Top 10 criticisms of SW:TOR with responses

[Kurnea]

ROFLMAO

 

Never played WoW in my life. I have played this game for 12 days now and have not been in a single party with another person. if that aint single player i dont know what is.

 

Single-player would be like Dragon Age or Skyrim, where there's no opportunity to group with people whatsover.

 

This game has heroic areas, flashpoints, and operations, all of which require you to group with people to get them done. Yes, you can skip by doing that, but the options remain.

[Perfik]

1. Bad or cartoon-y looking graphics.

 

> Its called stylized graphics. SW:TOR's graphics are not designed to be photo-realistic so that they will not look dated in a year or two. If you want photo-realism, play BF3 (great game EA).

 

2. Linear storyline.

 

> SW:TOR is a story-line driven game. All MMORPGs with experienced-based character leveling are by nature linear to some extent. SW:TOR is unique in that at each step in the storyline, you can make decisions from multiple paths that will affect the destiny of your character.

 

3. No open world. I dont like exhaustion or boundaries.

 

> Its a big galaxy, did you expect to be able to ride a speeder from one planet to another? Exhaustion and boundaries are part of every MMORPG including WoW. No game world goes on forever.

 

4. No dungeon finder.

 

> Type /who and hit enter. You can find people who are LFG and in the zone where you are questing or doing heroics. Dungeon finders, especially x-server destroy MMO communities and distort character progression by removing players from the flow of the game and rewarding bad behavior. Server communities are self policing, if you behave badly, you will be removed from your flashpoint or heroic group and likely remembered so be a team player and help your group.

 

5. No x-server warzone finder.

 

> Just click the Republic or Empire button and wait, you can queue with a group from your guild or server. See #4 for x-server issues and their effect on server communities. If you want a mindless, anonymous pvp grind, SW:TOR is not the game for you.

 

6. No flying mounts.

 

> You have your own space ship, you can go anywhere in the galaxy in an instant. What more do you want?

 

7. Companion crafting and gathering.

 

> You have more than one of your own personal valet, bodygaurd, cyber-@#$ toy, servant or slave. Yes, you have to equip it and give it gifts. What more do you want?

 

8. SW:TOR is boring, cut scenes and voice acting are time consuming and a waste of time.

 

> Voice acting and cut scenes are a key part of the game. If you have MMORPG ADHD, try ritalin. If that doesnt work, SW:TOR is not the game for you. Group or social gameplay is strongly encouraged. If you dont play well with others, there are some parts of the game that you will not experience.

 

9. SW:TOR is not a true MMORPG.

 

> By whose standard? It may not be the MMORPG you are used to but SW:TOR is definitely an MMO-ROLE-PG. Take it from a role-player, SW:TOR is a role-players wet dream.

 

10. SW:TOR is buggy.

 

> More than 3 years and hundreds of millions of dollars in development. Take it from a software developer, software development is an imperfect process. BioWare does it better than most. Given the size and scope of SW:TOR, the game is remarkably stable and bug free. If you find a bug, report it. Remember that THE LACK OF A FEATURE THAT YOU WANT IS NOT A BUG. BioWare's programmers are bug-stomping as you read this.

 

good post

 

+1 @OP well said/written

[Lightmgl]

1. Bad or cartoon-y looking graphics.

 

> Its called stylized graphics. SW:TOR's graphics are not designed to be photo-realistic so that they will not look dated in a year or two. If you want photo-realism, play BF3 (great game EA).

 

2. Linear storyline.

 

> SW:TOR is a story-line driven game. All MMORPGs with experienced-based character leveling are by nature linear to some extent. SW:TOR is unique in that at each step in the storyline, you can make decisions from multiple paths that will affect the destiny of your character.

 

3. No open world. I dont like exhaustion or boundaries.

 

> Its a big galaxy, did you expect to be able to ride a speeder from one planet to another? Exhaustion and boundaries are part of every MMORPG including WoW. No game world goes on forever.

 

4. No dungeon finder.

 

> Type /who and hit enter. You can find people who are LFG and in the zone where you are questing or doing heroics. Dungeon finders, especially x-server destroy MMO communities and distort character progression by removing players from the flow of the game and rewarding bad behavior. Server communities are self policing, if you behave badly, you will be removed from your flashpoint or heroic group and likely remembered so be a team player and help your group.

 

5. No x-server warzone finder.

 

> Just click the Republic or Empire button and wait, you can queue with a group from your guild or server. See #4 for x-server issues and their effect on server communities. If you want a mindless, anonymous pvp grind, SW:TOR is not the game for you.

 

6. No flying mounts.

 

> You have your own space ship, you can go anywhere in the galaxy in an instant. What more do you want?

 

7. Companion crafting and gathering.

 

> You have more than one of your own personal valet, bodygaurd, cyber-@#$ toy, servant or slave. Yes, you have to equip it and give it gifts. What more do you want?

 

8. SW:TOR is boring, cut scenes and voice acting are time consuming and a waste of time.

 

> Voice acting and cut scenes are a key part of the game. If you have MMORPG ADHD, try ritalin. If that doesnt work, SW:TOR is not the game for you. Group or social gameplay is strongly encouraged. If you dont play well with others, there are some parts of the game that you will not experience.

 

9. SW:TOR is not a true MMORPG.

 

> By whose standard? It may not be the MMORPG you are used to but SW:TOR is definitely an MMO-ROLE-PG. Take it from a role-player, SW:TOR is a role-players wet dream.

 

10. SW:TOR is buggy.

 

> More than 3 years and hundreds of millions of dollars in development. Take it from a software developer, software development is an imperfect process. BioWare does it better than most. Given the size and scope of SW:TOR, the game is remarkably stable and bug free. If you find a bug, report it. Remember that THE LACK OF A FEATURE THAT YOU WANT IS NOT A BUG. BioWare's programmers are bug-stomping as you read this.

 

But what happens when you've told all the people the game isn't for them and they leave and all thats left is 50,000 people and the game fails? Therein is the problem.

 

"role-players wet dream" unfortunately does not apply to most of the market making this a niche game meaning its not gonna survive as a big budget title. Most people fall into the "MMORPG ADHD" category and whether you like it or not they're the ones that are gonna keep footing the bill for the game to get developed.

 

There needs to be a balance of reward vs time invested and the gameplay needs to be solid. Right now this game lacks both of those things so people will up and go elsewhere if these things aren't solved quickly even if other parts of it are really cool.

 

PS: For stylized graphics these are not very impressive. They slapped the bloom effects on at the very end of beta most likely because people were saying the game looked like it was from 2004. I don't recall any of the early gameplay previews or videos having it either. Those videos had much higher quality graphics which were disabled at some point in beta because they couldn't get the engine to stop crashing with them.

Edited January 2, 2012 by Lightmgl

[darthdoll]

But what happens when you've told all the people the game isn't for them and they leave and all thats left is 50,000 people and the game fails? Therein is the problem.

 

"role-players wet dream" unfortunately does not apply to most of the market making this a niche game meaning its not gonna survive as a big budget title. Most people fall into the "MMORPG ADHD" category and whether you like it or not they're the ones that are gonna keep footing the bill for the game to get developed.

 

There needs to be a balance of reward vs time invested and the gameplay needs to be solid. Right now this game lacks both of those things so people will up and go elsewhere if these things aren't solved quickly even if other parts of it are really cool.

 

That would never happen... Why you say.

 

Because, it IS an MMO, we get a new planet, new FP, will get new content and eventually expac's.

 

I really hope all the QQ'ers who flock to new games just leave.

 

How many people said EQ will fail? How many WoW? See a pattern?

 

P.S:

 

Got link to what you say?

Edited January 2, 2012 by darthdoll

[Seisaan]

But what happens when you've told all the people the game isn't for them and they leave and all thats left is 50,000 people and the game fails? Therein is the problem.

 

"role-players wet dream" unfortunately does not apply to most of the market making this a niche game meaning its not gonna survive as a big budget title. Most people fall into the "MMORPG ADHD" category and whether you like it or not they're the ones that are gonna keep footing the bill for the game to get developed.

 

There needs to be a balance of reward vs time invested and the gameplay needs to be solid. Right now this game lacks both of those things so people will up and go elsewhere if these things aren't solved quickly even if other parts of it are really cool.

 

Telling the vocal minority to leave will not cause over 1 million people to cancel their subscriptions. This game was marketed from day 1 as a story driven MMO. It is your fault if you did not catch this during the years of development. The math has already been done and this game needs to retain 500,000 subs for one year to be a financial success. ToR can very easily keep that number unless some drastic change occurs that drives most people away.

[covu]

How about we all keep on playing SWTOR merrily, while making less posts justifying an awesome game and let the haters post on Idon'tgiveadamn.com while sending there grips to the nearest brick wall

[Kungrah]

Ahh, the Biodrone rallying point.

[Lightmgl]

Telling the vocal minority to leave will not cause over 1 million people to cancel their subscriptions. This game was marketed from day 1 as a story driven MMO. It is your fault if you did not catch this during the years of development. The math has already been done and this game needs to retain 500,000 subs for one year to be a financial success. ToR can very easily keep that number unless some drastic change occurs that drives most people away.

 

If you really, really think that the vocal minority is what I'm talking about then you need to do some market study.

 

What they market it as is completely irrelevant. Saying it is a story driven game is great and all but how many people who are playing MMOs care about that? Not very many.

 

The majority of the MMO market falls into very casual parameters. If you ever heard Jeffrey Kaplan give some of his GDC speeches he gives great lessons on how the average MMO player wouldn't bother reading quest text if it was more than a couple hundred words, you really think those people are gonna stop and listen to voiced dialogue?

 

The success of the game will depend if they can capture enough of the market. Right now its targeted at a very specific fraction of that market. That is a problem for such a large budget title.

 

I would be very surprised if this game retains 500,000 subs after 1 year unless its solely because of the Brand Power of the Star Wars IP or the game begins to add features that appeal to a broader range of the market.

 

PS: To the guy talking about why WoW was successful with all the naysay, thats the exception. They did it right, they made a game that appealed to the majority of the market. Its these games like Darkfall that target niche markets and get themselves in trouble because they don't realize how few of those people are actually in the market and how divided they are.

 

The real question with TOR right now is are there 500,000 people who will play what is basically a single player game wrapped in a MMO shell because they care about plot, voice acting, and storyline progression.

Edited January 2, 2012 by Lightmgl

[Perfik]

I don't mean to be captain bringdown here, but you're the one who made the initial claim, that bioware is an above average company, coding wise, and only cited that you know as evidence (fallacy of argument from authority) it is your burden, actually, to provide evidence that bioware is an above-average software developwer within the scope of "how many bugs" their games have at launch.

 

Otherwise, the statement may be dismissed without any evidence, as this poster has retorted.

 

 

Disclaimer: i like the game, i just noticed some fallacious argument there.

 

bioware is an above average company cause it created (85+ score ONLY)

 

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/baldurs-gate

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/baldurs-gate-ii-shadows-of-amn

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/neverwinter-nights

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/star-wars-knights-of-the-old-republic

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/mass-effect

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/dragon-age-origins

http://www.metacritic.com/search/all/Mass+Effect+2/results

 

that's

 

7 AAA games in the studios history

 

and critics do not give 85+ scores to buggy as hell games.

Bugs are normal cause of the nature of computer gaming (virtually limitless compinations of HW) combined with massive amount of coding. Always something just "goes unnoticed"

 

you must understand that 100% bug free games never existed

[Lightmgl]

bioware is an above average company cause it created (85+ score ONLY)

 

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/baldurs-gate

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/baldurs-gate-ii-shadows-of-amn

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/neverwinter-nights

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/star-wars-knights-of-the-old-republic

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/mass-effect

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/dragon-age-origins

http://www.metacritic.com/search/all/Mass+Effect+2/results

 

that's

 

7 AAA games in the studios history

 

and critics do not give 85+ scores to buggy as hell games.

Bugs are normal cause of the nature of computer gaming (virtually limitless compinations of HW) combined with massive amount of coding. Always something just "goes unnoticed"

 

you must understand that 100% bug free games never existed

 

Tell that to the 96% for Skyrim which is one of the buggest games and worst UIs ever made that still managed to be a commercial success.

Edited January 2, 2012 by Lightmgl

[darthdoll]

Tell that to the 96% for Skyrim which is one of the buggest games and worst UIs ever made that still managed to be a commercial success.

 

Lol, because its Skyrim. Anyone who has played an Elder Scrolls game will give the future games a perfect score.

 

IMO Skyrim was a bad game, horrible bugs which were worse than TOR's, realistic graphics? nope.

Edited January 2, 2012 by darthdoll

[Perfik]

Tell that to the 96% for Skyrim which is one of the buggest games and worst UIs ever made that still managed to be a commercial success.

 

see the pattern?

 

bugs arent' always the pinnacle of gamers (if they do not break the game tottaly ofc)

 

you come to my words .

[Zodnom]

...

I would be very surprised if this game retains 500,000 subs after 1 year unless its solely because of the Brand Power of the Star Wars IP or the game begins to add features that appeal to a broader range of the market.

...

 

I think word-of-mouth is going to tear this game apart.

I've stopped recommending this game to people and instead telling them to wait and see if patches make it any better.

[darthdoll]

I think word-of-mouth is going to tear this game apart.

I've stopped recommending this game to people and instead telling them to wait and see if patches make it any better.

 

While you stopped, I continue to tell people to buy it.

[McAvinue]

bioware is an above average company cause it created (85+ score ONLY)

 

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/baldurs-gate

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/baldurs-gate-ii-shadows-of-amn

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/neverwinter-nights

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/star-wars-knights-of-the-old-republic

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/mass-effect

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/dragon-age-origins

http://www.metacritic.com/search/all/Mass+Effect+2/results

 

that's

 

7 AAA games in the studios history

 

and critics do not give 85+ scores to buggy as hell games.

Bugs are normal cause of the nature of computer gaming (virtually limitless compinations of HW) combined with massive amount of coding. Always something just "goes unnoticed"

 

you must understand that 100% bug free games never existed

 

You've apparently never play a Bethesda game before then, right?

 

Also, I like you you omitted Dragon Age 2, and the actual SWTOR link, because the player reviews of those two are in the pits. Nice selective thinking there.

Edited January 2, 2012 by McAvinue

[Feskmacka]

8. SW:TOR is boring, cut scenes and voice acting are time consuming and a waste of time.

 

I have to somewhat agree on this point: To me, it feels as if the whole voice acting-thing got out of hand, and I often times get the feeling that BW figured that quantity < quality on this point. How many lackluster cutscenes aren't there accompanying missions, with the camera cross-cutting back and forth between emotionless facial expressions and varying VO talent, even though said mission is just a short fetch quest? Would a box of text have been so bad? Hell, sometimes it's just the recycled huttese (Or odd snorts) with the PC only responding with a set of "standard" responses. How many of you can truly say that you find those engaging?

 

And what's with your companion constantly shouting things? Oh, and "THAT'S ONE DUMB FROGDOG".

Just makes me think how those resources could have been spent on something else...

Edited January 2, 2012 by Feskmacka

[BrambLed]

While you stopped, I continue to tell people to buy it.

 

Hope you're prepared to have some pissed off friends.

[Vinjar]

Great post!

[darthdoll]

Tell that to the 96% for Skyrim which is one of the buggest games and worst UIs ever made that still managed to be a commercial success.

 

To elaborate more on what I said, When WoW released a new expac, no matter how bad it was (wrath, cata) it gets perfect scores.

 

Ask any WoW player and they prob would say that wrath and cata were horrible expac, and not to mention cata was rehashed dungeons/raids from like 5 years ago.

[BrambLed]

How many people said EQ will fail? How many WoW? See a pattern?

 

Comparing SWTOR to WoW and EQ is like comparing a broken down ford focus to a Ferrari.

 

SWTOR is more comparable to a game like Rift.

[darthdoll]

Hope you're prepared to have some pissed off friends.

 

Nope, because we are actually smart and patient when it comes to video games. We are not the people who just merge from one game to another only to go back to WoW because "itz haz dungeon finderzzz"

 

This is the best MMO experience I have ever had.

 

Played WoW, Rift, LOTRO, and couple other F2P.

[BrambLed]

Ask any WoW player and they prob would say that wrath and cata were horrible expac, and not to mention cata was rehashed dungeons/raids from like 5 years ago.

 

Cata contained no rehashed raids.

 

Cata ended up with 4 dungeons that appeared in previous games, but 3 of them had completely different content outside of layout.

[Zodnom]

While you stopped, I continue to tell people to buy it.

 

Unfortunately, when people recommend a game to me, and they look and sound like Gollum describing his 'precious', the recommendation doesn't carry much weight.

 

Sorry, but fanboys make the worst spokesmen for games. I want to hear about a game from someone that's not foaming at the mouth, and can talk objectively about the subject.

[Enterii]

Unfortunately, when people recommend a game to me, and they look and sound like Gollum describing his 'precious', the recommendation doesn't carry much weight.

 

Sorry, but fanboys make the worst spokesmen for games. I want to hear about a game from someone that's not foaming at the mouth, and can talk objectively about the subject.

 

 

QOTFD

 

 

Ent

[darthdoll]

Unfortunately, when people recommend a game to me, and they look and sound like Gollum describing his 'precious', the recommendation doesn't carry much weight.

 

Sorry, but fanboys make the worst spokesmen for games. I want to hear about a game from someone that's not foaming at the mouth, and can talk objectively about the subject.

 

Calling me a fanboy because I disagree with you?

 

While fanboys do make the worst spokesmen for games, who is NOT a fanboy? If I like a game and you dont, I am a fanboy?

 

Logical isnt it?

Edited January 2, 2012 by darthdoll