The VO work is exceptional IMO.

The length of time it takes to actually log into your character is truly exceptional, god i hate that sodding loading screen!

I agree, the quest experience is good, no great, not bad, just good... for the first time.

Everything else is mediocre / average at best, pvp, crafting, combat, graphics, endgame, alt replayability, etc etc etc.

There is just nothing else to do in this game but quest quest and QUEST, doing the same 3 battlegrounds gets boring after 1 week, instanced raids? yawn, "story fashpoints"? only the first flashpoint has story, crafting? why bother...

This would have been a great single player RPG.

Originally posted by spaceport

 

This would have been a great single player RPG.

I can't even give it that much credit to be honest. For all everyone talks about story, I found the actual stories to be quite lame... maybe it was just the consular:

- Young Jedi finds out Master is sick

- Young Jedi heals master

- Other 5 masters are sick - clearly each on a different planet 

(every master has a friend/acolyte/random person that can't possibly believe said master is ill.)

- Young Jedi runs random errands 

- Young jedi must fight masters (no matter what your "choices" are you still fight them) and heals them at great personal cost (which is actually of no consequence gamewise) while investigating on the evil evil man behind it (who happens to be - surprise - a once upon a time Jedi turned bad due to etc. etc. etc.)

I mean... I'm all for the story card, but really, a writer for one of those 90s D&D novels could have done better in his sleep.

The thing that SWTOR does exceptionally well for me is make me wonder - and I mean no offense truly - as to how people can actually find enjoyment in this game because I really can't, and I hope devs don't decide to regale us with VO-Story-driven MMOs for the next 5 years if this is the result.

Make no mistake, an average game is still fun.  If I played a game and it wasn't fun, I would give the game an "F", flat out no questions asked, and all the quality voice over work couldn't save it.  When it is done and over with though, you happily move on to the next title with few fond memories, sometimes thankful that it wasn't any longer,  and with no real noticeable sense of accomplishment.  We live in a world where being considered mediocre is sometimes worse than being just  plain bad, as if a spectacular failure is somehow more worthwhile than simply not being particularly interesting.  Perhaps that is why people seem to recoil so much at the notion that this game is just an average title.

Sitting at level 50, I should feel more connected to my character than ever before, thanks to a continuous story that ran throughout the entire game, where you become a hero of almost ludicrous proportions.  It felt hollow and meaningless, because the understanding was there that there was only ever one inevitable conclusion.  How enjoyable would players find Mass Effect if they rolled the same cinematic for the Paragon and Renegade paths?  To play Mass Effect 2 and realize that nothing that they did affected the world?  That's what the story feels like to me.

An average game does not challenge the status quo, does not alter the tested formula, does not encourage their players to rise to new challenges.  For some people, this is good enough, as long as they can play within a persistent world, make new friends, and continually make advancements to their characters.  That is afterall, what I believe to be, the main draw of the MMORPG.  It's an addicting and fun experience.

People wonder why so many are voicing their opinions on this game, or why some people seem so desperate to either like it or to hate it.  It's not hard to understand.  Combining the KOTOR brand with THE Star Wars MMORPG means that this is it.  If you are a Star Wars fan, this is the only Star Wars RPG experience you can look forward to for the next 5 or 10 years.  Maybe the game needs to fail so hard, that BioWare and EA pull a FFXIV, or maybe you need to recall memories of what WoW was like when it was released, assuring yourself that there is so much more that they could add to the game given enough time and support from the players.

For me, it's something else, and I'm sure many will agree.  We are simply ready to see the genre move into the post-WoW era, and SWTOR is still very much a creature of the WoW age. 

It seems very odd that an MMO's best point would be the solo experience of the storyline, rather than the multiplayer aspects that should be its best points, developers these days really don't know up from down it seems.