In SWTOR the "Real" Game starts at level 1

[Miths]

I've never hit the level cap in any of the many MMOs I've played over the last decade - I guess I've just been playing with myself rather than playing games for all those hours then?

 

SWTOR is likely to be the first MMO where I'll hit the level cap with at least one character before I get bored and move on. First and foremost the story and voiced dialogue are to thank for that.

[Silvaro]

I had two totally different outcomes when I played two different dark Jedi. I played both all dark side options but something happened when I was talking with Ranna. Jedi A had a hot and steamy time with Ranna and Jedi B didn't. Somewhere in all the option I took a different answer and thus two different outcomes. Now how does that effect/affect the end game outcome I don't know but each game play was slightly different.

[Merex]

I enjoy the game very much. Let the haters hate. The people who bought this game for the 30 day trial, knowing they were going back to WoW regardless of game quality, will be gone soon.

[Pheroras]

No, 3 hours of cut scenes about go collect 10 X on each planet gets old very quickly.

 

people always shine on about the immersion, but every cut scene breaks my immersion from the gameplay, and the 'acting' is terribad

[Akkalevil]

All I can say is that you and I are obviously playing a different game. In my SWTOR the missions are incredibly well written and voice-acted. WHat BW has done here is nothing short of spectacular.

Most quests in SWTOR are much better written than most quests in other MMO, but it's a long way to "spectacular", unless you're the kind of guy who speak like PR people, with "awesome" and "epic" as his two most (over)used words.

 

I enjoy the unexpectedly good storyline FOR A MMO, but it's still nearly not as good as single-player game in this department, and it feels VERY "MMO-ish" for many other fetch quests.

 

There is also an overabundance of supposedly "galactic-scale importance" missions that amount to killing a few low-levels guys guarding a supposedly "strategically crucial" item and have absolutely no impact on the world (despite the supposed importance of the mission) and give you some ridiculous amount of money (I remember the "this patent will be so big that it will bring economic changes on the galactic sale, here is you 40 % cut of the benefit, which is 150 credits").

 

These kind of missions just break the "storyline-based" experience and remind painfully of the very MMO-ish system of the game...

[Darth_Grissom]

WOW ,you must set the bar awefully low for "spectacular".

 

Playing world of warcraft for 7 years having to read all of the quests and continueously watching my EXP bar thinking how great it would be to already be max level was setting the bar low.

 

In this game, I dont watch my EXP bar at all and the quests are fun and I enjoy them, even if they are kill x amount of creatures. I dont see the quests that way and am having fun leveling, somthing I never had fun doing in wow.

[Maeleena]

What happens when you hit level cap? That is the difference between a single player game and a MMO. End game IS the game in an MMO, everything else is prologue.

This is the fallacy that needs to end, because end-game content does not an mmo make.

[Lankybrit]

people always shine on about the immersion, but every cut scene breaks my immersion from the gameplay, and the 'acting' is terribad

 

IYHO.

 

Because tons of people, me included, think the voice acting is very good.

 

Cheers.

[Zatoni]

I'm sure it's been mentioned before, but SWTOR is hardly groundbreaking.

 

The game starts at level 1 in CoH, and has for about seven years now. With sidekicking, reverse sidekicking, scaling mission difficulty and a multitude of extremely different builds, outfits, and characters, along with changes to update and smooth out the lower level game, there's really no problem with rolling a new character whenever you want and immediately playing with your friends. They have an end-game and it's completely optional.

 

That said, I do agree with the the OP. The real game starts at level 1.

 

And it ends at level 50.

 

After that you get a tired rehash of phoned-in, WoW derivative gear grinds.

 

The problem is the real "game" isn't really tied to unique gameplay experiences and playing with your friends or alone, or experimenting with different characters and builds. Most of that is pretty same-y and familiar to people who play MMOs, especially WoW. It's mostly the story, which doesn't have a whole ton of replay value, especially if you leveled up with friends the first time and got to see big chunks of their class stories as you went.

Edited January 19, 2012 by Zatoni

[kufa]

Wait until you level your second character with the exact same world quests.

[GnatB]

What happens when you hit level cap? That is the difference between a single player game and a MMO. End game IS the game in an MMO, everything else is prologue.

 

That is certainly the mindset of quite a few MMO players. (what was the statistic, something like 6% of WoW players are "end game players")

 

They're all wrong though.

 

The "Real" game starts at level 1 in all MMO's. SWTOR is just a whole lot more obvious about it.

 

"End game" is merely a holding pattern to keep players who got through the actual content too quickly from leaving the game before the developers have time to add more *real* game.

 

If "End Game" was really the entire point, they would *only* have "end game" style content. Instead of spending MUCH more money/effort on the non end-game content than the "end-game" content.

[TomWhiting]

Precisely why I love this game so much.

 

Exactly

I love the fact that this is story driven, not a grind from 1-85!!!

[Sephendrine]

OP, exactly. I've never felt so engaged in a game from the very start. I don't care at all about level cap. I'm playing several different types of characters on both sides and each story line is unique.

 

Amazing how many don't get it, or appreciate it. But their broken down bus is leaving town soon.

[thecoffeecup]

Well I felt it didn't really take off until level 10. Then again, that's a couple of hours that you need to get used to your character and abilities anyway. Edited January 19, 2012 by thecoffeecup

[xQuicksilverx]

Yea.. consensus here is that "Yes, swtor changed up the 1-50 leveling experience, in a very good way" but also that "This dynamic eventually loses its charm.. right around the time you hit max level"

 

 

The benefit to having a game that "starts" at max level is that you can never 'beat' the game. As of right now, I feel as if I have beaten SWTOR. I have most of my top tier pve gear, have cleared all the content available. All I need is to do the new KP bosses on nightmare mode, and then I will have wrapped SWTOR.

 

Maybe in a few weeks/months ill be down for another playthrough, and htne i can wrap it again

Edited January 19, 2012 by xQuicksilverx

[GnatB]

IMO, "end game" is for suckers.

 

Smart players aren't fooled by devs, and if/when they finish the actual gameplay, they simply suspend their accounts until the next EP.

 

'Course, also probable that most players actually level at about the rate the devs expect, and thus seemlessly transfer from one EP to the next without ever hitting "end game".

[LordBerenger]

What happens when you hit level cap? That is the difference between a single player game and a MMO. End game IS the game in an MMO, everything else is prologue.

 

 

So you just want or expect that in any MMO the progress towards max level is just boring grind and the ''real fun'' starts at Max lvl where you can ''destroy''' anything you see with your high lvl char and just engage in max lvl ''raids'' and PVP all day long not giving a damn bout quests and storylines or anything else for that matter?

 

Jeez, sometimes i wonder where the gaming industry is heading.

Edited January 19, 2012 by LordBerenger

[PeterLorre]

Well, all I can say is that I absolutely love this game. It's the best MMO I've played (so far) and I've played quite a few. I guess it just really fits my taste, and I haven't skipped any of the so called 'boring' cutscenes (well ok, I have, but only because they haven't fixed the font issues and i can't always read what those aliens say 800x600 fts)

 

I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed at first, because I would have liked an experience that was even more similar to playing kotor, but I got over it.

 

So yeah, two thumbs up. Thanks Bioware!

[TheSeventhJedi]

No, 3 hours of cut scenes about go collect 10 X on each planet gets old very quickly.

 

 

To you, perhaps. I've been playing since last December, and I still haven't skipped a single cutscene. I find myself caring about - GASP! - sidequests. Now THAT is crazy!

[Antinoobkiller]

bs.. when wow was released and i made my first characther it was absolutly a blast to lvl from 1 - 60. The world was just amazing AND SO BIG, and u find enemies/alliance players anywhere and EVERYWHERE. It was far more huge and greater experince than lvling in TOR. IMHO.

 

Sure, the story is quite nice but the planets and the exploring u do in this game ARE boring. And u are always alone which make the feeling even worse.

 

So why Tor has has this story it fails to deliver since exploring in this game is fkkin boring. The planets feels like a jail system where u go where the quests are. In wow there was far more places to lvl and explore and it didnt feel like JAIL. You could actually go anywhere. No lame sharding or instancing.

 

WOW HAD ONE, well 2 HUGES WORLD and TOR HAS LIKE 10 small/medium boring planets. Sharding planets. I think that is one reason why TOR FAIL SO MUCH in my eyes.

[uidLucid]

Those that are new to MMO's may not fully appreciate this topics title. Let me explain. In most MMO's the "Real" game does not start until you reach the highest level and begin running the "so-called end-game content". Take the king of MMOS, WoW, as an example. The road from 1-85 is an excruciating one where nothing you do will have any impact on your toon at level 85. It is called a "grind" for a reason. WoW is not the only culprit here. Most MMOs follow this same broken paradigm.

 

SWTOR breaks the paradigm and sets a new one.

 

In SWTOR the "Real" game starts the moment you see the first cut-scene of your character. Starting at level 1 the decisions you make FORM your character. Each mission, each answer you chose has an impact. The game starts at level 1 -- not at the level end-cap! People, this is HUGE! It is genre-setting! It blows away the current MMO paraqdigm of grinding to end-cap levels.

 

This is why SWTOR succeeds. It is ground breaking in its approach. It amazingly combines the single player aspect with the MMO one. Dont let the complainers fool you either. There is an absolute TON of group content in this game. Yes -- It is an MMO in every aspect of the word EXCEPT it breaks the grind.

 

Your SWTOR life begins at level 1.

 

You deserve awards and your own title for this.

[Exaaar]

I just want to represent another philosophy of MMO-players. I know I'm not the majority, but I also know I'm not alone.

 

I've been playing MMOs since EQ1 in 1999. I /hate/ the attitude "the game doesn't start until max level." Why? Because I hate repeating content over and over for no reason other than to get gear which I need to... repeat the same content but slightly more quickly? I hate it with a passion.

 

When I find an MMO I like, here is what I do: I buy it. I play one character to max level. If I really like it, I'll start a second, or even third character of a different class and play them to max level as well. Then I consider my 50 dollars + sub money well spent, and quit the game until an expansion comes out. Then I buy it, re-install, re-sub, play until I've experienced the new content once or twice, then quit again.

 

To people like me, SWTOR is a godsend. How can anyone think the real MMO doesn't start until max level when 99% of hand-crafted, lovingly created content is NOT at max level? Why do they even bother putting that stuff in if it's 'just a prologue'? Why not just let you create a max level character and run raids all day right form the get-go? Because to most players that's boring as sin and they'd never be able to make any kind of decent subscription numbers.

 

I was, after 10+ years, getting bored of the MMO paradigm. But SWTOR has gotten me into it again because it makes me feel invested in my character. I chortle along with his diabolical answers. I want to get to the next planet, not just because it is a stepping stone on the way to the 'real game', but because I want to see what's going to happen in his story. This is the rare MMO where I might actually play ALL the classes, just to experience all the stories.

 

Then I will quit. Because raiding is boring and PvP is always annoying and never can be perfectly balanced.

 

Plus, just for the record, why on earth would you WANT a game which you can keep playing forever? There's new games coming out all the time, both MMOs and other sorts. If you're stuck in some never-ending MMO endgame, it saps time away from all the other great games you could be enjoying.

Edited January 19, 2012 by Exaaar

[Paganini]

Who necro'd this crap...

[KennethHoover]

Agreed. The fact this game is so story-driven, and that story begins on level one and makes you feel invested with your character, is probably the number one reason I am having so much fun.

[bhillegass]

So glad someone mentioned the CoH example. A game that has never increased level cap (at least last time I looked) but has found success for many years in the market. I played for 4 years even after hitting cap with that same character with little to no end game. Back then it used to be about the community and having fun together. Now it's about what can you do for me? Quality post by OP.