I read the forums and I've played MMO's since they were just text based muds.  (I'm kind of old in gaming years).  Anyway, WoW took me by surprise.  I didn't think I would like it, but I really did.  The release was pretty smooth and the game throughout the years was fun.  They added content for PVP and PVE.

The TOR release was pretty smooth as well.  I liked the staged release.  I think long term this will be as successful as WoW. 

Everyone keeps saying, well they don't have Rated Battlegrounds, or teams for Hutball.  They don't have full space combat, they don't have this or that etc...

I want all those things as well, but when you look at what this game actually released with it is alot.  The single player experience (Story line) is very well done.  The flashpoints are a blast.  PVP is good, they have good equipment and neat crafting system.  They tackled the aspect of allowing people to do content either solo or duo with companions.

It took years for WoW, EQ, EQ2 etc.. to put in some of their best content and I expect the same from TOR.

I'm having fun and maybe I will get bored in a few months, but then that next feature will be added and it will keep me coming back for more.

BTW, I loved UO the best out of all the games I ever played.  But, UO was the perfect game for a 23 year old smoking herb and working as an IT guy.  I wasn't married, didn't have kids or a ton of responsibility.  I smoked herb and played UO with my girlfriend and now my wife.  It would be real hard to compete in a game like that now.  I just don't have the same time to devote to that stuff, and I don't smoke herb anymore, so it would be much harder to mindlessly sit there and macro mining to raise str, or trap a nightmare to train swords etc...

When I retire, I hope there is a good sandbox game to play, but until then I'll take well done themeparks.

Honestly this game needs to hit the ground running, if it doesnt they will lose subs. now that their population has grown again (or atleast will tomorrow) they need to dust off the long list of Suggestions that us beta players put in and start seeing what they can add in.

Wow had a terrible release! what are you talking about.  The game barely worked on day 1, assuming you could even log in...

Originally posted by druez

I read the forums and I've played MMO's since they were just text based muds.  (I'm kind of old in gaming years).  Anyway, WoW took me by surprise.  I didn't think I would like it, but I really did.  The release was pretty smooth ...

 

 

 

Sorry, but you lose all credibility with that statement.  You either weren't there, or have an extremely bad memory...too much herb maybe?

 

WoW's launch was anything but smooth.  It was actually a nightmare that wasn't completely resolved until roughly 3 months out from release.

 

I agree Bioware's launch has for the most part been smooth up to this point though.  I don't agree with the staggered access, but they deemed it best for their MMO.

EArly access has gone great for me at least. Im sure there are bugs. i have got stuck once or twice but thats it have had little to no lag

have had a few ques but none more then 10 minutes. That said we wont know how it all end up going till it officially launches

And by all accounts rift had a great release. So u cant forget how good there release went . 

Nice summerization, one thing people fail to realize is that games like wow have been out for seven years and in development for four years before that so for more than 11 years wow has had hundreds of developers making it what it is today.  And people dont' understand why a game like SWTOR doesnt have every feature of an 11 years old (development time wise)  game plus all the systems they developed for this game at launch.  How does a person not realize this before they start opening threads about this and that feature missing at day one.  Zero understanding of how much effort it takes to make an MMO. 

Because of the staged release I have three groups of friends and they are all on different servers from me.  No one knew what server or faction till we got in and we got in at different times.  In that way it kind of sucks.

But performance wise the game launch was stable, no lag here, and no major bugs or anything.  Technically I think it's the best launch I've been a part of, but the way they released it, which may have been necessary to high interest, was detrimental to me hooking up with my friends.

I guess I have to reroll but with which group....I like each of them for different reasons...

Originally posted by NasherUK

Wow had a terrible release! what are you talking about.  The game barely worked on day 1, assuming you could even log in...

Given the next six months of server instability and assorted bug-crushing, I'd rate WoW's launch no better than C-.  Go Go Lagforge.

It's kind of pointless to compare other launches though.  Everyone's got their own "smoothest launch" experiences list.  I liked GW1 and CoH, personally.

This forum is in the same state as every other mmorpg, someone said the same exact thing about Rift, but it is good that your stating your [opinion].

Originally posted by NasherUK

Wow had a terrible release! what are you talking about.  The game barely worked on day 1, assuming you could even log in...

as this and others have said, WoW had a terrible release.

constant server crashes,massive lag spikes every hour, the zepplins dropping you in the middle of the ocean with no way to get your corspe back, etc etc

Rift had a great release, just a shame it didnt get much better.

this release has been great(not as good as rifts tho) as the only bug I have come across is not being able to RE things for certain periods of time and some lag issues.

both things that can be easily remedied by bioware

Originally posted by snapfusion

Nice summerization, one thing people fail to realize is that games like wow have been out for seven years and in development for four years before that so for more than 11 years wow has had hundreds of developers making it what it is today.  And people dont' understand why a game like SWTOR doesnt have every feature of an 11 years old (development time wise)  game plus all the systems they developed for this game at launch.  How does a person not realize this before they start opening threads about this and that feature missing at day one.  Zero understanding of how much effort it takes to make an MMO. 

i so agree with this. I mean lfg for instance. If u are a new mmo and u add that players stop exploring all the worlds u just spent 3 yrs making

ds wasnt added in wow till lk,  yet people expect thos features in day 1 Oh and guild levels and all werent added till cata, So why people expect tor to have those features at launch is beyond me

Also they never intended to have space missions but players wanted them so they added them , Sure they are star fox type but they are fun for what they are. 

Originally posted by NasherUK

Wow had a terrible release! what are you talking about.  The game barely worked on day 1, assuming you could even log in...

Thank you. I was about to say the same thing.

SW:TOR is a B for release only because the game was too darn popular they had large queues. Otherwise I give it a A- everywhere else.

BTW, I haven't had any issues with being in queue. Game works great for me.

WoW had a terrible release, constant queues, loot bugs for 2 weeks.  Chat bug for a month, glitches and animation fiasco's for 4 days.  WoW was my no stretch by the imagination a good launch.  Rift however was a marvelous launch and doesnt get credit where its due, maybe because the end game is shit. 

Originally posted by Terranah

Because of the staged release I have three groups of friends and they are all on different servers from me.  No one knew what server or faction till we got in and we got in at different times.  In that way it kind of sucks.

 

But performance wise the game launch was stable, no lag here, and no major bugs or anything.  Technically I think it's the best launch I've been a part of, but the way they released it, which may have been necessary to high interest, was detrimental to me hooking up with my friends.

 

I guess I have to reroll but with which group....I like each of them for different reasons...

If you had them as friends why didn't you communicate beforehand which servers you were going to.

Like this. You were first so you could contact "your friends" and say, "Hey, I am on......." Then the next group could have been CC'ed on the email letting everyone know where to start toons.

Sounds like poor planning on your part, not Bioware.

Also, have the lowest level friends quit and move to the highest levels server...

I really don't see why this is an issue for you.

Yeah, WoW's release was pretty bad.  I remember getting all those days free because they kept having so much downtime.  Not to mention that every Tuesday they were down all day.  That sucked, because I had Tuesdays off.  Talk about salt in the wounds.  And I only switched to WoW because EQ2 had a few consecutive days of downtime, so I said nuts to that. 

City of Heroes had a smooth launch.  That's the first game I can remember where I said to myself, "Self, this game actually launched with very few issues!  I'm very impressed!"  Rift's launch was also good.  I think Lotro's was too.  I don't know.  We can play this particular game all day long. 

Originally posted by Zylaxx

WoW had a terrible release, constant queues, loot bugs for 2 weeks.  Chat bug for a month, glitches and animation fiasco's for 4 days.  WoW was my no stretch by the imagination a good launch.  Rift however was a marvelous launch and doesnt get credit where its due, maybe because the end game is shit. 

Wow was lucky because of the compitition launching the same timeframe was EQ2. Which was ever worse. They had rolling rollbacks causing people to loose levels. And queues to make TOR look tame. Overall the sytem requirements being way too high for most sysems of the day also didn't help.

WoW lucked out. SWG was dying the slow death anyway so it was no compitition either.

Originally posted by eHero

Yeah, WoW's release was pretty bad.  I remember getting all those days free because they kept having so much downtime.  Not to mention that every Tuesday they were down all day.  That sucked, because I had Tuesdays off.  Talk about salt in the wounds.  And I only switched to WoW because EQ2 had a few consecutive days of downtime, so I said nuts to that. 

City of Heroes had a smooth launch.  That's the first game I can remember where I said to myself, "Self, this game actually launched with very few issues!  I'm very impressed!"  Rift's launch was also good.  I think Lotro's was too.  I don't know.  We can play this particular game all day long. 

 

LoTRO was overall smooth but they too had queues on the more populated servers. Not as much as this game, but they did.

Overall I think this launch is going down as succesfull with a caviot.

SWTOR has been my best MMORPG experiences I have had in my 12+ years of online gaming.   It just blows me away and it's so freaking addicting that my family is starting to worry hahah. 

I game for me is one that has alot of things to do.   It can't just be one dimensional in nature.  Meaning, it has to have alot of other things to do and this game has alot of stuff to do besides instanced PvP, instanced PvE.  It has world PvP which adds an element and danger of ganking for those that like doing that.  They have PvE worlds where those types of things are avoided.  The crafting system is amazing and the best I have ever encountered in any MMO (my opinion).   Space combat and travel is new and exciting and the devs said they will add to it in future patches/expansions.  The companion system with each one having thier own personalities is new to me and amazing.  I mean I can go on and on.

We were Arthas Horde server from day 1 and had 0 problems with release.  We got it at midnight, logged on and created characters and were good to go.

I didn't experience any crashes at all and only minor lag issues.  The only thing that was pretty bad was the queue.  But, I didn't really blame that on Blizzard.  I would just queue up when I got home from work and go about my night, putting my kids to bed etc...    I don't think anyone expected that kind of demand for the game.  I'll put it this way, Blizzard did the best that they could.  Noone saw the numbers that WoW had on a release.

UO, Conan, Shadowbane, Warhammer all games that I was pumped up for had terrible releases. 

Putting out a ton of servers for release then dropping down to 1/4 of the amount in six months is not a good release. 

I would take a queue to guarantee a better long term server population.

Originally posted by druez

We were Arthas Horde server from day 1 and had 0 problems with release.  We got it at midnight, logged on and created characters and were good to go.

I didn't experience any crashes at all and only minor lag issues.  The only thing that was pretty bad was the queue.  But, I didn't really blame that on Blizzard.  I would just queue up when I got home from work and go about my night, putting my kids to bed etc...    I don't think anyone expected that kind of demand for the game.  I'll put it this way, Blizzard did the best that they could.  Noone saw the numbers that WoW had on a release.

UO, Conan, Shadowbane, Warhammer all games that I was pumped up for had terrible releases. 

Putting out a ton of servers for release then dropping down to 1/4 of the amount in six months is not a good release. 

 

I would take a queue to guarantee a better long term server population.

wow had some pretty bad bugs and many other issues at release.. I remember horriible server lag and character rubber banding all the time.. If you want to compare this to a good release like said earlier Rifts went very very smoothly