Why I Criticize SWTOR

[Archellion]

Looking around these forums, throughout the years, I can see that not much has changed. There's still a black cloud of negativity that haunts the General Forums area, leaving the atmosphere tinged with a vibe of nihilistic doom and gloom. "Everything's broken," "The game's terrible," "SWTOR should just die in a fire!" Certainly, this sense of foreboding is often exaggerated and overstated; however, there is still plenty of room for honest criticism.

 

I like this game, I think, though it may be more accurate to say that I like the idea of the game. I like what the game could be, but isn't yet. Maybe this is a problem a lot of us have. We muddle through, enjoying the bright and shiny bits where we can find them, all the while hoping that Bioware will come along, and rub away the tarnished parts to reveal a valuable treasure beneath the grime. The good news is that I don't think this is a totally unreasonable thing to hope for, in the coming years.

 

These days, the MMO market seems to have settled down. Game companies have come to realize that WoW's success was probably either a fluke or just the perfect juxtaposition of timing and design. No other MMO (and there were many contenders) was able to duplicate WoW's blockbuster status. So now the market has "cooled off." Even WoW is a shadow of its former self (if a giant one, still), and that's the perfect time for SWTOR to grow its player base. Folks who are moving on from WoW don't have a great many alternate choices for scratching the MMO itch, and with new Star Wars movies hitting the big screen over the next few years, SWTOR is actually in a pretty good place; with one caveat.

 

They have to actually polish up those grimy spots.

 

If your roof leaks when it rains, you can't blame the clouds for water damage in your home. You can't solve the problem by buying new windows. You have to replace the roof. Likewise, if you step on the scale and it shows you being 100 pounds overweight, you can't attribute those results to big bones or water retention. You have work on your diet and exercise. Problems can be fixed, but only after you've correctly and honestly identified them.

 

SWTOR has problems. Maybe the developers know it, but it's hard to tell because many of these issues have been here since the beginning. As players, we identify these problems and give feedback on them, not because we want to destroy the game, but because we want to see it made better. We want it to grow so we'll have more friends to play with. We want it to shine so we can tell everyone, "See! I told you there was something amazing underneath all that dirt and dust!"

 

Now is a really great time for EA to invest some money into SWTOR, revitalize its development team and make sure they have the resources they need to take the feedback we're giving and have a good, honest look at their thought processes and design philosophies. Then they need to enact positive changes in those areas to build SWTOR into a successful oasis of fun in the MMO wasteland.

[DarthWoad]

Now is a really great time for EA to invest some money into SWTOR, revitalize its development team and make sure they have the resources they need to take the feedback we're giving and have a good, honest look at their thought processes and design philosophies. Then they need to enact positive changes in those areas to build SWTOR into a successful oasis of fun in the MMO wasteland.

 

Wait.... you didn't know? B-b-b-but......

In the eyes of all of our partners, SWTOR is a huge success. BioWare supports this game. EA supports this game. Lucasfilm supports this game. Disney supports this game. In fact, for a game that has been live for almost 5 years, we are receiving an incredible amount of support from all of our partners. It’s both amazing and humbling.

 

On a serious note, their communication is still terrible, and when they do communicate, they just pat themselves on the back and talk about what an amazing job they've done. I don't think SWTOR will suddenly become amazingly better any time in the near future.

[Toraak]

Your last paragraph hit the problem on the head tho. EA has never put much $ back into SWTOR. Based off of the content we've gotten recently, and the many times BW has had to lay people off, SWTOR is on a relatively small work force, as well as a small budget. This means that the content that the game truly needs to have made for every expansion they can't do. By the look of it they can work on 1 thing at a time (Story, PvP, GSF, end game PvE). If EA had actually put any $ back into this game, BW would have all of these in every expansion.

 

This is why there is so much negativity in these forums. We see what COULD be great about this game, but the lack of a budget to keep all aspects of the game with NEW content is what is slowly killing this game. The game isn't dead, but the servers are slowly having fewer and fewer MMO players consistently logging in. (no clue on the story players that show up once a month to do the new chapters and log off for the rest of the month. BW may be making a ton of $ off of these players for all I know.)

Edited September 13, 2016 by Toraak

[Firolas]

Agree with what you're saying OP

 

But sadly this part you wrote is the problem....

 

Now is a really great time for EA to invest some money into SWTOR

 

There's been a severe lack of investment for sometime now.

[Loadsamonie]

Agree with what you're saying OP

 

But sadly this part you wrote is the problem....

 

 

 

There's been a severe lack of investment for sometime now.

 

Which is honestly quite surprising considering that SW:ToR is, by far, the most expensive game ever created. I don't know of ANY game that took more than 100 million dollars to make.

Edited September 13, 2016 by Loadsamonie

[Turshek]

EA never understood that focusing on one thing at a time is not the way to go because it always leave lots of people unhappy.

 

They should have updated each part of the game all the time, upgrading and making new stuff for each part every 6 or 9 months at minimum.

 

But it seems they are happy with the amount of money SWTOR generates now and have no intention on trying to get more which would require investing now to get more later, I think a strange concept for the suits at EA, especially to do so post launch...

[Archellion]

I don't know of ANY game that took more than 100 million dollars to make.

I can name one: Star Citizen.

 

It's not even done funding yet. $123,564,224 in crowd-funded donations and counting as of this post.

 

But then look at the scope of that game. You'll walk around a planet, head to your hangar, climb into your ship, fly out of the hangar and then up through the atmosphere and into space. Next you'll Quantum Drive over to a space station in the system, land there, get out of the ship, walk inside the station, buy some cargo, go back to your ship, load the cargo and take off.

 

Next you'll Q-Drive over to the jump point, navigate it to the next system, Q-Drive to the planet, fly DOWN through the atmosphere and land at a mining station where you'll unload your cargo.

 

Provided, of course, that you weren't intercepted by pirates, on your way there, who would have disabled and boarded your ship, wherein you would have engaged in CQB, FPS-style, to eliminate the threat before continuing on your journey.

 

Even though that game is still in development, much of that gameplay is in and working, and improvements are being made fairly rapidly. Even if the total funding exceeds $300M, that'll be a bargain for the type of gameplay Star Citizen is offering.

 

It would be hard for me to believe that EA isn't casting a jealous eye on that pile of donated money Chris Roberts is using as a foundation for his nascent gaming empire. If they can get it through their little grey, cubicle brains that vision leads to profit, we may yet see SWTOR live up to its potential.

Edited September 13, 2016 by Archellion

[Loadsamonie]

As HideOfBeast would say: "Creativity is not a profitless enterprise; it's just a difficult one."