to the game.

- No mouseover casting

Again, I agree.

- No addon support

I'm torn on this one. I never found addons necessary and I find that combat logs are used too often to place blame rather than fix mistakes.

- No Dual Spec

BW has stated that this is coming and they thought it should be shortly after launch.

- Taris memory leaks (should have been fixed in Beta, not "overnight" a week after Early Access started for the game's release build)

Given the size of this patch, I'm going to assume that they started on this as early as possible but that it just took a lot of time.

- Lack of variety in quests; everything is kill X amount of Y, unlike WoW where they've added a lot of variation (for better or for worse) in the quests, which makes leveling feel less grindy

Don't kid yourself. Even WoW is 98% kill x, talk to y. There's really only a token handful of different quests while leveling.

- Voice Actors voicing too many different people; I don't think I've seen this many Characters with the same Voice Actor, since the first Deus Ex game

I agree, but when you look at the logistics, it doesn't make sense to bring in new actors for every voice. Trying to organize schedules and whatnot for it all would increase time and costs far too much.

- Player Character repeating Dialogue from other conversations (My Sith Inquisitor has said "I'll show you what a Sith can do!" like 5 times now, and other less memorably rhyming are equally if not more common)

I noticed this too, kinda disappointing.

- "Choices" are still just the Blue good guy option, or the Red bad guy option — this was kinda new in KOTOR, and still cool in both Mass Effects; but unimpressive today

They are, but the occasional 3rd option can add flavor to your character.

- No Mount until level 25; it only takes a couple hours to get your first Mount in WoW these days. No idea why this was considered a good idea

I like having no mount until 25. When WoW brought the first mount to 30, and then 20, I was pissed. It didn't make it seem like an achievement. Again, I like the grind so I'm different I guess.

- Awkward gold; having over 500,000 gold by the time you hit 40 is... silly, and will be a major hassle as the game ages and gold inflation occurs

Well, with having just credits and no breakdown of such, you have to consider 1 cred to be 1 penny. It does add up but it's just a couple more zeros, nothing to lose sleep over.

- A vast array of technical errors that BioWare, and easily amused Players will chalk up to "Every launch has issues, go play WoW kid!"; but nonetheless detract from gameplay, and are hard to excuse in a 2011 title

I'm in the every launch has issues category, though I wont say go back to WoW. As per every MMO, give it time. They will detract a little from gameplay, but even MMOs on the market for 8 years still have major glitches. This is part of the genre and will persist in every MMO.

 

I am not a fanboi, as the forums like to call anyone who likes the game. I have both WoW and SWTOR subs active and plan to continue that for some time. I also am a parent with small children so I maybe have a little more patience than others. Last thing I worry about is a few glitches in a game that I play for entertainment. If I don`t enjoy SWTOR due to queuing or glitches, I go to another game for a while and come back when I can do something. Not a big deal. C`est la vie.

[Putok]

I don't understand why people keep saying "WoW didn't have XYZ at launch either!"

 

This game is not competing with the WoW of 2004, it is competing with the WoW that is out NOW.

 

I am still happily playing both games, because they offer me very different experiences, but there's nothing wrong with acknowledging areas where this game could be improved. Development time was obviously very lopsided. A lot was put into story, voice acting, and classes. VERY little into the UI, and not as much into the combat engine, AH, social features, or bug fixing.

[CyberData]

These forums are going to be so hilarious in a month when all those giving the game unwavering praise finally start seeing the cracks others mention now for themselves.

 

Honestly, it all depends on how the development team handles post-development. Period.

 

If they are realistic, have a road-map of features they want to implement and can do some in a timely manner and consistently...it'll be fine.

 

The only different is some of us are willing to accept the game for what it is and give it TIME to grow. Every MMO requires this. People are acting as if this is a finished product and will never be patched again.....

 

The game has been out a whole day. Now, don't get me wrong. If August comes and we have no content updates and just "fixed a crash" patches then you'll be absolutely right.

 

But after day one if you can't see that potential for great things with this game you should reevaluate if this is the game for you.

[Kishiko]

Sorry you aren't having fun OP but I am Sorry swtor isn't wow. wow is wow and swtor is swtor. I am sorry swtor cannot be wow for you but luckily wow is still wow. I am glad swtor is swtor and not wow.

[DarkoDon]

All the "fanboy'z" just can't handle that someone critizises "their" game. What the OP says is very true...Bioware have a lot of work to do!!

 

Love the "fanboi" posts.

 

Lets get it straight bro, Star Wars is an iconic/classic movie. It broke records both before in the original movies and even more with the new crappy ones. The name/merch/games/and anything else to do with star wars is a multibillion dollar industry worldwide.

 

 

The fact that this game too broke records with preorders/followers goes to show that we are all fanboi's. You are here, you been waiting for the game, you are playing it, you like star wars....

 

So the point is......you are a fanboi too, give it up.

 

 

Also, of course they have alot to do. They've done alot already. It just released, give them time. They could have made us wait another year and then all us so called "fanboi's" would have lynched the dev team.

Edited December 21, 2011 by DarkoDon

[Mamono]

And it only took them 5+ years to do so on a large scale.

 

But they evolved it. How many years do you think it tuck mankind to find out how to use electricity? Now we expect BioWare to improve on the MMO gender. Something they have not done. SWToR is just an normal MMO as everything ells that is out today. Except from it is named Star Wars. We must not forget that. Just the name alone makes the game automatically a huge evolvement in the gender. "oh, there is nothing new in the game compered to many years of game developement, wait, it is Star Wars, then it is OK.

 

What we complain about is that most of us want a Star Wars game that is evolved out to something new, and not a old MMO si-fi game wrapped up in some new packing.

Edited December 21, 2011 by Mamono

[CyberData]

Because I kept telling myself it would get better

 

Unfortunately, though, it just keeps getting worse

 

It's been out a day.

[Mamono]

It's been out a day.

 

Problem is that people like you would not even care if the whole game where bugged like hell and missing a ton of content, like AoC. And if someone complained about it, you would flame him to the ground. As long as it is Star Wars everything is OK.

No questions ask, no requirements or expectations. If SWToR where release with the same graphic as WoW had in 2004, you would be as happy as ever.

 

If the game released with a UI as WoW had in 2004, oh, wait. They have an even wors UI then WoW had in 2004.

See what I mean? All you say is "the game is 1 day old". You guys have no expectations exept for that the game has to be named "star wars".

Edited December 21, 2011 by Mamono

[Jammer-EQ]

Every game has to have a base to start from.

 

EQ sucked at launch ...

 

SWG sucked at launch ...

 

EQ2 sucked at launch ...

 

WoW sucked at launch ...

 

 

This game however I do not think has NEAR the issues ANY of those other games did at launch, so I am expecting great things to come down the pipe in the future. I am happy with how it is now, stable, lots of content, great stories, great quest rewards and well it's Star Wars ... something I've loved since May 25th 1977 at age 13

[BlakeTheSnake]

Indeed, but I went with his chosen comparison example

 

Hell, a lot of current, profitable MMOs still don't have some of those features.

 

That's because a lot of those features, in many people's opinion, breaks a game. Just because you liked the features WoW came out with doesn't mean they are good for this game at all. It could have quite the opposite effect.

[Kalendel]

As I said in the OP

 

TOR is competing with 2011 WoW, not 2004 WoW

 

Also, telling me to compare a 2011 product with a the 2004 version of WoW is... illogical

 

Look at it this way:

Comparing Vanilla WoW to SWTOR isn`t fair because TOR has years of technology and experience (from others) to look back on and has a sizable advantage.

 

Comparing 2011 WoW to SWTOR isn`t fair because WoW has had so many more years of building upon systems that TOR couldn`t possibly have at launch.

 

As usual, the truth is somewhere in the middle. The test will be how fast can BW make up for the deficiencies and make TOR a solid competitor.

[Yowfatto]

Op is clueless beyond help. No one wants arenas, if you had any knowledge about this you would know that it destroyed class balances and really screwed ppl over in pve. Even bliss said it was a mistake tour really behind on info aren't you.

 

That you actually said questing in wow has more variety than swtor goes to show your blind wow fanboyism is beyond redemption and that is quite possibly one if the most absurd statements I've seen. Countless ppl in wow are ditching it for swtor, it's a breath if fresh air and a year from now this game will be even better than it is now. You made a couple good points the rest are flawed beyond imagining.

[Masgor]

I disagree with some of your points.

 

-Day/Night cycle. This is a really strange thing to have in swtor. Imagine, standing on alien planets, that all, for some reason, have 24 hour days. My god, Imagine it. Every planet, in the galaxy, the exact same for day length. The galaxy we play in eh?.......

 

-The leveling curve. I'm not sure I understand this one. Reaching level 50 is fast, but then the required xp per level, is increasing too much? Does this even matter since it's still fast to reach level 50? Your saying it's increasing too much, even though it's still easy/fast

 

-Taris memory leak. Does this really make the game feel "old"? Does a terrible service with a patch really make the game feel old? Since your so inclined to refer to WoW, I will too. What comes to mind is the levitate glitch. This was exploited in battlegrounds for a few months. Even with the release of cataclysm, it was not completley fixed. This exploitation ruined the experience. Sure it's not as much as taris, but it's still very distracting from the gameplay of the game.

 

-Quest variety. While i agree that having the variety would have made the game less grindy, and alot better, I can't think of a triple A mmo with a huge variety. You could say WoW, but to be fair, they only added variety last year with cata. 6 years they had of no variety.

 

-The currency. This is a thing that I can't understand. You like star wars, yet you moan, that in a starwars game, the currency has really big numbers. Sorry, what? Anyway, if you pay attention to your first year in school, the math should be no problem.

 

Those are the things that you brought up, that I don't agree with. However, Some of your other points I completly agree with.

 

-The skybox. This was something I found completly unusual. It looked so old and outdated. I made my sith warrior, looked up, and saw a space ship, that looked fake, in 240p, with an empty ink cartridge printing it. The background scenery didn't even blend in with the none background scenery, of the same kind.

 

-Character creation. the creation is fine. for the face. For the rest of the body, it feels extremley limiting. The body type selection, with only 4 choices is the culprit.

 

There are some others I agree and disagree with, but not that much to mention them.

 

On a side note, I saw a thing the otherday, were a developer said they were going to add a LFG tool, but not untill after launch.

[BrimstoneAshe]

I would agree with several of the OPs complaints. I love SWTOR and plan to keep playing awhile, but I can certainly see some of his issues.

 

1> Lack of quest diversity. I completely agree. I made a couple of topics in regards to this in the forums during beta. The story/dialogue is great, but at the end of the day its the same cycle. I had provided suggestions on how to break the cycle in those other threads.

 

2> The complaint about the graphics. I can see the point, but I also understand Biowares decision. Since MMOs tend to stay around for some time. especially successful ones, having stylized graphics gives the game a bit longer life in the visuals. Wow has been bashed on it's cartoony look. And if you look at vanilla Wow compared to Cata WoW, the "cartoony" vibe may still be there, but there is a LOT of detail in the modelling. Having a stylized look really gave them more flexibility and I think that's what Bioware wanted.

 

3> Things missing in the game at launch. Even though I have no issues with grouping tools, mods, and dual specs, I'm not upset that they aren't in game. The things that irk me are minor, but also along the lines "How is this NOT in the game?"

 

a> No /roll command in the game. If you put a raid together for a world boss and choose master looter.... be ready for a headache of determining loot. I really don't understand how this could have been left out.

 

b> No guild storage. I'm really sick of the trend of MMOs hitting launch day and being in a guild is nothing more than a chat channel. Yea, Guild things are added down the road, but this really irks me that this sort of stuff isn't worked on from day one. I'm sure Bioware has some cool stuff planned out for guilds and so it will all get put in at that time(like their make outfit match chestpiece option that took out saying what they're working on as a replacement will be much better). But as we're all leveling, we're finding patterns and gear that don't do us much good, but would sure benefit a guildmate. It would be so nice to have had at least guild storage at launch.

 

4> Other thing that sort of irks me: Price of speeder training. The price is 40k credits. By the time you're 25, you'll most likely have it and then some more. I had over 50k when I hit 25. It's not impossible, but it is still a good chunk of money. As one guildmate stated "Its odd I get a spaceship for free, but I got to pay through the nose for a speeder."