Teala's Wickedly Cool MMORPG.com Blog For The Masses

Just my thoughts on MMO's, roleplaying, game companies, and the people that play these games.

Author: Teala

Welcome to my blog!  Let's see, what shall I discuss this week? 

Hmmm....::thinks::.....how about SWTOR! LOL!   j/k  I think we're all about SWTOR'd out, I know I am.   Oh I could write pages of stuff on this game.   Truly a wonderful game that just oozes stuff to write about.  I haven't had a game like this to write about in ages, but even I can get burned out - I mean there is only so much a hater/troll/person with a diablolical agenda, like me, can produce.  Besides, if I spew to much vitriolic hate, all at once, it could vaporize half the planet.   We don't want that happening.  So today I think I am going to discuss something close to my heart - MMO's and why I blog about them. 

I write about MMO's because they are a hobby of mine.  I do not just play them.  I look at them from the design perspective as well.     I don't just go - cool - new game - let's play!  I find it fascinating that we have the ability to create what is essentially a virtual world within our world.  

Think about this for a second.   We live in the Universe.   A Universe not of our making.    We've lived that way for millions of years.  Then not too long ago, humans technology advanced at an astounding rate.   From making fires on the open plains of the Serengeti to having an orbital space station.   That is so awesome.   It wasn't long ago before the first electronic computer was built.   Of course it wasn't long before someone had the ideal of using computers to play games.   But the coolest thing of all was when a group of people decided to create a virtual world with a computer.   How cool is that?!  A small Universe inside a Universe.  

But I digress, that is not what I wish to discuss today.  I can write pages and pages on the history of computer games and right now...I am just not in the mood.  No today we're discussing the fascination by some people that other people should not voice their opinions about these games or MMO's. 

It seems some people think that we should not be critical of games.  We should just be brainwashed zombies and accept whatever the game designers put on the market.   Not only should we just accept it, but we should put it on a golden pedastal, and worship it as a perfect iteration of gaming "perfection".  

News flash - no game is a 10 - ever.  Well, at least not yet.

I for one will continue to be critical of these games.   I said the main reason I blog about these games is because they are my hobby, that is partly correct.  The other reason is to get these game companies to produce better games.   When I go into a game I expect some degree of polish.  I expect certain basic features.   I expect that a new game is actually as good or better than those that came before it.   I dunno, call me crazy, but I am that way with just about everthing I buy.   I do not go buy a new car and not expect windshield wipers to be gone, or it is missing a glove box.   When I go pick out a new TV I expect it to be as good or better as the one that I currently have.  If not - why buy a new TV?

Same for these games.   Why buy a new MMO if it is not as good or better than the one I am currently playing?  Sorry, I am not going to do that.  I do not care if the game is based on a particular IP I happen to like - if the game is mediocre - it is mediocre and not worth my money or my time.  

Know what I am going to do when a new MMO comes out?  I am going to say just that.   The game is not as good or better than the one I am playing - so I am not going to play it.   I am going to point out why.  I am going to be critical of it.  I am going to continue to be critical of it and all the other games that came before it and continue to be critcial of these games until someone gets it right.  

If I don't, and others like me don't do this, guess what - we get sold the same game over and over again and you know what else - they don't get better, they get worse.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.   Look at the games that have released since WoW.  See anything unusaul about them?  I have.  They are becoming more and more linear.  They have become totally gear driven.  End games consist of PVP BG's and Raids and even the new games have made those areas of the game worse.   They release with missing basic features - even Rift released without a guild bank and other features.    It is getting pathetic and way to many people just turn a blind eye to the fact that these games are not getting better - when they should be!  Just as cars, phones, TV's and other things get better - this genre is getting worse.   That is not acceptable to me. 

See - TV's didn't get worse over the years.  They have always gotten better.   Would you ever buy a TV that was not better than the one you currently have?

Like one reviewer said regarding the game that cannot be named, "no other game I can think of  was designed with such an obvious attitude of HEY WE DON'T GIVE A CRAP".  

More MMO gamers should be raising a huge stink.   These games are not improving.   If you say they are, I want what you are smoking because that is some really good  stuff.   As for me.  I will continue to fight the good fight and hopefully some day the message will finally be heard.    Make us a better game.

You'd think these game companies would do what other companies do when they are competing for a share of the market.   They make a better product!   That is one reason WoW was so successful.   They(Blizzard) took a mishmash of games and said, lets take this from that game, this from that game, and oh yeah this and this, and that.  Then they said, now that we have these things let's make it better.  Tada.  WoW was born.  Blizzard does this and continues to be successful.  Did these other game designers learn anything from Blizzard?  No.  All they knew to do was try to copy what WoW did and produce a knock-off - a psudeo version of the game - a counterfeit. 

In this day and age of products - you have to produce a good product.   Even if Android phones are not Apples iPhone - they are as good and in some instances better than an iPhone!  We get a better product!

Same reason why iPad's are still the best selling tablet.  Nobody has done it better right now than Apple.  

That is why I blog about MMO's.  I have no "hidden agenda".  I am not a paid shill for any game company.  I am not a hater of MMO's.  I am a gamer and I wish to see better games made.    That has always been my single theme of my writing when it comes to this genre.   Some people think I am being critical of these games and bashing them just to be bashing them.   I do not bash a game.   If I was to say bash a game like SWTOR all I would do is go around saying "SWTOR SUCKS!"   That is bashing a game.

Being critical of a game is just that..being critical.  Somehow, some people took being critical to mean the game is being bashed and its fans are being trolled - it's not.   Also, an opinion is just that an opinion.  If you do not agree with it, state why you do not agree with it and let it go.  Do not proceed to then go into some diatribe about the person that holds the opinion that is different than yours - that is not construcitve in the least.  If you continue to do that eventaully everything becomes a nonsensical mess and any message you are trying to convey becomes lost in translation.

This is not going to be a long winded blog entry, I just wanted what I am about to say to be on record.  I cannot take credit for the term Tortanic either, a frequent user of the MMORPG.com forums used it in one of their post to a thread and I thought it was very appropriate considering what I am about to say. 

With that, read on.

Whitesta...erm...I mean Bioware is proving that even with an IP known by millions of fans, no MMO is  impervious to the iceberg named "first impressions".  I've used this very term when I have discussed other releases of past MMO's and this game is no different.   So I am calling it here and now.

SWTOR will be one of the most disastrous MMO's released in the last 10 years and quite possibly the biggest(it's estimated that Bioware and EA spent anywhere between 80 million, and quite possibly 500+ million to make SWTOR) one any of us have ever seen and here is why.

First impressions are everything. 

Don't care what the so called professional reviewers have said about the game up until now.   Most people have come to realize that their(the professional reviewers) reviews were littered with potentially damaging opinions of the game - only to still give the game high marks.   I am not one to wear a tin-foil hat and really do not care if people will say I am wearing one now, but rumors are abound that many websites may have been coerced into giving SWTOR a good review.  Has something to do with Mass Effect 3(part of a game swag bag) and being able to get it before its release to review it - or something like that.  ::shrugs::  Take that for what it is worth.

Anyway, many professional reviews gave SWTOR a bloated score when it clearly didn't deserve it, and any gamer with half a brain realized this.  The game was released pre-maturely, it was not polished, and it was not a complete package as far as MMO's go(I will explain this complete package- read on).

Any MMO that launches with that many bugs, exploits, missing basic features(guild banks, customizable UI, target of target, etc, etc, etc), and almost no end game what to speak of, and its poorly implemented character creation system, poorly implemented game mechanics, bloated skill system, plus the faction imbalances, does not deserve a score that is reserved for games that truly are great.  

Despite the hype of this game, it hasn't exactly been shattering any recent sales records.  Bioware hasn't exactly been upfront and totally honest with its player base regarding the high-res textures snafu(or the exploits that plague the game), nor have they been gaining any browny points for their less than average customer support.   The game engine they chose to use is not up to the job clearly.  The heavy sharding is killing the MMO asepct, and it is coming across as a single-player game.  Also, their official forums seem like something a 2-bit amateur website might maintain.  

And speaking of forums, the official forums are littered with post of disappointed and frustrated fans.  

I didn't need to be a MMO genius during beta to see how shallow, how lifeless, and how off the mark this game was to know it would not do very well once your average MMO player got to play the game.  I knew it from the moment I played through the linear starter zone of Tython with my first character.   Call it instinct, but I knew I was beta testing a game that would be a flash in the pan.  I wish I hadn't felt it.  I really was hoping we'd get a good Star Wars based MMO and at least something as good as WoW.  I mean it is Bioware.  It is Star Wars.   You'd think that would mean we'd get a great game.   Sadly it is mediocre at best and if Bioware plans to save this grand MMO ship the indignity of being the biggest game to go bust the fastest of any game to date - they'd better start saying things and doing things players want to see and hear.   First impressions are everything and I think Bioware has blown it at this point.

If Bioware choses and continues to ignore the signs that iceburgs are dead ahead and doesn't do what is necessary to avoid that iceburg over the next couple of weeks...welcome to this genres biggest disaster...the Tortanic. 

UPDATE!  JAN 18th, 2012  TORTANIC HITS ICEBURG!   ICEBURG 1.1 RIPS HUGE GASH IN HULL.  NO WORDS YET FROM BIOWARE ON WHAT THEY INTEND TO DO.  FLOODING ON DECKS REPORTED. 

UPDATE!  JAN 19th, 2012 TORTANIC IN ORDER TO CONTROL PASSENGERS HAS REMOVED LIFEBOATS.  PASSENGERS ARE IN A FRENZY LOOKING FOR THEM.  IT APPEARS THE CANCEL BUTTON FOR SOME PLAYERS IS MISSING!

UPDATE!   JAN 19th, 2012 EA STOCKS TAKE A NOSE DIVE(drops 5% and still dropping) AFTER WORD OF THIS DISASTER HITS THE MARKET.  INVESTORS PANIC! 

UPDATE!  JAN 19th, 2012 BIOWARE RELEASES A VIDEO TO STAVE OFF CONCERNS OF PLAYERS AND TO LET THE PLAYERS KNOW THAT BIOWARE CARES.  ENTICING THEM TO STAY CALM WITH A VIDEO.  WATCH IT HERE >>>> SWTOR FUTURE PLANS VIDEO

UPDATE! JAN 20th, 2012 TORTANIC PASSENGERS FLEE SINKING SHIP.   GRAPHIC IMAGES SHOW THE NUMBER OF PASSENGERS USING THE LIFE RAFTS.  

Above Image curtesy of SWTOR Arena.com

The above graph is curtesy xFire.com

UPDATE!  JAN 21, 2012 EA STOCKS CLIMB BACK 2% AFTER SHIPPING EXPERTS TELL INVESTORS THAT THE SHIP IS FINE.   EA STOCKS SEEM TO HAVE BOUNCED BACK AFTER OTHER INDUSTRY ANALYST RELIEVE FEARS OF INVESTORS.

UPDATE! JAN 28th, A NUMBER OF NEW HOLES HAVE BEEN FOUND IN THE HULL.   SEEMS A NUMBER OF NEW EXPLOITS HAVE COME TO LIGHT. 

UPDATE!  FEB 1st, 2012, EA STOCK REBOUNDS - UP 5% ON NEWS OF 2 MILLION PASSENGERS BOUGHT TICKETS TO SALE ON TORTANIC.  1.7 MILLION STILL ONBOARD!  NEWS IS SKETCHY.  WILL UPDATE WHEN WE HAVE MORE NEWS!

UPDATE! FEB 3rd, 2012, TORTANIC CONTINUES TO SINK AS PASSENGERS FLEE.

NOTE: In all the years I have used xfire to track a games health, never have I seen an MMO lose so many players this fast.   Not even Warhammer dropped this fast within its first month.  

This is my opinion.   Bioware can still prove me wrong, but at this point in the games release I think it is too late.

I have put a lot of thought into why I think SWTOR is not a very well made or good game, after  I bailed on beta because I just couldn't get into the game.  One of the things that drove me away early on was that I couldn’t connect with my Jedi character.  And I think that is the thing that ruined this game for me the most, and why I couldn't connect with my Jedi character(Consular/Sage) is because she lacked even basic Jedis skills that I thought Jedis would have.  I was hoping that I would be able to play a Jedi like the kind we saw in the movies.   I wanted to play the Obi-Wan or Qui-Gon Jinn Jedi.   But when I got into game expecting to play a Jedi...that is not what I found.   What I found was that Bioware took the iconic Jedi and turned them into bubble casting mages that wield raver lightsticks for looks.

Watch Obi-Wan fight Darth Maul -

this is how a Jedi fights if they must fight.

Where is the skill to block incoming blaster bolts?  Don’t say they do this in game and I do not know what I am talking about.  It is not a skill, it is a showy graphic that does nothing.  It is there for looks and nothing more.  Most of the time your character stands and the blaster bolts hit them.  It is just there for show.

Where is the skill to distract - so we can avoid conflict?

Where is the skill to just "force" push an enemy?

Where are the lightsaber combat skills - Consulars get two strikes - one that is pretty much useless and the other does a horizontal back and forth strike - that's it?

Where are the basic melee hand-to-hand skills?

It's cool that we can toss rocks from out of nowhere and or grab some buried droid and toss them, instead of grabbing a droid that is standing 2 meters away shooting at us, and tossing him.   That makes perfect sense.    ::rolls her eyes::

So I just have to ask.   Why didn’t you give us the ability to play a Jedi?

Why didn't they give us the ability to block incoming blaster bolts using a skill named "bolt deflection"?

Young Jedi learning to deflect blaster bolts.

Padawans in the movies and stories learn early on how to do this.  It is a basic skill taught to all Jedis.  It is one of the best things about being a Jedi is using your lightsaber to deflect incoming blaster bolts.   Why didn't they add it as a skill that we could progressively get better at.   It would last for x amount of time when activated deflecting x% of shots.   This skill should get to where you can block almost all incoming bolts and eventually be able to redirect one or some of the shots back at the one that fired it at you.    That to me makes more sense than casting a force shield; and deflecting shots by a Jedi using a lightsaber is more in line with Star Wars than casting a force shield.  A force shield is good for protecting a friendly.   Jedis use lightsabers to protect themselves not some bubble.

Second...give all Jedis various lightsaber combat skills and not just one or two.   It is silly that the main weapon of a Jedi is a lightsaber and yet it is relegated to being nothing more than something we turn on to denote we're in combat and are a Jedi.   All Jedis should be able to use their lightsabers to some degree of proficiency.   Go back and watch any of the movies or read any of the books, all Jedis are trained in the use of the lightsaber and it is their primary weapon to not only protect them, but to also incapacitate, or kill enemies they face.

Consulars get some weird form of force push.   They do this awkward jump into the air, then come down sending out a what looks like a raindrop hitting a puddle wave thingy, only it is not water it is air stirring up dust so you can see the effect.   Why?  Just give us what we saw in the movies.  That would be so much cooler.   No need to do any fancy dust wavy effects, just let us use force push to knock enemies down(Jedi Guardians and Sentinals get this I believe, but Consulars get the stupid jumpy, wavy crap) that is all we need and that is more Jedi’sh than that awful poorly animated thing you gave Consulars.

It is cool that you allowed us to grab an object and throw it at an enemy using the force.   To have us magically lift a droid out of the ground - so just how is that suppose to be Star Warsy?  How about allow us to grab a crate(there are always crates, boxes, pipes, boulders etc, etc, etc) and toss it instead.  That is what we saw in Star Wars.   Never did we see a Jedi jerk some long buried droid from beneath the ground to toss at someone.  In fact we can be standing on a metal plated deck of a ship and grab a driod from beneath it and toss it!   That is just - well - stupid.  You could have done better Bioware.

Vader shows how throwing an object using the force is done.

He ripped stuff off walls.  They didn't magically appear from beneath his feet!

Also, why didn’t you give all Jedi the ability to distract an enemy/ies?  It should be a basic skill.  To me that would be awesome and more in-line with the skill of being a Jedi.  We don’t even get this simple skill to avoid fighting.   Nope.  We must fight - always.   How Jedi’sh is that?

Where are the cool defensive and offensive moves Jedis are famous for?  Where is our ability to force leap to a high place or force jump a gap, or control our fall?  Master Windu did a backflip off a ledge that was at least 15 meters from the ground and landed safely.   Anikin jumped from a flying speeder and landed on one hundreds of feet below him.   Every Jedi learns acrobatics to avoid being hit in melee or even to avoid being shot?  Where are their moves in SWTOR?  

When I looked at this game when it was first announced I was like, cool, maybe they will get it right and allow us to play Jedis they way we see them in the movies.  Now that would be so very cool.   Sadly Bioware decided to give us something that is a wanna be Jedi - because in my opinion what they gave us is not the Jedis we saw in the movies and read about.  

It’s cool you wished to expand their abilities, what is not cool is not giving all Jedis the basic skills one would expect a Jedi to have.  That is not cool at all, and in my case helped turn me away from your game, because well...I wanted to play a Jedi.

Personally, I think Bioware needs to go back and rewrite, and redo, all the Jedi classes in this game and make them play like Jedis.  It is sad that certain Jedis and Sith do more damage using a skill to throw rocks or cast lightning rather than use their primary weapon - the one weapon that defines a Jedi - their lightsaber.   Imagine watching a Samurai movie and all the Samurai use magic abilities and none use their signature sword - the katana.   Not very cool huh...same goes for SWTOR - I never felt like I was playing a Jedi.  I felt like I was playing a mage wielding a glowstick.


 

Wow...I love when a new MMO releases.   Gives me lots of material for my blog!  Thank you SW:TOR and BIOWARE!  You're my new muse!  

I think I have covered this topic before, let me check...on second thought...let's just do this, again, even if I have covered it before - what the hell - MMO's use this model all the time!  Woohoo! 

I am going to catch a ton of flak for this, then again, that's OK...makes me tough!  Rawwwwwrrrr!  Plus I have a good flak jacket and goggles for all the incoming poo being slung my way.   So let's lock and load this puppy!

IN  MY OPINION <<<< MAKE SURE YOU READ THAT!

The biggest problem with the gaming industry today is >>>> FANBOYS / FANGRLS

Saying it here and now, possibly again, for the bazillionth time, because in these types of peoples minds, and in their eyes, their precious game is perfect.    They refuse to see even the biggest flaws in a game, and discount anything anyone else says, lashing out at anyone saying anything remotely critical of their game.   Whether the person is being honest in their opinion or not, and has a legitimate complaint, issue, or criticism of a game - to the zealot fan it doesn't matter - "YOU ARE A HATER! YOU ARE A TROLL!"

It's OK to really like, or even love a game, but to deny that a game has any shortcomings, or maybe flawed, or not so polished, and finished, is, to the zealot fan of a game, an immediate call to retaliate and do whatever they can to shout down a games critic.  Even if the critic is right, the fan will deny, make excuses, or spin what the critic says in order to make that persons point of view disenginious or just outright false.  

Seen it, been there, and yes, go to any gaming forum and you will see this.   Even on MMORPG.com's forum this is practiced and widely used by over zealot fans.

I say this is bad on the gaming industry because, IN MY OPINION, when fans of these games refuse to acknowledge a games flaws, issues and shortcomings, and proclaim a game to be perfect, that is sending the wrong message to the people that design and make these games.   

It really bunches up my knickers(yes that is a word - google it), when people, players, gamers, whatever, refuse to acknowledge that something is not "PERFECT!"   What can I say...the Universe is not a perfect place.   It isn't.   In fact it is because the Universe is not perfect that we even exist! 

When you proclaim a game perfect, you are sending a message to the game designers that their game is perfect, and there is no incentive and no reason for them to fix, or try harder to fix an existing game, or to deliver better games.    I am sorry...I love Skyrim...I love Mount and Blade:Warband, and even I(two games I am a huge fan of BTW(huge doesn't even start to cover how much I love these two games)), can see these games shortcomings, and point out the flaws, and issues these games have.    Go read my reviews of those two games.   I can love the game, but I am not going to proclaim them perfect, and discount the problems with the game.

Not just no, I am not going to do that - but, hell no, I am not going to do that!

I am going to call the developers out on their mistakes and point out the flaws of their game so that they can make the game better.    I want a better game, so that it enhances my over all enjoyment playing it. 

Second reason this is bad on the gaming industry.

When the zealot fans start their hype and proclomations that X game is perfect that sends a signal to other gamers, that, the game is perfect.   Then when Jack and Jill gamer buy the game and see that the game is not perfect...guess what?   Jack and Jill gamer are like, WTF!  Why didn't anyone tell me this game was like this?  Why can't  I do this?  Where is this feature in the game?  Why doesn't this game allow me to do this when it is a basic game element of games like this?

Jack and Jill then come to message boards or go to the official message boards and start complaining.  They ask how come this game is like this...it is not perfect...why were we not told that this game is missing even this basic feature we've come to expect in our games?

Well Jack and Jill gamer, someone did try to tell you, but we were shouted down by the fanboys and fangirls of this game, and you were told that the game was perfect - remember?   

Then the next step of Jack and Jill gamer is to go to their friends, and gaming forums, and you know what they do?  They tell friends, people on forums...don't play X game.  It is not perfect.   It is a bad game.   Next thing you know...game X is on everyones "this game sucks" list and the game then becomes unpopular.  And instead of seeing lots of constructive criticism all we will see or hear is, "THIS GAME SUCKS!"

For MMO's this can mean one thing - it means less subscribers.   It means ghost town like servers with less people to play with because lots of people left the game.  It also means the game company producing it has less money coming in to keep developing their game.   Then the game company has to make a choice.  Either they stop development or slow it down and new content and bug fixes are slower coming in, or the game goes free-2-play, or they just shut the game down all together.  

Is that really what we gamers want?  Do we really want to see more and more of these games launched half-baked only to see them either get shutdown or go free-2-play and stop growing?  Especially AAA title games?  Guild Wars/NCSoft is excused from this model since some how they defy all other game companies and allow people to play for free.   I dunno how they manage to do this and keep putting out content, but they do.  ::shrugs::  It'll be intersting to see how their no subscription fee will work on GW2, since it will be a full-fledge MMO.  

Anyways...that is for another topic, but the fact remains, AAA MMO's live and die by subscriptions.    Not all, but most do. 

What else does it do to the game industry when fanboi's and fangrls scream that X game is perfect!  It stagnates the genre.   Tell me, what innovation have you really seen in the Call of Duty games, or the Battlefield games series?   Yeah..not much have you.   Basically re-skinned, some new destroyable game world pieces, new map, but all in all what has really changed?   Not much.  COD still has the same boring arse small maps.  BF3 added a couple of new tweaks and destructable assets in game, but over all...meh, the game is just the same thing - but looks prettier.  

So, will we ever see Battefield 4: LET'S GET MEDIEVAL!   How about a co-op conquest game for Battlefield series based on medieval warfare of Europe where players can battle it our for England, France, Italy- the Holy Lands - using medieval weapons and settings?  Doubtful.   Because all we've been getting from these two companies over the past few years is the same game - just re-hashed - over and over again.   Anyone want to see something new!  Something innovative?

Never going to happen if the zealot fans of these games don't stop and say...hey, "Can we please have something different.  Your game is getting old...we've been there and done this all ready.   How about something different for a change?"

We as gamers owe it to ourselves to me very vigilant and watchful of people like this.   Because it is these people that are not helping anyone or any game.    In fact these are the very people that are hurting the games industry more than anything else.    I am telling you here and now, it is OK to be critical of a game.  Even if a game is good...::cough:: Skyrim ::cough::, doesn't mean we cannot point out its issues and flaws, "Bethesda really screwed up with the console to PC port of this game - WTF were you thinking Bethesda?!" - see, the world did not implode.   Praise it for its good, but have the nerve to also bring up the things that are wrong with it.    We as gamers owe it to ourselves to be critical of game companies...because if we do not hold these game designers and publishers butts to the fire...guess what, we get what we deserve.

AND THIS HAS BEEN A PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT FROM FANBOIS NOT ALLOWED FAN CLUB. 

Special Note:

Bashing a game is when someone says nothing critical about a game, they just say things like, 'this game sucks', or 'this is the worst game ever'.  That is a troll, that is someone bashing a game.

Being critical of a game is when someone says something about an element or feature of a game, for instance, 'UI is not customizable', 'character creation is not up to par', or 'game is very linear in its game play'.   Those are critical statements.

Constructive criticism, is when someone says, "the UI in the game is not adjustable, Bioware should allow players to resize and move around the UI.' or 'There is no target of target in game, this is something Bioware needs to put in especially for healing classes.'

So I am going to break my own rule I made on this game.  I said I was only ever going to write two entries on this game...well it seems that will not be the case.   The game is too important for "me" as a gamer.  

Any gamer that is in love with MMO's knows that we've had a string of themepark games that have not been all that great, and despite what some of you may say about me, you are dead wrong if you think I hate SW:ToR.   So many times I have been called a hater of MMO's it isn't even funny any more.   It is just stupid.  I do not hate MMO's, I love MMO's, I wouldn't have kept playing them over the years if I hated them so much.  Granted I don't jump on the hype bandwagon with each new release of an MMO...but there is a reason for that.

No I do not hate MMO's, what you take as hate, I call disappointment and frustration.   Do I hate MMO's - no.   I am just so disappointed and frustrated with the current mess this genre is in and it is in this mess because someone, somewhere, decided that because World of Warcraft was such a success -well then all games must be made like WoW.  

Did you know that back in 2003 I wrote a review about World of Warcraft and gave it a rating of 4 out of 10.  I admit I missed that one...I was way off base with WoW, but then again WoW at launch wasn’t the game it is today.  Plus, WoW had 4 million built in fans, those fans were Blizzard game fans that loved the game Diablo..so bad on me for not seeing that one coming.

Anyway, I beta'd that game and I so disliked it.   I saw it taking this genre backward...away from the direction I thought the games should have been going.    I was looking for a game that gave me a world of freedom.   I was looking for a new Asheron's Call.   I have been searching ever since, and you know it is sad, I am not here to say that Asheron's Call was the perfect MMORPG...because it wasn't; it was still missing something.   I knew what it was missing, but seeing that I was just a player, I also knew that I would never be able to get the developers to listen to anything I said.   I tried...I tried really hard.   I use to go to the suggestions forum over on IGN(back then AC didn't have official forums and IGN became the defacto game website for AC).   I saw such a huge potential in the game and what it could be.   It had the world all ready, we players just need more tools of our own to make the game world ours.  

See...that is why I am so frustrated and disappointed.   Even with games like WoW, because these game companies say this is your game, this is your world, come play in it.  All lies.   It is not our world.  It is their world and we players are just little puppets on a string.

The only game right now that allows players almost total freedom is EVE, but EVE is all about space ships and as I have said in previous post about EVE, I will not play that game any more until avatar/character game play is as important as space ships.  I fought to like that game, I really did, but it was just...I mean, if the game is not about my character than I have nothing to keep me playing.   Some think space ships are the cats meow...they are to a point, but let me ask you this.  What is the Millenium Falcon without Han Solo?  What is Serenity without Malcom Reynolds?  See...it takes the human factor to make space ships work.  How can I possibly relate to a hunk of metal?   I can't.   I can relate to a character, that owns a ship, but I cannot relate to the ship unless there is a character that pilots it.   The attempt by CCP to give us avatars was a nice attempt...the fact that they pulled the plug on it and are relegating avatars to a closet and then calling it "walking in stations" - well that is a joke.  

The old Star Wars Galaxies was a good game pre-CU and NGE.   No it didn’t bring in millions of players - but who the hell cares.  Back then to have 350k+ paying subscribers was better than nothing.   Todays recent releases would kill to maintain 350+ paying subs.   Be that as it may, I’ve gone over this territory before - no need to go over it again.  SWG was a good game, it was far from perfect, but it delivered what it promised at first...it gave us the Star Wars Universe and allowed us freedom.   

But I digress, what I am saying is, we need to get back to allowing players some freedom.  These games anymore, are taking away any freedom we players once had almost completely.   Look at the recently released games.  Can you see a pattern?  They are becoming more and more themepark, literally themepark, I am talking riding rails on a train, you are sitting in your seat and can look out the window...you're there for the ride only, you cannot get off and explore, you are merely a passenger and the parks train director has all ready planned your itinerary.   Seriously...go look at most new AAA games since the release of World of Warcraft.    You as a player are given less and less freedom.   There are fewer starting zones.  Hell in 1999  the game of Asheron's Call was released and we the players picked our starting city and area based on our race.   We were not forced to start in a particular "zone".   We had the choice of where we started.   How cool is that?

Now, you the player do not even get the choice, you must start here, and you must go here and do this,  and then this, and then this, and then that.   It is like I said, you have a guide.   This guide/director will tell you what to do, when to do it, when you can do the next thing and the next thing, oh and then you can have lunch, then we'll go see the tigers, then the giraffes.    Get it.

No?

Games like Rift and SW:ToR are those train rides through the themepark.   They are more restrictive than ever.   If you say they are not, you are not doing anyone any favors(especially potential players) by not admitting this is how these games are - because short of the developer playing the game for you - it doesn't get any linear than these two games.  SW:ToR is the worst offender of this than any game I have ever played.   It mainly has to do with the pre-built class stories the player "must" follow.   Do not say you do not have to follow them...you cannot gain enough exp by grinding mobs and doing side quest to stay up with your guild mates if you skip the storyline driven class quest that your class is written around.   It is truly sad that Bioware took this route and removed the one thing that made MMORPG's good - we players could make our characters and our own stories as we went along - we didn't need a pre-made story to get us to play the game.  The game and the world the game was built around was all we needed to enjoy the game - the world was the game!

Even World of Warcraft gave you more freedom than Aion, Rift, Warhammer, LoTR's; and SW:ToR makes World of  Warcraft look like a frikking sandbox game!   I am not kidding.    Like I said if SW:ToR was any tighter on the reigns of the player the developer would be playing your character for you!

It is too late to change the way the game SW:ToR plays from 1-50.   It is what it is.   No matter, what you as a player wish to do, you will have to grind your way through a lot of dialogue and  stories(that have no impact on the game or the world you are playing in - at all) to get to anything that resembles a game where you are allowed some freedom at level 50.   Don't give me this crap that the story is the game.  I am sorry, I did not choose to play a Jedi Consular to go do some arbitrary task that any other padawan could have easily accomplish.   Now do not take what I just said as slamming the story driven questline system Bioware has put in place.  To the contrary I think their VO’s for quest are awesome...but does it have to be so linear and some so silly and badly written?  You say we’re suppose to be heroes of our own story, yet you force us to do silly, lowly quest that any nearby peon should be doing.   I do not think a Jedi is to high and mighty to clean toilets, but to have to clean toilet after toilet...please.   If I wanted to be the hero of cleaning toilets I’d would have asked you to put in a janitorial class.  Do you get what I am saying here?   

Why not put lots of VO’d quest throughout the world and let us players pick and choose the ones we wish to do rather than force us to play along a singular path down a follow the yellow brick road story of their making, instead of one we the players make as we play the game?

Worked great in a game like Skyrim.   Please do not tell me we can’t have similar game play in MMO’s - that argument is so yesterday.   I refuse to believe that a game like SW:ToR cannot be more open.   Why not open up and put more world, into the worlds, and give us more freedom of choice?  What is wrong with random encounters as well?  Oh wait, we cannot have those because the way you built your linear boxed in worlds that would be impossible - as the game is now.   Open up your worlds in the future(should have been in at release, but oh well, later is better than never).  Add more landmass to them...then you will be able to add random encounters.    One thing many of these games are missing is simple random encounters that come out of nowhere.   You find a set of ruins off the side of the road.  You explore it a bit and walk around the end of a wall and there is a robber thief with his three cohorts - weapons drawn - confronting you.   That will only happen to a player that randomly at that give n time spawned the group simply by going off the beaten path - this time.  Next time another play may not encounter anything.   See how that works.  Simple.   It is done in other games and computer based RPG’s since forever - yet this genre we do not see this.  Why?  It’s not like it can’t be done.  Does everything have to be a hard placed MOB?  It will always be there, day, night, every hour on the hour and never move.   To me that is just bad game design.  Themeparks do not have to be so stagnate and unchanging.   You can still have your themepark game - but put it into a semi-living world.   Going to say once again for a themepark game SW:ToR isn’t even half-the game WoW is in this area and WoW is the game everyone rags on and yet people are like SW:ToR is the greatest MMO we’ve ever seen!  No it is not...there is more “life” in the Barrens then you see in all of Tython, Korriban, hell just throw in all the worlds of SW:ToR for that matter - the Barrens in WoW makes all those worlds seem boring and lifeless.

So please Bioware - work on the atmosphere of these worlds and make them more lively, instead of placing 3 or 4 mob groups strategically all over the place in close proximity to one another - just waiting for a player to come through the area to whack on them...have them patrolling or at least behaving as if they are performing a duty.   As it is now, most mobs stand and wait.  I know this is how themepark games are currently made...my question is why?  Why do these “worlds” have to be so damn stagnate to the point of silly.   Open the worlds up!  Spread things out...give us a world/s that are not so - like someone said in a forum post - they are like dioramas.  We the players are merely running through a diorama - there is no world.   Is it to much to ask for a world?   Even Rift had critters! Badly animated critters and ugly critters - SW:ToR has none of this.   Why?  I watched various video interviews given by the people creating the worlds and settings of SW:ToR and time, after time they kept saying how their worlds would be the most engrossing aspects of this game, and how each world is lovingly detailed and created to help immerse the player into the Star Wars: Old Republic Universe.   After my time in game I ask - where was this done?   They are lifeless dead worlds.  I swear there are places you can just stop and listen and hear absolutely - nothing.   There are no ambient sounds.  No wind blowing. No fog.  No night and day cycles.  No little creatures flitting about or crawling on the ground, in the trees - nothing.   How is that immersive? How is that type of atmosphere suppose to convey any kind of world feeling?   

NPC’s for the most part are just mannequins.   They either stand there and do nothing or they move a bit and then do nothing.   Make them move!  People say SW:ToR has moved this genre forward...no it hasn’t!  It has taken it backwards.   If we as gamers allow the developers to pass this off as an immersive gaming experience and worlds, we’re not helping this genre move forward - we’re helping game companies like Bioware take it backwards!  Where are the worlds you said we would see that would amaze and captivate us like no other game on the market?   I’d be scared to see these guys make the world of Dagobah.  With it’s thick jungle setting, critters and creatures, everywhere you look, with ambient sounds of the wild in the background.   Please...never build that planet Dagobah Bioware world builders...because based on your view of what you think of as an immersive world - we’d get a jungle that was more like a lifeless desert set in a vacuum(to keep us from hearing anything).  That would make Yoda sad, his home it is.  :)

MOB’s are the same way...dead.    In fact you can kill three MOB’s and yet their buddies, not more than five meters away stand there and act as if nothing is happening!  Dude...I am slaughtering your comrades, your friends, your buddies, your cohorts and all you do is stand there and pick your nose?  Seriously.

Jeez, I am sick of this type of game play.   How to fix this.  Spread them out.  Oh wait, that means we have to have bigger worlds.   Should have thought about that before you made everything so linear and on rails - your worlds need to be bigger and more open so that we’ve got room to have a world Bioware.   Sad, this game could be awesome!  Instead you do like everyone else and play it safe and make your game so frustratingly bad by following a badly modeled ideal that MMORPG’s were meant to be an arcade side scrolling game.  Might as well be with the way this game plays most of the time.  Guys it is 2011.  

Anyway, if you spread things out it wouldn’t be so un-immersive  - I can only suspend my disbelief so far Bioware with how you have it now.   I am sorry my brain doesn’t accept the garbage you try to pass off as a good game.   Anyway, how to fix it - suggestion.   Put some actual scripts into what your MOB’s will do, and how they will react, when attacked.   If I as a Jedi starts swinging a lightsaber the MOB/s I am not immediately attacking should scatter, and get distance from my character...my character is a frikking Jedi with a lightsaber!  If they are ranged they should be running and gunning, or getting behind cover.   Funny, when I am playing Skyrim I see archer based MOB’s do exactly what I just described when their group is attacked.   They will kite, dodge, shoot, move, shoot again...dodge, move, weave and shoot again...go for cover from time to time.   That is called scripting.  Like in the game Mount and Blade...you pull a bow and if the enemy has a shield they will throw it up, and slowly make their way toward you, keeping the shield up the whole time to keep my arrows from hitting them.   That is called scripting.  A small husband and wife team over in Turkey created the game Mount and Blade and you are going to tell me that two people managed to do something like that and your whole developer team in charge of creature or MOB design, and how they behaved, could not do as well as those two people?   All you delivered in SW:ToR was dead MOBs that will stand in one spot and let a player whack on them.  Seriously...is that the best you can do?  I’ve seen better reaction from MOB’s in games 10 years old compared to what we see from the MOB’s in SW:ToR.  This needs worked on - a lot.   Please work on this and make the game actually challenging.

One thing that I do not understand is why you are not taking advantage of this games main theme.  That being the struggle for supremacy between the Jedi and Sith.   This is, in essence, the whole underlying premise of the Star Wars Universe, good versus evil, but on a galactic scale.   Granted there is lore tied to the game...but from what I can tell there is a couple of thousands years between the time of the old Republic and the rise of the Empire during Emporer Palpatines reign.   Sure we know the outcome after Vader kills the Emporer...but before that, in between the time of the setting of SW:ToR, and the return of the Sith...there is room to do some interesting things.   

Why not allow players to actually fight the battle of Jedi vs Sith in SW:ToR the old Republic.  You have this great opportunity to add a layer of game play that few games offer.   Allow players to become a part of the ongoing struggle of Jedi vs Sith.    How do you do this?  Give players the ability and tools to partake in the struggle.   Players could participate via many different ways and contribute to their sides ability to wage war on their foes.

For instance, the Republic needs arms and ammo.  Allow players to gather resources, build guns and ammo, that is then “smuggled” to the places that need it.    Add more planets with territory players can take and control.    Doesn’t even have to be straight up PvP, it can be done in a PvE type setting as well.   The more the players participate in helping their side when the war the greater the chance the have of benefiting from it.   Like in the game SW Battlefront, there is a campaign mode.   Why not allow players to look at a galactic map, see what worlds are controlled by what faction and then let players compete for control over them.  Doesn’t have to be over complicated, just something, anything that can invoke a sense of having worth in your game.   Give out titles according to how much a player contributes to the war effort.  Give EXP bonuses.   Give stat boost.   Just use a little imagination and you can see just how deep and awesome this can be and give players a great opportunity to do more than just raid and run the same Hutte Ball game over and over again.   This will actually give them a purpose, other than just hitting 50 and asking  - what next?   There is a next...help take that planet from the Sith!   There is a war to fight!  The struggle of Sith vs the Republic actually has a meaning to it and is more than just a fake backdrop and would allow players to - wait for it...become “heroes!”      

Few last things before I go.  Work on your UI it sucks.  Best I can do.  It sucks.  Fix it.  Or give people the ability to allow us to customize it.  Thanks in advance.

Add more clothing options.  When a browser based flashed game gives players more options to customize their character than a AAA MMO - something is terribly wrong.   In fact there is more hair, face, and clothing options in Star Wars Clone Wars Adventures than players get in SW:ToR - how sad is that?

Also, fix your space game.  It is terrible.  No really it is terrible.   I think you ripped off Star Wars Clone Wars Adventures Starfighter game...sadly the Starfighter game in Clone Wars adventures is more challenging.   That is just bad.

It is also bad when a browser based game like Clone Wars actually allows players to customize the interior of the houses.   No kidding!  I am not joking, even the starter padawan quarters(there are lots of different quarters and houses players can get or even build on empty lots!) allows players to add furniture, plants, paintings, all kinds of furnishings...can you do that in SW:ToR(your ship)?  What about adding trophies?  Unique items one collects?  It’s amazing a simple browser game is deeper and offers more options than an AAA title.   That is so wrong it isn’t even funny...it is sad.

Sad when a browser based game has more mini-games than a AAA MMO, that are more enjoyable to play than most of the AAA title game!  It has speeder racing.   Saber Dueling - with an interesting twist.    And other things that can break the monotony of quest grinding.   You could, for SW:ToR, even actually incorperate mini-type games into actual game play.   Like in Skyrim, picking locks is a mini-game, catching butterflies is a mini-game...in other words...add more depth and deminsion to your game - it is boring.

Am I hating on SW:ToR?

No...I am not.  I am disappointed and frustrated that such a great IP was made into a half-baked, poorly executed MMO.   That is why I am upset.   That is what sinks my ship.   I wanted to sail on that ship...but noooo, instead, I am, once again here writing in my blog about another game that tries to pass itself off as a good game.  I do not care if you do make it a themepark based game - I play WoW...I love WOW...I love MMO’s, but...

...the least you could have done was made it as “good” as WoW, and given us a good themepark game, instead we got a diorama game, filled with dead, stagnate worlds, with mindless MOB’s and NPC’s.   I am not asking too much.  I am only asking that you deliver what you promised, and so far I am not seeing it.    It is sad that one of the most beloved IP’s is relegated to such a badly made, un-immersive game, when it should be just the opposite!  It’s Star Wars!

I’ll give you time to fix the things that needs fixed, until then, I’ll save my money, and wait, and hope your game doesn’t start merging servers before the end of the year; because they have turned into virtual ghost towns.   I want to play your game...I really do.   I mean...it is Star Wars!  Jedi’s, Storm Troopers errrmmm Republic Troopers, Sith Lords, Smugglers,  the works - one of the coolest sci-fi settings ever imagined.  

So I ask...who wants Star Wars: the Old Republic to succeed? Raise your hand.
 

Kristi raises her hand. 

So, let's see...I have been called a liar on these forums, a hater, a bitch, a c***, full of sh...erm...poo, and berated, bad mouthed, belittled, and even sent death threats...over my opinion on games.   So it went with D&DO, Warhammer, AoC, LoTR's, Aion, Rift, and just about any game I have ever written about or commented on here on MMORPG.com.

SW:ToR is no different.  

With that said, I am going to put my blog and my MMORPG.com account on the line tonight.   How you might say will I be doing this?   Simple - read on.

Too many times have I been told I do not know what I am talking about, and that I am full of it, and I don't know anything about MMORPG's, and you know what, let's see if that is true.

As someone that has played these games for many years I am going to put my experience, and knowledge, with this genre to the ultimate test - tonight for the first time ever here on MMORPG.com a blogger and frequent user of these very forums will voluntarily be willing to admit they were wrong and delete their account, and no longer participate in this websites community by offering up this proposal.

I will freely delete my account, stop blogging, and never use this websites forums or services again - ever - if, by Dec 20th, 2012 the subscription rate of SW:ToR is, in the North American market, at 3 million, or more subsrcibers.

How did I come up with this number?  Simple I read the dozen or more comments here on these very forums that proclaim this game will have upwards of that many subscriptions or more! 

Wait...don't tell me that is too high of number, because I refuse to cut anyone(especially the zealot fans of this game) any slack on this.  You have constantly attacked me and called me a liar, and every other name and are constantly harrasing me with every and any post I make regarding this game.  So know it is time to either put up or STFU!

Either the game is as good as the fanboi's wish everyone to believe or it isn't.  I say it isn't.  I say the game is not even half as good as Rift even, and that isn't saying much since Rift isn't breaking those subscription numbers everyone was touting and throwing around on these boards awhile back, prior to its launch - anyone recall how the fans were saying that Rift was going to break all gaming records and would have 2 million subs after its first year?

Want me to rub in what you some of you said about Rift, and how well it was going to do? Want me to drag up the old post where some guy posted something I said here on these boards over on the Rift's main boards, where I was constantly attacked, and even threatened with my life, because I had the audacity to say the things I did about that game?   Well guess what...now is your big chance!  This is your chance to shut me up for good.

If, in a years time, this game has 3 million subscribers in the US I'll delete my account here, and quit blogging about MMORPG's here on MMORPG.com, and you'll never have to hear, or read anything I ever say about an MMO ever again, on this website.

With that said...if however I am proven right and this game does not have 3 million subscribers as the zealots would like everyone to believe - guess what - sign my blog with a comment below and if your name is on my blog - you have to do what I was going to do - delete your account and never come back to this website again.   Also, before you leave you must come to my blog the day of Dec 20th, 2012, before you delete your account, and say, "I am a douche' fanboy/girl(whatever the case maybe) and I do not deserve the right to make comments on MMORPG's, or make comments on this websites forums, because I am not worthy of even being on the same forums as Kristi, the blogger, and community members of MMORPG.com".

What do you say?  You up to the challenge?  Willing to put your account on the line? 

I'll be waiting for all the people who wish to make a comment on this blog and take me up on the challenge.  By the way this offer stands for the next two weeks.  After two weeks it will no longer be valid.

Oh and do not post to this if you do not wish to delete your account, this is only for the fans of this game that are willing to stake their MMORPG.com accounts on the line.   You post and I win, you delete your account and never use this website again to make comments on MMORPG's - ever.

I'll be waitng.

OK, I've been playing this game addictively(as much as I can without totally giving up on real life - lol) and after spending the time exploring and what not in this game it hit me like a ton of bricks.   This is the virtual "open" game world games like Age of Conan, Lord of the Rings Online, and Dark Age of Camelot should have been:   The world is gritty.  It is pretty much open.  It is dynamic.  It is beautiful.  It is terrifying.   It is all these things and more.  

Skyrim is just one portion of a bigger landmass.  Just one country of a larger world.  If this game had been released as a game based on the world of Conan the Barbarian and the developers said, this is Cimmeria  I would be like "yes...yes it is".    If this had been "Midgard" from Dark Age of Camelot, I would say "yes...yes it is."  If they had said this is the weastern part of Middle Earth that includes the lands Arnor, Dunnland, Rohan and Eriador, I would say "yes...yes it is."  

Why?  Because Skyrim is how these worlds from these other games we've played should have looked and played.   As I have said I have been playing this game a lot(over 100+ hrs into it) and I cannot believe how little I have done toward the main stories and quest and yet I feel as though I have done more in this game than any MMORPG I have ever played.   In fact the area in and around Whiterun has more going for it than anything I found in most MMORPG's I have played and it isn't loaded with wall to wall MOB's that you aggro just running through the woods like you do in a game like Rift or Dark Age of Camelot or Age of Conan.   

Not going to give away any spoilers to Skyrim, but let me tell you of an experience I had in this game that blew me away.   Now as I said, I have played over 100+ hrs in this game on three different characters so far and I cannot believe the amount of "playing" I have gotten out of this game in such a small area(I'm talking around the town of Skyrim and Riverwood).  Anyway...I was playing one of my characters and I happened to be out hunting for leather bearing animals to do some leather crafting.  I had been through this area near Riverwood before, hugging the foot of the mountains along the tree line.   As my character climbed over a knoll and was about to run down a mountain draw I noticed a little path.   I was like, where did that come from?  I had not seen it before...then again...I could have missed it.  It would have been very easy to miss because it is not well traveled.  

So I follwed it as it curved it's way through the trees and bushes.  It lead up the draw into the mountains.   I soon found myself at what looked like the entrance to an abandoned mine(it is hard to see unless you are standing at a weird angle, as if it were hidden that way on purpose by whomever started it).   So in I go(of course).

As I crept in I noticed the torches were lit.   So someone was actively using it.   Turns out the were - some NPC had set up mining operations in it and didn't want the locals to know so he would have to pay taxes and he could manipulate the local market with the ore his people were ming from it.  I learned this by listening to the conversation between the leader and one of his forman.   So very cool.    As I continued to explore this mine I heard this one guy asking another if he had checked to see if the guard they posted at the hidden entrance was still on duty.   The one guy said he didn't know, but would check.   Then the other guy walked to a guy sleeping on a fur bed roll near the fire and told him to wake up that he would have the next watch.  

Yes...that is how deep this game is...this stuff does happen - in game!  I was caught up just watching these guys from the shadows as they worked the mine.  One guy was making tools on the forge and another guy came up and asked when he would have the tool done.  The one guy replied it'll get done when it gets done...making tools take time.   LOL!

A mine in Skyrim - NPC's actual work the mine!

So what does this have to do with Conan, Camelot, or Middle Earth?

Everything!  It is called "immersion".   It is the "immersion" into a games world that makes an RPG what it is...not just the hacking and slashing, that is just a part of it, but the world itself is what allows a player to imagine that they are in this world and that they are enteracting with it in a believable way.    Skyrim does this.   There is no reason that MMORPG's cannot do this as well.  

I've said it so many times on my blog and I cannot emphasize this enough, the reason newer games are crashing and burning is they have lost touch with what role-players are looking for - we're looking for virtual open worlds, with open character development aka - a role-playing game.   Stop holding our hands at every stinking turn!  That is not what role-playing is about.  I am so sick of these games taking away more and more, and then they have the nerve to call their games virtual worlds, and role-playing games.  Even Blizzard's game WoW has a "world"...look at games since then...they get smaller, they become linear, and it's like you are forced to ride the train through the park and it never stops to let you explore.  

As I said , Skyrim is not as huge as far as game worlds go...but you wouldn't know that.   It seems massive - but it isn't, not really.   How is it that a game like this can do something all the MMORPG's I have ever played failed to do and in a smaller area?!  

I'll tell you.   The game gives me freedom, it gives me a virtual world.   The game designers are not taking my character, forcing her to wear a leash, guiding her - I am the one with the leash and I am free to choose how I wish to play her.    MMORPG's do not do that - accept EVE, but even EVE cannot touch Skyrim.  EVE designers insist that it's all about Spaceships.  Fine...keep your spaceships.   I prefer to play an RPG where I play a "character" I can relate to, not a hunk of brainless, cold metal.  ;p

That leads me to this whole notion that so many people constantly toss around that game play that we see in Skyrim does not translate well into an MMORPG.   Not as it is it wouldn't, but the basic game play would!  Give me freedom.  Give me the virtual world for me to interact with and allow me to develop my character as I see fit.  Stop holding our hands at every step throughout the game.   I am smart enough to figure out things - let me do it!  

As I play this game Skyrim I cannot help but think, again and again, this is the game Age of Conan should have been.   This game is more Conan-esq, than all of Age of Conan Online combined!  How sad is that?  This game Skyrim is more magical than Lord of the Rings and that is really sad, because Lord of the Rings is one of the reasons we play these games.  How sad is that?  

Seriously...how can this game that fits on one DVD be better than any MMORPG that comes on two and three DVD's? Because it is the "RPG" without the MMO.   To many of these games have dropped the RP portion of the the acronym and are just MMOG's.  Well I am not looking for an MMO, or an MMOG, I am looking for an MMORPG.  Get it...RPG...role-playing game.  A role-playing game in a persistant game world! Not a themepark, hold your hand, game on rails.  

Bethesda got it right and people are playing the proverbial "hell" out of this game.

Skyrim sold over 3.5 million copies in it's first 48's after its release and is virtually sold out in almost every game store you go into.  The publisher is busting their arse to get more copies out and digital downloads are still going strong.   Almost every gaming site you go to, you see one word blazened on them or in their forums, "Skyrim".   Why?  Simple.  Skyrim did almost everything right.   It's like Bethesda digitized a great  Dungeon Master from our pen-and-paper days and put him in our computers, and this DM has built us a virtual world for us to adventure in.   Bethesda did what other games designers fail to do and gave us role-players a role-playing game - imagine that.

First thing I would like to say is to Bethesda, the creators of this game, "Can I please, please, please have my life back?"  No really...can I have it back?   Not since Asheron's Call have I been without so much sleep.  I even forget to eat.  My friends think I have forgotten them.   Was going to go see a movie Friday and canceled(gave a lame excuse) just so I could play Skyrim!  We did go to the movie(Saturday), but when I got home I couldn't wait to start playing again.   I was planning on enjoying a nice evening at home, cuddled in front of the home theater screen and watch the Maltese Falcon with Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor(love the old black and whites)...but nooooooo...Tamriel and the lands of Skyrim were beckoning me.  "Come play Kristi...come play...there is adventure here.  You know you want to...you can't resist.   Come Kristi...come play."

I have played my share of CRPG's, but nothing even touches the mind-blowing, epicness that is Skyrim.  Is it perfect, far from it, but what Bethesda has done is nothing short of extraordinary.  It truly is a masterpiece compared to other CRPG’s I have ever played.   With that said, I will not only be commenting on the awesome parts of  this game, but the bad as well...uh-hum...the UI.

So where to start?  I like the opening of the game and how it plays out like a movie.  I do not like that it opens like a movie and forces you to start in a given spot.   LOL!  Yeah I know, weird huh, but for me, I think it should have been optional to start out as we see fit.   That to me would have been better than forcing us to “have” to start out in one given spot.   Skyrim is a huge open world, with so much to do(exploring, crafting, hunting and more!), other than just the main story line, that it just seems sorta short sighted on the part of Bethesda not to just allow us to create a character and plop them down into the world as we see fit.  This game screams openness and sandbox game play.  It should have the option to start out as such.  Just my opinion - take it for what it is worth.   Not that the opening was bad or anything, it’s just that once you’ve played through the cinematic once Bethesda should have put in the option to skip it if you like.

Graphics in this game are truly beautiful, stunning, and awe inspiring.  From the snow capped peaks, to the green forest, everything about the world of Skyrim is just jaw dropping, eye candy.   The only thing I have a gripe with is that the water in this game still has no shoreline foam or water lapping at the shore.   Water seems to just abruptly merge with land or whatever.  Think this needs some work.   Speaking of water..one thing they got right is the rivers have current and waterfalls are works of art in themselves - just beautiful to look at.  Cool thing about currents in water - it really does work.   Next time you kill a bandit, toss them in a river and watch the current of the river carry them away.   Very cool..in a morbid sorta way.

Speaking of graphics, OK maybe I have a couple of gripes, the only other gripe I have is that I do not think they used enough poly’s for rocks - there are still some rocks that have the typical graphic straight edges.  Wish they could have found a way to minimize this.  Don’t get me wrong, from a distance the mountains and rocks are like looking at the French Alps or Swiss Alps...just gorgeous, but close up - needs a little work.

Animations for the most part are really well done, especially the critical hits your character might make in melee combat that go all cinematic Matrix - very epic.   The rag-doll deaths add a lot of depth and immersion and that is key to what makes a game like Skyrim so awesome is immersion.   It is really good at immersing the player into the world.   I do think the dragons are epic, but their flight and jerkiness of motion needs a little more polish.  I saw some weird animations they did while flying that broke the immersion, but all in all - I was staggered the first time I saw and fought a dragon(and at night no less).   Never in any game did I ever feel as though I was participating in something so very epic - fighting a dragon!  Not just any dragon...but a Skyrim dragon that actually looked and behaved like the dragons we read about from tales of old.   I love the way the dragons look and their dynamic behavior is unsurpassed.   Just brilliantly done.   This only makes Skyrim unique, even moreso, for no other game I have ever played had a MOB behave as the dragons do in Skyrim.  These things have some incredibly scripted AI’s.  Dragon’s sleep in this game!  How cool is that?!  Do not think climbing down a hole or into a tower will save you from a dragon either.  Their necks are long and I once had a dragon stick his head into the opening of a rock structure I was in and let loose with a blast of his dragon breath.   Needless to say my character, with nowhere to run, was BBQ’d but good.   

I’ll make my list later to cover some things that should have been animated and are not...this game in my opinion falls short in what it could have been.  It’s still awesome - so don’t get upset, it just could have been better.   Before I go any further, let me make one thing perfectly clear, as anyone that knows or reads my blog, I will always be open and say whether or not something could be better - because if the developers put it in game and only half-arsed it(and this is my opinion mind you) they could have put in the extra time to do it better or right.   OK we’re clear on this right?  Good.

Game play in Skyrim is to say the least, dynamic, open, and a serious breath of proverbial fresh air.   Though the previous Elder Scrolls games had this same feel, they still did not capture(in my opinion) the seemingly, seamless way in which you can easily get lost, turned around, and way off course on your way to your goal.   So many times in this game have I been on my way to do something specific only to find myself deep in the ground crawling through a dungeon, my mind having completely forgotten that I was to go to Riften to meet with some guy, because I was so enthralled in what I as doing that I was totally immersed in the moment.    Skyrim is like that...and no other game I have ever played, ever, ever, has me literally going - “Oooo..shiney”...with every other step.   In my 50+ hours of playing so far never once have I finished a quest I picked up from an NPC before I find myself sidetracked, treking up a mountain pass, or traveling through a wooded forest, off doing something other than what I sat out to do.   Sometimes I just get caught up collecting herbs for alchemy, or hunting deer, or just following a path because it looked like a cool place to explore.   Sure even past Elder Scroll games did this, but Skyrim does it better - Bethesda really hit this game out of the park when it comes to the sheer playability of their world.   It is big, it is full of wonder and adventure the likes of which rival in the biggest of games - even MMORPG’s!  In fact if there is one thing MMORPG’s could learn from Skyrim, your world does not have to be littered from wall to wall with MOB’s just standing around to be slaughter.  Make them dynamic, make them roam, make them an active part of the world - it makes the gaming experience deeper, more enjoyable and far more challenging.    

Take for instance some of the more hostile creatures one might encounter in this game, a sabre cat.   You’ll never find a dozen sabre cats roaming in an area the size of a football field waiting for some player to come along to whack them with a stick.  No, these cats have territories they roam in.  They hunt.   They sleep.  They will attack you from the bushes.  Had one do just that.  Scared the bejeezes out of me.  Scared my roomie as well.  Hehehe...she was like, are you OK, because I screamed so loudly.  It was at night in game and my character was walking along this mountain road when suddenly from the bushes my character was ambushed by this sabre cat.   It is game play like that that makes Skyrim so very awesome.

Speaking of dungeon crawling...thank you Bethesda for bring back this part of gaming - in a big way!  You continue to excel at making dungeon crawling fun and have us begging for more!  Thank you for the traps, thank you for the puzzles, thank you for doing what others fail to do.   Now give us more!

NPC’s in this game have lives.  They eat, they sleep, they work.   They talk amongst themselves.  They also help bring Skyrim to life.  Oblivion was like this and it really helped make the game world seem more immersive.

Immersion...immersion, immersion...when you can immerse a player into a virtual world the way Skyrim does, that is an awesome thing.   It has been said that Skyrim’s game play and world would not port well into an MMORPG setting...oh, and don’t tell me this kind of game play will not work in an MMORPG - this is exactly what the MMORPG genre needs, open worlds, dynamic worlds, dynamic MOB’s, none of this stagnate BS the plagues these games these days.   

When people say Skyrim is the best MMORPG that is not an MMORPG, there is a reason for that - because the MMORPG designers have lost their way.   They forgot what RPG stands for and the forgot that MMORPG’s are built on worlds - not sterile, stagnate, chat rooms with quest hubs.   Sure it would take a little tweaking here and there, but a world like Skyrim would be possible in an MMORPG.   Skyrim as is would not work at all as an MMORPG, but a co-op version would be awesome.  As for an MMORPG...it really just needs some things changed here and there in order for a game like this to work as an MMORPG.   Games like this use to exist, one was called Asheron’s Call the other was Dark Age of Camelot.  Though Dark Age of Camelot is still guilty of having the stagnate MOB’s waiting to be whacked on - it was a far cry better and immersive world than those games that came after it.

Enough of that.  I have repeatedly said this time and time again.  Give us an open world, let us customize our character and develop our characters as we see fit, and let us play the way we want, and people will play the bejeezes out of your game - Skyrim is proving my point loud and clear - nuff said.

One thing that is clear though, this game was made for the console gaming systems, and the PC port seems to have been an after thought.  You can tell this right away from the way the game handles PC movement and the UI.   The UI for the PC is atrocious.   Is it workable? yes.  Can a PC game get use to it? Yes, but that is no excuse for the lack of PC UI and control system we PC gamers have to deal with.  The least they could have done was give us totally mappable keys - for everything.   They didn’t.   Sorry Bethesda, but you really messed up here.   I hope you put out a patch that fixes this mess, sooner, rather than later, because as it stands right now the one really bad thing that hurts this game in the end is a crappy UI for PC gamers.  Bethesda gets an F in PC UI for this game.

Saving a game with multiple characters is a nightmare...really it is.   It is bad enough that the UI is borked, but there is absolutely no excuse for how Bethesda just slapped the save game system on this game without any forethought whatsoever.   There should be a way to save games by naming them oursleves, plus, we should be able to save games under different characters without them getting all mixed up with other character saves.   Absolutely no excuse for this at all.   Bethesda gets an F here as well.   

There is another aspect of this game that is beginning to get on my nerves and that is the fast pace at which we level and obtain gold.   Doesn’t matter what you do, you gain EXP.   Gold can be found in the oddest of areas - why does a sabre cat have gold on it?   I can see that in a short period of time my character will be a rich, demi-god.   There should be away to adjust the speed at which we level and there should have been a way to adjust the amount of coinage is rewarded in game.   My character it seems has all ready gathered over 40k in gold!  That is insane.   

Here is what I wish they had done.  You no the difficulty settings for the game.  It should make the game more challenging across the board.   That means less EXP rewarded, less gold found, prices in shops would be adjusted so that it requires a player to actually have to be challenged to get gold in order to buy the more expensive items.   Crafting would also become more challenging.   

Going to have to say that after spending some time in this game , and don't take what I am about to say as being a bad thing because the game is awesome as is, but OMG Bethesda missed a "golden" opportunity.    We have crafting, enchanting, alchemy and what not...Bethesda could have made this part of the game much deeper and more challenging.   How you may ask?

Simple.    Not all Blue Mountain Flowers are the same.   Blue Mountain Flowers from high pastures is better than the ones from say lower elevations.   Also, coaxing the main ingredient from the Blue mountain flower should be a required process.  For instance, should you boil the flower in water or maybe some other medium?  Once you have figured this out then you can refine  it to get the best quality ingredient to make a good potion from it.   Same goes for any of the ingredients in the game.   How do you ground deer antler for powder and what should I use, a granite mortar and pestle or a marble mortar and pestle?  

What about crafting leather?  There should be a chance that when you kill a leather bearing animal that depending on how you killed it - the leather might be too damaged to make use of.   On top of that, what leather type makes the best light leather?  Deer hide, wolf pelt, fox?  What makes the best leather straps?  In other words Bethesda should have taken crafting further in this game then they did.   From my experience they took the easy route and just like most games - there is not thinking involved required...just do this x number of times and you'll get better.   That is all good and well, but there should be more to it by adding in these little variables of quality and types...this would go a long way into making crafting, alchemy and enchanting that much better.

As it is now...it's OK - but oh how I wish they had really taken the time to make it better and more challenging.   Wheew...is this a log winded or what?  I know it is a lot to take in, but a game like Skyrim deserves this kind of attention.

Back on topic, what I am getting at is, this game...once you get to a certain point becomes too easy - even on Master setting difficulty.   That should not be the case.   Dragons, of all creatures in the game should be a real pain in the arse to kill, but even I am finding that the higher in level I go the easier it is to deal with them.  Dragons should never be easy to kill - period - end of story.   I’ll back up that argument by saying, when a creature such as a dragon becomes to easy to kill it loses it fright factor.  They no longer scare the crap out of you, they more or less become a nuisance.   Dragons, bears, trolls, giants, sabre cats, mammoths and other certain MOB’s should never be easy to kill.   They should be killable, but when a character is getting to the point where they are able to three and two shot such creatures and they are barely half-way through the game - something is wrong.   I do not want to be a demi-god in the game.   I want a challenge.   In this I can all ready see it being a problem.   I really wish Bethesda would make difficulty settings actually mean difficult and not just meaning that things are harder to kill, but make the whole game more challenging, from combat, to crafting, to leveling, our characters should have to eat, sleep and weapons and armor should degrade over time and abuse and need repaired.  Oh and wait, the one thing I forgot.  They need to have autosave...but not like it is in game.   It should be like this.

As the game is now, you can auto-save, have the game save at different times and moments(like when you travel or enter a new location) .  In hard mode the game would save, in one file, like any MMORPG does - or like Mount and Blade.  No starting over.  What happens, happens and that is that.   You can add re-spawning to the game.  Just add spawn points, spawning stones(like Asheron’s Call) if you like and when you character dies, they re-spawn at the nearest spawn point - sans gear.   Yep, that means you are nekkid.   Now as a player you have a choice.  Either make a B-line back to where you perished to reclaim your stuffs(unless a bandit attacked you and took some things) or you can run back to town and re-gear up to go find your old body and get back what you may have lost.   That - that is challenge.  That can make death sting.   Imagine getting jumped by a group of bandits.  They kill you.  You re-spawn a few miles away.  In the meantime, the bandits have looked through your belongings and taken the items they feel are of value to them.   Upon returning to your rotting corpse, you have a choice, do you go after he bandits that took your stuff or right it off and scrounge up some new stuff?   That is how this game should be - in my opinion...and that is what a difficulty setting at *Master* should be like.      

Since I am on the topic of combat and challenge, this game almost...almost gets it right.   If Bethesda really wanted one aspect of this game to shine, it would have been combat.   Though I am satisfied with how the games combat works I can’t help but feel that they didn’t take it far enough.   I really wish the designers had spent time playing a game like Mount and Blade.   If they really wanted to have a dynamic combat system in this game, Mount and Blades melee and combat from horse back is extremely hard to beat and would have made Skyrim’s combat perfect.  It is not all that different from what the designers have in game all ready, it’s just deeper and adds some different weapon fighting styles that Skyrim doesn’t have - spears and pole-arms anyone?  What about throwing axes?  Throwing knives?  How about archery from horse back?  What about using a spear or lance from horse back?  Now that would be cool...very cool.  

Shields in Skyrim work, but they still do not function like shields should.   Skyrim could use, again, Mount and Blades version of how a shield should function.

I have so much more I could discuss about this great game, the good and the bad, but OMG it would fill pages and pages.   I do not think anyone really wants to hear me ramble on more and more about the game.  So at the end I'll add my wish list for people to see what I would like added to the game.   What it is is an awesome RPG, with some flaws, but there is one thing for absolute certainty -  this is not your ma and pa's RPG - this is SKYRIM!!!

I give Skyrim a solid 8 out of 10.   :)

Kristi's Skyrim Wish List
Adding my wish list to this entry.   I can only wish some modders read what I have written and mod Skyrim to play similar to how I described and the things on my wish list...that would make me one happy gamer!

1)  Please Bethesda put out a co-op/multiplayer expansion!

2) Add all the lands of the world in expansions Bethesda - I'd pay for those expansions in a heart beat!  Don't care if it takes up a 500GB I'd by a new HD just to add them!

3) Give us the ability to feed, groom and tie up our horse to a post.  Also be able to lead it while walking by holding the reins in the hand.   Immersion purposes, and give our horse a buff to speed - a well groomed, fed horse is a happy horse - so he can travel faster!

4) The ability to make a camp out in the wilderness.

5) I'd like some quest like being a caravan guard.

6) Wish to be able to set up a shop and hire an NPC  to run it!

7) Make dragons harder to kill.  They need to scale better.

8) We need our characters to get hungry - why bother with cooking if we never really need to eat what we make.  A characters stamina and health should be effected when they forget to eat and sleep for that matter.

9) Allow for us to catch and tame pets.   How cool would it be to have a beastmaster skills in this game.   The ability to have animals as companions.   Imagine being able to have a hawk or an owl as a companion for your magic-user.  Maybe a wolf as companion to your ranger type character.   :)

10) Add tracks to when our characters walk in the snow or mud.   They will dissappear over time...but that is one thing I think should have been in the game from launch.

11) Add tracking to the game.  

12) Add climbing.  Thieves, assassins, and ranger type players should be able to make use of different means to climb cliffs and structures.

13) Add combat from horse back.

14) Add the ability to talk to NPC's from horse back.

15) If my character kills an NPC out in the middle of nowhere and nobody saw me do it...than I am the only one that knows I did it.  Stop having the guards in towns know what I did and they were miles away!

16) Give us the ability to upgrade from the house to a keep or maybe a tower and then be able to hire henchmen to guard it.

17) Cloaks with hoods - we need them.   ^_^

18) Have weather effect our characters travel speed, health, stamina and combat.

19) Let our characters wear more than one ring.

20) Add better ballistics physics to archery.

21)  Add fortune telling to the game.  By visiting a fortune teller you'd get a simple buff or debuff depending on the news one might receive.  Can do it once a day.  ^_^

22) Add mini games.  Like in a tavern - darts, daggers at 20 paces.  Archery contest.   Arena's!  Let players compete for a purse in arena style combat - like in Mount and Blade.

23) There needs to be a skill tree regarding traps.  With perks like find traps.  Disarm traps.  Set traps.   Be able to set up different more elaborate traps.   I see those bear traps and would love to take a couple of them and lay them out then coax an enemy to chase me.  :)

24) Need emotes!  Especially if this game eventually goes co-op!

25) A better way to control and place items in our home!  If you are going to let us have homes the least they could done was make it easier to move and place things in it!

There is my wish list for now.  Bethesda can add these things via expansions.   I'd gladly pay for expansions that added more depth, immersion to this game - even if those expansion cost as much as the initial game.    :)

 

This will be the 2nd and last entry I ever make on this game.   Now that they have dropped the NDA...who cares really...most people know all there is to know about the game all ready.  But if you have been living under a rock for he last couple of years this is all you need to know about Star Wars: ToR.

After being in beta I can say that I will not be playing this MMOG.   It is not an RPG, just an MMOG.   Let me clearify what I mean when I say this.   In the game of SW:ToR they have classes, like Bounty Hunter, Smuggler and so on.   Well if this is an RPG where in the skills tree are there actually any skills related to what that class is named after and how can one play a Smuggler if there is no out of story ability to, you know, - "actually smuggle" something - anything!  Where is the smooth talking skill(scoundrel), where is the haggling skill, where is the skill to modifiy your ship, where is the skill to "S M U G G L E"?  You'd think that if this was a role-playing game that you'd be able to actually do stuff related to the "role" you are playing.   Not in SW:ToR.  So no..this is not a RPG.  It is a 3D arcade game.  Think space invaders, but advanced version.   You have different choices of which ship(combat class in SW:ToR) you'll use to "blast" an invader - in the end that is all you'll do is blast an invader because that is all your ship is capable of doing, just differently than the other guys ship next to you...his ship uses laser beams and yours uses a projectile.   In fact in all the classes of this game there are no skills(in skill trees) that have anything "not" to do with combat.   Welcome to space invaders SW:ToR style!

Sorry Bioware gets an F in RPG.

It is, despite what certain zealots might say, is just a "WoW clone" - yes a WoW clone, but instead of elves, orcs and whatnot we get Jedi, droids and wookies.   Just like WoW, you'll end up with a cookie-cutter character that looks and plays like the one standing next to you.   I couldn't even connect with my character no matter how hard I tried because in the end she was no different from the other Jedi Consular standing next to her.   I guess I shouldn't have expected this game to be different from all the other thempark based games - I was hoping we might see the end of that with this game - we're not - so better to be forewarned.  You have been warned.

Yes the game does have it's own little things that differ from WoW, like the "story driven" quest, the crafting is definitely different in that you have others do it for you, but under neath - it is all themepark.   Do not go into this game with the idea that it has any kind of sandbox game play - it does not - it is all themepark.  From start to end.  Quest hubs, lead you by the hand(even in combat with the cheesy cover skill - (oh look hide here!)

Even combat is boring as watching glass flow.   MOBs are stagnate objects that have no AI whatsoever.   It is the quintessential whack-a-mole game.  Combat animations are decent and the sounds are very Star Warsy - iconic, but due to the nature of the game you'll be whacking away at things(I guess lightsabers are not the ultimate close quarter weapon we saw in the movies - how any thing could survive the onslaught of multiple saber strikes boggles the mind), and you will, it gets old really fast.   It is still the same old tab target and mash away.  :)  "Nothing new here - move along."  

I can say that the story driven quest were intersting the first time through, but after that I can see them getting vapidly aggravating.  And despite the so called, make a choice story driven quest, it's all still linear and inconsequential.  Like most MMO's of this nature your character is forced to go exactly where and when the developers tell you to take your character.   You have no choice because if you don't you can't proceed to other areas.  You are locked into a certain path and there is no way to deviate from it.  Typical themepark game play mechanics.  

Another thing that really BBQ's my chicken is the same-old, same-old gear driven centristic game play, with the end game being made up of raids and PvP instanced battlegrounds.   If that floats your boat to do the same things we did in Aion, Warhammer, Rift, and WoW - knock yourself out.  

Worlds are more stagnate than WoW.   No weather, no night, and day cycles, no critters running about.  The world just seems so dead.   NPC's stand with no way to enteract with them.  Most NPC's stand around and do nothing - might as well be cardboard cut-outs.   When it comes to immersion this game lacks it in a huge way.   At least in other games the developers made an effort to make their worlds come to life, that is not the case in SW:TOR.   It's as if you are walking through a picture or painting, but just like in the picture you cannot enteract with the world.   There is so little atmosphere, no sounds of birds chirping, or conversations, and when attacking NPC's they don't yell out or make a noise - they just stand there and shoot their blaster or use whatever weapon they have.  Even creatures you fight are like this.   Everything just seems so- dead.. 

Game is just - so been there and done that I actually ended up giving away my first beta key, and then somehow I ended up with a second one, and gave that one away as well.   By the time I got my Jedi Consular into her teens I was ready so disliking the game I could'nt even log on to continue beta testing.   So I called up a gaming friend and gave them my key.   I wish I could like this game, I mean it is Star Wars - right....right...well for me that was not enough and I'll be saving my money.  I can't even get excited about this game it is so mind numbingly boring.

Unless Bioware ramps up and pushes some new content that alliviates this feeling, I suspect many gamers will burn out on the game within it's first month and not renew.   There has to be a hook...something...anything to catch a player.  From what I can tell this game has nothing that will hook a player beyond the initial story.   When I game has only one mini-game(space mini-game) and no side game mechanics, like fishing, cooking, other mini-games(pazaak anyone) - you know typical themepark game play stuff to keep people playing beyond the story, or to break up the constant grinding of kill x and fed-x quest - well, the game is just not going to do all that well.  

At least in other MMO's there was more to do beyond raiding, and PvP'ing but I guess Bioware didn't get that memo.

I really don't know what to say, the game is what it is - a themepark game and if you wish to play a decent, well made, whack-a-mole thempark - then this is the game for you!   Enjoy!

I give the game a 5.0 out of 10.

Incarna was suppose to be an expansion that would bring us captains quarters and walking in stations, where players could enteract with one another - in stations.   When Incarna did finally launch, we got one CQ, with the promise that more CQ's would be released by August.   Then in August we were told that the other CQ's would be released sometime before the Winter expansion.  Now we're told that the CQ's and WiS will be added in the Winter expansion.   With this constant promise of "Soon™" I am really becoming less and less a fan of CCP(I know this is nothing new for CCP and a inside joke between the players and CCP - but we all have to admit that lately it has gotten really bad and it no longer funny).   The last year they have promised us players much and delivered very little.   With each patch we get more bugs and no fixes...and the funny thing is many of these bugs they are aware of and do not even bother to patch them!

For instance, the sound strip miners make when it is in operation.  It is suppose to play continuously(loop).   Instead it plays once per cycle of the strip miner.  They have said this was a bug and that they will fix it.  It has been over two months and we're still waiting.   Is it really so hard for them to fix what seems to be a very simple sound bug?  Ah...but you will say, "Kristi, you're being silly...this is just a minor, none game breaking, bug.  Stop being so stupid."    See that is where you would be wrong, this is just the tip of the iceburg, and there are more problems with the game that go back almost 8 years that CCP has failed to address and yes some are game breaking.   CCP over the last year has gotten worse about even attempting to fix broken things in EVE.   There was a huge list of issues with this game created by the players recently regarding CCP's lack of attention to fixing problems.   CCP's response.

Welcome to Incarna -  Welcome to the Catwalk.<<< clicky

So this is were valuable resources go toward instead of fixing their game.    Instead of fixing the UI and giving players the abiltiy to make fonts bigger(fonts in EVE are super small and hard to see with no way to adjust them in certain UI windows - players have begged CCP to fix this for over 6 years!  To this day - we're still waiting.)  they spend valuable assets and resources on a something like the video you just watched?  If you do not think this did not take time, effort, and resources away from EVE you're crazy.  

Is it any wonder the player base of EVE is turning on CCP?   

After reading Willaim Murphy's piece on "the Future of EVE", he recently wrote here at MMORPG.com, I am thinking more and more that Incarna was not only a test bed for World of Darkness and Dust 514,(CCP's other MMORPG's they have in the works) and the players of EVE were merely guinea pigs for it, but also, Incarna will just become a means for CCP to sell more virtual items in their online store.   They may have at one time thought of adding Incarna and WIS to EVE to expand game play into the realm of avatars...but that got lost in all this "micro transactions" and the NEX.   Now it seems all CCP has their eyes on is $$$ and how they can milk their player base of their cash.

Instead of adding what they promised they decided this was more important.  Making a virtual catwalk, to show off EVE fashions at a fashion show.   Instead of fixing their games bugs - this was more important. 

Incarna has become the worst game expansion ever released on a player base next to SOE's  NGE.   It not only was poorly implemented, it completely failed to deliver what CCP promised it would deliver and has added nothing of value to the game that is EVE.    And with the direction CCP seems to be going with EVE and turning Incarna into nothing more than a store front window with a catwalk for their MT items, I have to wonder how much longer EVE will be around.   Add to that the whole "greed is good" philosophy of the guy in charge, the ongoing mess between the players, the CSM, and CCP, it makes the situation even more dire.    When you add all this up and put it into perspective - you have to wonder - wtf is CCP thinking?

So to CCP I say.   Congrat's CCP - welcome to douchedom.