Not enough people here played Knights of the Old Republic

[Aroseby]

Instanced areas, instanced cities, phased questing, limited ability to find groups, limited guild functionality, inflexible and inefficient interface, and on and on.

 

You hardly see anyone when you're playing. Things that you can put up with in a single player game that you only play for a month are things you can't put up with if you're playing long-term such as the interface.

 

I have a guild, I group up and quest with them. But if you're looking for an MMO to play in the long term this is not it. The story will get old and that's all there really is to this game.

 

This may be true for you but I play on Infinite Empire server and am frankly amazed at how many other players I see when I log on. Maybe your server is underpopulated??

[CharagonIGN]

I never played KOTOR, but I played Mass Effect and Dragon Age, so I didn't exactly come in blind.

[JimG]

OP, I could not agree with you more. You summed it all up perfectly. Been thinking the same thing since I started reading the forums during the first big beta test weekend.

[Xfraze]

Don't understand this complaint.

 

It's a single player game because you are playing it like one. If you want to group up you are rewarded for it. There is not much if anything that discourages grouping in this game and there is plenty of group content to be had here.

 

I think the majority of people who make this complaint are doing so because they can't just click a button and automatically be grouped with people. They have to actively socialize with other individuals to form a party.

 

Granted, I have no idea what the original person who made the above statement (specifically the statement the quote is referring to) really meant when he said what he said, so I could be wrong.

 

But even within the whole "talk to people and group up" spectrum of things (which I love btw), there are issues such as the whole instancing thing. While it might seem like a great idea, the cooldown on switching between instances suck. I wish they'd remove the cooldown when in a group or in an ops.

 

Nothing sucks more than spending an hour cajoling people into killing a world boss only to find that 1/3 of your operation can't down the thing with you cause their cooldown for instance switching is still up for whatever reason.

Edited December 30, 2011 by Xfraze

[Rion_Starkiller]

Reposting so I can give this thread 5 stars.

 

Btw, should we label all the whiners KotOR-noobs? hehe

[Thiussat]

I agree, OP. Most of the people complaining on these forums were probably not old enough to play video games back in 2003 when KOTOR came out and won like 9 million gaming awards. This game is very much like KOTOR with group quests, flashpoints, and warzones thrown in. I, for one, do NOT think that's a bad thing as KOTOR was one of the best single-player games ever, imo.

 

Of course, the size and scale of this effort dwarfs KOTOR.

[Thiussat]

I'm actually fine with their decision on KotoR1's ending.

 

But I really hated how they handled KotoR2.

 

Bioware did NOT develop KOTOR2. They handed it over to Obsidian. That said, KOTOR2 was a good game, but it was obviously rushed by a company who was literally developing their first game.

[MagicmanNC]

Reposting so I can give this thread 5 stars.

 

Btw, should we label all the whiners KotOR-noobs? hehe

 

Thanks!

 

While some of the complaints may have merit on some level, there are many where I wonder if the complainer is playing the same game I am. I haven't seen any of the ones hailed as "game-breaking", I have yet to find an empty planet or zone, combat feels great (this is one of my favorite improvements over KotOR and it's turn-based combat).......

 

I got a huge kick out of some poor "KotOR-noob" on Taris. He started complaining about the planet taking forever and being too long, and immediately 4 people asked "Did you NOT play KotOR?"

 

I have to agree with those who said if you haven't played KotOR, give it a shot. For sure, the graphics haven't aged well (2003 was a long time ago as far as graphics are concerned), but that game contained 3-4 of my favorite moments in gaming to go along with Darth Malak being every bit as good a villain as Sephiroth was.

[FerrusPA]

I disagree. The amount of crappy variations of Revan or Calo Nord or Bastila show that a lot of people played KOTOR.

[urborror]

Is it a dirty trick to release KOTOR 3-8 spread over the playtime of KOTOR 3-31?

 

As a Bioware player, that's my only complaint.

 

Dragon Age 2 seemed like crap, so I didn't play it, but I'm playing this.

 

I think the game's a triumph, though, in general.

[Bionixx]

I think I have to disagree with the OP. I played and loved Kotor but you have to realize that this isn't Kotor 3. This is an MMO game and is built as such. While the Kotor additions such as cutscenes, morality choices and companions are nice and are sure to change the meta game, there are also tons of MMO systems in place that if you expect this to be kotor 3, you willl not enjoy.

 

Sure, right now most of us are in the singleplayer-ish portion of the game where we are leveling up and doing our class missions so this doesn't affect us. However, in a month or two when you have tons of people just hanging around in the space stations looking for heroic flashpoints or waiting for their warzone queue like in that other game.

 

Luckily, if you want only the singleplayer experience, you can always reroll and the story will be somewhat different.

[MiraBindo]

Bioware did NOT develop KOTOR2. They handed it over to Obsidian. That said, KOTOR2 was a good game, but it was obviously rushed by a company who was literally developing their first game.

 

You know, i never did fully realize this. And i always wondered why i liked the story of KOTOR1 so much better. It just never had occured to me that bioware didn't do the sequel. everything makes sense now

 

That being said, i enjoyed KOTOR2 alot, i just found the story (especially the ending) to be much weaker.

 

back on topic, i agree with the OP. and i have no complaints about this game really. Except that i have like 5 different playthroughs planned out because i want to mess with a bunch of different classes/stories

[MagicmanNC]

I think I have to disagree with the OP. I played and loved Kotor but you have to realize that this isn't Kotor 3. This is an MMO game and is built as such. While the Kotor additions such as cutscenes, morality choices and companions are nice and are sure to change the meta game, there are also tons of MMO systems in place that if you expect this to be kotor 3, you willl not enjoy.

 

Sure, right now most of us are in the singleplayer-ish portion of the game where we are leveling up and doing our class missions so this doesn't affect us. However, in a month or two when you have tons of people just hanging around in the space stations looking for heroic flashpoints or waiting for their warzone queue like in that other game.

 

Luckily, if you want only the singleplayer experience, you can always reroll and the story will be somewhat different.

I actually LOVED that KotOR ended up as a MMO. It went kind of like this:

 

2005: played KotOR, LOVED it; immediately went and got KotOR 2, found it OK but not as good; disappointed Bioware wasn't planning KotOR 3, was instead working on their "own IP", which ended up being Mass Effect

2006-2007: periodic Googling of "KotOR 3" to no avail

2008: SWTOR announced; almost jumped for joy at getting "KotOR 3" as a MMO

 

I do recall seeing a fair amount of complaining from KotOR die-hards not wanting a MMO, instead wanting another single-player game, but I have a feeling they're happy with what they got!

[Antifaith]

I agree completely. SWTOR is exactly what I expected and wanted. A never ending KOTOR experience.

 

It was always very sad when I finally had milked KOTOR 1 & 2 for all their worth. Played through both games so many times choosing every option just to see the outcomes. So many memorable moments from those games I'll always cherish.

 

Really sucks so many people don't understand or even get what's happening. That this game isn't like WOW. It's KOTOR in MMO form. It isn't a PVP or raid(end game) oriented game. What KOTOR has always been about is the story and the game is meant to be played through many times.

 

Anyone who hasn't played KOTOR 1& 2 should really go back and play them through. What's funny is I didn't like KOTOR when I first picked it up long ago. Then I tried it again and it was like some epiphany and fell in love with it.

 

If it isnt an end game orientated game then it would want to become so very quickly. End game is what keeps people playing for the most part. I'm fairly certain they want to keep their player base for as long as possible, there is only so much rerolling one can do. The very simple fact of the matter is that if they want to keep people they need to staert focusing on end game hardcore.

[Jett-Rinn]

I played KOTOR my wife didn't with both love SWTOR.

 

I don't see the complaint.

[DarthOmega]

Bioware did NOT develop KOTOR2. They handed it over to Obsidian. That said, KOTOR2 was a good game, but it was obviously rushed by a company who was literally developing their first game.

 

Actually it wasn't Obsidian's first game if you consider that a lot of Obsidian's staff were old Black Isle staff.

 

Also in regards to KotOR 2, there is a tie back to it in SWToR -

 

 

In the Taral V/Maelstorm Prison series of flashpoints, the Exile shows up. She's the ghost that you essentially get the quest from and talks to you while you're on Taral V, and she shows up again at the end of the Maelsotrm Prison when you rescue Revan. All this is Republic side (which I played through in beta), don't know if there is an equal tie in on the Imperial side yet since I haven't been running a lot of Flashpoints.

 

[Wraith_Shadow]

One of the things that bothers me the most is how much stuff that made KOTOR great was removed from this game. Like player choices. A lot of player choices. Has anyone here played champions online? It's free form power system? KOTOR had a star wars equivalent. It gives you a general list of force abilities as well as regular abilities then sets you loose. You equip how you want but then as you level you can either broaden your character or specialize them. No real classes unless you actually wanted to be a specific class, and personally I think that would have worked great for SWTOR. And to make it even better lightside and dark side points actually DIS something other than restrict weapons and armor. I shouldn't have how I hold my weapons dictated by class.

[flofan]

I do recall seeing a fair amount of complaining from KotOR die-hards not wanting a MMO, instead wanting another single-player game, but I have a feeling they're happy with what they got!

 

Yeah, that was me having a temper tantrum because they made it an MMO. I have since repented and love the MMO idea!

[Hunterzen]

I completely agree with OP and that is why I think it should not cost monthly to play. You either go with a single player game that dosent cost hundred of dollars to play or you make a MMORPG with dynamic content and never ending character progression, open world. This game tries to do both and I just don't see it surviving because of that reason.

[Frostyforce]

Really sucks so many people don't understand or even get what's happening. That this game isn't like WOW. It's KOTOR in MMO form. It isn't a PVP or raid(end game) oriented game. What KOTOR has always been about is the story and the game is meant to be played through many times.

 

This goes for everyone in this thread.

 

It seems like you dont understand what an mmo is supposed to be. You can't just be completely story focused because once you get to 50 there's nothing left. Sure u can reroll, but if you reroll on the same faction, aside from the single quest chain on each planet, you're gonna end up listening and playing through the same quests 4 times. And that's boring as hell.

 

You can't just say "treat it like a single player game" because that's not what this is. It's an MMO. They make mmo's for longevity and you dont get longevity by making people reroll 8 times.

[TonyACT]

OP, you're 100% right. If you play this game as though it's a single player game then it's absolutely amazing. If you play it because it's an MMO then you are let down because it doesn't have any of the quality of life features an MMO is supposed to have.

 

They basically created an incredibly amazing single player game, added a ton of time sinks and then slapped on the most basic MMO functionality they could to qualify it as an MMO.

 

Personally, I'm just playing it like it's a single-player game and I'm really enjoying it. I will not be playing it months down the road though unless they make some dramatic improvements to the MMO aspect of the game.

 

I'm playing it as an MMO, as is my guild - and we are happy.

[Bowlan]

Actually, Im going to commit heresy and say, I was not a fan of KOTOR. With that said, I really enjoy SWTOR. Despite all the whining and on the ledge crying, from some of the community, I think did a lot right.

 

-Love the cut scenes and interaction

-Companions, while not new, were implemented well. As a healer, its great being able to move through quests without much down time.

-Death system is more than fair

-Private mission areas are great

-Party system works great, we don't a guild of a gazillion people to do flashpoints etc. It also keeps the comrade, instead of a bunch of greedy little twits complaining they haven't gotten their epic meets.

 

There are things I don't like, such as some of the planetary designs (example Nar Shadaa, Corelia, well...city planets in general), but the fun factor outweighs all of that for me.

Edited January 27, 2012 by Bowlan

[Zorvan]

....and as a result, a lot of people didn't really know what they were getting into with this game.

 

Most of the complaints/demands being posted in here are "things WoW has" which, for better or worse (depending on your point of view), aren't in SWTOR (yet). I guess it was to be expected, since this is the "next big MMO" and a lot of players from WoW are trying it.

 

However, some of the complaints are simply coming from ignorance of the KotOR/SWTOR universe. I have a hard time believing that a KotOR veteran who enjoyed those games would make complaints about these things:

1) Excessive cutscenes/dialogue: this was kind of the backbone of KotOR

2) Companions: KotOR used a party system; you always had 1 or 2 with you almost all of the time, and like SWTOR they were crucial to the story

3) Lack of an "open world": Did people really think they were going to be able to fly around an entire planet 17 different times?

4) Light/Dark side choices: this was central to KotOR, as it affected your appearance, who among your party stayed with you (or survived) until the end, as well as the actual ending of the game

 

If you didn't like KotOR, you probably wasted your money on this game if you even bought it in the first place. If you didn't play it at all, I'm not sure you really knew what to expect.

 

I can remember a developer quote (don't remember the source) that SWTOR is like "KotOR 3 through 8 released all at once". While some gameplay changes have been made to allow for the change from single-player RPG to MMORPG, SWTOR is still pretty much a sequel to the original KotOR (not the second one I don't reckon, as I've seen no references to the Exile or Darth Treya anywhere yet; it wasn't developed by Bioware anyways).

 

That being said, I have thoroughly enjoyed the MMO additions to the KotOR franchise. Seeing people out in the world, grouping for quests/flashpoints, PvP warzones, groups of Imperials showing up in Republic questing areas to get it on......it's been fantastic.

 

Understanding that this game is (in many ways) a sequel to the original KotOR and not just "WoW with lightsabers" is key to one's expectations of SWTOR, and unfulfilled expectations lead to lots of complaint threads . I (and many others) could have told you 3 years ago if you wanted "WoW with lightsabers" you were probably looking at the wrong game.

 

I will admit, I am interested in seeing how Bioware handles "endgame content" in the future. While I like most of what makes this game "not WoW", using a WoW-type model for expansions in terms of new planets, new warzones/flashpoints/operations, a new "Darth So-and-So" to beat down, new space battles, new companions, new races/classes (maybe a Grey Jedi class treated like WoW plans to do the Pandaren) wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

 

Nope. People just don't like being told it's an mmo and being charged mmo fees only to find out they're paying for a singleplayer game with optional co-op. That's the whole issue in a nutshell.

Edited January 27, 2012 by Zorvan

[Jumajin]

This goes for everyone in this thread.

 

It seems like you dont understand what an mmo is supposed to be. You can't just be completely story focused because once you get to 50 there's nothing left. Sure u can reroll, but if you reroll on the same faction, aside from the single quest chain on each planet, you're gonna end up listening and playing through the same quests 4 times. And that's boring as hell.

 

You can't just say "treat it like a single player game" because that's not what this is. It's an MMO. They make mmo's for longevity and you dont get longevity by making people reroll 8 times.

 

I enjoy SWTOR, but I am finding myself in the same boat. I finally got my Bounty Hunter to level 50, and decided to roll a Sith. I had a lot of difficulty getting into it, because outside of the class storyline, I was doing the same Drumond Kass, Balmora, Nar Shaddaa, Tatooine, and so forth quests all over again. Midway through Balmora, I was already bored.

 

So, I switched sides and rolled a Jedi. Again, once that Jedi gets to level 50, I can't honestly see myself doing the same Republic quests all over again just to see another class storyline. What I would have to do is use Space and PvP to level the Alt, and just use the planets for the class storyline, and the Galactic Trade to keep his gear up to date.

 

 

Unfortunately, since our class storylines are tied specifically to that planetary-rail progression, I'm not even sure how they could introduce alternate leveling paths in the future. At least not without spending a lot of resources to revamp class storylines (unlikely) or just allowing players to use an alternate leveling path and ditch their class storylines (also unlikely).

 

So, in the end, I probably see myself staying through March (about the time it will take me to get the Jedi to level 50 since my workload increased recently), and then putting the game aside for a while. Which is a shame, because I truly hoped that SWTOR would be the MMO to come along that would finally keep me interested for several years, again. Unfortunately, that hasn't been any MMO release since 2004-- where CoH kept me for roughly 5 years.

 

Bioware set themselves up for this issue, though, the moment they said in interviews and at conventions that any game that comes along that doesn't have the key features that World of Warcraft has, has set itself up for failure. The moment they said that, they opened themselves to the WoW-MMO gaming crowd. At the same time, they wanted to keep their KoTOR, DA, and ME crowds behind them. In the end, they have a hybrid game that, for an MMO, is fun for a time, but doesn't achieve being either a story-telling game, nor an MMO, as well as it should.

 

I did play KoTOR. Several time, in fact. But there is a huge difference between a single-player KoTOR that is the purchase price only to buy and play, and SWTOR that is the purchase price + monthly fee to buy and play.

 

That's my opinion, despite still liking the game in the end. I just can't bring myself to feel it worth a subscription after I see each planet once, for each faction.

 

Your milage and opinion, naturally, may vary.

Edited January 27, 2012 by Jumajin

[Ansultares]

I played KotoR 1, but not KotoR 2. That said, when I hear AAA developer using a legendary IP to make an MMO, I assume they did their due diligence when conceptualizing and designing their game.

 

They obviously didn't; they adapted KotoR to be an MMO as best they could.

 

I hate beating a dead horse, but this is something that sets Blizzard apart from its competitors. At least, it used to.

 

Even in regards to what they claim they set out to do, develop a story driven MMO, they came across as a B-list developer. The only signs of AAA here are in the quality of the launch, but quality launch ranks in alongside high-quality graphics in terms of what makes a MMO successful; in other words, you can have the greatest launch or greatest graphics ever, but it still won't mask content deficiencies.

 

Faction segregated content should be a major no-no in the industry today; in fact, AAA developers should be tackling the challenge of removing factions at all, or using three playable factions instead of two. Could go on, but I hope I've made my point clear.