Originally posted by Lord.Bachus

Originally posted by Margulis

I'm very disappointed in TOR.  Some people want to know well WHY! are you disappointed?!  Well, for me, here's why....

1. Character creation - (lack of options in key areas like body and face type)

Espescially the body types/size could/should be improved

2. No completed quest log - (If we are playing many alts, would like to refresh on a toon's story by looking at recent completed quests.)

Valid point, tough only a minor inconcenience for most

3. Social hubs / cities feel lifeless - (no npc interaction except with quest givers, very quiet, almost no ambient npc conversation or sound. Most npc's are just locked in one spot / position for infinity. Try walking through the Jedi Temple or Coruscant, feels like a graveyard or library)

Valid point, tough only a minor inconvenience for most

4. World is lifeless - (no critters, birds, nothing. There are a few non aggro mobs or beasts, but they just stay locked in 1 spot pretty much)

Valid point, tough only a minor inconvenience for most

5. No day / night cycle.

Valid point, tough only a minor inconvenience for most

6. No swimming

Valid point, tough only a minor inconvenience for most

7. Space combat

I happen to like the space minigame for what it is, a min game

8. Races available to choose from - (all human races disappointing - was hoping to play a Rodian or Ithorian)

Not a point of my concern

9. Very slow travel speed.

Which is good as it makes the world feel bigger, and when i was in the millitary i could not run that fast with all my gear on my back.

10. Racial abilities are not only worthless, but just plain dumb (most of them anyway)

Not a point of my concern

11. Graphics, especially in environments.

I like their graphics style, its build to last.

12. Cannot custom UI

This really is a major Issue, they are going to improve that after release.

13.  Extremely primitive guild features.

Not a point of my concern, as these are things that can and will be easilly improved after release

14.  No chat bubbles (to help with cross-faction chat)

Valid point, tough only a minor inconvenience for most

15.  Water is terrible, pan the camera from underneath and you can see it's just a blue texture placed on top of an empty hole that you run through

Valid point, but who cares if its not possible to swim.

That's what I can think of for right now.  I will say I love the story and voice acting - but it seems they pumped 80% of their money into that and the GAME is somewhat of an afterthought.  It's not bad, but for the money and hype put into it - for me it falls pretty flat.

 

 

I pretty much agree with this +1

Originally posted by gladosrev2

After actually trying the beta, my already low opinion of the game has skyrocketed.. downwards.

It is unbelievable that an AAA MMO with one if not the biggest budget of any games ever released, can be so amateurish so close to release.

Character creation is a joke for a 2011 game. Ken & Barbie doll inspired, the plastic hair makes you want to cry.

Graphics are.. well a screen is worth a thousand words:

Yes.. this is on maximum detail setting.. I couldn't believe it either. When was this game made, 2002? This level of detail would pass as lowest setting for a 2011 MMO, and considering how much was spent on this game, this is unnaceptable.

The character control animation is awful. Think something between Oblivion and Skyrim in 3rd person, and as you know none of these games put much effort into the 3PP mode. In other words its as basic as you get and little blending inbetween.

Shadows are a joke. The shadow map resolution is wayy too low (yes this is the highest shadow detail..) just look at the glaring pixels, I feel like the shadows come straight from minecraft considering how blocky they are lol.

Also consider the startling and immersion breaking contrast between decent quality and bad textures as seen on the top right pic. The stones and sand shore layer screams for paralax maping, like in Crysis, and the huge rocks really need a lot more detail.

Combat is standard to a fault. When you charge a group of enemies as a jedi, it cries for freehand swinging, but you have to often stop and retarget because you can't hit the guy in front couse your target is the guy behind him.. seriously, I'm sick of this 10 year old system.

The so often praised cinematics are choppy, editing is abrupt, and textures tend to load for a few secs after the conversation has already started, this is unnaceptable for a game of this caliber.

I'll have to give a few positives though. The mid-field reporting after a quest is neat, but already done in other games. They got decent water, and they used SpeedTree properly for a nice vegetation effect, I'll give them that. The so called story is decent, a promising addition, too bad it all boils down to the same old tasks in the end, and the individual characters have little to no personality.

All in all I'm glad I tried the beta, SWTOR has lost the race for me completely now. GW2, Archeage and TSW remain. This is not meant to be a review btw so take this as you will as a beta opinion from a disappointed SW fan. The game does not only copy WoW in everything gameplay wise, seems like it also copies its graphics, that was my initial impression upon entering the game. It will get a lot of early attention to be sure, but it's not a game worth my time.

What saddens me most is the fact that the only one other sci-fi IP worth getting a MMO treatment is also owned by Bioware.. it being Mass Effect.

 

 

 

What bad reviews ? theres very few of them .

On the subject of the graphics its what I expect from an mmo thats trying to have mass appeal . It has to be playable by not only people with a high end machine .

Also the guy whos posed these screen shots has done so in a way to to make the graphics seem a lot blander than they actually are .

Why didn't you post a screen shot of a city or coming down the hill as you first see the jedi accademy ?

Instead you chose the most boring screens at the most boring angles you can possibly get .

{mod edit}

Originally posted by causs

Originally posted by palulalula

Not at all. Best mmo i ever saw. And i play for long time this kind of games. I am wow and eve online fan for years and can say just one--it will not disappoint youi like GW did

How did Guild Wars disappoint?

I hated guild wars. Thought it was terrible. You know what I don't do when I think a game sucks? Buy the sequel. 

For me it just feels like they first made the cutscenes and then they put together some basic 2002'ish gameplay. If someone would ask me "what do you hate about swtor?", well, i don't hate anything. Graphics, yes i kinda feel in Anarchy Online again (loved that game), expected much more, but it's not game breaking for me. Combat, yes it's not as fun as i expected it, but again not game breaking for me (except the cover mechanics, don't like them at all, and the fact that they forced that into the classes which looked the most appealing to me is a huge let down). Most aspects i can think of are worse than i expected, but not "that bad" to make the game unplayable. Unfortunately, all of them put together, add to that the lack of "this is going to keep me here for 2 years" aspect (nothing hooked me so far) makes me to not consider this game as an option for now.

I like to have access to character customisation, and i don't mean the character creation thingy, how do i look what social clothes do i wear etc. I mean spending attribute points, things like talent points, builds etc, does that happen at any time at higher levels, or every class naked is just a carbon copy of each other at max level, with no option to change that? (i'm just asking, as i dont know). Are there any char development rpg elements other than be nice=light points, be mean=dark points?

The only thing i feel they really did good are the cutscenes, but i also feel i would be bored to death with them in one month or so. Also the game runs great, i've experienced no lag, no bugs, never been stuck or anything like that.

People here told me to reroll, try all the classes and then choose the one which suits me - yea it worked, totally hated that smuggler, sith was way better for me.  Other people who tested it for a longer  time told me that at higher levels, the game opens up, you don't feel like you're running along corridors anymore, the story gets better, you feel like you "matter", that you can influence important things which happen. That's good news for me, therefore my final decision is wait 2-3 months, see what experienced players say and then give it a shot if it's worth it.

Originally posted by OkhamsRazor

What bad reviews ? theres very few of them .

On the subject of the graphics its what I expect from an mmo thats trying to have mass appeal . It has to be playable by not only people with a high end machine .

Also the guy whos posed these screen shots has done so in a way to to make the graphics seem a lot blander than they actually are .

Why didn't you post a screen shot of a city or coming down the hill as you first see the jedi accademy ?

Instead you chose the most boring screens at the most boring angles you can possibly get .

{mod edit}

 http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=14239

just one of them...and believe me there are many more like this one

---

Originally posted by simmihi
For me it just feels like they first made the cutscenes and then they put together some basic 2002'ish gameplay. If someone would ask me "what do you hate about swtor?", well, i don't hate anything. Graphics, yes i kinda feel in Anarchy Online again (loved that game), expected much more, but it's not game breaking for me. Combat, yes it's not as fun as i expected it, but again not game breaking for me (except the cover mechanics, don't like them at all, and the fact that they forced that into the classes which looked the most appealing to me is a huge let down). Most aspects i can think of are worse than i expected, but not "that bad" to make the game unplayable. Unfortunately, all of them put together, add to that the lack of "this is going to keep me here for 2 years" aspect (nothing hooked me so far) makes me to not consider this game as an option for now.
I like to have access to character customisation, and i don't mean the character creation thingy, how do i look what social clothes do i wear etc. I mean spending attribute points, things like talent points, builds etc, does that happen at any time at higher levels, or every class naked is just a carbon copy of each other at max level, with no option to change that? (i'm just asking, as i dont know). Are there any char development rpg elements other than be nice=light points, be mean=dark points?
The only thing i feel they really did good are the cutscenes, but i also feel i would be bored to death with them in one month or so. Also the game runs great, i've experienced no lag, no bugs, never been stuck or anything like that.
People here told me to reroll, try all the classes and then choose the one which suits me - yea it worked, totally hated that smuggler, sith was way better for me.  Other people who tested it for a longer  time told me that at higher levels, the game opens up, you don't feel like you're running along corridors anymore, the story gets better, you feel like you "matter", that you can influence important things which happen. That's good news for me, therefore my final decision is wait 2-3 months, see what experienced players say and then give it a shot if it's worth it.

---

Originally posted by causs

Originally posted by palulalula

Not at all. Best mmo i ever saw. And i play for long time this kind of games. I am wow and eve online fan for years and can say just one--it will not disappoint youi like GW did

How did Guild Wars disappoint?

This is the second or maybe third time I've seen random references to Guild Wars in this part of the forum.  Interesting.  Guild Wars 2 will probably be SWTOR's main competition, with TSW a close second, so it will be enlightening to see how often GW gets bashed here as an indirect way of bashing GW2. 

Not to say there isn't plenty of SWTOR bashing on the GW2 forum, mind you.  Because there is. 

"There is another".

Originally posted by m0lly

Originally posted by scotty899

this just in 'ITS FREE A BETA' andit aint gona make everyone happy.

 

If you are just gona cry, why dont you post it in the swotr forum so somthing can be elaborated on and maybe fixed/changed.

 

i enjoy it. nothing like WoW. no stupid panda expansion. and people who QQ for no auto hit should just stick to their one button macro mmo's

do you actually believe that when the release date is this close free open beta should be like the op explained, i have been on 50/50 boat with this game either get it or not but reasons what op says if they are trully true at this point i will defo pass this star wars game. cheerio

 

edit, yet everyhting ive seen is just like wow with spacesuits and yet QQ is peoples opinions. 

 No, but then what he says isn't true, so I'm not particulary interested in what he has to say. For example Ord Mantell has birds. He doesn't like the game and wants others to agree. I do like it and don't care what others think. It's really that simple. I just get tired of all the people making things up to support opinions that don't really need supporting. It's ok not to like it, really.

- Character creation. In fact there isn't any, it's rather just a "character's head creation". All humanoids, all sharing the same animations and bodies as far as the classes and races i've played. You only play different heads.

-Animations are a very bad joke. It is unbelieveable to me how a multimillion dollar product gets released with this placeholder animations allover.

-UI in my face. If i could at least pick my own ui color and tone it down to some light grey. Frames and blocks are clunky as if i play on 800x600. It needs at least some HUD scaling, as on 1920 the UI takes too much space on my screen.

-Textures are terrible to a point that i wanted to scream at them. I'm playing on max settings incl. AA on 1920. Some textures are so blurry that i had to wipe blood out of my eyes every few minutes.

-Shadows haven't left alpha status i see.

-Lighting. Jedi Knight 2 in 1998 had lightsaber, blasters and particle effects casting glow and enlighten the environment. SWTOR should be a firework of lights and colors, yet my saber doesn't even cast a glow on myself.

-Lifeless environment. I haven't seen ANY ambiente stuff, not even a critter somewhere or a banner waving. Instead of NPCs they could as well have placed terminals everywhere, would be as dead.

I can only imagine this game to appeal to children, first time mmorpg'ers and complete SW-geeks only. Every adult mmorpg'er with some halfway decent standards and expectations to a 2012 title should boycott this (moreso considering the horrendous price of this piece)

A big budget and voiceovers obviously doesn't make an AAA title, as SWTOR with absolute basic stuff missing (day/night cycle) and blatant low quality points is clearly not.

As a side note, what was your motivation for posting the same topic on two different forums:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=660979

To get discussion doing on 2 different forums, 1 fanboi infested and the other not so much.  Pretty simple really.

To be fair now,  JKII is from 2002.

Originally posted by Verterdegete

To be fair now,  JKII is from 2002.

You are right, 1998 was Mysteries of the Sith.

It's so funny to watch people defend the game and say "Those are minor and insignificant".

All I have to say to you people is Bull****.  There is nothing minor or insignificant about a supposed triple A title that feels like swtor. 

If you plan on playing swtor for any other reason than the story...  well then, in my opinion, you're doing it wrong!

And before one of you goes off the friggin deep end.... how about we get a list of what swtor is offering to the genre!!!

What are they bringing to the table that other mmos don't?

After playing the only thing I saw was the story.   Obviously, this is enough for most.  Hell, I would like to enjoy the storyline they invested all their time into as well.  Not enough to warrant a purchase though.

I thought it was almost impossible for me to cancel a pre-order.  Everyone I know was going to pick this game up and we were going to have an epic star wars adventure in a massively awesome world.  Only a few of us are left standing, holding onto hope, as the beta dust settled.  What is their reasoning?  They are die hard star wars fans and have to follow the story.

Originally posted by forty4plus2

A couple of things:

 

Also, the reason there isn't "non-humanlike" races is because Bioware wanted playable characters that are relatable. And if you look at the Star Wars universe there aren't many main characters who are non-human.

 

Originally posted by ManJunk

It's so funny to watch people defend the game and say "Those are minor and insignificant".

All I have to say to you people is Bull****.  There is nothing minor or insignificant about a supposed triple A title that feels like swtor. 

If you plan on playing swtor for any other reason than the story...  well then, in my opinion, you're doing it wrong!

And before one of you goes off the friggin deep end.... how about we get a list of what swtor is offering to the genre!!!

What are they bringing to the table that other mmos don't?

After playing the only thing I saw was the story.   Obviously, this is enough for most.  Hell, I would like to enjoy the storyline they invested all their time into as well.  Not enough to warrant a purchase though.

I thought it was almost impossible for me to cancel a pre-order.  Everyone I know was going to pick this game up and we were going to have an epic star wars adventure in a massively awesome world.  Only a few of us are left standing, holding onto hope, as the beta dust settled.  What is their reasoning?  They are die hard star wars fans and have to follow the story.

It's actually pretty sad how right I always was with my expectation of the game ... Since I saw the first screenshot and the "stylized" graphics a grim thought crawled in the back of my head fearing me that they really are going to build upon WoW suck-the-money-outta-sheep formula...

And how was I bashed with my blasphemical posts warning people to not get overhyped over a WoW with VO in space

I still didnt give up and tried the beta to be proved wrong..I wasnt

Sad really...

I keep reading "I don't mind that", "that's ok with me, even if it's not THE best of the rest", "that's standard practice in big-mmo's so at appeal to everyone" etc etc as so-called answers to the critics, from the part of the SWTOR fanatics.

I wonder, would the same people say they wouldn't mind this and that, in any other new mmo, apart from SWTOR?

Nope. They would bring it down to its knees, being 10 times more harsh on their comments.

And I still wonder. What's the point here: To defend SWTOR no matter what, or to defend our right to a better bigger and more exciting player experience (in all aspects)?

Here is a sum up of what SWTOR really is....just another mmorpg clone, it doesn't feel any different from anything else. Boring game play, lack of customization, icons in HUD, inventory items are way too small, lack of imersion, and the most important feature NO ADDICTIVE GAMEPLAY.

It's a bland title made for bland people, I hate to say it but SWG when it first release was so much more than what SWTOR is offering. Never thought I would ever say or even think that but it's true. SWTOR has too much cinematics with too much talking and less play time.

Look people.....you are going to have people on both sides of the fence on this title. Get into the beta and experience it yourself or try it when it releases.  Most of you will probably play for a month or two then move on to something else after becoming bored with it.

So... Bwt huh... SO i played today and it was cool, dialogs were cool but. First 15min "Oh wow! I'am talking to NPC's and they are talking back to me! Awesome!" after more or less than 30min "SKIP-SKIP-SKIP-STFU and give me the quest!"

That was my experiance :)

Originally posted by Margulis

I'm very disappointed in TOR.  Some people want to know well WHY! are you disappointed?!  Well, for me, here's why....

1. Character creation - (lack of options in key areas like body and face type) 

This is personal preference and is not "standard" in most MMO's.  What is there is fine for what you are doing. Once you get into later game the variation in "looks" become more apparent.
 

2. No completed quest log - (If we are playing many alts, would like to refresh on a toon's story by looking at recent completed quests.)

This is true but something a expect after launch. I don't see a huge need for this on launch day.

3. Social hubs / cities feel lifeless - (no npc interaction except with quest givers, very quiet, almost no ambient npc conversation or sound. Most npc's are just locked in one spot / position for infinity. Try walking through the Jedi Temple or Coruscant, feels like a graveyard or library)

At launch, no. Those areas are low level and early on there will be lots of life to them. There is "ambient npc conversation or sound" and not sure as to why you have not heard it. No perfect but they have been tweaking it.

4. World is lifeless - (no critters, birds, nothing. There are a few non aggro mobs or beasts, but they just stay locked in 1 spot pretty much)

Again, this is a matter of your personal perception.  In beta due to the wipes and slower progression of testers, worlds became a little "lifeless" but again, this will change at launch.

5. No day / night cycle.

I agree to an extent with this. It really is only noticable (for me) on Tatooine where the sun shines so brightly.

 6. No swimming

No biggie here but again is your personal gripe.

7. Space combat

No specifics here and the argument has been made repeatedly in and out of beta. Yes, I agree.

8. Races available to choose from - (all human races disappointing - was hoping to play a Rodian or Ithorian)

This may seem IMPORTANT but when you consider how the game was put together you understand why there just can not be tons of races to choose from.

9. Very slow travel speed.

Only up till level 14. After that, you get a SPRINT and travel picks up.

10. Racial abilities are not only worthless, but just plain dumb (most of them anyway)

Again, personal prefence by poster. In the past three builds of beta there were none. They are not meant to be there to balance or unbalance gameplay. They are just extras.

11. Graphics, especially in environments.

Not sure what this means. Graphics, while maybe not up to Skyrim stantards, are more then good for any MMO.

12. Cannot custom UI

Again, poster prefrence and not needed to play.

13.  Extremely primitive guild features.

By who's standard? Most features are not even in game yet.

14.  No chat bubbles (to help with cross-faction chat)

Thankfully! One thing I hate is cross-faction trash talking and the exploiting it can bring.

15.  Water is terrible, pan the camera from underneath and you can see it's just a blue texture placed on top of an empty hole that you run through

Guess you don't play a lot of MMO's or this one. You do not do ANY underwater work in SWTOR.

That's what I can think of for right now.  I will say I love the story and voice acting - but it seems they pumped 80% of their money into that and the GAME is somewhat of an afterthought.  It's not bad, but for the money and hype put into it - for me it falls pretty flat.

If you don't like it you don't have to play. No one will force you. My comments are in YELLOW above.