I think the most important feature that can decide if you like or not SWTOR is if you like other Bioware games with the same story system, because the MMO part is not too good, lets face it it's not a good themepark MMO, it's just average for 2011 almost 2012, so saying "if you like thempark MMOs you are going to like SWTOR" is not true.
i think you are kinda talking out your ass really... there is nothing wrong with the MMO party of SWTOR. good crafting system, good grouping system, good dungeons, standard character development, standard classes with a slight twist (ranged tank?!? trooper healers?!? cover system for rogue type classes!?!), loads of incentives to group up and play together.....
The people looking for the wheel to be reinvented won't be impressed.
However, to those of us that recognize that it's a game and not a 2nd life, fun will be had.
I'm torn on picking it up because I thought I was done with themeparks, but playing the beta I had an absolute blast so I'm tempted to give it another go.
Pretty much this.
Bottom line is, they are doing a story MMO. If you always skip quest text and find it a waste of time.. um maybe you should not buy a game that puts story first and spent the majority of their time and effort into making story take center stage?
SWTOR is not revolutionary but it is an evelution in story telling for MMOs. I played in two beta weekends and had an absolute blast. That is all that matters to me. I never expected TOR to change the world and they never advertised that it would.
The bottom line is: Here we had a company with an enormous budget, daring to do nothing new. What they did was to bring theire old clichè SinglePlayer gimicks into the MMO-world.
Its like if me going to work and really didnt even try to do my best, how long would i have had my job before being sacked? Bioware will getaway with this just couse they are Bioware and it`s Star Wars, and that really sucks!
The bottom line is: Here we had a company with an enormous budget, daring to do nothing new. What they did was to bring theire old clichè SinglePlayer gimicks into the MMO-world.
Its like if me going to work and really didnt even try to do my best, how long would i have had my job before being sacked? Bioware will getaway with this just couse they are Bioware and it`s Star Wars, and that really sucks!
If you don't like BioWare Games (which you obviously don't), why are you commenting on a thread about SW:TOR?
Bottomline seems to be that is shaping up to be a competent MMO, straight from launch, and for some that seems to be more than enough at this point in the MMO race (that can be somewhat rare now and probably gains bonus points for it, but can't blame anyone for that).
But for others, it's just not enough of a change/improvement over the pre-established MMO formulas to really be worthwhile.
The bottom line is: Here we had a company with an enormous budget, daring to do nothing new. What they did was to bring theire old clichè SinglePlayer gimicks into the MMO-world.
Its like if me going to work and really didnt even try to do my best, how long would i have had my job before being sacked? Bioware will getaway with this just couse they are Bioware and it`s Star Wars, and that really sucks!
If you work really hard and did your best but your company still ends up losing money because you were betting on something unproven and new when there are proven method that promise investment return. Do you think you will still keep the job just because you did your best ?
I beta tested ToR from the phase that began at the beginning of June through the phase that ended in late October and concluded that the game just didn't offer enough of what I enjoyed most about the MMORPG genre to warrant paying an ongoing subscription fee. I have tired a little bit on the genre as a whole, to be sure, as I haven't been subscribed to any MMO since leaving WoW (for the 4th time overall) in February, but historically speaking, I am a fan of "themepark" MMOs and a fan of pretty much everything BioWare has done. Despite that, something about ToR just didn't click with me.
Of course, being deep in Uncharted 3 and having Skyrim right around the corner in early November, I stopped testing ToR before its last couple beta phases (even though I was invited again), so my feedback is potentially outdated. Throughout my four months testing, though, it seemed as though there were several design issues that resulted from BioWare designing many of the environments and the questing experience as if they were making another single-player game while designing other elements (like PvP, raiding and crafting) using the tried-and-true themepark MMO mold--issues that weren't going to change because they were calculated design decisions and therefore "working as intended."
Fully voiced characters are pretty great and the unique class questlines are epic in scope, but all of that often made me feel more like I was taking a character created by BioWare through a story written by BioWare--in the same way I'd take Kratos, Marcus Fenix, Master Chief, or Nathan Drake through their respective stories--rather than taking MY character through MY story. Sure, other themepark MMOs like WoW and Rift all have their lore and their timelines in which our characters are existing in, but we are given a little more freedom in choosing the part we want to play in that world. Anyhow, little gripes like that aside, the class stories of ToR are fun and engrossing, and probably the game's strong point...which makes it a shame the other elements of the game encroach on the class story so often as to limit its impact.
Within 15 levels, you'll already be doing 4 or 5 sidequests for every 1 quest you do in your class story. And as much as full voiceover does to add personality to the NPCs throughout the galaxy, it still doesn't make the average side quest any more interesting. There are, of course, exceptions, but most sidequests are still of the [Kill X of Y], [collect X of Y], or [take X to Y] variety. Add the ho-hum nature of many sidequests to the fact that alts of the same faction will repeat most quests hubs in the same order from level 1 to 50 (with the exception of the second starting planet for the other two classes), and you have a recipe for severe deja vu within the first month or two of the game's release. WoW at release had 2 or 3 zones filled with content for each range of 5-7 levels, so that players could choose to level from 25-30 in either zone A, zone B, or zone C. To me, a few branching paths every now and then to cut down on linearity is very important, and ToR is largely lacking in that area. At the time I stopped testing, I could not have seen myself playing the post-launch product for more than the time it would take to level one Republic character to 50 and one Empire character to 50--roughly 5-7 days of played time per character. With the 100% linear progression in the planet order, the mirroring of classes between the two factions, and all those repeat sidequests, a second playthrough would probably be just too much of the same for me to handle.
I also had issues with the static enemies and combat grind. Though I've read some changes to enemy mechanics have made combat more reactionary and complex, I tired pretty quickly of the neat, segregated little packs of enemy cannon fodder strewn about the game's closed environments. Even that cool class quest you're working on can get a bit tiresome when its objective is on the far side of one of Coruscant's combat zones. Attack pack of 3 weak enemies, kill them easily, attack pack of 1 weak enemy and 1 normal enemy , kill them easily, attack pack of 3 weak enemies, kill them easily, channel health regen for 5 seconds, attack single elite enemy, kill it easily... ... ... rinse and repeat 30 times on your way through the city, making sure to hit up sidequest objectives along the way so you can Quick Travel afterward rather than being forced to fight your way back out.
Anywho, all that criticism makes it sound like I abhorred the game, but I really didn't. It's very polished for a launch product, despite some barebones character creation and a UI that is sorely lacking in customizability, and of course, it features some great BioWare voicework--complete with the morality-based choices we all love and expect from the studio--not to mention it's frickin' Star Wars, which certainly doesn't hurt. My "bottom line" is just that the game design often compelled me to play it like a single-player game, and to me, that's not worth the monthly subscription. My characters didn't feel like mine--they weren't unique, and the environments around me weren't alive and evolving. The sun never rises and sets, the weather never changes, and time doesn't really pass except that it's implied during loading screens. It's a very static game, and while I understand that themepark MMOs by their nature are often more static than sandbox MMOs, this one is quite a bit more static than others. It's not bad, but it isn't what I was hoping for.
The bottom line is: Here we had a company with an enormous budget, daring to do nothing new. What they did was to bring theire old clichè SinglePlayer gimicks into the MMO-world.
Its like if me going to work and really didnt even try to do my best, how long would i have had my job before being sacked? Bioware will getaway with this just couse they are Bioware and it`s Star Wars, and that really sucks!
oh.... ok so you mean they did something new?
please point to one other MMO that has been designed around a singleplayer experience
exactly, there arent any. pretty much the definition of doing something new.
If you enjoy a PvE-centric game where you can listen in and get intricate quest details, I would recommend this game in a heartbeat. I really did have some fun with the PvE part of this game.
However, if you are going to play this game for anything other than PvE content and story (aka. PvP, crafting, space, etc.) I would say to wait for a while before buying it. PvP is lacking a vast, concrete system. The current iteration is a gear grind. Crafting is okay. Not the worst I've played, but I was expecting to be able to "make a name for myself" to paraphrase a dev. Currently not really possible. And space needs to just get "blowed up real good".
If all I wanted was a good PvE game I would probably be satsifed. But that's not what I want so I'll wait it out or look for something new. Nothing terrible about the game, I'm just clearly not their target customer right now.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
If you enjoy a PvE-centric game where you can listen in and get intricate quest details, I would recommend this game in a heartbeat. I really did have some fun with the PvE part of this game.
However, if you are going to play this game for anything other than PvE content and story (aka. PvP, crafting, space, etc.) I would say to wait for a while before buying it. PvP is lacking a vast, concrete system. The current iteration is a gear grind. Crafting is okay. Not the worst I've played, but I was expecting to be able to "make a name for myself" to paraphrase a dev. Currently not really possible. And space needs to just get "blowed up real good".
If all I wanted was a good PvE game I would probably be satsifed. But that's not what I want so I'll wait it out or look for something new. Nothing terrible about the game, I'm just clearly not their target customer right now.
you cant make a name for yourself crafting? what? there aree recipes that only a few people on each server will be able to use/achieve.... and those who put in tons of time into reverse engineering will be able to create the absolute pinnacle of gear... which translates into you being know as the best crafter on the server....
The OP comes across to me as saying if you give me a negative reponse its not rational and that only good views are rational. I'm pretty sure that does fit in with one of the forms of logic but intro to logic was like 20 years ago for me.
You want my logical response about TOR atm?
I would say if you think you want to play this game... Then either buy it 30 days after it goes live or if you want the pre-order bonuses .. pre-order it for the code and wait 30 days to activate.
If you want my logical answer that is somewhat negative play the first 30 days.
Today not only was the end of weekend testing announced but so was the entire game testing program. All game testing wil end Sunday Night at 11:59 pm... I honestly expected that monday or tuesday they would put up a high level server which was supposed to go up weeks ago.. and do a very focused test on end game content. Not going to happen...
Most of us expected at least 7 to 10 days of testing and the game honestly needs it. (7 to 10 days from when the "launch build" went up.) I for one definitely think the game needs more testing and fixes and expected at most 3 to 4 days of downtime before the 15th.. Not for the servers to do down at the end of the 4th..
I don't have a negative opinion of the "game" but in my opinion they are making a mistake with this. So I am not telling anyone to not buy the game but, I am certainly saying it would be best to give it at least a month from launch before you play. I've never said that about any MMO before even tho its common advice.
*edited to add*
If you have access to the beta forums you can read the announcement yoursel in the "weekend test end time" sticky or the title close to that.
In order to look at this game properly you have to take a step back, remove your bias about BioWare and your prconceptions about Star Wars.
Pretend instead that it's a game from an indie publisher and that it's called Space Wars: The Ancient Republic. Replace the lightsaber wielding Jedi with Vibro Sword wielding space monks and leave everything else the same.
NOW ask yourself if anyone would even be talking about this game. Where would it be on the Hype meter? What would the reviews look like? Well, I have an idea of what most review would be saying: "Once you peel away the very thin, very shiny Space Wars veneer, then what you're left with is WoW in space."
Some people are gonna love it because it's so closely related to a game they love. Some people are gonna hate it because it so closely resembles a game they can't stand. A few people in between (Me) are gonna play it simply because it's Star Wars and this is the Star Wars MMO that we get this time around. We got a sandbox last time and a themepark this time. Take it or leave it, this is what we have to work with. Personally, I don't care for themeparks, but they aren't going to suddenly rewrite the game for those of us that feel the way I do... especially when predictions show that they may have somewhere around 3 million players on launch day. The almighty dollar has spoken and it says softcore MMO's are what pay the bills.
Setting aside my deep disappointment in the games graphics, and decidedly unexciting crafting.... its the lack of 24/7 persistent world realm vs realm conflict (other than words and a 1 minute video ). So I will not invest(yes in todays world, $60 and time in an investment) in the game.And I wish it weren't so.
If you enjoy a PvE-centric game where you can listen in and get intricate quest details, I would recommend this game in a heartbeat. I really did have some fun with the PvE part of this game.
However, if you are going to play this game for anything other than PvE content and story (aka. PvP, crafting, space, etc.) I would say to wait for a while before buying it. PvP is lacking a vast, concrete system. The current iteration is a gear grind. Crafting is okay. Not the worst I've played, but I was expecting to be able to "make a name for myself" to paraphrase a dev. Currently not really possible. And space needs to just get "blowed up real good".
If all I wanted was a good PvE game I would probably be satsifed. But that's not what I want so I'll wait it out or look for something new. Nothing terrible about the game, I'm just clearly not their target customer right now.
you cant make a name for yourself crafting? what? there aree recipes that only a few people on each server will be able to use/achieve.... and those who put in tons of time into reverse engineering will be able to create the absolute pinnacle of gear... which translates into you being know as the best crafter on the server....
Anybody can RE in their respective crafting skill... you don't have to worry about material quality or anything like that. Send your companion, get resources, craft, RE crafted item. That's basically the process. And since everyone can craft, at some point the majority of people will have the same recipes which yields the exact same quality item (unless crafting crit = luck based).
And why would anyone ever be in favor of a system that rewards recipes at random? How is that fun? I don't get it. I must be missing the "wow factor" here (no pun intended). It seems like system built on luck, not effort, skill, how many goats I've sacrifced...
Perhaps I'm just out of touch with what most people want. I want rockstar crafting with maximum effort, skill and dedication! Crafting that requires my brain to be put to use at least a little bit. Luck? Random? Not in my vocabulary!
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
I don't agree with this statement at all. Many of us had the experience that the gameplay and general world design was put second to the VO content. I think the VO stuff is neat, but then when they end and I'm back out questing, it just feels dry and uninspiring. I've seen many, many people post this opinion here, so just trying to reduce it to a themepark vs sandbox argument doesn't cover it. If the game being a "Bioware game" means that gameplay suffers in favor of story elements, then maybe that's the key. I don't know.
That's actually what I expected from TOR as that's what I always expect from Bioware. Take away the story presentation they offer, most of their games would be mediocre. They stick to tried and true mechanics in all of their titles, and most of the time their worlds feel very artificial compared to other studios such as Bethsoft. I was actually suprised by their world presentation this time around, I thought it would be far less immersive than it was.
Why would you want an MMO game where the stuff you just WATCH takes center stage and the actual interactive part is second (or third, or forth)? Talk about mind-numbingly boring. As someone who loves good movies and reads a lot of books, I don't want my games to become spectator passtimes.
That is the same as someone saying "why would you enjoy buying the same shit from Uncle Owen....that is boring". It is different tastes. The thing BW has going for them is that the crowd that enjoys their work far exceeds that of the Uncle Owen crowd, and it chaps the typical MMO sandbox fan's ass to no end.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
Setting aside my deep disappointment in the games graphics, and decidedly unexciting crafting.... its the lack of 24/7 persistent world realm vs realm conflict (other than words and a 1 minute video ). So I will not invest(yes in todays world, $60 and time in an investment) in the game.And I wish it weren't so.
Your right there is no realm vs realm persistant pvp
there is faction based 24/7 persistant based objective pvp on illum for a planet and there is faction vs faction pvp on at least 9 other planets and on tatoined there is a ffa pvp zone my understanding is all these zones are persistant world pvp
so while its not realm vs realm which to me is stupid it is persistant world pvp thats faction vs faction which makes alot more sense to me then realm vs realm
Hmm bottom line, that is hard because tor have everything like--- awesome graphic with huge worlds, awesome role play, awesome story, awesome pvp, awesom mounts, awesome companions, smooth gameplay, ahhh i know what--- I want more! It is like drug
I think the most important feature that can decide if you like or not SWTOR is if you like other Bioware games with the same story system, because the MMO part is not too good, lets face it it's not a good themepark MMO, it's just average for 2011 almost 2012, so saying "if you like thempark MMOs you are going to like SWTOR" is not true.
i think you are kinda talking out your ass really... there is nothing wrong with the MMO party of SWTOR. good crafting system, good grouping system, good dungeons, standard character development, standard classes with a slight twist (ranged tank?!? trooper healers?!? cover system for rogue type classes!?!), loads of incentives to group up and play together.....
how is any of that a "bad mmo"?
I never said "bad", I said average. I don't think it's a bad MMO, just below expectacions for a top MMO today (not counting the story).
i think there are flaws/negatives with Swtor that are not themepark QQ.
there are several issues that suggest that the game is shabby in general. things that point to poor coding, or poor planning, or lack luster game aesthetics. jerky animations, stuttery rail transit, ameteur UI graphics ...things that might be lumped under half assed execution/polish
there's also the more ephemeral gripes about only 4 classes/mirrored classes. and limited races and extremely poor char gen. things like this. that tend to make people feel no real effort was made to make the game exemplary ... that it's a GED game as opposed to a AAA mmo
that being said. some of these are mitigated by it being a Beta still. and in that many of the glitchy things can and will be patched out hopefully in the first 6 mo type of deal every mmo does.
then again. for the hype of this game. the franchise. of star wars and pedigree of BIoware ... it's shaping up to be a weak debut from 2 AAA names.
Yes, thats why we find polls are survers where 97% of the tester think that the game is great. is a poll with 32000 votes so far, and the number didnt change is still 97%.
This is I think a major problem with this game. It's hard to get a good test, if you're test base are all thumbs up. Objective criticism tends to make things better, blind support does not.
Everything in veritas' post is accurate (except for maybe the weak debut), and I'm not sure how people can think they are invalid. As has been said before, if this were NOT a star wars MMO, would people still be giving so much leway? I don't remember Rift getting this much slack, and it was a pretty polished game.
Honestly, while the majority are having fun with the game, the general mood on the game goes between 'its star wars omfg!!!' to 'the game has a lot of flaws, but screw it, it's still star wars!'. Hell, I will admit that I was having fun during the beta weekend, however I just cannot turn a blind eye to all the flaws. They do point to a game that is generally lackluster, and once the extacy of swinging a lightsaber fades, what's really left?
There are minor things like glitchy animations, but there are also some pretty big deals with the game that I'm surprised beta testers haven't mentioned as problems. The UI is a glaring one, as is PvP. The lack of atmosphere is also surprising as even WoW has had such a feature some 7 years back. Character creation is also bland, and sounds like it has been for quite some time.
The game is new, fresh, and full of lightsaber, but after only playing it for a few days I can already see myself playing for only a few months, if that. The almost 100% mirroring of classes also makes the game less interesting, when it only has 4 classes to choose from. Add in the voice dialogue that doesn't change much depending on your choices, and i'll have a really have time trying multiple advanced classes off the same character.
i think there are flaws/negatives with Swtor that are not themepark QQ.
there are several issues that suggest that the game is shabby in general. things that point to poor coding, or poor planning, or lack luster game aesthetics. jerky animations, stuttery rail transit, ameteur UI graphics ...things that might be lumped under half assed execution/polish
there's also the more ephemeral gripes about only 4 classes/mirrored classes. and limited races and extremely poor char gen. things like this. that tend to make people feel no real effort was made to make the game exemplary ... that it's a GED game as opposed to a AAA mmo
that being said. some of these are mitigated by it being a Beta still. and in that many of the glitchy things can and will be patched out hopefully in the first 6 mo type of deal every mmo does.
then again. for the hype of this game. the franchise. of star wars and pedigree of BIoware ... it's shaping up to be a weak debut from 2 AAA names.
Yes, thats why we find polls are survers where 97% of the tester think that the game is great. is a poll with 32000 votes so far, and the number didnt change is still 97%.
This is I think a major problem with this game. It's hard to get a good test, if you're test base are all thumbs up. Objective criticism tends to make things better, blind support does not.
Everything in veritas' post is accurate (except for maybe the weak debut), and I'm not sure how people can think they are invalid. As has been said before, if this were NOT a star wars MMO, would people still be giving so much leway? I don't remember Rift getting this much slack, and it was a pretty polished game.
Honestly, while the majority are having fun with the game, the general mood on the game goes between 'its star wars omfg!!!' to 'the game has a lot of flaws, but screw it, it's still star wars!'. Hell, I will admit that I was having fun during the beta weekend, however I just cannot turn a blind eye to all the flaws. They do point to a game that is generally lackluster, and once the extacy of swinging a lightsaber fades, what's really left?
There are minor things like glitchy animations, but there are also some pretty big deals with the game that I'm surprised beta testers haven't mentioned as problems. The UI is a glaring one, as is PvP. The lack of atmosphere is also surprising as even WoW has had such a feature some 7 years back. Character creation is also bland, and sounds like it has been for quite some time.
The game is new, fresh, and full of lightsaber, but after only playing it for a few days I can already see myself playing for only a few months, if that. The almost 100% mirroring of classes also makes the game less interesting, when it only has 4 classes to choose from. Add in the voice dialogue that doesn't change much depending on your choices, and i'll have a really have time trying multiple advanced classes off the same character.
Are you really sticking to the 4 class nonsense? There's 8 on each side... a jedi shadow is nothing like a jedi sage....
Comments
i think you are kinda talking out your ass really... there is nothing wrong with the MMO party of SWTOR. good crafting system, good grouping system, good dungeons, standard character development, standard classes with a slight twist (ranged tank?!? trooper healers?!? cover system for rogue type classes!?!), loads of incentives to group up and play together.....
how is any of that a "bad mmo"?
*waiting for a sandbox comment*
Pretty much this.
Bottom line is, they are doing a story MMO. If you always skip quest text and find it a waste of time.. um maybe you should not buy a game that puts story first and spent the majority of their time and effort into making story take center stage?
SWTOR is not revolutionary but it is an evelution in story telling for MMOs. I played in two beta weekends and had an absolute blast. That is all that matters to me. I never expected TOR to change the world and they never advertised that it would.
The bottom line is: Here we had a company with an enormous budget, daring to do nothing new. What they did was to bring theire old clichè SinglePlayer gimicks into the MMO-world.
Its like if me going to work and really didnt even try to do my best, how long would i have had my job before being sacked? Bioware will getaway with this just couse they are Bioware and it`s Star Wars, and that really sucks!
If you don't like BioWare Games (which you obviously don't), why are you commenting on a thread about SW:TOR?
Bottomline seems to be that is shaping up to be a competent MMO, straight from launch, and for some that seems to be more than enough at this point in the MMO race (that can be somewhat rare now and probably gains bonus points for it, but can't blame anyone for that).
But for others, it's just not enough of a change/improvement over the pre-established MMO formulas to really be worthwhile.
If you work really hard and did your best but your company still ends up losing money because you were betting on something unproven and new when there are proven method that promise investment return. Do you think you will still keep the job just because you did your best ?
I beta tested ToR from the phase that began at the beginning of June through the phase that ended in late October and concluded that the game just didn't offer enough of what I enjoyed most about the MMORPG genre to warrant paying an ongoing subscription fee. I have tired a little bit on the genre as a whole, to be sure, as I haven't been subscribed to any MMO since leaving WoW (for the 4th time overall) in February, but historically speaking, I am a fan of "themepark" MMOs and a fan of pretty much everything BioWare has done. Despite that, something about ToR just didn't click with me.
Of course, being deep in Uncharted 3 and having Skyrim right around the corner in early November, I stopped testing ToR before its last couple beta phases (even though I was invited again), so my feedback is potentially outdated. Throughout my four months testing, though, it seemed as though there were several design issues that resulted from BioWare designing many of the environments and the questing experience as if they were making another single-player game while designing other elements (like PvP, raiding and crafting) using the tried-and-true themepark MMO mold--issues that weren't going to change because they were calculated design decisions and therefore "working as intended."
Fully voiced characters are pretty great and the unique class questlines are epic in scope, but all of that often made me feel more like I was taking a character created by BioWare through a story written by BioWare--in the same way I'd take Kratos, Marcus Fenix, Master Chief, or Nathan Drake through their respective stories--rather than taking MY character through MY story. Sure, other themepark MMOs like WoW and Rift all have their lore and their timelines in which our characters are existing in, but we are given a little more freedom in choosing the part we want to play in that world. Anyhow, little gripes like that aside, the class stories of ToR are fun and engrossing, and probably the game's strong point...which makes it a shame the other elements of the game encroach on the class story so often as to limit its impact.
Within 15 levels, you'll already be doing 4 or 5 sidequests for every 1 quest you do in your class story. And as much as full voiceover does to add personality to the NPCs throughout the galaxy, it still doesn't make the average side quest any more interesting. There are, of course, exceptions, but most sidequests are still of the [Kill X of Y], [collect X of Y], or [take X to Y] variety. Add the ho-hum nature of many sidequests to the fact that alts of the same faction will repeat most quests hubs in the same order from level 1 to 50 (with the exception of the second starting planet for the other two classes), and you have a recipe for severe deja vu within the first month or two of the game's release. WoW at release had 2 or 3 zones filled with content for each range of 5-7 levels, so that players could choose to level from 25-30 in either zone A, zone B, or zone C. To me, a few branching paths every now and then to cut down on linearity is very important, and ToR is largely lacking in that area. At the time I stopped testing, I could not have seen myself playing the post-launch product for more than the time it would take to level one Republic character to 50 and one Empire character to 50--roughly 5-7 days of played time per character. With the 100% linear progression in the planet order, the mirroring of classes between the two factions, and all those repeat sidequests, a second playthrough would probably be just too much of the same for me to handle.
I also had issues with the static enemies and combat grind. Though I've read some changes to enemy mechanics have made combat more reactionary and complex, I tired pretty quickly of the neat, segregated little packs of enemy cannon fodder strewn about the game's closed environments. Even that cool class quest you're working on can get a bit tiresome when its objective is on the far side of one of Coruscant's combat zones. Attack pack of 3 weak enemies, kill them easily, attack pack of 1 weak enemy and 1 normal enemy , kill them easily, attack pack of 3 weak enemies, kill them easily, channel health regen for 5 seconds, attack single elite enemy, kill it easily... ... ... rinse and repeat 30 times on your way through the city, making sure to hit up sidequest objectives along the way so you can Quick Travel afterward rather than being forced to fight your way back out.
Anywho, all that criticism makes it sound like I abhorred the game, but I really didn't. It's very polished for a launch product, despite some barebones character creation and a UI that is sorely lacking in customizability, and of course, it features some great BioWare voicework--complete with the morality-based choices we all love and expect from the studio--not to mention it's frickin' Star Wars, which certainly doesn't hurt. My "bottom line" is just that the game design often compelled me to play it like a single-player game, and to me, that's not worth the monthly subscription. My characters didn't feel like mine--they weren't unique, and the environments around me weren't alive and evolving. The sun never rises and sets, the weather never changes, and time doesn't really pass except that it's implied during loading screens. It's a very static game, and while I understand that themepark MMOs by their nature are often more static than sandbox MMOs, this one is quite a bit more static than others. It's not bad, but it isn't what I was hoping for.
oh.... ok so you mean they did something new?
please point to one other MMO that has been designed around a singleplayer experience
exactly, there arent any. pretty much the definition of doing something new.
If you enjoy a PvE-centric game where you can listen in and get intricate quest details, I would recommend this game in a heartbeat. I really did have some fun with the PvE part of this game.
However, if you are going to play this game for anything other than PvE content and story (aka. PvP, crafting, space, etc.) I would say to wait for a while before buying it. PvP is lacking a vast, concrete system. The current iteration is a gear grind. Crafting is okay. Not the worst I've played, but I was expecting to be able to "make a name for myself" to paraphrase a dev. Currently not really possible. And space needs to just get "blowed up real good".
If all I wanted was a good PvE game I would probably be satsifed. But that's not what I want so I'll wait it out or look for something new. Nothing terrible about the game, I'm just clearly not their target customer right now.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
you cant make a name for yourself crafting? what? there aree recipes that only a few people on each server will be able to use/achieve.... and those who put in tons of time into reverse engineering will be able to create the absolute pinnacle of gear... which translates into you being know as the best crafter on the server....
The OP comes across to me as saying if you give me a negative reponse its not rational and that only good views are rational. I'm pretty sure that does fit in with one of the forms of logic but intro to logic was like 20 years ago for me.
You want my logical response about TOR atm?
I would say if you think you want to play this game... Then either buy it 30 days after it goes live or if you want the pre-order bonuses .. pre-order it for the code and wait 30 days to activate.
If you want my logical answer that is somewhat negative play the first 30 days.
Today not only was the end of weekend testing announced but so was the entire game testing program. All game testing wil end Sunday Night at 11:59 pm... I honestly expected that monday or tuesday they would put up a high level server which was supposed to go up weeks ago.. and do a very focused test on end game content. Not going to happen...
Most of us expected at least 7 to 10 days of testing and the game honestly needs it. (7 to 10 days from when the "launch build" went up.) I for one definitely think the game needs more testing and fixes and expected at most 3 to 4 days of downtime before the 15th.. Not for the servers to do down at the end of the 4th..
I don't have a negative opinion of the "game" but in my opinion they are making a mistake with this. So I am not telling anyone to not buy the game but, I am certainly saying it would be best to give it at least a month from launch before you play. I've never said that about any MMO before even tho its common advice.
*edited to add*
If you have access to the beta forums you can read the announcement yoursel in the "weekend test end time" sticky or the title close to that.
In order to look at this game properly you have to take a step back, remove your bias about BioWare and your prconceptions about Star Wars.
Pretend instead that it's a game from an indie publisher and that it's called Space Wars: The Ancient Republic. Replace the lightsaber wielding Jedi with Vibro Sword wielding space monks and leave everything else the same.
NOW ask yourself if anyone would even be talking about this game. Where would it be on the Hype meter? What would the reviews look like? Well, I have an idea of what most review would be saying: "Once you peel away the very thin, very shiny Space Wars veneer, then what you're left with is WoW in space."
Some people are gonna love it because it's so closely related to a game they love. Some people are gonna hate it because it so closely resembles a game they can't stand. A few people in between (Me) are gonna play it simply because it's Star Wars and this is the Star Wars MMO that we get this time around. We got a sandbox last time and a themepark this time. Take it or leave it, this is what we have to work with. Personally, I don't care for themeparks, but they aren't going to suddenly rewrite the game for those of us that feel the way I do... especially when predictions show that they may have somewhere around 3 million players on launch day. The almighty dollar has spoken and it says softcore MMO's are what pay the bills.
Setting aside my deep disappointment in the games graphics, and decidedly unexciting crafting.... its the lack of 24/7 persistent world realm vs realm conflict (other than words and a 1 minute video ). So I will not invest(yes in todays world, $60 and time in an investment) in the game.And I wish it weren't so.
Anybody can RE in their respective crafting skill... you don't have to worry about material quality or anything like that. Send your companion, get resources, craft, RE crafted item. That's basically the process. And since everyone can craft, at some point the majority of people will have the same recipes which yields the exact same quality item (unless crafting crit = luck based).
And why would anyone ever be in favor of a system that rewards recipes at random? How is that fun? I don't get it. I must be missing the "wow factor" here (no pun intended). It seems like system built on luck, not effort, skill, how many goats I've sacrifced...
Perhaps I'm just out of touch with what most people want. I want rockstar crafting with maximum effort, skill and dedication! Crafting that requires my brain to be put to use at least a little bit. Luck? Random? Not in my vocabulary!
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
That is the same as someone saying "why would you enjoy buying the same shit from Uncle Owen....that is boring". It is different tastes. The thing BW has going for them is that the crowd that enjoys their work far exceeds that of the Uncle Owen crowd, and it chaps the typical MMO sandbox fan's ass to no end.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
Your right there is no realm vs realm persistant pvp
there is faction based 24/7 persistant based objective pvp on illum for a planet and there is faction vs faction pvp on at least 9 other planets and on tatoined there is a ffa pvp zone my understanding is all these zones are persistant world pvp
so while its not realm vs realm which to me is stupid it is persistant world pvp thats faction vs faction which makes alot more sense to me then realm vs realm
Hmm bottom line, that is hard because tor have everything like--- awesome graphic with huge worlds, awesome role play, awesome story, awesome pvp, awesom mounts, awesome companions, smooth gameplay, ahhh i know what--- I want more! It is like drug
Two simple words answer that! "Play it"
I never said "bad", I said average. I don't think it's a bad MMO, just below expectacions for a top MMO today (not counting the story).
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
This is I think a major problem with this game. It's hard to get a good test, if you're test base are all thumbs up. Objective criticism tends to make things better, blind support does not.
Everything in veritas' post is accurate (except for maybe the weak debut), and I'm not sure how people can think they are invalid. As has been said before, if this were NOT a star wars MMO, would people still be giving so much leway? I don't remember Rift getting this much slack, and it was a pretty polished game.
Honestly, while the majority are having fun with the game, the general mood on the game goes between 'its star wars omfg!!!' to 'the game has a lot of flaws, but screw it, it's still star wars!'. Hell, I will admit that I was having fun during the beta weekend, however I just cannot turn a blind eye to all the flaws. They do point to a game that is generally lackluster, and once the extacy of swinging a lightsaber fades, what's really left?
There are minor things like glitchy animations, but there are also some pretty big deals with the game that I'm surprised beta testers haven't mentioned as problems. The UI is a glaring one, as is PvP. The lack of atmosphere is also surprising as even WoW has had such a feature some 7 years back. Character creation is also bland, and sounds like it has been for quite some time.
The game is new, fresh, and full of lightsaber, but after only playing it for a few days I can already see myself playing for only a few months, if that. The almost 100% mirroring of classes also makes the game less interesting, when it only has 4 classes to choose from. Add in the voice dialogue that doesn't change much depending on your choices, and i'll have a really have time trying multiple advanced classes off the same character.
Are you really sticking to the 4 class nonsense? There's 8 on each side... a jedi shadow is nothing like a jedi sage....
Bottomline:
After 7 years of WoW, my entire guild is leaving the Blizzard game to make SWTOR our new home.
We can't wait!
"Don't corpse-camp that idea. Its never gonna rez"
Bladezz (The Guild)