Return to SWTOR - a longterm facit

Elikal

I had followed the development of SWTOR back then very closely, and being a SWG veteran, I was at first very hopeful. I had finished 4 class stories (Knight, Sage, Inquisitor and Sith Warrior) and that already had meant to stretch my patience to the max. Making all those plants so many times back then... oh my.

Anywho... waiting for the upcoming ESO release I thought I go back to SWTOR a bit. I tagged my Jedi and Sith over the first level of Makeb, which was kinda an ok planet, but... *shrug* My first impression after an afternoon playing was, that the game had NOT aged well. I recall it was one of the main explanations of Bioware to have these semi-cartoony graphics; and at least IMVPO, they have NOT aged well. The game looked in my eyes, after being away almost a year, just old and bad. Worst of all however was the horribly outdated combat system.

Rooting players to the ground in combat and littering the UI with 4+ full quickbars of skills felt SO outdated to me, even more now. Essentially ALL MMOs released since then have left this Everquest-combat behind in one way or the other, making combat more action packed and with fewer skills. Even in the days when EQ2 was new I found it mildly superfluous to have 10 different variants of fireballs, just to litter my many quickbars. But we didn't know better back then.

From the meh graphics over the stoneage combat system, to the fact there is NOTHING to do once you finished your class story and there is ZERO replay feeling, at least IMO SWTOR failed as a game and as a potential it should have developed, given the fact it was a) Star Wars, b) made by Bioware and c) the frigging most expensive MMO ever made. You might add, they even had the unique luxury to have a PREVIOUS Star Wars MMO as experience reference! I don't think any MMO developer had such ideal conditions to make a superior MMO. Hundreds of new planets in planning. Yeah, remember Bioware saying that? Well after what, 2 years, we have ONE. In numvbers, 1, in words one. Makeb. Oh yeah and a miniature PVP only space thing. Recall what SWG got in the same time? Jump to Lightspeed, a FULL space expansion, and a FRIGGING huge lot of new content. And that was eons ago.

One issue is even clearer to me now than back then: making a MMO so much revolving around personal class story was a HUGE mistake. No, I really enjoyed the class stories, that's not the issue. If you play SWTOR like a single player game, thats fine. Only you have those same-ish planets, which more or less EVERYBODY hates by now. But such a single player heavy, story-focussed game just makes a horrible MMO, killing almost ALL social aspects. And once you finish one or two class stories, it's game over. SWTOR was a good lesson, what things do not work in a MMO, namely, limiting the player choices too much via streamlined experience for the sake of storytelling. MMOs need open space and chances for players to do their own stuff.

 

And at least I didn't feel that downgrading the graphics helped. The visuals aged horribly. It's sad, since I am such a SW geek and I really wished a Star Wars MMO would be cool. But this... was not the MMO we were looking for. *hand wave*

Tygranir

While I respect your right to state your opinion, your entire post was pretty much that: an opinion. The simple fact that there are thousands online right now enjoying the game negates your all encompassing statements, such as everyone hating the planets. I personally enjoy the game, an have just as much social interaction as most other MMOs. In fact, it is just as socially active as all other mainstream themepark MMOs.

skyline385

You are 2 years late on the Hate bandwagon. The game is now known to be financially thriving along with probably the most active in-game population after WoW (inb4 haters come in saying games like TSW and Tera have better pops than SWTOR).

And please, stop with the lame Single player game excuse. The game has tons of Group content (much more than ESO which you seem to be rooting for) with a proper Grouping system and tons of endgame content again for Groups.

It's ironic that you come to complain about SWTOR being single player focused while waiting for ESO. And this is coming from someone who is impatiently waiting for ESO as well.

Hellidol

Originally posted by Tygranir
While I respect your right to state your opinion, your entire post was pretty much that: an opinion. The simple fact that there are thousands online right now enjoying the game negates your all encompassing statements, such as everyone hating the planets. I personally enjoy the game, an have just as much social interaction as most other MMOs. In fact, it is just as socially active as all other mainstream themepark MMOs.

So even though you wish this was true it just isnt, SWTOR is a fail in so many ways and is pretty much riding the "starwars" train. Everything the OP said is pretty much spot on with my experience with the game also. The game will be a ghost town once the next 3 large name MMO's come out ( ESO, Wildstar, EQN). After that good luck with trying to find a group larger then 1 :P.

CazNeerg

Originally posted by skyline385

You are 2 years late on the Hate bandwagon. The game is now known to be financially thriving along with probably the most active in-game population after WoW (inb4 haters come in saying games like TSW and Tera have better pops than SWTOR).

And please, stop with the lame Single player game excuse. The game has tons of Group content, much more than ESO which you seem to be rooting for with a proper Grouping system and tons of endgame content again for Groups. It's ironical that you come to complain about SWTOR being single player focused while waiting for ESO. And this is coming from someone who is impatiently waiting for ESO as well.

I agree that it's ironic.  One of the main reasons I am looking forward to ESO is because just like TOR, it looks to offer a superb "single player" RPG experience, to the extent of the PvE portion of the game revolving almost entirely around the solo experience.

DeniZg

I've logged in the other day only to find that the game appeals even less to me that it did a year or two ago when I stopped playing.

Graphics are OK-ish I guess, but the combat is really stone age. Which is a shame, because the animations are really smooth, great looking and not too flashy.

It seems that Bioware has managed to improve loading times, but still, the game is still plagued by some small issues (camera speed too fast) which ruin the experience bit by bit. 

That Starfighter space combat feels completely disjointed from the core game, but hey, I don't mind extra content if it makes people happy.

Altogether, it's a solid F2P game, but not something a vet like me might consider putting time into.

hallucigenocide

to each his own as they say.. while i'm currently not playing it i still think it's a solid game.. and i think i'll probably return whenever they come up with new content.

 

none of the new super hyped games that are around the corner are of any interrest to me. and i'm not that sure they're going to steal that many players away from swtor.. 

delta9

Originally posted by Hellidol

The game will be a ghost town once the next 3 large name MMO's come out ( ESO, Wildstar, EQN). After that good luck with trying to find a group larger then 1 :P.

Simply not true

Solar_Prophet

Disagree with you on most points (seriously, this reads like any other review from a hater at the game's launch), but you're spot on about the story. Not because it's bad, or makes it feel like a single player game... but because it ended. Two years in and there's no continuation of any class stories, period. When you end half of them in freaking cliffhangers, that's a big problem.

When you make a game based around story, you need to continue the goddamn story. Period. Bioware promised story continuation both before and after launch, and has yet to make good on it (among a hundred other broken promises).

When you add the fact that the current team won't / can't add features despite their supposed financial success because they apparently have less technical know-how than the average script kiddie (every asked for feature they state will be 'technically challenging'), well, you have a game only a Star Wars fan would ever bother with... and then only due to desperation.

Without the Star Wars license, this game would've been done six months after release.

sfc1971

To me the simplest failure of SWTOR is that I played it. I enjoyed it, to an extent but once I finished one class story, repeating most of the content and especially the grind in between the content, didn't feel as interesting. With each alt completed, the repeat felt worse and worse. Because I had seen it already.

It is a great MMO. For a couple of months.Same with TSW and perhaps upcoming ESO.

All three were/are fun to me. Just not indefinite.

It is not like the days of EQ1 / SWG / WOW where an MMO had to last years because a new one would only be launched every couple of years. The next MMO will be out in a couple of months, play X for a while then move on to Y and then Z. Like you do with single and regular multi-player games. Or are you still playing half-life/counterstrike?

Muke

Originally posted by Tygranir
While I respect your right to state your opinion, your entire post was pretty much that: an opinion. The simple fact that there are thousands online right now enjoying the game negates your all encompassing statements

Same as the OP: a opinion, I dont see the 'thousands" of players apart from the 40 people on the Fleet causing terrible lag because of the game engine.

hallucigenocide

Originally posted by Muke

Originally posted by Tygranir
While I respect your right to state your opinion, your entire post was pretty much that: an opinion. The simple fact that there are thousands online right now enjoying the game negates your all encompassing statements

Same as the OP: a opinion, I dont see the 'thousands" of players apart from the 40 people on the Fleet causing terrible lag because of the game engine.

maybe time to upgrade your hardware.. i've been on fleet with around 200+ players and had no lag and my pc is just some cheap thing i bought.. defenitely not a gaming rig.

 

also people claiming these things obviously have never been apart of the wpvp that's been going on from time to time where's it's been loads of players involved. tha engine may not be optimal but obviously they've managed to get around it after some time.

JudgeUK

Originally posted by delta9

Originally posted by Hellidol

The game will be a ghost town once the next 3 large name MMO's come out ( ESO, Wildstar, EQN). After that good luck with trying to find a group larger then 1 :P.

Simply not true

Agree with your not true comment.

I'd like to add that the hyping of  "the next....MMO's...." is exactly the pattern we have seen so many times before. It's always the next one will be the game to wipe out previous ones.

Over and over, again and again.

The success or failure of any new MMO, not just the next 1, 2 or 3 is around six months after launch, maybe longer. Yes, I know this is the boring bit about waiting half a year after launch, but that's just the way it is.

Tygranir

Originally posted by Muke

Originally posted by Tygranir
While I respect your right to state your opinion, your entire post was pretty much that: an opinion. The simple fact that there are thousands online right now enjoying the game negates your all encompassing statements

Same as the OP: a opinion, I dont see the 'thousands" of players apart from the 40 people on the Fleet causing terrible lag because of the game engine.

If you're lagging on fleet, that is on your end. Fleet works fine for me. You do realize people playing the game usually aren't hanging around on the fleet, right?

CazNeerg

Originally posted by Solar_Prophet

Disagree with you on most points (seriously, this reads like any other review from a hater at the game's launch), but you're spot on about the story. Not because it's bad, or makes it feel like a single player game... but because it ended. Two years in and there's no continuation of any class stories, period. When you end half of them in freaking cliffhangers, that's a big problem.

When you make a game based around story, you need to continue the goddamn story. Period. Bioware promised story continuation both before and after launch, and has yet to make good on it (among a hundred other broken promises).

Half of them in cliffhangers?  None of the Imperial side class stories ended in a cliffhanger.  Jedi Knight didn't end in a cliffhanger.  I haven't finished the other three Republic classes, but at the point where I am, none of them seem to be leading up to cliffhangers.

And they have continued the story; just not the class story.  What they've done is the equivalent of if Marvel, after the Avengers came out, stopped making any individual Captain America and Iron Man movies, and just made more Avengers movies.  The characters still exist, the story still goes on, the focus is just much more narrow.

VincerKaden

Originally posted by CazNeerg

Originally posted by Solar_Prophet

Disagree with you on most points (seriously, this reads like any other review from a hater at the game's launch), but you're spot on about the story. Not because it's bad, or makes it feel like a single player game... but because it ended. Two years in and there's no continuation of any class stories, period. When you end half of them in freaking cliffhangers, that's a big problem.

When you make a game based around story, you need to continue the goddamn story. Period. Bioware promised story continuation both before and after launch, and has yet to make good on it (among a hundred other broken promises).

Half of them in cliffhangers?  None of the Imperial side class stories ended in a cliffhanger.  Jedi Knight didn't end in a cliffhanger.  I haven't finished the other three Republic classes, but at the point where I am, none of them seem to be leading up to cliffhangers.

And they have continued the story; just not the class story.  What they've done is the equivalent of if Marvel, after the Avengers came out, stopped making any individual Captain America and Iron Man movies, and just made more Avengers movies.  The characters still exist, the story still goes on, the focus is just much more narrow.

The trooper story left me feel as if I had more to do. No spoilers but (like that matters now): The trooper story started off well enough and built a good premise. Then it just fizzled to an anti-climax. Honestly, I thought Bioware was known for great RPG storytelling. (I never played any other BW game before). I was underwhelmed.

 

By the time I had finished that storyline guildies and MMO forums pretty much spoiled every other class storyline so I never played the others to the end. And that's when I realized that these story on rails MMOs aren't for me.

CazNeerg

Originally posted by VincerKaden

The trooper story left me feel as if I had more to do. No spoilers but (like that matters now): The trooper story started off well enough and built a good premise. Then it just fizzled to an anti-climax. Honestly, I thought Bioware was known for great RPG storytelling. (I never played any other BW game before). I was underwhelmed. 

By the time I had finished that storyline guildies and MMO forums pretty much spoiled every other class storyline so I never played the others to the end. And that's when I realized that these story on rails MMOs aren't for me.

Each class had it's own writer, so making assumptions about the quality of the experience for the Agent class because the Trooper fizzled is kind of like making assumptions about Salvatore's Forgotten Realms books because you read a Greenwood book and didn't like it.  Which isn't to try to marginalize your opinion, just pointing out that the quality level of the various class stories differs drastically, and even where quality isn't a problem some of them are definitely very taste specific.  And some definitely had much "tighter" stories than others.  Like you claim about Trooper, the Bounty Hunter story kind of gets disjointed and semi-directionless in the later going, whereas Agent is excellent throughout, and Smuggler really feels like a trilogy instead of three separate stories which happen to feature the same character.

AG-Vuk

Originally posted by Elikal

I ..... littering the UI with 4+ full quickbars of skills felt SO outdated to me, even more now. Essentially ALL MMOs released since then have left this Everquest-combat behind in one way or the other, making combat more action packed and with fewer skills. Even in the days when EQ2 was new I found it mildly superfluous to have 10 different variants of fireballs, just to litter my many quickbars. But we didn't know better back then.

..... *hand wave*

I started reading and got this point. You suddenly lost all credibility with me. Please go back to playing consoles and leave the MMO market . These are not the games you are looking for. *hand wave *

VincerKaden

Originally posted by CazNeerg

Originally posted by VincerKaden

The trooper story left me feel as if I had more to do. No spoilers but (like that matters now): The trooper story started off well enough and built a good premise. Then it just fizzled to an anti-climax. Honestly, I thought Bioware was known for great RPG storytelling. (I never played any other BW game before). I was underwhelmed. 

By the time I had finished that storyline guildies and MMO forums pretty much spoiled every other class storyline so I never played the others to the end. And that's when I realized that these story on rails MMOs aren't for me.

Each class had it's own writer, so making assumptions about the quality of the experience for the Agent class because the Trooper fizzled is kind of like making assumptions about Salvatore's Forgotten Realms books because you read a Greenwood book and didn't like it.  Which isn't to try to marginalize your opinion, just pointing out that the quality level of the various class stories differs drastically, and even where quality isn't a problem some of them are definitely very taste specific.  And some definitely had much "tighter" stories than others.  Like you claim about Trooper, the Bounty Hunter story kind of gets disjointed and semi-directionless in the later going, whereas Agent is excellent throughout, and Smuggler really feels like a trilogy instead of three separate stories which happen to feature the same character.

I get that. But as I said, the other stories were already spoiled for me without my even looking for information. Good or not, there's no drive for me to play them.

ktanner3

Originally posted by JudgeUK

Originally posted by delta9

Originally posted by Hellidol

The game will be a ghost town once the next 3 large name MMO's come out ( ESO, Wildstar, EQN). After that good luck with trying to find a group larger then 1 :P.

Simply not true

Agree with your not true comment.

I'd like to add that the hyping of  "the next....MMO's...." is exactly the pattern we have seen so many times before. It's always the next one will be the game to wipe out previous ones.

Over and over, again and again.

The success or failure of any new MMO, not just the next 1, 2 or 3 is around six months after launch, maybe longer. Yes, I know this is the boring bit about waiting half a year after launch, but that's just the way it is.

Yeah I remember those same predictions when GW2 came out.It was suppose to be the big giant that was going to close down TOR . Yeah....... didn't happen and the same people that were talking all that smack have quietly faded away.

The only MMO that he mentioned that has a chance of putting a dent in TOR is ESO because it's also a story based game with a huge IP. But Wildstar and EQN?..... Please. 

Sevenstar61

Originally posted by ktanner3

Originally posted by JudgeUK

Originally posted by delta9

Originally posted by Hellidol

The game will be a ghost town once the next 3 large name MMO's come out ( ESO, Wildstar, EQN). After that good luck with trying to find a group larger then 1 :P.

Simply not true

Agree with your not true comment.

I'd like to add that the hyping of  "the next....MMO's...." is exactly the pattern we have seen so many times before. It's always the next one will be the game to wipe out previous ones.

Over and over, again and again.

The success or failure of any new MMO, not just the next 1, 2 or 3 is around six months after launch, maybe longer. Yes, I know this is the boring bit about waiting half a year after launch, but that's just the way it is.

Yeah I remember those same predictions when GW2 came out.It was suppose to be the big giant that was going to close down TOR . Yeah....... didn't happen and the same people that were talking all that smack have quietly faded away.

The only MMO that he mentioned that has a chance of putting a dent in TOR is ESO because it's also a story based game with a huge IP. But Wildstar and EQN?..... Please. 

Tried Wildstar  beta last week and several TESO beta events. None of these games would pull me out from SWTOR. Wildstar I am not even going to buy, I might play TESO as my second MMO for a while, I am still on the fence here, but animations are so awkward comparing to SWTOR that I cringe with every move and story is mediocre comparing to SWTOR.

 

Not_Too_Bright

Originally posted by skyline385

You are 2 years late on the Hate bandwagon. The game is now known to be financially thriving along with probably the most active in-game population after WoW (inb4 haters come in saying games like TSW and Tera have better pops than SWTOR).

And please, stop with the lame Single player game excuse. The game has tons of Group content (much more than ESO which you seem to be rooting for) with a proper Grouping system and tons of endgame content again for Groups.

It's ironic that you come to complain about SWTOR being single player focused while waiting for ESO. And this is coming from someone who is impatiently waiting for ESO as well.

I don't think you can call him out as a bandwagon hater. That would imply something recent.

 

I have been reading the back log of posts in this forum. I would suggest it to anyone that is bored. The same type of complaints that have been circling since 08 are still carried on about. At some point you would think certain individuals would give it a rest.

 

As for this particular post, the OP suggests they had a previous MMO to go by(which indeed they did in SWG). The decision made to go this route was obviously based on what a flop that game was. No one in their right mind attempts to make a roleplay stage with this type of money. Uncle Owen isn't popular. It would be interesting to hear how many people would mention him in a family feud type survey. My money is on less than 2 votes out of a hundred to the question "Which person comes to mind when you think of the Star Wars universe". And that is with each person being allowed 3 answers each.

 

For former PnP or PVP gamers, SWG was probably pretty good. For the average PVE gamer, not so much IMO.

 

Although still subbed, I haven't played TOR in a while. Count me among those that would like to see the individual stories continue....if even only small tidbits with each major update.

 

 

Avul

I had fun with SWTOR back in the days. Although it was one of the dumbest decisions in my life to subscribe for a whole year.. because I just played about 4 months. Great job, zelaex! I played it like a SP game and it was fine. Some weeks ago I downloaded the client once again to see what it has become.. well.. I only played to level 5. The in-game community was so freakin' immature. It felt I was playing a My Little Pony MMO. I couldn't stand the global chat.. I de-installed it right off the bat. Yes, I could have turned it off I guess.. but it was an overkill for me in that moment.

Now I don't mind going back to SWTOR. There are too many loading screens for my taste and not enough Star Wars feeling. It's cool they included the Cathar as a new race but where are the unique races which represent Star Wars in general? It has the same flaws as at release.

Not_Too_Bright

Originally posted by zelaex

I had fun with SWTOR back in the days. Although it was one of the dumbest decisions in my life to subscribe for a whole year.. because I just played about 4 months. Great job, zelaex! I played it like a SP game and it was fine. Some weeks ago I downloaded the client once again to see what it has become.. well.. I only played to level 5. The in-game community was so freakin' immature. It felt I was playing a My Little Pony MMO. I couldn't stand the global chat.. I de-installed it right off the bat. Yes, I could have turned it off I guess.. but it was an overkill for me in that moment.

Now I don't mind going back to SWTOR. There are too many loading screens for my taste and not enough Star Wars feeling. It's cool they included the Cathar as a new race but where are the unique races which represent Star Wars in general? It has the same flaws as at release.

So are you in the camp that says SWG had more of a "Star Wars feel to it" then?

ShrewdDuck

I agree that the OP needs to go back to consoles. Having only 5 skills even with weapon swap is a huge step back and is intended for console controllers. I like being able to choose which of my 10 fireballs  is the right one to use for the task at hand.