The hate towards the game... Why?

[Jrr_hypernova]

First rule of fanboys there insane which is why the root word for fanboy is fanatic due to this no matter what a company does at least some so called fans will complain about how it's worst thing ever and ruined everything for all time. There doesn't have to be a valid complaint some people just kicking and screaming a three year who didn't a cookie.

[Kryptonomic]

First rule of fanboys there insane which is why the root word for fanboy is fanatic

 

Except "fanatic" doesn't mean "insane" (Definition) so your correlation may be a bit off there. Also, "fanboys" mean people who will defend something no matter what, not complain about it.

 

That being said, except for all the above clarification, you are correct: some people will complain no matter what. The focus and extent of the complaining often has to do with how much time and/or money has been invested by people. If people feel they have wasted either to too much of an extent, the "hate" will be proportional. This is not to say that all complaints are invalid, however.

Edited January 3, 2015 by JeffNyman

[Edzew]

If your MMO is just one boxed in room with hundreds or thousands of people in it, it is still an MMO, just not one that an explorer would enjoy. Just because you don't like the way an MMO is designed, doesn't mean it isn't an MMO.

 

You mentioned that you didn't know of any other MMO that you could get to max level completely solo. I gave you a list of games that easily could be. By saying optional group content in one game counts, but optional group content in another game doesn't, you are using a double standard.

 

you can slap the label of MMO on any online game really.... like i said before (which you took the wrong way or misread) this game feels more like a single player game. that is it. i dont need to group up at all to level up my class or to see its story. not once!

 

for the other part of your post... i said i never played three of those so i couldn't comment on them but on CoH/V i said that you were wrong... in order to progress in the story they forced you to group up to complete the story/quest it wasn't often BUT it did happen. can you skip it?? sure but you will miss part of the story.. this game has non of that! you dont get an option of skipping group quests because there isn't any. so there isn't any double standard. now once you get to end game stuff then yea there are plenty of mini games that puts you with other players but that's end game not main story questing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Setting aside your unneeded pejorative directed at anyone who likes the game and disagrees with you......

 

NOBODY thinks the game is without flaws. Even it's most positive supporters still criticize it, open bug reports, and ask for clarifications/reasons from devs on some game features. It's just that some people set realistic expectations when they play a game. A game..... real life expectations do not apply.. no matter how much you huff and puff and swing pejorative rhetoric at other forum members.

 

As for SWG and SWG2..... um... while I agree that they are a minority interest in the game population... they are also are a very venomous and vocal minority. They prosecute the SWG2 and SWGreboot agendas every month in this forum. So.. please... let's not pretend they are not squeaky wheels in ongoing forum discussion.

 

Now.. speaking of managing expectations... if you dislike the game so much (enough to call people who like it names in the forum) why do you continue to sub and play? You have lots of choice in the market. Why make yourself as miserable as you appear in your forum posts??? Sincere question, as I have never understood the disgruntled player who insists on playing on in disgruntled manner. It makes no sense. Or... is it that you actually like the game but are afraid to say anything positive (or even neutral about it)?

 

what i really find funny is those people that bring up SWG every month are the biodrones trying to throw labels on people complaining about something in game, even though SWG was never even mentioned at all. those are the people bringing up SWG every month like you said not the SWG vets

 

ive said it before.. i am a Star Wars fan.. i stuck with the NGE far longer than i should have (about 5 months after NGE hit) as well in hopes it would change for the better but it never did, it did get a little better but no where near as good as it was. i bought this game when it came out because i was a Star Wars fan, i tried playing it and got bored very quickly and all the bugs in game made it really hard to play without frustration. i left until i got an email saying the game was going to go free to play, i came back to try out the free to play option, saw it was horribly nerffed, left again until i got an email about GSF, came back to check it out and other changes in game to find they just did a half A copy job of Star Conflict (a game i had already been playing for a year before) was about to unsub again when they announced Strongholds... that kept me entertained for a while and i was about to unsub again when the 12x was mentioned, i figured it was the only way i would ever get my first toon to level 55 so i stayed and got my two original toons to max level. now there really isnt a reason for me to stay around, nothing is ever going to get better in this game and that is really sad, like i said this game had great potential. i hope someday it reaches that potential but unfortunately i dont think that will ever happen. not with this engine, and not with the biodrones chasing off anyone that tries to voice their opinion on the game to try and make things better. instead of taking the ideas of other people and try and make the game better the biodrones jump in and tell them to shut up and go play SWGemu... and can i have your stuff?

[Jrr_hypernova]

I never said all complaints are invalid but there are a good chunk that are so stupid it just baffles me. Like when people complained when bioware gave subs free cartel coins and a pet on may the forth because it wasn't what they wanted. There is nor reason to complain about being given free stuff and yet I've seen lots of people on this site do just that.

[Edzew]

First rule of fanboys there insane which is why the root word for fanboy is fanatic due to this no matter what a company does at least some so called fans will complain about how it's worst thing ever and ruined everything for all time. There doesn't have to be a valid complaint some people just kicking and screaming a three year who didn't a cookie.

 

yea but you have to admit Jar Jar DID ruin everything for all time!! i mean he IS the reason Palpatine rose in power to become the emperor

[Jrr_hypernova]

yea but you have to admit Jar Jar DID ruin everything for all time!! i mean he IS the reason Palpatine rose in power to become the emperor

 

At least he wasn't a 1 foot tall talking dog with a suicidal habit of trying to fight monsters. Althoghe I might pay Money to see scrapy force lightninged.

[branmakmuffin]

now there really isnt a reason for me to stay around

Then don't. You think anyone else cares what you do? I imagine you like to think so, but reality is, as they say, a harsh mistress.

[Costello]

I suspect its because people wanted to love it. They wanted it to be the experience they had watching Star Wars for the first time or playing Kotor back in the days when so much choice was simply amazing in video games.

 

The we got the experience and while the story was there and it offered so much the end game was some what lacking. A lot of the armor was lacking as well, there was a point when everything came with massive shoulder pads.

 

The for a year the game floundered and made the transition to free to play, which did nothing for the content. Then we had a period when something new was added every 2 months. Sadly this might be a raid or a new pvp map or space. If you liked PvE Space then it was about 6 months before you would see what you liked added if you liked PvP map then the same. If you didn't like what was worked on and there was precious little story then it could feel like there was a long time before anything new was introduced.

 

Then Makeb and things looked to be getting back on track, sought of. People noticed the most popular aspect of the game was gone the class story. But then for a year and a half we would see GSF (which is going the way of pve space and mostly forgotten), and GSH (which was a watered down version as it could have been offered as an app or web browser experience and had no role in the game). Though we also saw conquest only this turned out to be a point scoring system. Sadly appears to have nothing to do with conquest and outside of the score board for redoing heroics etc you wouldn't know there wasn't any conquest going on.

 

And then 3.0 the lag and Shadow of Revan. None of which has been overly impressive with the gear grind rehashed without much content to make it feel like anything other than a grind. With it feeling very unfinished and in many ways a prelude to the an actual expansion. Rather than 20 bucks well spent.

 

Add to this long queues for pvp (often incredibly unbalanced) or flashpoints, a holiday event which was reselling stuff on the cartel market, no communication for the development team, lack of follow through on most content such as pve space, completing stores (who knows how most the events and new content) and a combat system that appears to be about cool downs and rotation than much in the way of combat. People wanted to love the game but bit by bit they get beat down by what could have been and what is.

 

It seems that conquest should have been about landing on a war torn world, a cut scene to this effect would have gone a long way and then taking charge of the battle and trying to capture objectives. Instead of crafting 100 supplies or running level 50 ops with alts.

[Max_Killjoy]

There are two kinds of hate directed at SWTOR.

 

1) People who hate everything that's not exactly what they wanted and continue to hate anything that's not what they want. For example, people who hate Strongholds just because they're stuck on the notion of Strongholds as "space barbies", despite the 'holds having tremendous travel, crafting, and QoL utility even if you leave them unexpanded and unfurnished (no added rooms, no furniture, just stick bank terms, vendors, etc, in the lobby).

 

2) People who are frustrated with the game not living up to its potential and being everything it could be, without regard to the particulars of what they individually wanted. Frustrated with the continuous bugs, the recurring problems, the half-finished or abandoned features, etc... and the overall lack of pride in their craft continually demonstrated by Bioware.

[Aries_cz]

It seems that conquest should have been about landing on a war torn world, a cut scene to this effect would have gone a long way and then taking charge of the battle and trying to capture objectives. Instead of crafting 100 supplies or running level 50 ops with alts.

 

I will agree that conquest turned out pretty badly and far from what they could have been.

We can only hope that BW will not see them as total failure, and decide to revisit and retool the system entirely to be more about taking objectives, not "which guild has the most resources farmed". They also need to increase the role flagships have in this system, as now they are completely useless and people do not feel motivated to upgrade them (outside of "yaaay, we got a ship upgrade" feeling)

[Nefla]

Because you get bored quite fast compared to any other game with such a high production budget do not get me wrong its the best mmo if you want to roleplay but there are way better single player games where you can do that. Players do not hate the game because its bad they hate it because its not as good as other mmo. We like to compare things and mmo's are not out of the question.

 

It's the only MMO I have ever liked and I've tried quite a few.

[Edzew]

Then don't. You think anyone else cares what you do? I imagine you like to think so, but reality is, as they say, a harsh mistress.

 

apparently Andryah cares... they were the one that asked

 

but why would you think i actually think anyone cares what i do?? i was just answering a question someone asked me.

[calypsissmexy]

My ignorant musings;

I think 4 things stoke the rage.

 

• the budget

• EA

• the engine

• wow clone exhaustion

 

If this same game had been made for a third of what its estimated budget was, I think we'd all feel a bit better about its shortcomings. This just doesn't feel like a 300 million dollar game considering the perpetual issues from lag to failure to fix 3 year old bugs to sparse endgame content.

 

EA will always factor into any hate toward any game published by EA. if some smaller more warmly regarded publisher owned swtor, the shortcomings would be accepted with more grace.

 

The games engine has reportedly been a perpetual stumbling block for devs when it comes to fixing bugs and adding new features. This is just frustrating as hell all around. It's kinda the one mistake that you wish someone would jump in a time machine and go tell the devs during planning, "Nooooooooooo! Use something else"

 

I honestly think we're tired of WoW clones. We know them too well and so we know when they're not living up to their potential. And it's mildly insulting that game company after game company adopts an identical format thinking we'll come running every time, but we kinda do, cause the format works. It hits a lot of animal brain triggers. But we're also kinda fed up with being able to see the strings. We need a new format that gives a sense of wonder again.

[TheSeventhJedi]

Hate is fun.

Want proof?

 

Avatar was a good movie.

So were Pirates of the Caribbean and Indy IV.

I can't wait for Tron 3.

 

How many people see that and are itching to toss out how much they hate those movies. It's as if my liking them somehow detracts from their holy crusade against movies they just happened to not like. Top all that off with the fact that choosing between the dark side and the light in this game (remember, the dark side is fear, anger, and aggression,) and you've got yourself a veritable cornucopia of vitriol.

[Edzew]

Hate is fun.

Want proof?

 

Avatar was a good movie.

So were Pirates of the Caribbean and Indy IV.

I can't wait for Tron 3.

 

How many people see that and are itching to toss out how much they hate those movies. It's as if my liking them somehow detracts from their holy crusade against movies they just happened to not like. Top all that off with the fact that choosing between the dark side and the light in this game (remember, the dark side is fear, anger, and aggression,) and you've got yourself a veritable cornucopia of vitriol.

 

hey i liked Tron 2 and pirates of the Caribbean!!!! Avatar wasn't bad i just didnt like the kid they got to play Aang, that and half the actors didn't pronounce Aang's name correctly B^P o wait you mean the one with the blue kitty people or the air binder one?? the blue kitty one was better than the air binder one but both were really entertaining.

 

 

and even though i am a huge Indy fan... i hate the Even Stevens kid even more.... he is the Jar Jar of the Indyverse B^P if it wasnt for him i would have liked the last Indy movie B^P

 

 

i dont think hate is fun and like others have said before i dont think anyone really HATES this game...frustrated, fedup, aggravated?? sure but not HATE

[BlackEyeArtistry]

Fix the ability lag and my hate goes away.

[TravelersWay]

There have been plenty of good examples of why "the hate" is strong with the SWTOR community. I don't think there is much to be added to what we already have in this thread. What interests me is the underlying reasonings for those examples we have been given. I think it is telling in that no one game community is immune to what we witness here. I have been a member of, or at least followed, dozens upon dozens of MMO communities over the years. This one bears little difference to any of those in the past or the present.

 

We may be able to boil it down to one word - Entitlement. Of course, that already raises hackles in the gaming community, but bear with me. Much of what I have witnessed comes down to the simple fact, already mentioned, that each and every gamer expects something different from their gameplaying experience. Being a gamer is an expensive hobby, despite the fact that the cost of games has been relatively static over the course of the last two decades. Games were $50-$60 when I was buying them back in the 90's and they still remain that price when I buy them today. Yet, we all know that the cost of development has increased steadily during that time. Part of that is because, we the gaming community demand more from each new game that is released.

 

Regardless, the gaming community wants to feel a sense of value for the money they spend on a game. As such, when we purchase a game, we already have preconceived expectations of what that gameplay experience will be, or at least should be when we begin playing that game. Some of those notions may be because of what we have learned about the game prior to our purchase - either reviews or from the PR surrounding the game. It could also come from experiences we have had in the past from games we deem to be similar, or from games that were produced by the same developer and publisher. Ultimately, we come in with all these preconceived ideas that often do not match up with the reality of what the game is or could be, and thus the disappointment ensues which then begins to spiral downward as each and every "problem" whether minor or major becomes magnified by our disappointment. Bugs and similar issues are a natural part of game development and game play in this modern age of gaming. That doesn't necessarily make any bug we come across any less onerous, but the fact of the matter is that each and every game that has been, and will be released, will have bugs and issues. Many of them will continue to have bugs and issues for the entire lifespan of the game. That, simply, is the nature of the technology today and every piece of software created will suffer from that to one extent or another.

 

The reality of the situation is that we, as a gaming community, have somehow come to the conclusion that every game we buy should appeal to our individual playstyle and notions of what is fun and entertaining in our games, when that is obviously an impossible task. We have failed to see that not every game could, nor should, appeal to every gamer, just as not every movie will appeal to everyone who sees it, nor every book appeals to everyone who reads it. Yet, as gamers, when this situation occurs, we then see it as some duty or right to "hate" on the game in every possible manner. We just cannot seem to accept the fact that the game "just wasn't to our taste" and move on to something else. Time and again, gamers will use the "WoW-clone" argument to bash the industry, or a game, for "failure" because it failed to "innovate" or "do something different." Yet, in my experience at least, every time a game has tried to do just that, it fails just as much to attract some mythical audience that the "WoW-clone" was expected to attract. So ultimately, why should the industry do anything different? We as the gaming community have already shown them time and again, that though nothing can match WoW's numbers, despite all the crying we may do, the comfort zone is really where we would rather be.

 

Some ideas have been put forth here that post-WoW MMOs fail because of the "Wowification" of the genre, and that we would be better off going back to the old days of MMO gaming. That may be somewhat true, but really, what constitutes failure here? Clearly when a game shuts down, it can be considered a failure, but even that may not always be the case. The problem here is that the community will twist the definition of failure to fit whatever preconceived argument they are trying to make. Is SWTOR a failure in that it did not gain the playerbase that WoW has gained? Yes, it failed in that aspect, but when looking at the whole picture, I would find it very hard to say that SWTOR is a failure as a game. It is more profitable and popular now than ever before. I find it difficult to believe that could be considered failure. Just because any MMO today cannot reach WoW's popularity does not mean it has failed. Even WoW would not be able to compete with itself in today's MMO climate.

 

Can niche games be successful? Yes, as proven by Eve. Eve, like WoW, is a unique snowflake in the genre. It proves, that there will always be a place for niche in the market, just like there will always be a place for sandbox, themepark, and all those other niche playstyles. But let's not forget that this is a business just like any other. It is a business in which there is cutthroat competition. In order to stay in business, the competitors must ensure that they produce products that can bring in the maximum amount of profits possible. You can't do that by being niche, especially in a business where costs continue to rise, but your customer constantly bucks against any increase in costs to them. Therefore, the business must appeal to the largest amount of that customer base that they can. In the case of the gaming community, it is the "casual" playerbase.

 

Now, there have been countless debates and studies regarding the aspect of "casual" and "hardcore", some of which we have tackled in these very forums, thanks in part to LordArtemis' efforts. Without going into another one of those debates, we have to face facts that this is a very difficult thing to categorize because every study or debate tends to have varying ideas of what constitutes casual and hardcore. The simple fact of the matter is that there are far too many factors involved in how any particular player wants to play, and can play, a game to make any such overarching simplification into such categories impossible.

 

In the end, we have come to witness vast changes to the genre and the gaming industry in general thanks in part to the shifting priorities of those who comprise the community to whom the industry offers its services and products. In order to remain viable and competitive, the industry must continue to follow the social trends of its audience. That trend has been, and continues to be, bite-sized chunks of easily accessible content. Does that come as a disappointment to those "old school" gamers who prefer to "work" in their games for accomplishments and play in a persistent world which they can consider living in as a second home? Of course, but we must realize that without this general appeal and without the paradigm shifts already experienced, there wouldn't be a genre at all to play with. Has the "WoWification" of the genre changed how we play our games? Indeed it has, it has also enabled the genre to not only continue to survive, but thrive. Without it, make no mistake, the vast majority of games we would be playing today would be single-player games that may offer a tacked on multiplayer component. WoW has not only made the genre more accessible, but has also saved it from obscurity and eventual extinction. From my experience, those that are "habitual haters" are those that still refuse to accept those changes on some level, and ultimately refuse to accept the fact that a game is what it is and no game can live up to the potential created for it in the communities' individual and collective mindset.

Edited January 4, 2015 by TravelersWay

[DARTHOSIRUS]

This game has gotten way too much hate since it first was released. The hate I see the most is from the hardcore gamers who complain about not enough end game content. The pvp is my end game content, if one loves pvp there is always something to do.. I always enjoy putting my skills to the test out on the battlefield. I don't grind ops. I do it once or twice then I'm done. Alot of cool stuff on the gtn costs a fortune so saving up to collect mounts, different armor, pets, emotes, crystals was occupying my time from Rothc until Sor. I guess my one big complaint would be the deprivation of story content in such large gaps. It took a good year after launch for ROTC and nearly 2 years after that to get SOR. If it wasn't for my love of kotor, collecting, and pvp, I wouldn't bother with this game. Now with strongholds there is another credit sink to keep me occupied after I finish the SOR which is going surprisingly fast, and I am by no means rushing through it like most. The thing about this game it's a story driven mmo, and there's just not enough story. The story they have is good, very good, but it always gets you wet and leaves you wanting more. World of Warcraft or some other non voiced mmorpg is somewhat story driven, but their story content is really and afterthought, and players of WoW are not playing it for the story. World of warcrafts story is on the back burner, where swtor the story is front and center, so some updates say every 3 months would be great. Edited January 6, 2015 by DARTHOSIRUS

[Rafaman]

Heh. This turned into an interesting thread. Travelersway, nice post. Too long for most, unfortunately, but I think it is a pretty accurate description.

 

I mentioned that people love to parrot what they read on the internet with little or no real knowledge, but another phenomenon has evolved and crystallized here although it is not exclusive to this game.

 

For a time, there were subs here who maintained their subs just to troll and hate. They would literally create new accounts just to troll. There were various reasons for it which I won't get into here. But in addition to that, they also went to other websites and posted their hate. For some, it is quite simply a sport. Forum PvP. For others it was self affirming. They got there 5 mins of attention in chunks much to their delight.

 

And just to be clear, these were not criticisms with the intent to point out flaws that if fixed would make the game better. No... this was an active campaign to derail the game in anyway possible.

 

The fall out was significant however and not in the way the haters hoped. It simply made our feedback less credible.

 

And so... there you have it. Haters are not critics. Yet critics get labeled as haters because of the ground work done by those with an ax to grind. And real valid arguments and praise gets ignored.

 

TL;DR. It's the internet. Anonymous hate is rampant. Reason and logic are not found here.

Edited January 6, 2015 by Rafaman

[thewitchdoctor]

Hate is fun ... It's as if my liking [it] somehow detracts from their holy crusade against [something] they just happened to not like.

 

There is a grain of truth in here that I cannot find an eloquent way to expand upon.

 

Like with so many other facets of modern life, there is no more middle ground. You (the general 'you') can no longer just say, 'meh, its great that you like it, but I didnt like this, this and that.' It has to be ALL THE THINGS AWESOME or it is PURE CRAP! It is as if there is so much white noise in our lives that we cannot just calmy say, 'eh, didn't like it,' it has to be shouted from the rooftops that 'THIS THING SUCKS!' It is as if we are suffering from the Michael Bay-ization of consumerism: a simple 'don't like it' isn't enough. We have to not like it with EXPLOSIONS!

 

Hate of a consumer product is like the reverse of FaceBook likes. It is as if there is a zero-sum game at play wherein if I like this thing then that is less like for your thing.

 

And Gamer Hate is just a whole next level. The idea that you, as a (perhaps not so often) paying consumer should have a functional product is a legitimate expectation; but damn, you look on any game forum and the slightest failure, issue, bug, valid or simply due to (never-to-be-admitted) operator error, or even worse, simple disastisfaction is tantamount to a crime against gamer-humanity. It is all extremes: you are a white knight fanboi or a hater.

 

I am quite sure that these (and any other game/entertainment media) forums would provide an interesting sample for some bright psychology/sociology honours student.

[Max_Killjoy]

We may be able to boil it down to one word - Entitlement. Of course, that already raises hackles in the gaming community, but bear with me.

 

No, probably not. If you could have made the same points without using that worn-out buzzword, you should have If not, then... whatever.

Edited January 6, 2015 by Max_Killjoy

[branmakmuffin]

There have been plenty of good examples of why "the hate" is strong with the SWTOR community. I don't think there is much to be added to what we already have in this thread [my emphasis]

 

[snip 200 words or so]

Talk about irony.

[thewitchdoctor]

For a time, there were subs here who maintained their subs just to troll and hate. They would literally create new accounts just to troll.

 

And I always figured they were seriously lacking in some aspect of their lives. Watching grass grow would have been a more productive use of their time.

 

Miss them, I do not.

[MotorCityMan]

Why do you hate the haters? Or for that matter why hate the hate? Being tired of people hating this game is akin to missing the half time show at the Super Bowl. Certainly there is hate for that? Or isn't there? Perhaps the haters are having their hate fueled by circumstances intrinsic to the conditions they find themselves in, thus leading me to conclude that a more radical shift in paradigms is advisable. All food for thought is to be considered.

[thewitchdoctor]

Being tired of people hating this game is akin to missing the half time show at the Super Bowl.

 

If you replace Super Bowl half-time show with a rerun of Jerry Springer, then maybe. Both (haters and Springer) are better off just ignored.