It's funny...comparing this game to wow.

[Perfik]

Once more. Seven years have nothing to do. This is competition. You do not compete with vanilla wow. You compete with 7-YO wow. And if you think of it, if an aged game can comfortably compete with a new multi-million one, there is something wrong.

 

People are complaining for things THEY ALREADY have from another game. People are not as patient as they were with wow because simply back then wow was far superior than anything else (this is not biased. numbers showed that) and they had NO CHOICE. Now people have a choice and this make them more demanding.

 

I really hope this will work both ways with blizzard as well. If this game succeeds a little, they will realize they are not alone. This will make them less arrogant.

 

So, yes I can compare since I am a consumer and I choose. I may be a bit more patient than others but NO WAY as I were with wow. I have my wow subscription still active and I feel I have the choice. If BW messes things, no fanboi can save it. If they respect their paying customers I will stay here and watch this game evolve and succeed. EASY AS THAT.

 

SWTOR competes in the MMO Genre not in WOW.

and learn that yanky WoW isnt' the MMO Genre nor is the best MMO ever. WoW is the best selling MMO game nothing more nothing less.

[JynetikXIII]

People who say that you cannot, or should not compare SWTOR and WoW are delusional. We are paying clients of EA/BioWare and we have every right and ability, and in some cases responsibility to hold these companies to established standards of quality. You would just be a really poor consumer if you didn't.

 

SWTOR is having a very successful launch for an MMO because it has all of the primary features needed to make the game playable. It is missing a very large number of small features, but it isn't missing anything that will cripple it as a game. It has all of the big things it needs to get started, which is quite frankly good enough.

 

Now then if we don't start seeing a lot of those small features that make life better for players in the next few patches, then I would start to worry. Little things like being able to sit in chairs, being able to customize the appearance of gear, the ability to decorate the inside of your ship, guild functionality, etc... Those things can and should be patched in as time goes on, hopefully with a high degree of polish.

 

MMO's can't launch with every feature possible, it is literally impossible. You would spend so much time in development that your game would never come out, you would just be constantly building new feature while your game sits idle not making any money.

 

Also It does not matter how WoW's launch went in 2004. The MMO market is vastly different now than it was 7+ years ago. WoW itself has increased the size, and the expectations of the market by such a degree that it isn't fair to compare pre-WoW MMO design and marketing with post-WoW MMO design and marketing.

[Mamono]

What one calls "Fundamentals" of MMO's are very opinionated. Some will call LFG and macros a MUST NEED for MMO's, where others will say they are not. Every game that is able to receive patches is going to release with bare essentials and many bugs, one because of demand, two because of the seasonal opportunities.

 

Has BW made a few keen mistakes for the MMO player base? Of course they have. I believe that character reaction should be a high priority. I also think that once I kill one enemy in a group of five, I shouldn't auto-target my companion, something that happens way too often. I also think that they should have gotten rid of the instances they have going on. Do these bother me enough to say that the game is bad? Not at all.

 

Where it's at now? We only have ourselves as Beta testers to blame. Sure, some issues may have been brought up, but how many actually played the Beta they were invited to play for what it was meant for? Mine was strictly to see how much the server was able to take, but it still popped up the "Any issues" box. How many people just selected Excellent on everything and continued to play? How many threads were made in the forums during EGA about how player A was mad 'cause they couldn't read that it said "Up to five days"? How many threads were made about Queue times? How many threads are now made about how it should have followed WoW's example, only to be a rant about how the game sucks and the player is going to cancel their sub? All these flood the board and make it hard to find ANY actual bug reporting threads.

 

This game are missing so simply as a global chat, and you say that is OK? We dont need a global chat?

Every MMO out there has a global chat. Even from the release.

 

And about Beta testers: There where so many bugs and problems being reported and most of them where ignored. I know of a lot of players, RL friens and guild mates from old mmo's, beta testing the game and reporting and testing it propperly.

All they got, me inlude, was an automatic responce from som stupid "robot" saying that they have noted down the report.

 

You have a ton of feedback and reports of fundamental bugs in beta, and early beta, that has not been touched.

 

No, it is not the Beta testers fault, it is the desition of EA and BW to not listen to the community. But EA and BW are known for their really bad responce with the community.

[belowthelights]

This. Very much this.

 

Got to hand it to Blizzard, they don't get knocked of easily if at all. At the end of the day even if TOR gets 'close' to WoW (which it won't) Blizzard already have another MMO in the works that will absolutely floor the competition. Mark my words.

 

That's part of the reason why Blizzard are the undisputed kings of gameplay driven games. Bioware have always been known more as a story driven company so it's not surprising to me that they decided to simply copy WoW's gameplay blueprint and then paste their story elements on top of that. I do like this game and I think it will be successful for quite a while but it's always risky business trying to compete with Blizzard on their home turf so to speak

 

Also, I find it strange that a lot of people try to write off this game's incredible similarity to WoW as it "just being the genre". If there ever were a genre with untapped potential it's this one.

Edited December 29, 2011 by belowthelights

[Rayaleith]

SWTOR competes in the MMO Genre not in WOW.

and learn that yanky WoW isnt' the MMO Genre nor is the best MMO ever. WoW is the best selling MMO game nothing more nothing less.

 

You tell me to LEARN something that is objective? Besides I said NUMBER showed that. And if you cannot see that wow is a class of itself, what can I say. Every one has an opinion.

[Sparklehorse]

As much as I am enjoying the game I am still upset with Bioware for launching with this UI.

 

They were warned for MONTHS in advance that this would be a big issue for many many players at launch.

 

It would be different if it were just one or two of us whining and crying about it but it wasn't like that at all. It was pretty much unanimously agreed that the UI needed three basic things at the very least.

 

The player should have the ability to scale the UI to their liking. Some like 'em big, some like 'em small.

 

The player should have more choices for ability bars and where to put them. Two on the bottom and one on the right (can't count the left one because the companion bar completely covers that) was simply not going to be enough.

 

The player should be able to place certain elements in a manner that is comfortable and aesthetically pleasing for them. Don't want that chat window in the upper left corner, well just move it to wherever you like it big guy, you are the boss, it's your UI.

 

Thread after thread, post after post, thousands of lines of text and thousands of warnings about these basic features. BEFORE launch we all said. Very important we all said.

 

They did nothing.

 

I love this game, don't get me wrong, but this UI is doing exactly what we warned them it would do. It's turning people off. It has nothing to do with WoW and everything to do with common customer comfort and choice.

[blackcerberus]

/reads replies on the first page

 

OP has been crushed...

[Blacktailstalker]

About the UI, I'm sure they will give us the option to scale the size in the future. As for SWTOR beating WoW in subs, in the marketing world, it only takes 1 year to make the right advertizement and add that special feature with improvements to gain millions of subs. We will only know if SWTOR beats WoW's numbers in subs in 7 years. Why in 7 years? Because I have faith in devs, they listen to the community and they will release features and expansions that will draw more players to this game within 7 years. Dont underestimate the marketing business.

[knightblaster]

I think it's both fair for people to compare current WoW with new release games and also impossible to expect that newly released games will really compete well with WoW. In other words, the comparison from the consumer's perspective is fair and understandable. I just think that the bar is very high. The amount of development dollars that have made WoW what it is currently -- i.e., spent over the last six years -- far, far exceeds what any developer/publisher is willing to spend as risk capital for a new MMORPG. Even half of that amount of money would be excessive and unlikely.

 

At this point, I think we're stuck with WoW, really. It's basically impossible for a new MMORPG to compete effectively with WoW out of the box, because that kind of pre-launch financial investment isn't going to happen -- it's way to expensive and risky to do, especially given how fickle the MMO playerbase is when it comes to games that aren't called WoW. What we have is, in effect, a huge barrier t new entry that WoW has erected -- not that Blizzard has done anything wrong, but it is what it is. A new MMORPG is faced with the choice between spending a ton of risk capital in excess of what any reasonable investor/publisher is willing to send, and shipping an MMO with polished basic features but "missing" much of the stuff that WoW has financed in its post-launch development spending. It's basically a no-win situation.

 

I do think, as well, that some of this is exacerbated with TOR because BW is not a gameplay-driven developer, they are a storytelling-driven developer. And I think this was a part of the appeal of having BW do this, from the perspective of LA and EA. But that ma end up being a gross miscalculation, because Blizzard has, in effect, made the MMO space a place filled with mostly gameplay-oriented players, because Blizzard's own approach to game development is gameplay-driven. So not only was BW stuck with having the issue of competing with the much bigger (over the course of years) development cost that made WoW what it is today, but it was also approaching the design with a storytelling-driven approach, when in fact much of the MMO playerbase is almost entirely gameplay-driven in its orientation and expectations. It's a mismatch.

[Nidien]

Negative, WoW's Character Responsivness and Gameplay Feedback was the same as it is today. There is an elaborate thread on this subject...

 

Please don't blind yourself by love or hatred for a Game or Company... heaping these misguided praises upon SW:TOR and Bioware does the game "no" good. In fact you impede the potential success that could be accomplished by fixing "key" issues.

 

lol, character responsivness and gameplay feedback are two small issues in the grand scheme of thing, and don't take away from the OP's post what so ever.

 

WoW's launch was one of the worst launches a MMO has had...ever. There were holes in the world for YEARS, the druid class was broke for over 2 years, I can go on ALL day, ...and I'm telling ya, character responsiveness, no matter how detailed that post is, is MINOR in comparison.

[Koyi_Aldira]

This game are missing so simply as a global chat, and you say that is OK? We dont need a global chat?

Every MMO out there has a global chat. Even from the release.

 

And about Beta testers: There where so many bugs and problems being reported and most of them where ignored. I know of a lot of players, RL friens and guild mates from old mmo's, beta testing the game and reporting and testing it propperly.

All they got, me inlude, was an automatic responce from som stupid "robot" saying that they have noted down the report.

 

You have a ton of feedback and reports of fundamental bugs in beta, and early beta, that has not been touched.

 

No, it is not the Beta testers fault, it is the desition of EA and BW to not listen to the community. But EA and BW are known for their really bad responce with the community.

 

It's not missing the Global Chat, the Global Chat has a bug, along with a lot of other parts of the newly released game. People aren't understanding that something can work just fine when it's first implemented, however will go haywire once it is released for the general public to use. So say they did pay attention, because I know when I played the invitation weekend of the 26-28 November, there were little to none of the issues I'm seeing now.

 

I never said any of these things were okay. Also, you don't know if there was a lot of feedback from the Beta, you only know what you gave. You can say that they were posted in the forums, but then we go back to what I said: It all gets drowned out by the complaining.

 

Furthermore, a bug fix is not as simple as one would think. The string of code can be miles away from what is being affected. That's why games have scheduled maintenance down times and only release patches every so often.

[dukaso]

Yes, comparing a game against a well known standard in the same genre is completely inappropriate.

[Mekkanon]

I love Bioware and the story driven playing. Unfortunatly, unless they keep this up to date, end game will not be story based, but gameplay based.

However the fact that you can play 8 different stories is pretty darn awesome

 

On the comparison between WoW and SW.

 

WoW has become the standard i 7 years of MMO history. All developers want to have a succes like WoW and all will strive to attain it.

 

BW, started to remove to kinks ( no more grind quests, only as bonus missions) enhanced the emergence in the world and lets forget the Space misions! ( I love them )

 

Why not eat both your apple and your orange?

[Sakushi]

It just shows very clearly who is a new player in the MMO world and who isn't. Anyone complaining that this game doesn't have X feature that WoW has, or that this game will fail because WoW did it better, has not been playing MMO's for more than...probably 4~5 years.

 

Why? Because every single one of these complaints would have also applied to WoW back in the day. Vanilla WoW was a mess in MANY ways. Launch was TERRIBLE. If the same complainers now, had played WoW beta/launch, WoW would have utterly crashed and burned within 2 months of it's release. That's how 'bad' the game was in the beginning.

 

But no, look! WoW became the most successful MMO in the world, dominating the market for years and years to come. Several MMO's have tried to steal at least a significant portion away from that game, and all failed. Yet it's launch and early months were much worse than how SW:ToR's launch has been so far.

 

Get it through your thick skulls already you pretend 'veteran' players that didn't play for more than 5, maybe 6 years tops! You're not a veteran. You're just one of the many newer players that got used to the incredibly casual/easy style WoW has. Now go back to that game and stop ruining it for everyone else here with your complaints.

 

Agreed.

 

Also... WoW being the only MMO you guys have played.. Dont Make you a MMO Veteran.

 

[Linatu]

People are complaining for things THEY ALREADY have from another game. People are not as patient as they were with wow because simply back then wow was far superior than anything else (this is not biased. numbers showed that) and they had NO CHOICE. Now people have a choice and this make them more demanding.

 

Completely disagree. Were you around during Vanilla? When WOW was released, EQ was the powerhouse, and they had a big lead on WOW with a significantly larger world (developed over a few years and expansion packs - I think they were on Luclin when WOW was released?).

 

Besides EQ, there was AC (also very popular with the backing of M$ a year later) and DAoC (whose numbers were climbing rapidly).

 

WOW actually had a decent amount of competition at launch. People did have a choice - several of them.

[Quaade]

Agreed.

 

Also... WoW being the only MMO you guys have played.. Dont Make you a MMO Veteran.

 

 

Having played all the MMOs released to date doesn't make you any more right as to what people want , or should expect for that matter.

Edited December 29, 2011 by Quaade

[carthedani]

It just shows very clearly who is a new player in the MMO world and who isn't. Anyone complaining that this game doesn't have X feature that WoW has, or that this game will fail because WoW did it better, has not been playing MMO's for more than...probably 4~5 years.

 

Why? Because every single one of these complaints would have also applied to WoW back in the day. Vanilla WoW was a mess in MANY ways. Launch was TERRIBLE. If the same complainers now, had played WoW beta/launch, WoW would have utterly crashed and burned within 2 months of it's release. That's how 'bad' the game was in the beginning.

 

But no, look! WoW became the most successful MMO in the world, dominating the market for years and years to come. Several MMO's have tried to steal at least a significant portion away from that game, and all failed. Yet it's launch and early months were much worse than how SW:ToR's launch has been so far.

 

Get it through your thick skulls already you pretend 'veteran' players that didn't play for more than 5, maybe 6 years tops! You're not a veteran. You're just one of the many newer players that got used to the incredibly casual/easy style WoW has. Now go back to that game and stop ruining it for everyone else here with your complaints.

 

I agree that there shouldn't be this much complaining, but SWTOR isn't competing against vanilla WoW. There are certain features that came along as WoW matured. The Auction House is the only thing that SWTOR did that bothers me so much. Looking at it, I don't feel like they even put any effort into making it. SWTOR is it's own game, and I think that it will be patched as needed to fix bugs and find a medium with the community. I'm enjoying it quite a bit.

[Sakushi]

Having played all the MMOs released to date doesn't make you any more right as to what people want , or should expect for that matter.

 

Who said i was referring to what people Want... who said I played all the MMO's to date.. ? what planet are you from...

[Fraxture]

Most WOW players were introduced to their first MMO in World of Warcraft.

Like my wife, my daughter, and my son.

 

They are noobs on the grand scale of the MMO universe.

They have not played any other MMOs, nor do they wish to.

 

My wife even says now that it is nostalgic for her, and that's why she has a hard time giving it up even though the community she fell in love with is dead and the game is repetitive and boring.

Edited December 29, 2011 by Fraxture

[Quaade]

Who said i was referring to what people Want... who said I played all the MMO's to date.. ? what planet are you from...

 

You said it doesn't make you a veteran, the original post said that people who come from WoW don't know better. I'm sorry if I read too much into your post, I just find this overall condescending attitude towards people who have played WoW both alarming and disturbing.

 

People who have played WoW can be as much veterans as anyone else. Just because I didn't play EQ it doesn't mean that I don't know what I want.

 

I'm the user of a current product, I get told that there's this new product on the market that's the bee's knees and a massive step up from what I have been using before. I try out the new product and I find out it's the same as what I'm using, lacks basic userfriendly functions of what I'm used and the innovation consists of it being painted red instead of being blue.

 

As a customer, should my complaints over the product be dismissed because I didn't own the product that predated the one I used. Am I any less a veteran and experienced user because of it?

[Mamono]

About the UI, I'm sure they will give us the option to scale the size in the future. As for SWTOR beating WoW in subs, in the marketing world, it only takes 1 year to make the right advertizement and add that special feature with improvements to gain millions of subs. We will only know if SWTOR beats WoW's numbers in subs in 7 years. Why in 7 years? Because I have faith in devs, they listen to the community and they will release features and expansions that will draw more players to this game within 7 years. Dont underestimate the marketing business.

 

You got to be kidding me. Listen to the community? It is EA and BW you are talking about. They have never listend to the community. Ever. They are well known to go their own way no matter what feedback community gives.

 

And in 7 years, im sure not gonna play this game in 7 years if the devs are as good to listen to the community then as they where in Beta. They gave a living **** about what we did or did not. They had their timetable that they followed. Everything ells was put aside.

The only thing Beta testing was good for was stress testing.

And how do I say that? Well, because you have bugs, problems and stuff in the game that people responed to in beta as bad that skill is in the game. Not even touched, just responed to with an automted mail.

 

Ever asked your self why there is no feedback forum or idea forum? It is not like they can't make them, it is because they will not make them. They are not interested in our feedback and ideas how to improve their game.

Oh it is nice of them to stick to their idea, but if the idea they put out is bad, really bad, then you should listen to the community.

And there is a lot of things in the game that people wounder, *** did they think doing this?

Like the "world" pvp thingy (God I cant remember the damne name:S), you know, the one where you have to cap the "enemy tower".

They tryed to do it in Warhammer online and failed, they tryed to do it in World of Warcraft and failed totally, and SWToR hired in the one who made it in Warhammer online, and what did that guys do? He created the same **** that failed in Warhammer online here in SWToR.

 

It is then you ask your self, /faceslap what where they thinking? did they even check out how bad or good things work in other MMOs or do they just randomly "steal" ideas without checking them out, or checking out what actually is succesfull in other mmo's?

[Sakushi]

You said it doesn't make you a veteran, the original post said that people who come from WoW don't know better. I'm sorry if I read too much into your post, I just find this overall condescending attitude towards people who have played WoW both alarming and disturbing.

 

People who have played WoW can be as much veterans as anyone else. Just because I didn't play EQ it doesn't mean that I don't know what I want.

 

I'm the user of a current product, I get told that there's this new product on the market that's the bee's knees and a massive step up from what I have been using before. I try out the new product and I find out it's the same as what I'm using, lacks basic userfriendly functions of what I'm used and the innovation consists of it being painted red instead of being blue.

 

As a customer, should my complaints over the product be dismissed because I didn't own the product that predated the one I used. Am I any less a veteran and experienced user because of it?

Its more like.. People Assume that an MMO should be more like WoW.. and Have WoW Features, Just Because they have played ONE game thats has dominated the market for 7 years, Does that make you an Experienced MMO gamer, Coming From ONE game or?

 

Every Complaint Has at least one WoW Reference in it...which is annoying

 

Of course you know What you want, but what gamers must know that MMO's don't last forever and Times Change.

old Features that may have worked in Successful Games, May Not work in all games.

[Deffin]

Having played all the MMOs released to date doesn't make you any more right as to what people want , or should expect for that matter.

 

But it does give him insight on what makes an MMO successful. It means he is well played in the genre. He should know what works and what doesn't.

 

He most likely isn't someone coming into this game seeking to heighten their self-esteem getting world first and then leaving.

[Quaade]

But it does give him insight on what makes an MMO successful. It means he is well played in the genre. He should know what works and what doesn't.

 

He most likely isn't someone coming into this game seeking to heighten their self-esteem getting world first and then leaving.

 

 

You are assuming an awfull lot in that statement, all he knows is what works for him and what he's looking for, he can't tell other people what will make the MMO successfull for them, neither should he.

 

If anything wants to be successfull it will have to cater to the very basic tennent of any product, userfriendliness.

 

Betamax was superior to VHS, VHS was more userfriendly so the adult entertainment industry threw their lot in with VHS.

 

According to most "veterans" any MMO that predates was vastly and will always be vastly superior to WoW. Yet WoW is the one we know and compare with today simply because it was more userfriendly.

 

Besides that, casually dismissing both what WoW has done and brought to the genre is arrogance beyond belief and is exemplary of the shortsigthetness that very experienced users often have where they think that they know and should be the golden standard for how anything they like is judged.

I play tabletopgames and trust me everything was "always better in the old days."

 

It's the same here, no more, no less.

 

New users coming to this product expects the same or better refinement as from the product they left behind.

Even then, even if I didn't come from WoW there would still be many things greatly upsetting me about this game, however since I do come from WoW I'm able to put my frustrations to word.

 

1. Having to bypass quests and flashpoints because I cannot get a team or get that one role to make it all happen doesn't increase my enjoyment of the game, quite contrary. My advanced class has the ability to heal, however I'm not specced for it so it's like farting against the wind.

Why can't I change my role so I can fulfill this aspect and still change back once I go into the greater world where it's not so usefull?

 

2. The UI fills up most of my screen, it's clunky and hard to navigate, I want to be able to shrink it so I can see more of what's going on when I'm forced to have the camera close to my back.

 

3. The ingame world seems dead despite there being so many NPCs, they feel like a part of the background because you can't even click on them or interact with them in any way. To further kill the immersion aspect they just stand around, they never move or do anything, except for the few who has a skit they perform ever so often.

 

4. Combat is unresponsive, there is a delay between global cooldown passing and being able to use the next because some of the animations are excessive long.

Also it's disconnecting when damage happens the moment I press the button but the target doesn't "react" untill the animation has hit.

 

All those 4 points are very relevant complaints and I'd have them even if I hadn't played WoW, however, since I have played it I have a base to compare by and expect things to be done as smooth if not smoother.

All the 4 points above can be finished off with "like it is in WoW" and that doesn't make them any less relevant to the enjoyment, or lack there of, I get from the game.

 

A player in TOR told me "You need to like this game to enjoy it" and that's a falsehood, I should enjoy this game because I like to play it.

Edited December 29, 2011 by Quaade

[Quaade]

Its more like.. People Assume that an MMO should be more like WoW.. and Have WoW Features, Just Because they have played ONE game thats has dominated the market for 7 years, Does that make you an Experienced MMO gamer, Coming From ONE game or?

 

Every Complaint Has at least one WoW Reference in it...which is annoying

 

Of course you know What you want, but what gamers must know that MMO's don't last forever and Times Change.

old Features that may have worked in Successful Games, May Not work in all games.

 

No, people assume that TOR should have features in the game that makes it as userfriendly or more as WoW.

 

And they use WoW as a reference to what they want because they have seen it happen in that game. It's not easy to express exactly what it is you want if you find something lacking.

 

If someone says "I want a world that feels more living" it's hard to pinpoint exactly what he means by it, so the natural response is to say "I want a world that feels more living, why can't the NPCs move around and do something, like they do in WoW."

 

I can understand why it grates you, because it must make you feel that everything is compared to it, but try and pay notice to how many times during a conversation, where you express the desire for something to change, you compare the desired aspect to something else.