Originally posted by Candomble

Originally posted by SBFord

I actually totally agree on the amount of content. There are few SP RPGs that come close. I have no argument with the content, just get tired of voice overs REALLY fast.

 

Really? Last saturday morning (EU time), while SWTOR servers were down, I went to play a little of my former MMO - Age of Conan (to check some of the later patches stuff there).

The first time I went to "talk" to a NPC it felt so strange and so... its hard to describe... strange and incomplete? Well the entire conversation can be simple, superficial, whatever you want to call it; the quest can be simply to kill 10 rats, but it feels so much better.

Same here, though I was playing the new Epic quests in LotRO that came out this month.  Again, Epic quests being the PRIME GRADE A material in the game.

It felt like I was going deaf.

Then I went off to do what I was supposed to do, sometimes in instances, and I felt like I was an "observer" from Fringe.  Aside from killing stuff, I had no role to play in how things went down, or how the NPC's would react/behave.  It just felt wierd.

Not to say that I will no longer be able to enjoy other MMO's... it was just a strange and very noticable difference.

[mod edit]

CanNOT wait for explorer mode for underwater zones in dungeons in GW2! WOOT

Originally posted by VoIgore

Originally posted by SBFord

Originally posted by theniffrig

Wait! The same Suzie Ford who gave the game 8/10 in this article:

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/367/feature/5947/The-Staff-Roundtable-Review.html

Playing "bad cop" now eh? Hmm...

Cause, if i was to give a game an 8/10 about a month ago, I wouldn't feel like I'd be justified in writing an article where I have to play the "bad cop" and bash the game I obviously liked so much to give it an 8/10.

Shouldn't have fired Danny Wojcicki.

 

Aw c'mon. I gave it an 8/10 after only 5 days playing and with a lot of hesitation initially. It's not a bad game by any stretch. It's just a game that, for me anyway, got very old, very fast for the above-mentioned reasons.

 

That's why professionals don't give like "final scores" after just 5 days of playing it.

Why not publishing an update article with your current impressions and score then?

You guys/girls here are always quick when it comes to fire out the high scores and stir the hype (and by now every ready should know why) -why not writing an article stating that your mind has changed after a month and regain some reader's trust?

"Trust"?? ANY review by ANYONE should simply be considered to be that persons OPINION of the game.  Everyone has their own bias/agenda, and that impacts their perspective. I look at reviews as only one means of determining if a game is worth the time and effort to do my own research on it. 

Originally posted by arieste

Originally posted by SBFord

Originally posted by theniffrig

Originally posted by SBFord

I gave it an 8/10 after only 5 days playing

 

This is what's wrong with people giving opinions about games when they've hardly played them. If reviewers held off for about a month and then gave a review of the game they might give a more informed opinion that will better help sway the views of their readers.

The article was probably misleading in its title. It probably should have been called "First Impressions Review Roundtable" so as not to confuse it with Mike Bitton's official MMORPG.com review posted later. My 8/10 was definitely a 1st impressions review score.

ok, so what would you score it at NOW?

 

OK before I tell you what I would score it as now, I want to remind you that this is MY score only, my PERSONAL score, not the score for MMORPG.com. Obviously, a lot of my co-workers will disagree with me which is cool and what makes working here so much fun.

OK.

I would give SWTOR a 6.5 as it stands today for many of the reasons I mentioned above. I say that with the caveat that that score will undoubtedly rise as the game matures and as more patches are applied. SWTOR has a boatload of potential. I hope that potential can be realized.

Originally posted by AdamTM

Originally posted by WhiteLantern

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?

 

 

 

8.7 is a solid "B" effort. Not even "B+", just "B". Not exactly a "near perfect rating".

On what scale?

this one?

10 - A

9 - B

8 - C

7- D

6- E

5 - F

4- G

3 - H

2 - I

1 - J 

 

You are quickly running out of letters there with G-J being imaginary grades

 

  By the same scale most middle american grade / high schools used to use at least. Less then 70% is D or failing. C is 70-80%, B 80-90% A is 90% to 100. I guessing most questioning this are from other countries or are younger as this was a somewhat old grading system (some 25 years ago for me at least)

At first I was like "Suzie actually knows what she's talking about!" and then I read Adam's take on the PvP and realized he's just playing devil's advocate for the sake of the article.

Still liked Suzie's bad cop more ;3

Originally posted by SBFord

I actually totally agree on the amount of content. There are few SP RPGs that come close. I have no argument with the content, just get tired of voice overs REALLY fast.

I guess my problem is that yes, there is a lot of "content."  But none of that content is really innovative.    I think the voice overs are a great touch, but the cosmetics of it all still don't change the fact there isn't much beyond it.

I think comparing it to a single player RPG is sorta pointless, because they are single player.  Its also pointless comparing it with other games when they launched.  WoW still follows the same boring model, but they've started to innovate with some of their quests.  They've developed over the years in the MMO market.  Bioware surely should've been watching these trends.

It is almost like they did all this research on the MMO market in 2005, decided they were going to do a game.......   and then stopped doing research.  I have no doubt this game would've been the wow killer had it been released in 2005.  Yet 7 years has passed.  The fact that WoW has lost subs over the time has proven that people like these things, but they also want something different.

LOL MMORPG.com making there own troll thread  woo whooo!!!!

Originally posted by Hrica

LOL MMORPG.com making there own troll thread  woo whooo!!!!

 

Why should you guys have all the fun? >.>

Originally posted by Aeolron
Not every mmo had a lfg tool in place at launch!

There are so many people who really do not know what a rpg is, you want to skip ahead of quests and just get to the action, then there's fps for that. The element in a rpg is story plain and simple. Swtor is a fantastic mmorpg ( I say mmorpg because the raids are alot of fun and hard mode flashpoints require groups ) I never knew single player RPGs to have raid groups, player guilds and of course pvp.

Mmos that charged a monthly fee do so to fund development costs of the game further down the road, which means more content and further expansions onto the game world.

This is a game meant for people who enjoy the true rpg element IE story , and sorry to say this but the wow community or people who simply don't enjoy RPGs will not enjoy swtor , and that ladies and gentlemen is why we have topics like these all over this site.

I'm a big RPG fan, and I'm underwhelmed.  Even most "linear" RPGS like Dragon Age, the old school NW games have more "choice" than is included here.  They had more depth, more customization, etc.

When you start with 200 million, you should have a pretty insane budget to come with a lot of the world.  Except in this game, there isn't a "world" to speak of, but rather a few quest zones not really related to each other.

Originally posted by SBFord

I would give SWTOR a 6.5 as it stands today for many of the reasons I mentioned above. I say that with the caveat that that score will undoubtedly rise as the game matures and as more patches are applied. SWTOR has a boatload of potential. I hope that potential can be realized.

I was just thinking what would be my score of it and thought of 6.5.

But I do not have your optimistic view of the game's future, though.

Originally posted by Robsolf

I see the value in most of the points brought up in the article.  However, while I'd agree with Suzie about the VO being a bit overdone, I wouldn't say that it makes the mission to be the "same thing" as any quest in any other game, any more than pulling a lever at a die-casting shop is the same as pulling a lever to start the gas chamber at Auschwitz.

What a horrible comparison... but how are the "trash" quests in SW:TOR different than in other games? They are still go there, kill that, click shiny etc. Just by adding voice overs does not automatically make it a better quest.

For one(and this also speaks to the "murderer" comment), the VO often doesn't just start and end with talking with the QG, or even be just for the beginning and end of the mission.  Quite often you are given a choice(s) DURING that mission; whether it's sparing the life of the target, or choosing a more/less merciful way of completing it. 

The outcome of the quest is the same so the choice is mostly a cosmetical one.

It's true that many sidequests are as Suzie stated; last night some dork at the base asks for 10 ship parts.  Clear the mobs, click on the things, turn it in to get your reward and a good butt smooching, and you're done, just like any other game.  But along with it I got a mission to kill a boss, and after bringing him to his knees, I had the option to capture him (DARK side!) or to kill him outright (LIGHT side!).  This makes all the difference in the world to someone who cares why they are doing the mission, and it's quite a difference between that and the old alternative:  do the mission or don't.

Not sure what you are referring to but whenever I get these options the final outcome is still the same. It is not like a quest branches out into a different quest depending on this choice. Again it is mostly a costmetical choice with the only different between the choices if you get Light or Dark points which is for gear only. It has no impact on other quests or if NPCs will speak to you or not.

Personally, I don't see, if someone can't appreciate that difference, or at least even SEE the difference, why they would ever want to play a role playing game at all.

I see the difference, I just dont see the actual practical difference between the two. For roleplaying it makes a difference at the very moment you do the quest but once it is over it doesn't matter at all (beside the gear thing). You can make an dark Jedi or a light Sith and the only difference is a slight difference in your appeareance and some of the gear you can equip, that is all. Future NPC interaction will still be the same way regardless. And this is where Bioware dropped the ball. They should have made the Light or Dark thing more important than just appereance and gear.

Again, I agree that they are overused and/or suffer from being all clumped into a hub where it seems like you have 10 minutes of VO to get through for 3-4 missions in a row... and sometimes there's so much of it, it all runs together and you can't quite remember why you're doing what and for who...

...but it's still better 3-4 missions worth of text totally devoid of choices.  For me, those tend to run together in much the same way.

And lastly, on the "murder" bit... can't possibly agree more.  I'd LOVE to see an interesting MMO come out that isn't just about killing for XP and loot.  To use BW's usual "go-to" philosophy regarding their content:

The MOVIES weren't JUST about going and killing stuff, and fights didn't break out EVERYWHERE the characters went.  How often to Han and Chewie run into a building blasting everything in sight to go kill/spare some head honcho?  Hell, Jabba was a total dick and they STILL tried to resolve things peacefully...

I would love too, to have an MMORPG where diplomacy and cunning can be used instead of violence. That would put a whole new spin to leveling if you could manage to finish a quest by not resorting to violence but rather use your head.

Innovation is a funny thing.  You never know it  until you see it and it's always impossible until someone does it.  One thing is for sure though, it doesn't lie.  You can say you're going to do it, or you can say you're not, but you can't say you've actually done it unless you have.

I would give SWTOR a 6.5 as it stands today for many of the reasons I mentioned above. I say that with the caveat that that score will undoubtedly rise as the game matures and as more patches are applied. SWTOR has a boatload of potential. I hope that potential can be realized.

How many games have we all said had potential? Potential goes hand in hand with disappointment in this genre of gaming.

Originally posted by SBFord

Originally posted by theniffrig

Wait! The same Suzie Ford who gave the game 8/10 in this article:

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/367/feature/5947/The-Staff-Roundtable-Review.html

Playing "bad cop" now eh? Hmm...

Cause, if i was to give a game an 8/10 about a month ago, I wouldn't feel like I'd be justified in writing an article where I have to play the "bad cop" and bash the game I obviously liked so much to give it an 8/10.

Shouldn't have fired Danny Wojcicki.

 

Aw c'mon. I gave it an 8/10 after only 5 days playing and with a lot of hesitation initially. It's not a bad game by any stretch. It's just a game that, for me anyway, got very old, very fast for the above-mentioned reasons.

 

hmm...

Maybe there is a lesson to be learned here... play for more then 5 days (I assume you mean played over the course of 5 days... how many actual hours was that?) before you give an opinion in writing on it?

Gaming websites gushing over a new game at launch and then revising their opinion a month or two down the road will always look suspect.

Still, nice to see balanced conversation going on about the game in editorials, just a shame it didn't happen sooner when it could have informed a lot of folks usefully about their purchase.

Originally posted by winter

Originally posted by AdamTM

Originally posted by WhiteLantern

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?

 

 

 

8.7 is a solid "B" effort. Not even "B+", just "B". Not exactly a "near perfect rating".

On what scale?

this one?

10 - A

9 - B

8 - C

7- D

6- E

5 - F

4- G

3 - H

2 - I

1 - J 

 

You are quickly running out of letters there with G-J being imaginary grades

 

  By the same scale most middle american grade / high schools used to use at least. Less then 70% is D or failing. C is 70-80%, B 80-90% A is 90% to 100. I guessing most questioning this are from other countries or are younger as this was a somewhat old grading system (some 25 years ago for me at least)

I needed to double check your facts on wikipedia, but you are absolutely right.

And let me tell you how hearthily i laughed when I realized you were not sarcastic at all in your explenation.

This is why I said it'd be best to rate the game as it stands and then keep rating higher or lower as months progress so readers can get a truthful view of the games progress.

Sheesh I had a feeling this would happen. 

The article is like an unnecessary flashback to all the threads in the SWTOR section. Atleast it wasn't completely full of trolling and comments without a sense of reality.

Originally posted by SBFord

I would give SWTOR a 6.5 as it stands today for many of the reasons I mentioned above.

See, now we talk!

Too bad that these scorings of a blockbuster title never make it into the major articles onto the mainpage. Got my drift?