I fail to see how VO increases the quality of a quest if it's the same questt. "Go to Aldreaan and find the tresure"  in text and "Go to Alderaan and find treasure" spoken are the same thing. Multiple choices has nothing to do with VO either.

Wish my old math teacher was more like you guys when it came to final scores. :)

Originally posted by Wraithone

Its been down hill since then.  Last, but certainly not least, is the fact that I seem to be on one of the low population shards, because I can go for days without seeing more than one or two other players (out on the planets).

I was on a FULL population PVP shard and didnt see many of the other faction at all, it's due to bad game design in my opinion.

I like vo's but not at the expense of other game features.  VO's cost a lot of money so to have it maybe we have to give up other things, and maybe that is what we are experiencing as lacking in the game.

I guess I must be playing a different game than both of the authors. The game could not be any more disappointing than this hack fest of an article, however.

Adam: Please don't ever argue on behalf of... well anything. Ever.

Suzie: There are a number of non-VO quests and many VO quests that are "Oh you got it. Thanks:" without a need to even make a dialogue choice. You have been beating that horse for a while now. 

NPC ai that fights along side you, while at the same time having their own story line?

Sure haven't seen that before!

The only thing that companions do that is innovative is take the work out of crafting, next up, companions that play the game for you.

Agree with all suzie says but I still enjoy it.

Originally posted by moosecatlol

The only thing that companions do that is innovative is take the work out of crafting, next up, companions that play the game for you.

LOL! Best. Comment. Ever.

:)

Problem with an article like this is that both sides are winding down already. 

Nice article but I dont agree with the sentiment that just because they did not say they would be innovative then it is OK that they are not. In a highly competetive and saturated genre like MMORPG all games should strive to be innovative, specially one with such a huge budget. One which, imo, was squandered on voice acting.

They should have just made the class story lines with voice overs and the rest of the Kill X and Deliver Y quests could have been text because I believe most people are spacing through those anyway. 

With the money saved from that they could have added some innovative world PvP conflict or atleast some kind of dynamic PvE quest gimmicks. Anything beside these same static world quests which we have seen repeated the last 10 years.

Rift atleast tried to be innovative. SW:TOR didn't even bother to try. And no, I dont see voice acting as innovative. Throwing away good money on hiring actors to read from a script is not innovative, it is just plain wasteful.

Originally posted by SBFord

Originally posted by moosecatlol

The only thing that companions do that is innovative is take the work out of crafting, next up, companions that play the game for you.

LOL! Best. Comment. Ever.

:)

hehe I agree, very funny comment because it has a ring of truth to it.

Concerning the voice-overs, Age of Conan had only some of the quests use voice-overs.  That is why I stopped playing that game.  The first time I came up to a guy that instead of talking to me, made me read some paragraph totally killed the immersion of that game for me.

SWTOR is fully immersive, even if some of the side quests get sorta dull.  It's way better to be able to skip through voice-overs than not have them at all.

ok. what game are all of you playing? the things you are complaining about are standard in every mmo including your beloved wow. dont like the voice acting? skip it. are you saying you actually read the written quests like in other games? wow put in the instant quest option awhile back so you didnt have to wait to accept it. this game has more in it than any mmo at RELEASE. for some reason, people want more content at a games release than a game thats been out several years. i understand the game had a huge payroll but the costs of making a game are alot more now than they were seven years ago. swtor has been out just over a month. what do you expect? its launch was smoother than most with the exception of rift. yes there are bugs. yes some of them are annoying. im just amazed at how some of you nitpick at the things in this game when those same things are in every other mmo. swtor just does it at least the same if not better.

Originally posted by Tardcore

I think this article format is an excelent idea, and feel this first attempt brought up some very relevent criticisms about SWTOR. However it all becomes farce when I look to the right of the page see the big

8.7

near perfect rating. How could a game have such noteworthy flaws yet still recive such a steller rating?

 

I think this has something to do with MMORPG.COM's rating system where 8.7 is considered B+  or A-.

For me that is a bit confusing as C, average, would then be 5.0 and it is a long way from 5.0 to 8.7. And it is only 3-4 steps to B+/A-(C+, B-, B, B+, A-).

But in fact it seems that 7.5 is MMORPG.COM's rating for C which makes you wonder where the previous 7.4 is for. Does 1 mean that the game wont even start?

I think they need to simply rehaul their rating system where 5 is Average and then SW:TOR would have been given 7.5 which is far more reasonable.

Right now it seems the scores are artifically inflated because I dont even think it is possible to get less than 5 which begs the question of why even having a rating of 1-10 when 1-5 is never used.

Yeah I think Suzie wins...granted I'm biased because I agree with her viewpoints.  But still, I just didn't see much merit in Adam's arguments.  It seems like they boil down to:

1.  You don't feel like a "mass-murderer" because you have purpose in your questing.

Umm...not really any more than WoW or its other imitators.  The story quests are decent, but the vast majority of questing you do are the world quests, and they are the same recycled schlock that we deal with in any other MMORPG.  Yeah, they are voiced, but this doesn't change the content.  Instead of reading "raiders kidnapped mah cow!  Kill 10 of them!"  You just get that read to you.  Having someone read something to you doesn't change what it is.

And guess what, most quests in SWTOR have a "bonus" that involves needlessly killing a TON of mobs.  And since you typically fight 3 SWTOR mobs in each encounter, you are even MORE of a mass murderer.

2.  It's good because it's Star Wars.

This statement just encourages mediocrity.  If we are going to accept any pile of crap  that has the Star Wars name on it, then that's what developers will deliver.  Not saying that SWTOR is said crap.

3.  No MMORPGs are really innovative.

Adam's gives examples about how all MMORPGs involve leveling (or skilling) up and pressing a button to kill things and thus concludes that none of them are really innovative.  But this ignores everything that CAN be different about MMORPGs.  Like how do you level?  Do you do quest-node grinding?  MOB camping?  PvP?  Trade skilling?  Dynamic events?

Or what is the class design and group interaction?  Trinity?  Non-trinity?

There are so many ways that MMORPGs can be different...acting as if they are all the same because they are in the same genre just seems ignorant.

4.  PvP sucks in most games but SWTOR has huttball!

Really?  I mean really?

PvP is bad in SWTOR...I'm just going to say that.  Huttball, while different from most MMO PvP, has so many things wrong with it.  First, it strongly favors classes with knockbacks or speed abilities.  And second, just three people working together can easily win Hutball by just positioning themselves cleverly for passes.  It's not good for PUGs at all.

Oh, and did you forget abotu the non-tiered BGs?  I know they made a tier for 50 now, but that doesn't help a level 10 fighting a level 49 with all his abilities and talents.  The faction imbalance is another thing that makes PvP terrible...

5.  Companions are great!

Adam's argument here is that basically players have agreed that they don't want to do group quests ever, so companions are a great solution to allow them to solo most things and still kind of be in a "group."

You know...instead of just concluding that MMORPGs are essentially a failed experiment because no one wants to group with other players, maybe we should try to remove the things that are annoying about grouping with other players.  Like...the quest system.  It's so hard to group with people in a quest-based MMORPGs because of the way quests chain.

You wouldn't need this "single player"-esque philosophy if grouping was actually fun and easy to do.

6.  It feels like an MMO...just because.

Adam basically ignored any arguments against SWTOR feeling like an MMO and stated that it was just "because."     He then brings up the fact that SWTOR has VO which makes it more engrossing.  How many times are we going to harp on this VO thing?  It's not an end all be all feature...I'm sorry, it just isn't.

Also...Adam mentioned that SWTOR followed in the footsteps of EQ.  While this is true, EQ was MUCH more of an MMO that SWTOR is.  SWTOR is heavily instanced or sharded in nearly EVERY SINGLE PLACE IN THE GAME.

All in all, everyone that argues in favor of SWTOR just seems to be spouting nonsense.  At least when they try to counter all of the valid criticisms against it.

If you like SWTOR, fine, that's awesome, enjoy your game.  Just don't think that the game is perfect and try to disqualify any criticisms against it, because it's just not.  And when you do this, you are giving a license for mediocrity.

Originally posted by SBFord

Originally posted by moosecatlol



The only thing that companions do that is innovative is take the work out of crafting, next up, companions that play the game for you.

Oh but they do :)

I have one companion that I swear will take out trash mobs much quicker than I can. 

But this type of crafting system was employed in Fallen Earth.  While you didn't have companions, your character was essentially a walking factory.  You could queue up items to craft while you were out questing, grinding, gathering, etc...  No need to stand around while you waited for items to finish.

I think this game is pretty uneventful and boring. The "almost" a jedi thing does not work for me. I want to play something that is more close to real world today.... Just another wow clone. Nothing special

Originally posted by SBFord

Originally posted by moosecatlol



The only thing that companions do that is innovative is take the work out of crafting, next up, companions that play the game for you.

LOL! Best. Comment. Ever.

:)

 

That guy almost sounds like he enjoys sitting in front of a forge, staring at a percentage bar going from 0% to 100% for 27 times in a row before he can continue playing the game. There are some of us who enjoys playing the game for the whole time logged in, that's why this is the first mmorpg where I actually keep my crafting skills up to date.

And yes the companions are a lot of fun since they dont feel like just another DOT pet like in most other mmorpgs!

What comes to VO's and story, I love them, but I really see only 2 unique stories in this game. One for your chosen class per faction, having to run all the same other leveling content with no choise over the path you want to take at any time kinda narrows the uniqueness to only one time per faction, even if there is 4 unique main stories on both sides. This game should've had 2 different paths per planet and a couple of more off-planet ways to level besides PvP and space minigame.

Overall a great and a fun game, never had this much fun playing a mmorpg with friends before, lolling at eachothers dialog choises, doing HC's, flashpoints, zerging normal quests, something that is usually penalized in other games (grouping) with less XP and rewards (in TOR you get actually more) + it's fun to do dialog together, something that is missing completely in other mmorpgs.

"Group quests are met with scorn, socializing with people will garner the type of suspicion reserved for a child-molester, and if a guild asks you to play for more than 45 minutes a week, walk away and do not look back at the monster kids."

That is the console attitude that we now have in MMO's. Welcome to the darkside.

Overall I think SWtOR is a good but not great effort, but then with the contraints mordern MMO's are put under its hardly surprising I have not seen a great MMO release since Lotro was launched.

Originally posted by SBFord

In BioWare's latest effort, we are part of the story and the narrative. Like a fine single player experience, we are central, and our decisions matter. If we wish to be a good upstanding hero, then the choice is ours to take the quest in that direction - alternatively if we are "roleplaying" a baby drowning psychopath then that option is also catered for. Who said that videogames aren't a good outlet?

I would have liked if it was like this.  Unfortunately, this is completely misrepresenting the game.   This was the reason I stopped playing my Jedi Consular and switched to a different class, because there just was NO WAY to resolve things peacefully or abide by the Jedi Code.   You admit that in other games players basically play "mass-murdering psychopaths", but you don't see that little is different in TOR.

My "noble peacekeeper" was consistantly offered bonuses for killing MORE, rather than less people.  I would say to a bunch of young padawans "revenge is not the answer, seek peace in the force, do not go after the raiders!", then i would immediately proceed to go after the raiders, kill 10 of them, receive an updated mission to kill 50 of tehm, then kill 50 of them, then kill their leader, then destroy their food supply.  And all of this with full approval and even gratitude from the other "peace-loving" jedi masters.

The game's "choice" is limited to a few dialogue options, but is never actually reflected in the design.  Star Wars Jedi should be rewarded for killing as FEW peopole as possible during a mission, not as MANY.  

And you want to use your example of the baby-drowning psychopath?  Well, there is a specific quest where you find a baby and are told "if you do not drop everything and feed it immediately, it will die".  My character of course, picked up the baby, forgot all about it and several days later (both in game-time and out-of-game-time) when i remembered about, i did not find a dead smelly baby in my inventory, but rather the same baby there ready for the saving...  I'm not talking about some mass re-making of the game, i'm talking about them adding a 30 minute timer to the quest and actually award dark or light for saving the baby or letting it starve to death... 

Really, 95% of "choices" are pre-made for you considering that only 1 choice makes any sense whatsoever with the storyline.  The other 5% are not actually matched by the rest of the game.

And i won't even start on the often conflicting LS/DS choices which seem to have been drawn out of a hat most of the time.  Half the time obeying your masters and following jedi code is Light Side and half the time doing the exact same thing is Dark Side.  Half the time stopping criminals and bringing them to justice is LS and half the time it's DS.... wtf kinda morality is this?