Is SWTOR the pariah of MMOs?

[NoFishing]

It's an interesting question OP. Having recently become very interested in a different, yet-to-be released MMO, it is interesting to see the community forming around it express negative opinions about SWTOR (aside from the class stories), with pretty much universal agreement. That doesn't happen when they talk about GW2, where the discussion is about things that were both good and bad about it. And about WoW, they usually only say "I stopped playing it X years ago".

 

So I think there is a fairly large population of ex-WoW players that are looking for their next MMO, and have been looking for a few years. And I think they expected much more from SWTOR than it actually delivered at launch. That disappointment seems to have left them completely dismissive of this game, no matter what new stuff is added. I think GW2 avoids this fate by deviating significantly from the WoW model, so that game gets more consideration.

Edited February 14, 2014 by NoFishing

[GalacticKegger]

FYI, the GW2 forums also have a bunch of people talking **** about GW2 and how it flopped. You think forums are some beacon of truth and integrity?

The poster has been here since all of 6:00 AM yesterday morning and has done nothing but trash the community. Unless they have somehow managed to min/max every class through end game AND make over 100 astroturf posts like the one you commented on in less than 20 hours (that's right folks - 1st day on the job and over 100 posts in less than 20 straight hours), they are making it up as they go.

 

Looks like the forums need ANOTHER reset ...

Edited February 14, 2014 by GalacticKegger

[Jeweledleah]

every MMO I've ever played ends up trash talking every other MMO on the market with slight exception of the MMO's that are no longer running (they get a mix of nostalgic "that was the best MMO evah" and the usual trash talk"). World of Warcraft tends to get the brunt of it, being the biggest and most well known, upcoming MMO's range between second coming and "its going to fail hard", SWTOR also gets its share, with few people coming to its defense, just as people come to defense of WoW, rest of the MMO's get fewer mentions. business as usual.

 

meanwhile people who don't feel so insecure about their choice of MMO that they have to trash everything else to prop up their favorite to anyone who will or will not listen? just play what they like and don't much care about what people not playing their game think.

 

edited to add, to something I saw above. GW2 gets its share of vitriol and then some. its the third most mentioned MMO in my experience, possibly tied with SWTOR. a lot of people expected it to be this incredible, wow killing messiah of MMO's and its just a beautiful game with a few different mechanics that works for some people and doesn't work for others.

Edited February 14, 2014 by Jeweledleah

[AshlaBoga]

FYI, the GW2 forums also have a bunch of people talking **** about GW2 and how it flopped. You think forums are some beacon of truth and integrity?

 

^This.

 

I was on the WoW forums last month and they were talking about how WoW is dead... with like 8,000,000 players.

 

If that's "death" then sign me up:p

Edited February 14, 2014 by AshlaBoga

[NoFishing]

GW2 gets its share of vitriol and then some. its the third most mentioned MMO in my experience, possibly tied with SWTOR. a lot of people expected it to be this incredible, wow killing messiah of MMO's and its just a beautiful game with a few different mechanics that works for some people and doesn't work for others.

 

I was certainly one of those more "hopeful" about GW2 than I should have been. But even there, most of the comments I have heard (or maybe just the ones I agree with), are that they got the leveling experience just about perfect, but missed the mark on combat mechanics and not having a trinity system.

 

But when they talk about TOR, they just say something like "yeah, we all had high hopes for that game"...and that's it. It's like they all experienced some kind of shared trauma that doesn't require words to express. It's just...odd.

[AshlaBoga]

I was certainly one of those more "hopeful" about GW2 than I should have been. But even there, most of the comments I have heard (or maybe just the ones I agree with), are that they got the leveling experience just about perfect, but missed the mark on combat mechanics and not having a trinity system.

 

But when they talk about TOR, they just say something like "yeah, we all had high hopes for that game"...and that's it. It's like they all experienced some kind of shared trauma that doesn't require words to express. It's just...odd.

 

Some expected SWG 2.0. Others expected KOTOR 3. What we got was a fully voiced Star Wars version of WoW with mission cutscenes. Which has it's merits, but is lacking in originality.

 

The big issue with SW is that it rarely exceeds expectations. It's a good game, but many of us were hoping for a great game.

[Prototypemind]

Some expected SWG 2.0. Others expected KOTOR 3. What we got was a fully voiced Star Wars version of WoW with mission cutscenes. Which has it's merits, but is lacking in originality.

 

The big issue with SW is that it rarely exceeds expectations. It's a good game, but many of us were hoping for a great game.

 

The game isn't perfect, but it's the only MMO that I've ever even tried. WoW never pulled me in, nor LOTRO as much as I like the console games, didn't touch Aion, or EvE, or GW even though it's free. The story in this game is quite well done for the most part, though there is certainly a lack of continuation in that regard as the game plays the exact same way for all classes on Oricon and Makeb

 

Looking forward to the future updates, though I do hope that by some miracle more individualized stories can make a return at some point. It would be a huge bolster to know there's more to come after Corellia than just a daily runs, Ops, and vitriol in PvP. Knowing how EA runs things and the general climate of MMOs I doubt this will happen, but we'll see.

 

Again, despite the failings they've done a lot of things right, and we know no MMO will ever live up to the hype the masses heap on it.

[Jandi]

Most people who bought the game at launch had completely unrealistic expectations, which were crushed. Another thing is that people that I know at least don't know that the game is actually doing relatively well and that they didn't put the game on maintenance mode as so often happens when games go F2P (not always, but often).

 

People were expecting more from BioWare and the cluster**** that was the launch left a bitter taste in the general consensus of the MMO crowd which will never be mended, especially with the EA logo in the game.

[PaxSithari]

There is something else to consider when soliciting opinions online. People love love love to gripe. If something goes wrong, they will inevitably complain loudly and vocally to as many people as possible. If something runs as it should, no one notices, and those that do don't compliment or even say "working as it should". Especially online, where people revel in their negativity, one-upsmanship, and hyperbolic histrionics, opinions take on distorted proportions and importance. Something inconvenient or disliked becomes "OMG FAIL WORST EVAR!". Since we haven't yet adapted proper [ahem] "garbage" filters (or, it's easier to take someone at their word as opposed to second guessing every single sentence read), we read more into one person's opinion, and give it undue weight. After all, they took the time to write a whole paragraph, they must be indicative of a larger, silent majority. Or alternately (if it fits your personal narrative), the silent majority isn't worth the time or effort, as they didn't bother to be heard. So the negative gets a spotlight, magnification, and undue weight towards being "true".

 

I will use this example: if you work in an office, you don't notice when the bathrooms are clean, only when they're dirty. You don't compliment the custodians, or even think about the bathrooms being anything else than how they are. The moment you find something not to your liking, you will likely complain, and continue to until it gets rectified. Such is with any service.

 

How does this tie back to SWTOR? It's not the biggest failure ever, it's not the worst game ever. People are offering their opinions, that's all. It's no more a pariah than many other activities. Which, if you think about it, gamers are pariahs, MMO players are pariahs - you can narrow that down until you get something like "People who play Miraluka female Maras with medium complexion, black hair, scars, and a yellow saber crystal on Shadowlands are what's wrong with modern gaming!"

 

TL;DR version: people think their opinions are important, people who read may think "that person's opinion is important, so mine must be wrong", but it's all bantha poodoo. Go with the biscuit that suits your taste, you won't go wrong.

[Jeweledleah]

I was certainly one of those more "hopeful" about GW2 than I should have been. But even there, most of the comments I have heard (or maybe just the ones I agree with), are that they got the leveling experience just about perfect, but missed the mark on combat mechanics and not having a trinity system.

 

But when they talk about TOR, they just say something like "yeah, we all had high hopes for that game"...and that's it. It's like they all experienced some kind of shared trauma that doesn't require words to express. It's just...odd.

 

really? becasue I hear a lot of "grindy, boring, chaotic pve, unbalanced pvp about it. and those are some of the more reasonable complaints.

 

I was one of the people who preordered GW2. i actualy didn't have all that many expectations and I wasn't a GW1 fan, like some of my friends (I did play it, but I never really got into it - didn't get a single character to 20, and I tried a few classes and every possible starting module). but one of aforementioned friends, got me into one of the beta weekends. and I loved it then. I thought it was fantastic. but I only had enough time to get to about lvl 7 on couple of characters that I tried.

 

what I didn't realize is how quickly I would get tired of it. I still play it sometimes. for a change to scenery etc. but my friends, the ones that loved original game, the ones that were so very excited for the sequel - were disappointed. and their opinions are a lot more negative than mine.

 

disappointment is like the opposite of rose colored nostalgia glasses. it tends to color everything in far darker light then experiences of those who participated in/played something without expectation bias.

 

who is to blame for over-inflated expectations? I'd say both marketing and people who allowed their expectations to grow to unreasonable proportions up to and including expecting something that was never even promised.

 

/shrug.

 

but back on topic? for some people SWTOR is as much of a sneer worthy topic and popular literature, music, books, movies etc. but who cares about their opinions as long as YOU are enjoying whatever it is their are sneering at?

 

P.S. Cluster**** of a launch? heh.. it was one of the smoother launches I have experienced, personally. not perfect, but expecting perfection in an MMO is well... unrealistic. or are we talking about the fact that some of the quality of life improvements were added much later? again - that's pretty typical of an MMO. at least in my experience.

Edited February 14, 2014 by Jeweledleah

[iankalo]

SWTOR is **** ! I hate it ! Stupid game. I never played so lame and ugly game before. EA should turned it off immeadiatly!

 

 

Me -> Happy subscriber for year and a half +

 

[DARTHOSIRUS]

and then they spend 2 seconds thinking about what else there is and the license.

 

SWTOR is only as big as it is because of the SW license and going F2P...it's so profitable because of the nicken-and-diming.

 

I like SWTOR well enough. But that doesn't change facts. Fact is SWTOR is one of (if not the biggest) MMO failure. Despite what Bio tells you now they WERE in fact, gunning for WoW...the game didn't cut it becuase of shortcuts and design choices...and because of that people left in droves and SWTOR was forced to go f2p nickel-and-dime shop in less than a years time. That's sad. The competition SWTOR has outside of WoW are MMO's that made a lot of the same mistakes.

 

But I applaud your attempt.

 

It worked. The first year for swtor was a disaster, but the nickel-dime shop saved the day. The game is profitable hence not a failure.

[Hakkology]

Well sadly state of the MMO market stands. I have tried some of the MMO's that we are talking about when we compare SWTOR with. Here are my experiences.

 

-GW2 made horrible design changes in the long run, wasting their unique system forcing players to play a broken dungeon system, preparing its downfall. Check out the latest patch in game with all out nerfs just to fix their broken dungeon system and check out how many people are going to drop from it. It was a really fun game, but its merely a shadow now to what it was.

 

-WoW is now a game made up for kids, sadly. Timeless Isle is a stupid idea and made the game more of a boring grindfest instead of what it was. New expansion pack WoD was interesting until they started to discuss giving people free level 90s for money. Talk about P2W.

 

-TESO is going to be really disappointing. I'm sure it will have fans, but the engine it uses is very similar to what we have in SWTOR. Also gameplay lost A LOT of its core beauty compared to other TES games which is easily noticable if you participated in Beta. Countless game breaking bugs two months before the game is released, the amount of money they ask along with subscription and the way they are selling a race with collecters edition, any gamer with sense will see how retarded TESO is in its current state. It's not even a competition for SWTOR.

 

-Wildstar might nail it. The way they look into crowd control and aiming, its like the 2.0 of Guild Wars 2 and the fact that they have sandbox features is going to pull a lot of players. Half my guild is willing to try the game. I personally am going to wait for reviews coming from my friends then jump on it if they are good. If only i could get a beta invite for this, i could have a more conclusive say in this though every one of my friends who tried the beta enjoyed the game.

 

-SWTOR was always the better one. Using Star Wars elements and combining them with well made endgame operations, its my current winner. Of course it still lags and feels clunky with its engine, and the way they look at technical problems is by far the best meme material of the year. Also focusing on GSF slowed them down a bit, forcing us to do repetitive content. Still its one of the best MMO's out there and if you ask me its in a really good place competition wise.

 

These are my current experiences with the trending MMOs out there.

Edit: Fixing grammars :>

Edited February 14, 2014 by Hakkology

[Essence_of_Light]

<snip>

Edit: Fixing grammers :>

 

Its grammar.

 

Sorry, couldn't resist. Don't hate me pls.

[chuixupu]

In every game's General chat, people are bashing all the other MMOs.

[Krewel]

In every game's General chat, people are bashing all the other MMOs.

 

Actually, WoW is the only MMO in which general chat isn't brimming with endless and pointless discussions about other MMOs. Sadly, in all other MMOs, including SWTOR, general chat revolves around the comparisons with WoW ... so sick and tired of this. Inferiority complex is strong!

[chuixupu]

Actually, WoW is the only MMO in which general chat isn't brimming with endless and pointless discussions about other MMOs.

 

It happens, I've seen it; just not all the time. But so many WoW players have only ever played WoW or else they played EQ a long time ago.

 

Sadly, in all other MMOs, including SWTOR, general chat revolves around the comparisons with WoW ... so sick and tired of this. Inferiority complex is strong!

 

It's because just about everyone who is playing swtor has played WoW and either now hates it because all their friends are still there and they can't stand pandas, or else they played it long ago and look back on the early days with rose-colored glass nostalgia.

(or both)

Edited February 14, 2014 by chuixupu

[Telaan]

Nop. It's not. Usually what you are seeing most of the time in these other games are either SWG veterans that did not get SWG 2. People who had WAY too high of expectations for this game even though they saw what they were getting (it's called delusional) and people who just for the sake of hating and bashing a game will hate and bash it no matter what.

 

SWTOR is the cool thing to hate for some reason. I never understood the dislike for this game. Bashers can go on and on about how it failed and completely flopped, but does a game really have to beat WoW for it to be considered a success?

 

What if it has a bunch, yes a bunch because this game does, of players who enjoy themselves, the company keeps putting out patches, are maintaining the game and overall keeping the player base healthy, happy overall all while they add things in the game to keep it going, update it and are making money because of it? I say that's a pretty good way of looking at success.

 

You are just seeing angry, bitter, delusional, completely clueless people that don't even know what the game is because they haven't been here since they quit a month after the game got released so they are going by THAT. They are NOT going by what is the game now. This game is great and they can say what they want. Defend SWTOR if you play other games then.

 

I generally enjoy this game, but most of your post is nonsense. This game failed to meet almost every single expectation possible. Most of that was due to bw's failure to listen to those of us who full time tested in regards to almost everything.

 

- The game was launched far too soon.

- The time between beta server wipes was ridiculously short; and as a result most if the "endgame" remained virtually untested.

- What LITTLE endgame existed was shallow, bug ridden, and extremely laggy.

- The game takes the idea of theme park, which was honed to a science in WoW, and took it to an unhealthy level. As a result every planet just seems like a large dungeon. It makes WoW appear borderline sandbox.

- PvP failed to deliver on every level. It has since been run into the ground, ending up where we are today with garbage arenas; which a vast majority of players were vehemently against both pre and post launch.

- Poor Dev -> player interaction early after launch, setting the tone for future reaction from playerbase.

- The game missing many features which have become expected of a modern, post WoW, theme park mmo.

 

I could go on, but you get the point. Like I said, I generally enjoy this game. But the bitterness expressed by ex-players and the reputation it has is WELL deserved.

Edited February 14, 2014 by Telaan

[Devlonir]

I thought WoW was the pariah. Everyone seems to hate WoW. Hell play WoW and you'll see people complaining about the game. SWTOR, as number 2, is also hated. Popular things are hated these days. Look at how people want to claim Avengers sucked. Because suddenly everyone has refined tastes hence why all action movies kill in the box office lol. The internet sucks. Get used to it.

 

There is no reason to worry not when others speak bad of you, it is when they no longer speak about you at all when you need to start worrying.

 

SWTOR, like WoW and GW2 are succesful because people still complain about it. The fact people do means the game still matters.

Who complains about RIFT anymore these days? Or TSW? Or other, truly unsuccesful, MMO's?

[Manweth]

Heh.

 

The guy above is right. As long as they speak about it, it's fine.

 

Just look at Secret World.

 

That's a truly fail game.

 

Not SWTOR, Not GW2.

[Hakkology]

Its grammar.

 

Sorry, couldn't resist. Don't hate me pls.

 

No hatred, thanks

Was typing in a hurry

[Jandi]

There is no reason to worry not when others speak bad of you, it is when they no longer speak about you at all when you need to start worrying.

 

SWTOR, like WoW and GW2 are succesful because people still complain about it. The fact people do means the game still matters.

Who complains about RIFT anymore these days? Or TSW? Or other, truly unsuccesful, MMO's?

 

A lot of people complain about SWG, or rather it's "upgrades".

[PaxSithari]

Actually, WoW is the only MMO in which general chat isn't brimming with endless and pointless discussions about other MMOs. Sadly, in all other MMOs, including SWTOR, general chat revolves around the comparisons with WoW ... so sick and tired of this. Inferiority complex is strong!

 

That's because WoW's gen chat was usually (until I quit with Pandaria):

 

Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker ad nauseum

Anal {ability/quest/weapon/whatever}

racist/sexist/over the top political stupidity - I remember playing not long into 2009 when people were happily referring to the recently elected US President as "N-word"

"Why is Arthas' horse named Invincible if I can see him?" spam

"What is love?"

Special character flooding of gen chat

Gold spam

 

 

Whereas TOR chat is usually:

 

Jawa + movie title

people trading, forming ops, or telling people to queue for PvP

Some sexist and political talk, but nothing like in WoW

LOTS of amusement trolling Imp side (i.e. trolling for the "lulz")

complaining about WoW, TOR, EA, Blizzard, any and all games

Gold spam

 

So you're right, WoW didn't discuss other MMOs. That would have raised the level of discourse.

[Machshoot]

I'm surprised none of the usual EAware white knights have shown up yet, it must be passed their bed time.

 

But yeah, SWTOR does tend to get more hate than other MMO's, at least from what I've seen. Even from talking to people IRL about games, when I bring up that I play TOR, they look at me funny and say something along the lines of " Ugh why? Didn't that game die? ". I believe it's more misinformation than anything, as is the case with most things. People who have never played the game just hear that it died, and that's what they believe and regurgitate.

 

The main reason I play TOR is because it's Star Wars. Another reason is that I can be casual in this game and not care, where as with other MMOs like WoW, I always felt like I needed to sink hours and hours into progression raiding and arena in order to be happy with the game. But is this a "good" MMO? not really. If you replaced the star wars setting and made the exact same game but as a typical fantasy based MMO, I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole, and I'm sure a lot of others feel that way.

Edited February 14, 2014 by Machshoot

[OwenBrooks]

I think it comes down to individual experiences

 

I played City of Heroes for 8 years and would still be there ... thx NCSoft ...

 

So I went looking for a replacement game and tried out quite a few other MMOs

eg

Champions Online - Life Subscriber

Star Trek Online - Life Subscriber

Marvel Heroes

Lotro

Lol

Aion

etc etc etc

 

Which one did I find suited what I wanted to play , swtor

 

Each person is different in my view , like some people like pasta and others hate pasta

Some just keep eating Pasta so they can tell everyone they hate pasta

Edited February 14, 2014 by OwenBrooks