Why does this game receive so much hate?

[Elminster_cs]

The guild system was poorly thought out. So many things wrong with it that I don't really even know where to start.

 

This is one of the most important and actual problem. I'm not talking about "level of the guild" or "guild achievement", but easy quality of life improvements, guild in game calendar for planning raid and lookout, mailing lists, better bank and so on.

 

This things sometimes really break "noob guild" or casual guild, that don't have a site on enjin or something else, and they vanish. So some player start to quit.

 

Reasons For Hate;

Unfortunately that's not the way its turned out. We don't really know whose responsible "EA" or "BW" the first year was filled with poor planning and bad decisions.

 

1. A massive build up in servers, leading to most of them being empty.

2. Very late additions of server transfers, leading to lots of people quitting instead of re-rolling.

3. Cut an pasts responses to tickets, with no actual solutions

4. Bugs that have existed since beta testing, some of witch are still not fixed.

....just to name a few early issues.

 

The long term players just got use to complaining. Even now that there is a large player base and BW's costumer service has increased by leaps and bounds, every little issue that comes up gets a huge response.

 

Yes this is also why, if you go on the FB page, you find around people saying "is this game dead?", "Are you playing a dead game?"

Or someone that complain about Galaxies..

 

But the problem is that sometimes they still take "bad" decision for our side. One of the last was "no more class story" and the removal of Ranked Warzone in the next patch.

Of course i can understand them, but if we look at their side sometimes this decision have sense.

 

Also the Costumer Support has been improved a lot, but sometimes they really do bad things, like premade response, and this is really annoying.

 

I think people complain, like any other MMO, because they would like to see more and more of this game, they would like to see it to grow up faster and faster.

 

And yes there are also some problem out there in some part of the game... like the bad engine that don't allow chat bubble...

[ImperialSun]

Think this thread has pretty much covered the reasons for the game receiving so much hate, valid or not.

 

When I first heard about TOR my initial concern was that a BW MMORPG would turn out to be DAO with some group quests and multi player content bolted on. I think that's a pretty accurate summation of the game even today. The levelling experience is second to none however once you are through that it's the softer elements that are lacking.

 

Everyone gets burnt out on levelling alts or PvPing at some point and in other MMORPGs that down time can be spent exploring, crafting, house decorating, farming achievements/rare items or generally hanging as a guild/community. The problem is that TOR does not offer any of these sandboxy features and also the crafting system is very simplistic too imo.

 

The above, coupled with BWs lack of understanding as to how quickly players would consume the content at launch lead to the inevitable "Nothing to do at endgame" cries and many players quitting. Had the game have had some sandbox features a lot of these players would have stuck around and waited for end game to be fleshed out. No MMORPG releases with a fully fleshed out end game or more than a few raids...none of them....but what they do have is a myriad of soft features to soak up the time waiting for endgame features to be released....

 

My own personal gripe (aside from the lack of sandbox features) is that the class system is far too shallow and simplistic....but this is a problem dogging all MMORPGs over the last few years. I understand why developers choose that route, it was the same in WHO but I vividly remember trying that game and thinking "wait a minute...so if I role class A I can ONLY EVER USE weapon D and ONLY EVER wear armor G....I hate that system personally as I cut my MMORPG teeth in SWG which was light years (pun intended) ahead of it's time in so many respects.

 

One point I would pick up however is that I see a lot of people in this thread mentioning the games launch. Leaving aside the highly subjective arguements of whether the game lacked "cornerstone" features like Group Finder et al and speaking purely from a technical launch standpoint, this game had an extremely successful and polished launch. I never once had a problem logging in and never once had a CTD at launch, the game performed extremely well compared to other game launch problems (those around for WoWs launch will know that was particularly unstable at launch for example). From that technical standpoint, SWTOR had probably the most stable launch of any MMORPG ever imo.

 

Also, the servers, at launch the game had the right number of servers. Every MMORPG has a degree of churn at launch and once those that tried it and disliked it had gone on their way, the server provision once everything settled down would have been perfect.

 

That was not good enough for the baying fans who screamed "Open MOAR SERVERS NAOS!!!!" and BW caved. Once the churn described above levelled out THIS is why there were soooo many empty servers. It was player requested and the mistake on BWs part was caving to the request.

 

Anyway, thats my two cents....I love the game for what it is, WoW with lightsabers...if SWG2 was relased in a modern engine whilst retaining the core sandbox gameplay I would be outta here though

 

Driz

[ImpactHound]

When it launched this game was the perfect storm of several years of hype, general WoW weariness that is seemingly eternal yet doesn't harm that game and the fact Star Wars Galaxies was shut down for it.

 

BWs approach (on the back of Warhammer online trauma of promising features and not being able to deliver) of not talking about anything that wasn't set in stone kinda backfired cos they may not have added to the hype but that way they also failed to manage the community driven hype.

 

And when the game launched and people saw it was "mortal" not a mmo diety, and not only that, when they saw that other than story BW played everything *extremely* conservatively, failing to incorporate into the game the genre developments of the last half a decade or more, you had the inevitable blowback. In large part justifiable if we're honest. This game has to be the most static and compartmentalized mmos out. Its part the nature of space based games and part bad design choices but you're hard pressed to get the "game world" feel you get from WoW or say GW2. Other than the ilum open world pvp debacle at launch all the game mechanics are extremely rudimentary. In the years prior launch Rift and other games advanced approaches to dynamic content and when nothing at all like it made it into TOR that was and is still another strike against it. Etc. etc. etc.

 

The WoW refugees ended up moving on as they always do, adding one more punching bag to their repertoire. Galaxies diehards took it personally especially when the game ended up being nothing like theirs.

 

Add to that the fact the original dev team was completely lost post launch and we went half a year or more without any content updates to the barely functional endgame. Subs started to evaporate, servers emptied yet it took another half a year of neigh ghost town for BW to get its act up together enough to do server mergers and now recently transfers. In a time when games launch and basically enable people to hop servers as they choose TOR is the 90s wannabe game in oh so many aspects.

 

All added up to a giant rolling ball of bad rep and once you pick that up in the MMO world you're pretty much done for bar a complete redesign miracle FFXIV may or may not have pulled off.

 

The caravan moves to the next big shiny. From GW2 to ESO, end stop Titan.

 

You touch on pretty much all the points I would have made, kudos.

 

Galaxies had its plug pulled. Between August's pairing of SWTOR with Aeria Games and EA officially killing Warhammer Online yesterday, one has to wonder how long the current license will last and if they'll do a renewal when the time comes...

Edited September 19, 2013 by ImpactHound

[Zandoezan]

Dude, i like your signature

 

Think this thread has pretty much covered the reasons for the game receiving so much hate, valid or not.

 

When I first heard about TOR my initial concern was that a BW MMORPG would turn out to be DAO with some group quests and multi player content bolted on. I think that's a pretty accurate summation of the game even today. The levelling experience is second to none however once you are through that it's the softer elements that are lacking.

 

Everyone gets burnt out on levelling alts or PvPing at some point and in other MMORPGs that down time can be spent exploring, crafting, house decorating, farming achievements/rare items or generally hanging as a guild/community. The problem is that TOR does not offer any of these sandboxy features and also the crafting system is very simplistic too imo.

 

The above, coupled with BWs lack of understanding as to how quickly players would consume the content at launch lead to the inevitable "Nothing to do at endgame" cries and many players quitting. Had the game have had some sandbox features a lot of these players would have stuck around and waited for end game to be fleshed out. No MMORPG releases with a fully fleshed out end game or more than a few raids...none of them....but what they do have is a myriad of soft features to soak up the time waiting for endgame features to be released....

 

My own personal gripe (aside from the lack of sandbox features) is that the class system is far too shallow and simplistic....but this is a problem dogging all MMORPGs over the last few years. I understand why developers choose that route, it was the same in WHO but I vividly remember trying that game and thinking "wait a minute...so if I role class A I can ONLY EVER USE weapon D and ONLY EVER wear armor G....I hate that system personally as I cut my MMORPG teeth in SWG which was light years (pun intended) ahead of it's time in so many respects.

 

One point I would pick up however is that I see a lot of people in this thread mentioning the games launch. Leaving aside the highly subjective arguements of whether the game lacked "cornerstone" features like Group Finder et al and speaking purely from a technical launch standpoint, this game had an extremely successful and polished launch. I never once had a problem logging in and never once had a CTD at launch, the game performed extremely well compared to other game launch problems (those around for WoWs launch will know that was particularly unstable at launch for example). From that technical standpoint, SWTOR had probably the most stable launch of any MMORPG ever imo.

 

Also, the servers, at launch the game had the right number of servers. Every MMORPG has a degree of churn at launch and once those that tried it and disliked it had gone on their way, the server provision once everything settled down would have been perfect.

 

That was not good enough for the baying fans who screamed "Open MOAR SERVERS NAOS!!!!" and BW caved. Once the churn described above levelled out THIS is why there were soooo many empty servers. It was player requested and the mistake on BWs part was caving to the request.

 

Anyway, thats my two cents....I love the game for what it is, WoW with lightsabers...if SWG2 was relased in a modern engine whilst retaining the core sandbox gameplay I would be outta here though

 

Driz

[ImpactHound]

Dude, i like your signature

 

mmjarec is very quotable

[Zandoezan]

LOL, he makes it so easy to do.

 

mmjarec is very quotable

[Zolxtren]

Heres my list of BASIC mmo elements this game miss

 

- NO Open world ( planets are small and seriously narowed down to take this path or you cant go there) Tatooine is the only real Open world.

 

- NO Phasing ( the game world is one of the most static world I seen )

 

- Lifeless world ( 90% of the mobs just stand their doing nothing lots of mobs but world is still lifeless )

 

- NO day night Cycle ( realy now )

 

- Bad Engine that cant handle mass PvP ( We got a whole Planet dedicated for this for more then a year now and its still useless and they not fixing it )

 

- NO flying ( as how small most of the Planet's its not even worth it )

 

- Too many Trash mob EVERYWHERE this game sometimes feel more grindier then a Korean mmo.

 

Some not basic things that the Devs screwed:

 

- NO continuation of Class Story ( The MAIN selling point of the game )

 

- EA

 

etc

etc

etc

 

and people wonder why this game get's so much hate.

 

there is only 3 thing holding me here

 

- Its Sci-fi

- Story telling

- SSSP ( Super Secret Space Project ) il hope its something Good and unique to the game

Edited September 19, 2013 by Zolxtren

[Elminster_cs]

Think this thread has pretty much covered the reasons for the game receiving so much hate, valid or not.

 

When I first heard about TOR my initial concern was that a BW MMORPG would turn out to be DAO with some group quests and multi player content bolted on. I think that's a pretty accurate summation of the game even today. The levelling experience is second to none however once you are through that it's the softer elements that are lacking.

 

Everyone gets burnt out on levelling alts or PvPing at some point and in other MMORPGs that down time can be spent exploring, crafting, house decorating, farming achievements/rare items or generally hanging as a guild/community. The problem is that TOR does not offer any of these sandboxy features and also the crafting system is very simplistic too imo.

 

You right. I want also to say that probably the game come out too early, it was not ready in most of the parts, but from their side they was running out of money for sure.

 

Yes sandboxy features are lacking here, they give us the achievement system but it is full of bug and with some that are really impossible to do (kill 1000 player on alderaan or hoth...) and people don't do something that is bugged.

Fortunately the system is growing and the last achievement they have implemented are good, this must be the way.

 

Levelling, you are also right, is second to no one... this game have the best levelling i ever see, it is really smooth and also a casual gamer with low time can level up pretty fast.

 

But this is a double blade knife. Because if you reach the top level fast and the game "lack" of sandboxing, or something similar, people quit very fast if don't find a good guild or the guild disband very fast because the lack of organization in game.

 

That is why people cry about housing, guild ship, minigames and more.

 

There is also the hate around the PvP players. The lack of open world pvp, event, attacking enemy base camp in the planet, and so on, make them anger a lot. And for this things i have a bit to agree with them.

 

Take as example the last event, PvE, it was nice, but too easy and too fast to complete and it is a lot static. People complain about this things.

[Zandoezan]

After spell check it reads as follows:

Seems like you want validation but you are not going to find it here. Some people are realists and the rest are fanboys so you get an unholy amalgamation. Peope are angry because of how they are treated by Bioware and that they destroyed something that could have been an excellent game, selling out to money and mediocrity. Whatever you say about voice scripted dialogue I still prefer the day and night cycles for immersive game play moreso than a voice that will get skipped 90% of the time and adds no replay value post the first time Face it voicpevers are a gimmick - the last part is difficult to decipher. I did what I could.

 

Seems like you want validation but i aret gong to find it here. Some a realists and whte rest are fanbois so you get an inholy concergence. Peope are angry necause how tjey are treated no booware and that they trashed what could habe been an excellent game sold out for money and medicority. Ehatever you say about voice iscyour opnim i pefer day and night cycles for immersion moreso than a voice that will get skipped 90% of the time and adds no replay value post the first time

Face it voicpevers are a gimmick

[Master-Nala]

For too many people, SWTOR was to be the game that redeemed MMOs in their eyes. It would be a better sandbox than SWG, a better theme park than WOW and have better PvP than the DAOC. Of course, no game can live up to that and this game didn't. It is a solid, fun, but derivative MMO. The hype was partially marketing, but also MMO players' unreasonable expectations.

 

Also, when the game launched it "sucked" so much that some people played it 100 hours a week. Then, having consumed hundreds of hours of content, they complained bitterly that Bioware didn't have more to give them.

 

Finally, to be fair, Bioware did make some major customer service missteps and this fueled the fire.

 

My 2 credits.

Edited September 19, 2013 by Master-Nala

[Nemmar]

In a nuttshell: Because EA doesnt know how to manage an MMORPG. Edited September 19, 2013 by Nemmar

[carlbaratta]

I've been playing for just under a year and the state the game was in when I started was wayyyy better than the folks who were on since when it started. I got to say since then things have improved even more. Mostly now it's the same people on the forum complaining every time a patch happens.

[captpickles]

Major things:

overall management

patch issues

content issues

 

 

annoying things:

Quest Bugs

Companion bugs

Operation bugs

Flashpoint bugs

Instance bugs

QoL bugs

clipping bugs

AH bugs

[Blackardin]

This was my first MMO I actually got past level 10 in. All others I tried never really drew me in like this one did. The plot is well written, the full voice overs make ALL the difference as far as making this feel like a living breathing online world I'm being sucked into. PVP is fun what little I have tried

 

So I don't get it. I hated WOW because the plot was confusing, the missions where boring and the combat was a bit too slow to keep me interested. So I tried Tera with its action based combat, and again uninteresting story and boring dialog and missions.

 

Would not give it much thought, OP, it will make you crazy as most of the "hate" is either regurgitated nonsense from the guy in the bathroom stall to the left, or a mix of hyperbole, conjecture, and entitlement.

 

Game is great, game function not so great....but very doable. I've not, as the majority of the player base would agree, run into any issue, bug, or problem that was more then annoying, and definitely not game breaking. However, there are those that believe, for a game that cost less then a 1/4 of a cup of my morning coffee and grants one unlimited playtime for a month, must be perfect in every way.

 

There are certainly items to be fixed, certainly things that I would like to see fixed, but the hate that you see is from many that lack the intellect or social skills to address such with a modicum of civility and maturity and rather rant in hysterical fashion, creating the story as they go. LOL

 

In short, ignore the hate, listen to those with logic and reason, enjoy the game. It is, overall, very fun....and why we, even the "haters" return to it each and every day.

 

Hope that helps.

[kidatwood]

The players hyped it before release. Expecially that they BW said it was a standard mmo with emphasis on story. No one want to take that for what was said. That's release tbvh ever since then BW has shot themselves in the foot with delays after delays and as someone else mentioned the inability to squash bugs. Waiting as long as they did to merge servers killed it the most and to the point they had no choice but to go FTP. BW I believe bit off more than they could chew with its first mmo and they clearly didn't do enough of there homework for running one. Btw I still love the game and am a fan boy.

[Thundernuts]

Most of the time, the people that come to the forums to post do so out of anger. There are also quite a bit of entitled players who feel that their concern should be top priority and the massive company that is EA/Bioware should cater to their every need. This game is awesome. And yes it has it's flaws, as does every game, but overall this game is a blast and only getting better. Always remember, DON'T FEED THE TROLLS.

[mmjarec]

Most of the time, the people that come to the forums to post do so out of anger. There are also quite a bit of entitled players who feel that their concern should be top priority and the massive company that is EA/Bioware should cater to their every need. This game is awesome. And yes it has it's flaws, as does every game, but overall this game is a blast and only getting better. Always remember, DON'T FEED THE TROLLS.

 

It has nothing to do with entitlement and everything to do with them constantly breaking promises

[kirorx]

I don't thing people hate the game, or else they wouldn't be here. I think that people feel that BW cut a lot of corners and are frustrated at their seeming inability or unwillingness to correct things.

 

For me, I think they did an absolutely horrible job designing the GTN. It's far worse than anything else I've seen, But people have been complaining about it since release and there really hasn't been any significant effort to fix it.

 

I'm also not a fan of armor and weapon mods. I hate micromanaging equipment, but they're never going to change that.

 

I also don't like linear quest chains. In theory they make sense, but in reality, people don't like being led around the game by the nose, being forced to do the exact same quests in the exact same order toon after toon. That's one thing that WoW has going for it, you are not locked down to a quest chain. you can go where ever you want and do what ever you want.

 

The guild system was poorly thought out. So many things wrong with it that I don't really even know where to start.

 

I also hate the level of complexity needed to travel from one world to the next. There's something like half dozen load screens involved, several needless hallways and orbital space stations...

 

Then there is the Cartel Market. I generally like the idea of being able to buy things, but they offer gambling packs that take advantage of people's gambling weaknesses as a way to make money. They also charge absolutely stupid amounts of money for some things, making it so that only the wealthy can afford some game features.

 

And the list goes on.

 

Agree with everything here. ^

 

You should pick up the SWG discs off ebay and try that game out, you can still play it on the SWGEMU.

 

I play that game alot still.

 

I am not trying to say that game is better, its just different. This would give you some perspective as to why alot of people expected certain elements. SWG has alot of awesome features and feels so massive, but SWTOR is a much smoother and more modern game.

 

When I play the SWG EMU, i dont wish they brought that game back, I just wish SWTOR had brought some of that game with it.

 

SWTOR has so much potential but its just not doing anything with it and its just selling stuff on the cartel market and pumping out more of the same old rinse and repeat....its just crazy because it could be so much more than just a cash machine.

[Truvu]

When it launched this game was the perfect storm of several years of hype, general WoW weariness that is seemingly eternal yet doesn't harm that game and the fact Star Wars Galaxies was shut down for it.

 

BWs approach (on the back of Warhammer online trauma of promising features and not being able to deliver) of not talking about anything that wasn't set in stone kinda backfired cos they may not have added to the hype but that way they also failed to manage the community driven hype.

 

And when the game launched and people saw it was "mortal" not a mmo diety, and not only that, when they saw that other than story BW played everything *extremely* conservatively, failing to incorporate into the game the genre developments of the last half a decade or more, you had the inevitable blowback. In large part justifiable if we're honest. This game has to be the most static and compartmentalized mmos out. Its part the nature of space based games and part bad design choices but you're hard pressed to get the "game world" feel you get from WoW or say GW2. Other than the ilum open world pvp debacle at launch all the game mechanics are extremely rudimentary. In the years prior launch Rift and other games advanced approaches to dynamic content and when nothing at all like it made it into TOR that was and is still another strike against it. Etc. etc. etc.

 

The WoW refugees ended up moving on as they always do, adding one more punching bag to their repertoire. Galaxies diehards took it personally especially when the game ended up being nothing like theirs.

 

Add to that the fact the original dev team was completely lost post launch and we went half a year or more without any content updates to the barely functional endgame. Subs started to evaporate, servers emptied yet it took another half a year of neigh ghost town for BW to get its act up together enough to do server mergers and now recently transfers. In a time when games launch and basically enable people to hop servers as they choose TOR is the 90s wannabe game in oh so many aspects.

 

All added up to a giant rolling ball of bad rep and once you pick that up in the MMO world you're pretty much done for bar a complete redesign miracle FFXIV may or may not have pulled off.

 

The caravan moves to the next big shiny. From GW2 to ESO, end stop Titan.

 

Quite a good summary there sir. It's very true that you have to look at the wider MMO market and iterations of the genre in order to understand the complexities of player response and what they're willing to subscribe to.

 

I myself was a WoW refugee, willing to give up on the old guard of MMOs in order to start fresh in games like GW2, SWTOR, and TERA. What I've experienced over the last 2 years however have been nothing more than iterations to the MMO genre and nothing that truly utilizes all the new elements well into a cohesive whole. Instead they will wait for the next truly successful MMO to come along and combine all these elements into the next big thing. Meanwhile, Blizzard continues to innovate with WoW doing crazy stuff that nobody could ever think of and they take the subscription losses on the chin from players who don't like the changes as if they expected it to happen.

 

The strong point of SWTOR has to be in the creation of an original character. Never before in an MMO have I been able to create a character with such a personality and personal storyline as SWTOR. It's all the little interactions in conversations, relationships, and countless little instances that may not have happened if you didn't do a specific thing earlier on in the story that really make it. Meanwhile combat is almost a bog-standard WoW simulation, only broken up by how unique the classes are and the world is absolutely static.

 

GW2 got the dynamic world thing down perfectly, though it's story falls short being quite boring with a somewhat lame ending and no real player input. Combat also failed to innovate because it once again uses basic hot-key controls similar to WoW. The fact that it has no subscription cost and therefore can't afford to ever add meaningful content apart from holiday events definitely doesn't do it any favours either.

 

Not much to say about TERA other than it has an amazing action-oriented combat system but a terrible story and static world. Surprisingly the biggest complaint I hear about it is that Western gamers detest the sexualization of children that is common among Eastern MMOs. FF14 has a bit of this too with a specific race but admittedly not as much as TERA.

 

So in summary the big iterations we've seen in the MMO genre over the past couple of years have been dynamic worlds, enhanced character-based storytelling, and action-oriented combat systems. I don't even want to think about what kind of budget a game would need in order to combine the three as well as having a great customer service regimen, but all those aspects combined is probably the only thing that could create a meaningful MMO that actually lives up to the hype in the current market. Meanwhile Blizzard has already started factoring in those aspects to WoW in the latest patch which will probably ensure a stable stream of subscribers once again.

 

Innovation breeds expectation. Players just want more from their MMOs these days.

[mmjarec]

No. The only strong point a with swtor is that its star wars other than that is all first or second gen mmo content

[branmakmuffin]

SWTOR has so much potential but its just not doing anything with it and its just selling stuff on the cartel market and pumping out more of the same old rinse and repeat....its just crazy because it could be so much more than just a cash machine.

A cash machine is all any for-profit company's product or service is.

[mmjarec]

A cash machine is all any for-profit company's product or service is.

 

Actualy there are planty of humanitarian and altruistic companies that only goal is to give back to society rather than leech off it

[Zolxtren]

And EA is not one of them.

[gorstram]

I've read all of the responses to this thread, and I'm going to be the first to say it: I hate this game.

 

I play it because I haven't found another game that I find palatable; I play this game because I made some good friends and I couldn't bear to leave them; I play this game because it's freaking Star Wars, and I LOVE Star Wars.

 

Now, here are 10 reasons I hate this game.

 

1) They dared launch a hotbar mmo with fewer features than other hotbar mmo's. I get that's it's new, but just because you're bringing your product online for the first time, doesn't mean that you leave out what has become "Common tech" in the MMO industry.

 

2) Leveling Chute: A.K.A. linearity. This isn't a game, it's a train ride. The conductor yells, "ALL ABOARD!" and you continue until you get off on Correllia.

 

3) Incomplete Companions: I love my companions. But it infuriates me to no end that I only get to REALLY interact with ONE of them, and I don't even like their story half the time. But let's say I want to follow Lord Scourge around because i think he's a cool cat, NO! YOU GET KIRA, AND THAT'S IT!

 

4) The Cartel Market: This trumpet played the death knell on all future game creativity. There is no evidence to support this (other than common sense) but this cash cow gets the "cool stuff," and the rest of the game gets the dregs. So you finally downed that Nightmare Mode boss? That shiny piece of loot is YOURS! But it looks like a pile of ****, but don't you worry, THE CASH SHOP has a better looking item, and you can just spend a measly 40k to rip the mods and put it into a $5 piece of pixels.

 

5) Terrible coding: Mysterious ability lag, poor companion pathing, random instance wide lag causing raid wipes (entire raid experiences lag, and when it stops, we see corpses everywhere), UI issues, poorly supported combat log and game coding allowing for addons.

 

6) Lackluster NPC designing: CLONES EVERYWHERE! I like the ambiance of certain places, but when you zoom in and see the same guy walking around the Senate Tower as a guard, it immensely cheapens the experience. There are continuity errors during voice over segments; new companions weren't made backwards compatible with the story (using HK doesn't net any affection from convo choices).

 

7) No clear direction in gear budgeting. Example: A dev says "Alacrity is now usable for ALL roles!" Then alacrity doesn't work well at all for the roles it wasn't meant for (tanks), and instead of fixing the issue, they release an entire set of gear with pieces of alacrity on it. Instead of going back and re-budgeting the items, they kept it in and said they'll work on alacrity.

 

8) Poor Customer Service Support: Example: Gallant speaks to Goofus on fleet and they make a deal for Goofus to make some modifications using Gallant's mats plus a tip. Gallant trades his mats to Goofus, and Goofus logs off never to return. Gallant opens a ticket saying that he was robbed, and that he wants his mats back. His ticket is autoclosed with a message "We take player behavior seriously...blah blah blah, we can't tell you how we will interact with this other player." Instead of the customer service rep investigating the issue, deleting the mats out of Goofus' bags, and sending them to Gallant's in-game mail, they just close it and hope that Gallant learned his lesson not to trade with strangers. Bioware doesn't support it's playerbase.

 

9) Communication: The recent class representative fiasco shows that there is a HUGE divide between teh playerbase and the development team with Eric Musco being unable to bridge the gap between them. It's not Eric's fault. The game devs take in excellent feed back, which includes math derived from the game, and they return with asinine answers like "Perception problems." I'm going to do the unconscionable and mention Gregg Street (Ghostcrawler), the beloved and hated Dev in gaming. He constantly speaks to the playerbase, and when someone brings something to his attention with actual mathematical figures, he will run them with his team and answer whether or not it will be possible to go forward with a new idea, fix, or what-have-you. He also doesn't need an idiotic program like, "Class Representatives" to tell someone that their full of crap. The SWTOR dev team needs to take a page from Blizzard's dev team to see what it's like to speak to their intelligent fanbase. They don't need to engage with the mouth breathers that say "Uhh... my class is broken." But if someone comes a long with valid gripe and math to prove it, that's a dialogue that needs to be played out on the forums. THAT shows that the team cares, and that they listen to feedback. Not just Eric trying his hardest to keep this group of motley buttholes together with his plucky humor and Amber's good looks.

 

10) Subscriber Appreciation. This is a free to play game. So when someone gives you their credit card, or continuously buys game cards, you bow and scrape to keep their business any way you can. Take away the cartel coins, and start really appreciating subs with unique and substantive rewards that ramp up with each and every month they play. First month, you get a title, second month, a unique pet, third month, a reusable item like a Jawagram, fourth month, a toy like a flash mob disco ball, fifth month a special reusable dye color that's BoL; sixth month, a special emote, seventh month; a special Master Gnost-Dural holotrainer; eighth month, reusable costume (like the czerka box); ninth month 30 second rocket boots; 10th month, a sub-title similar to the legacy level titles; 11th month; level 4 speeder speed, 12th month a speeder. Then it starts over on month one with another though out gift. Just giving cartel coins and the occasional swag is about the same as giving your spouse a gift card for their birthday. There's no thought to it. Let subs know "You're at the center of everything we do," by giving gifts that "Come from the heart." This current lack of appreciation towards my continued sponsorship of this product makes me feel like I"m a dime a dozen, and that my expenditures don't really matter. (The examples above I just pulled out of my proverbial behind, they can be anything really, it's just the thought that matters).

 

When you add up lack of appreciation to the rest of the other nine examples, I hope you can understand why i say I hate this game. But I WANT to love this game, I love the community. It's just that I don't think that Bioware will listen and make this MMO what it could really be. EA holds the leash, and a company like EA holding the leash will keep any game from reaching a potential that actually pleases the gamer.

Edited September 20, 2013 by gorstram

[AshlaBoga]

I've read all of the responses to this thread, and I'm going to be the first to say it: I hate this game.

 

I play it because I haven't found another game that I find palatable; I play this game because I made some good friends and I couldn't bear to leave them; I play this game because it's freaking Star Wars, and I LOVE Star Wars.

 

Now, here are 10 reasons I hate this game.

 

5) Terrible coding: Mysterious ability lag, poor companion pathing, random instance wide lag causing raid wipes (entire raid experiences lag, and when it stops, we see corpses everywhere), UI issues, poorly supported combat log and game coding allowing for addons.

 

6) Lackluster NPC designing: CLONES EVERYWHERE! I like the ambiance of certain places, but when you zoom in and see the same guy walking around the Senate Tower as a guard, it immensely cheapens the experience. There are continuity errors during voice over segments; new companions weren't made backwards compatible with the story (using HK doesn't net any affection from convo choices).

 

7) No clear direction in gear budgeting. Example: A dev says "Alacrity is now usable for ALL roles!" Then alacrity doesn't work well at all for the roles it wasn't meant for (tanks), and instead of fixing the issue, they release an entire set of gear with pieces of alacrity on it. Instead of going back and re-budgeting the items, they kept it in and said they'll work on alacrity.

 

9) Communication: The recent class representative fiasco shows that there is a HUGE divide between teh playerbase and the development team with Eric Musco being unable to bridge the gap between them. It's not Eric's fault. The game devs take in excellent feed back, which includes math derived from the game, and they return with asinine answers like "Perception problems." I'm going to do the unconscionable and mention Gregg Street (Ghostcrawler), the beloved and hated Dev in gaming. He constantly speaks to the playerbase, and when someone brings something to his attention with actual mathematical figures, he will run them with his team and answer whether or not it will be possible to go forward with a new idea, fix, or what-have-you. He also doesn't need an idiotic program like, "Class Representatives" to tell someone that their full of crap. The SWTOR dev team needs to take a page from Blizzard's dev team to see what it's like to speak to their intelligent fanbase. They don't need to engage with the mouth breathers that say "Uhh... my class is broken." But if someone comes a long with valid gripe and math to prove it, that's a dialogue that needs to be played out on the forums. THAT shows that the team cares, and that they listen to feedback. Not just Eric trying his hardest to keep this group of motley buttholes together with his plucky humor and Amber's good looks.

 

10) Subscriber Appreciation. This is a free to play game. So when someone gives you their credit card, or continuously buys game cards, you bow and scrape to keep their business any way you can. Take away the cartel coins, and start really appreciating subs with unique and substantive rewards that ramp up with each and every month they play. First month, you get a title, second month, a unique pet, third month, a reusable item like a Jawagram, fourth month, a toy like a flash mob disco ball, fifth month a special reusable dye color that's BoL; sixth month, a special emote, seventh month; a special Master Gnost-Dural holotrainer; eighth month, reusable costume (like the czerka box); ninth month 30 second rocket boots; 10th month, a sub-title similar to the legacy level titles; 11th month; level 4 speeder speed, 12th month a speeder. Then it starts over on month one with another though out gift. Just giving cartel coins and the occasional swag is about the same as giving your spouse a gift card for their birthday. There's no thought to it. Let subs know "You're at the center of everything we do," by giving gifts that "Come from the heart." This current lack of appreciation towards my continued sponsorship of this product makes me feel like I"m a dime a dozen, and that my expenditures don't really matter. (The examples above I just pulled out of my proverbial behind, they can be anything really, it's just the thought that matters).

 

Some of your points I agree with. Especially the coding one. Blame it on the 3rd party Alpha Engine?