Originally posted by Thorbrand

By definition it wasn't a MMO.

Care to define "MMO"?

Because by ALL definitions I've come across SWTOR is just as much (or as little) a MMO as pretty much each other MMO...

Originally posted by Mahavishnu

The game, ehm, is not as successful as it could have been (I do not want to use the word  'fail'), because they made WoW in space with voice-overs, instead of an unique SIFI-MMO.

The whole approach was a disaster. And this is even more disappointing, since they had a very interesting predecessor (SWG). I mean they obviously discussed their plans like this:

"WoW is the biggest MMO of all times, so we need:

• leveling and item-grind
• tanks and healers
• instanced dungeons
• battlegrounds
• raids

Because this is how an MMO has to be done!"

When I saw the first preview of ingame mechanics, I was shocked, I could not believe it, it looked so boring and so WoWish. And it did not feel like Star Wars at all. And then the stereotypical sentence "fight epic battles to loot epic gear!" A year ago I already knew, that I would never play this game.

Instead they should have started like this: "After watching the movies I want to live in this world. What do I want to do? And how should it look like? No matter what we put in this game, it always has to create this special Star Wars feel." *

Combat should have been much more FPS-style or something like in TERA. But Luke Skywalker in front of a big robot that constantly shoots at him with fat beams? And Han Solo stands behind him with some kind of a remote-control to hit him with a green beam to heal him? Never saw that in the movies.

And they should have put much more love into space-ships and space-combat. I do not want to start about crafting in SWG here. Although the companion-mechanics in SWTOR was basically a brilliant idea.

From what my friends told me, the world felt blank and lifeless, this is never good for an MMO.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

* One of the most amazing features of WoW was that everything in this game from the zones to the smallest details looked very Warcraft-like.

Fantastic, so your are basing your "review" on hear-say as you've actually never played SWTOR?

Jeez.... can I make a suggestion: go try a free weekend trial for SWTOR and then come back!

Originally posted by Trol1

Originally posted by Mahavishnu

The game, ehm, is not as successful as it could have been (I do not want to use the word  'fail'), because they made WoW in space with voice-overs, instead of an unique SIFI-MMO.

The whole approach was a disaster. And this is even more disappointing, since they had a very interesting predecessor (SWG). I mean they obviously discussed their plans like this:

"WoW is the biggest MMO of all times, so we need:

• leveling and item-grind
• tanks and healers
• instanced dungeons
• battlegrounds
• raids

Because this is how an MMO has to be done!"

When I saw the first preview of ingame mechanics, I was shocked, I could not believe it, it looked so boring and so WoWish. And it did not feel like Star Wars at all. And then the stereotypical sentence "fight epic battles to loot epic gear!" A year ago I already knew, that I would never play this game.

Instead they should have started like this: "After watching the movies I want to live in this world. What do I want to do? And how should it look like? No matter what we put in this game, it always has to create this special Star Wars feel." *

Combat should have been much more FPS-style or something like in TERA. But Luke Skywalker in front of a big robot that constantly shoots at him with fat beams? And Han Solo stands behind him with some kind of a remote-control to hit him with a green beam to heal him? Never saw that in the movies.

And they should have put much more love into space-ships and space-combat. I do not want to start about crafting in SWG here. Although the companion-mechanics in SWTOR was basically a brilliant idea.

From what my friends told me, the world felt blank and lifeless, this is never good for an MMO.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

* One of the most amazing features of WoW was that everything in this game from the zones to the smallest details looked very Warcraft-like.

Fantastic, so your are basing your "review" on hear-say as you've actually never played SWTOR?

Jeez.... can I make a suggestion: go try a free weekend trial for SWTOR and then come back!

guarantee he will come back with the same complaints so really doesn't matter in the least.

You followed this game for three years when you could have been playing Star Wars Galaxies...well. lucky for you, you still can.

edit: Yes, you still can.

Originally posted by BrooksTech

Originally posted by I_Return

Used wrong engine. The hero engine is for noobs, real mmos create their own engine. The lack of optimization of the engine and the constraint the engines has simply limited what they could build.

This is interesting... how many MMOs do we know of use their own engine?

I would bet that most do not.

Turbine Engine.

SOE produced Engine for Eq  / Eq2

Funcom Engine

Eve Engine

 ect,

Most AAA games create in house game engines.

I would bet if Bioware would develop their own wenginem, they could of cuta few million off development costs.

Originally posted by Trol1

Originally posted by Thorbrand

By definition it wasn't a MMO.

Care to define "MMO"?

Because by ALL definitions I've come across SWTOR is just as much (or as little) a MMO as pretty much each other MMO...

just throwing it out there... according to EA's own website, SWTOR is an mmorpg

http://www.ea.com/star-wars-the-old-republic

I seriously cant maintain my presence in this community any longer...its full of trolls. 

Originally posted by Flex1

The reason is in the name, Old Republic.

 

We wanted to play in the New Republic star wars, not in an unknown timeline.

I have to completely disagree with you. Going back 5000 years (I think that's right) gives them more story options. Having a million Jedi in SWG didn't make any sense and was pretty stupid, but is totally okay in the Old Republic

Originally posted by joocheese

Originally posted by WellzyC

cut scenes  cut scenes....  and mindless gameplay..

we dont play video games to watch cut scenes...

Agreed...

It seemd to me that they banked on the idea that its a Star Wars franchise and that in itself would be enough to carry SWTOR; obviously they've realized they were wrong.

Any chance that they may have "banked" on the idea of adding a personal story to each class? And on making quest accepting a bit more involving than - start 16 bit music file - portrait of questgiver shows up - show text: Hello XYZ, I have a quest for you. Please do this. Please click now on "accept". - Accept button appears.

I'm sorry, I like the quest/personal story setup - including cutscenes... it has been a tradition in RPGs for ages. 

You don't like it? Don't play a RPG!

Originally posted by Trol1

Originally posted by joocheese

Originally posted by WellzyC

cut scenes  cut scenes....  and mindless gameplay..

we dont play video games to watch cut scenes...

Agreed...

It seemd to me that they banked on the idea that its a Star Wars franchise and that in itself would be enough to carry SWTOR; obviously they've realized they were wrong.

Any chance that they may have "banked" on the idea of adding a personal story to each class? And on making quest accepting a bit more involving than - start 16 bit music file - portrait of questgiver shows up - show text: Hello XYZ, I have a quest for you. Please do this. Please click now on "accept". - Accept button appears.

I'm sorry, I like the quest/personal story setup - including cutscenes... it has been a tradition in RPGs for ages. 

You don't like it? Don't play a RPG!

its not that I don't like RPGs, I just don't like SWTOR... simple as that. It was poorly put together and horribly executed; its just an all around very bad game... IMHO

After buying SWTOR and playing it, I cancelled my sub and haven't played ever since. Been playing Age of Empires 3 while I wait for GW2.

The combat is boring.

The storyline's are awful.

And that's only part of the issue. The questing is awful and stale, the game doesn't feel alive and feels like you're just talking to a bunch of robots programmed to stand around and do nothing except for that one quest.

They basically copied WoW with slightly better combat animations and that just isn't good enough anymore.

The only thing about this game that I kind of like is the companions and crafting systems, and that's only assuming they've made the crafting useful by this point, aside from Biochem and such.

This game just isn't worthy of the Star Wars name. Period.

Originally posted by Gajari

The combat is boring.

The storyline's are awful.

And that's only part of the issue. The questing is awful and stale, the game doesn't feel alive and feels like you're just talking to a bunch of robots programmed to stand around and do nothing except for that one quest.

They basically copied WoW with slightly better combat animations and that just isn't good enough anymore.

The only thing about this game that I kind of like is the companions and crafting systems, and that's only assuming they've made the crafting useful by this point, aside from Biochem and such.

This game just isn't worthy of the Star Wars name. Period.

Agreed

When I think of why I quit the game, the thing that keeps coming to mind is all the damn running. It took long runs at inadaquate runspeeds through dead cities or starports to travel anywhere, and on top of it, we're locked out of using our speeder for half the run. 

I don't know if it's really the reason why I quit, but I think it affected how long I was willing to deal with other problems. When a player feels frustrations about things that shouldn't be an issue, it really takes away from the rest of the game. 

I think it also reflects poorly on the developers that they are either unable or unwilling to recognize that wasting my time does not add to the immersion of the world, in fact it makes me recognize that I am wasting my time, and, therefore, takes away from the immersion. 

Originally posted by Trol1

Any chance that they may have "banked" on the idea of adding a personal story to each class? And on making quest accepting a bit more involving than - start 16 bit music file - portrait of questgiver shows up - show text: Hello XYZ, I have a quest for you. Please do this. Please click now on "accept". - Accept button appears.

I'm sorry, I like the quest/personal story setup - including cutscenes... it has been a tradition in RPGs for ages. 

You don't like it? Don't play a RPG!

GAH no no no! NONO. I don't think that's the problem at all, having the personal story shit and being involved wiht quests is great. The problem is...THATS THE ONLY FUCQING THING THEY PUT IN THE GAME.

it has been a tradition in MMORPG's for ages  to have much more fukcing content, not cut out all the awesome bits of a game, slap on a $60 price tag and let fans drool all over it.

i wouldnt doubt something went wrong between the devs and EA about this. Bioware i'm sure had some really really awesome shit planned. Im just gonna imagine it was EA that made things change for the worse....yes...yes..let us believe...

SW;TOR wasnt a 'success' imo for several reasons, one of which was lack of variation in the game,  of which what choices there were, were fairly bland, although the storyline behind them wasnt bad, the implementation of those classes tended to be a bit boring at times.

Tthats not to say that several of the classes worked pretty well, but without much real variation, there was little point in running through the game more than 2, maybe 3 times and that was the other problem, end game, there were 2 factors imo, that spoiled the end game factor, one of which was the games lack of grouping tools to actually make the end game more streamlined and less 'annoying'  though the end game content itself could certainly use a hell of a lot of work, especially the PVP side of it, though not limited to just that.  And then there was the enforced seperation of players, MMO's should be just that, other players being around too, to be able to form groups with them just for the more 'mundane' content sometimes, would make that content 'less mundane'  but with so much seperation it made the game worlds appear empty (unless they really were empty!!)

So while the game may have been an MMO, it certainly didnt play like one, which is probably why so many accusations of the game being a 'single player game' were being made, because playing it, thats how it would appear. and with all that seperation not to mention instancing seperating areas so often,  its hard to see how the game could have appeared otherwise.

All those zones, were they really necessary, i've never played a game that had so many zones, just travelling to a trainer could mean zoning 2 or 3 times at least, so that it would seem that so much time was spent travelling between zones rather than actually doing something, it would have been far better to have a instant travel method that didnt have a 30 minute cooldown, sometimes even a 5 minute cool down would be too much

Space, if going to have an on rails tunnel shooter, at least have a bit more variation in it,  reusing the same ones over again with more targets to shoot at, gets old very fast, and its single player only, so no reason to do them other than the rewards for doing so, if anything it emphasised the single player nature of the game and was far from challenging.

So while the storyline was at times very good, the fact that the game itself, from a gameplay standpoint, was bordering on mediocre, was a definite let down,  can the game be saved.. i really don't know.. it might be that nothing they do now can save the game, at this late stage its hard to turn a game around and its unclear if Bioware/EA even know how to, or even if the game engine itself can even support the things that need to be done in order to do so.

Originally posted by Trol1

Originally posted by Thorbrand

By definition it wasn't a MMO.

Care to define "MMO"?

Because by ALL definitions I've come across SWTOR is just as much (or as little) a MMO as pretty much each other MMO...

Yea its an mmorpg.  People just tend to say that because it plays so much like a single player RPG and lacks so many things that standard mmos have come to have (like a LFG tool which they just added or are adding....finally).  

But it really does play like a single player RPG.  I really thought so, and not necessarily a great one either. 

They will slap the Star Wars name on many many other games and people will all buy it again no matter how bad it is. Just have to give you a light saber and its a win.

Im sure they made tons off the initial box, collectors editions and digital sales. Now comes the layoffs, server merges, then the games going to limbo until they decide to pull the plug before the game starts costing them money. They made their cash grab, now they don't care what happens.

Originally posted by Trol1

Originally posted by chefdiablo

I just didn't feel like I was playing a Star Wars character.

There were small things like jumping.  My character could barely make a jump over a small rock or some sandbags. This small thing made me question the controls along with a few other skill related details.

There are far too many stuns and rooting abilities for this type of combat.

For me the most disappointing aspect is meaningless pvp. I know that many people do not care much for pvp and I respect that, however, I do want to have it in my games and Star Wars should have conflict between the Republic and the Empire.

Most of the war zones set up battles against your own faction which causes conflict between your allies instead of your enemies. This is not a great result. The open world pvp (if any can be found) has no purpose or reward worth fighting over. The maps are designed so that each side avoids one another while out questing, crossing paths is a rare occurance and it is seemingly discouraged.

Access to enemy bases are almost impossible due to the overpowered cannons that can track you stealthed or not. Why create a game with the ability to have open world pvp but make it so that you can't even invade an enemy base even at max level with high end gear?

Why are there no contested areas on the planets?

I was hoping for some epic battles between the sides fighting for planets or resources or even control of trade and commerce. Instead we got a steady diet of Hutt ball, and whatever the hell Ilum was supposed to be. The rest of the war zones are just farms with limited purpose.

I had some fun days in Ilum when we could get some good 30 on 30 battles going but certainly not enough to sustain my interrest. I refused to trade kills.

I grew up with Star Wars. I wanted the mmo to drop me into the conflict between the Republic and the Imperials with war, battles, planetary control, and large scale light saber and blasters flying all over.

Bounty hunting.......smuggling.......how could they reduce these classes to such a pointless level? After the story line there is no more need for them outside of the forced combat mechanics for raids and some minor pvp. If these were my main classes, I would want to collect my bounty or smuggle stuff. These people should have a purpose in the game relating to their class.

There should be a game within the game. Classes should have a job to do to keep things going.....missions, seeking data, Bounties to be collected, objects and items to be smuggled.

My Assasin got a seat on the council and now just wanders around without true purpose or reason until someday when they patch in more story. He is important......I guess. Someday he will have to make desicisions and stuff but for now just farm war zones against everyone else until we need you.

This game at the end was just a pile of WTF.

 

 

Wow, can you please check that you actually played SWTOR?

Not feeling like playing a SW character - I don't know what you were expecting, how you thing a SW character should have felt like. I started beta (and later with early access) with a smuggler. And I straightaway felt like... well, not Han Solo but his dirty, down on his luck step-brother. 

Maybe you just wanted too much to play Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker and when you found out that it is not that type of SW game you were, well, not happy?

Jumping - I had some issues with my bodytype 3 human males - which was confirmed by other players as being the case for them to but that was mostly colision detection i.e. the body just couldn't get close enough to a wall. 

But jumping worked usually fine for all bodytypes I tried. Maybe lag or a controller issue on your end?

Meaningless PvP - care to enlighten us when was the last time that you've seen "meaningful" PvP in a MMO?

Okay, sorry, let me change that question: which MMO game over the last 5 years has/had according to you "meaningful" PvP?

Right, I honestly think part of your issue is not understanding the galactic situation:

Rep and Imp had just faced each other in a galaxy spanning war. Now, thanks to a treaty "peace" exists.

Well, a Cold War peace where "former" enemies still watch each other, where small clashes may still occur, but where most warring is done by proxy (Alderaan conflict).

So, if you were hoping for a game where you have 100s of Imps jumping of dropships and 100s of Reps manning their turrets, well, you are in the wrong game.

Go play some SW FPS if you can find one.

WZ set you up to fight against your own faction? Oh.... kay...

No contested zones on planets? Ah... yes...

You know pretty much all of what you are saying there shows that either you haven't played the game - which according to you is NOT the case - or you have ignored/dumbed out? many of the aspects of SWTOR?

I mean I agree, a real persistant battleground which resources etc. would be great, but this is something where many games just drop the ball. I'd give SWTOR the time to figure out what it actually needs to do with certain aspects, and then test again.

So to you the Smuggler and the Bounty Hunter were pretty much pointless.

An interesting point if one considers that the Smuggler has the Imperial Agent as a mirror class and the Bounty Hunter the Trooper... and apparently you had no problem with either of these?

Could it be that oce more you fail to understand the history that SWTOR is set against?

Bounty Hunters (Mandalorians) were allies to the Sith Empire actually creating a major blockade in republic space.

This blockade was broken by - drumroll please - Smugglers.

So neither Smuggler nor Bounty Hunter are those freelancers you maybe would like them to be - the Smuggler actually becomes a privateer with the blessings of the Republic - so really, I think you just didn't get what these roles stand for. But that is okay... *rolls eyes* 

I voiced my opinion of the game. You disagree and have added some points that would just turn into an arguement of subjectivity such as meaningful pvp. Any game I name that has what I would call meaningful pvp would then in turn make me into some game favoring "Fanboi" which would further make this banter pointless.

The only part of your response that I found odd was the acceptance of the spacebar jump mechanic. Why is the character jump designed to look like a short hop instead of a jump that a reasonably well trained force user might employ?

Yes platforming for some datacrons could be an annoying project however I did not enjoy spacebar jumping in say Huttball where my character would bunny hop out of the acid pit or barely clear a couple of sandbags now and then. That alone just made my Assasin seem out of place in the Star Wars universe.

In regard to the class purpose behind the smugglers, Bounty Hunters, agents etc, yes the story lines were effective in telling the story. My point is now that you are at max level and no longer have the story to create purpose for that character what do you do now? What does the smuggler do? Who are the bounter hunters chasing if anyone? Are they retired? My point is that the classes have no purpose now that the class story is finished.

During my time in SWTOR which was until about 3 weeks prior to the 1.2 update my War Zone experience consisted of about 7 or 8 Huttball matches....against Imperials just like me, often against my own guild mates and then a Void Star against the Republic or maybe the Battle for Alderan before another series of Huttball for 6 or 7 times. I started to notice bad blood developing between members of my own faction. Granted this can occur without any pvp between people, but it certainly seemed to be fueled by the conflict.

These were my experiences and they affected my opinion of the game. I understand and respect your different perspective. Insinuating that I am a liar because we do not see eye to eye is uncalled for.

Originally posted by Corehaven

Originally posted by Trol1

Originally posted by Thorbrand

By definition it wasn't a MMO.

Care to define "MMO"?

Because by ALL definitions I've come across SWTOR is just as much (or as little) a MMO as pretty much each other MMO...

Yea its an mmorpg.  People just tend to say that because it plays so much like a single player RPG and lacks so many things that standard mmos have come to have (like a LFG tool which they just added or are adding....finally).  

But it really does play like a single player RPG.  I really thought so, and not necessarily a great one either. 

yup, according to EA website, SWTOR is an mmorpg

http://www.ea.com/star-wars-the-old-republic