Mike Bitton, nice to see this discussed in a mature way. [mod edit]

No MikeB, its not just a singleplayer rpg, Its a Singleplayer RPG with multiplayer options. This game is in mo way shape or form an MMORPG. It goes against everything that the mmo genre started with. The game is just as linear as any single player rpg. There is no world, not any resemblance of a world, you play zones to make it even worse you play multiple instances of those same zones(atleast you use to when the game had a population). A real MMO will keep the player base spread out over a WORLD, multiple starter cities, plethera of content to keep players spread out. A single player RPG starts everybody in one or 2 zones, merges everyone into one line shortly, and runs multiple instances of those same zones. Its nothing but one big bottle neck, you have to instance it when the devs are to lazy to make content, and actually try to keep players spread out. It is pathetic and sad. Even worse these people are willing to pay 15$ a month to play that garbage.

Do we really need to keep beating this dead horse? Let this cash in on the Star Wars name dissapear. Its not an MMORPG. Its just an Online RPG. White knight chronicals for ps3 is more of an MMO than this game.  

Originally posted by Skuz

Mike Bitton, nice to see this discussed in a mature way. Apity that your efforts will be wasted on the worst elements of the readership/commentatorship here because they operate without reason & operate solely on their biases, they are too blind to even recognise in themselves so whilst there will be people that see the sense of your words, it'll mostly fall on deaf ears.

Looking at your signature, your objectivity on the subject matter comes into question.

People disagreeing with you and Mike are not bad, nor are they being unreasonable, and their arguments are just as valid as yours since what is being discussed is largely more on personal preferences than anything else.

But I suspect you didn't actually read very many of them, no?

Originally posted by Creslin321

I don't think that anyone, or at least most people, who call SWTOR an SPRPG means it literally.  It's just hyperbole to make a point.  We all know that SWTOR is technically an MMORPG.

The problem is that it seems like 80% of the development effort in SWTOR went into stuff that is almost best experienced by a single player.  It's no secret that the story, questing, and VO are the main selling points of SWTOR, and where most of the dev effort went.  But all these things are kind of a pain to experience cooperatively.

Unless you are at the exact same point in questing as another player, you'll always run into the issue of "Oh, I already did that quest" or "I still have more to do in that quest chain."

Couple this with the extreme instancing and lack of any interesting social hubs, and the game really seems to fall flat in the MMO department.  That is why people call it an SPRPG.

This. 100% spot on.

Apparenty the mmorpg staff/writers can't grasp that the criticism is alluding this point , as you stated I'd be surprised if anyone means literlally it's a single player rpg , it's simply that's the easiest way of pointing out it's main fault. That it feels like an srpg with some multi tacked on , and for a sub based mmorpg that's going to cause it to get the grief that I feel , it rightfully deserves.

"This statement is simply ridiculous"

Your article is simply ridiculous and the players have spoken, just log into SWTOR and compare the amount of people still playing with that of how many copies have sold.

The game is KOTOR, a single player game, it was BUILT EXACTLY like it and all they did was allow more than one person to play in the world at the same time. MMORPGs are not built around a single player enviorment, its built around a multiplayer enviorment.

Even Biowares UPDATES are built around making the community LESS a community. 1.5 million credit upgrades to your ship that allow you to not have to go to one of the few forced player hubs they created...

This is an MMO? Ok, why are the citites empty? Why is it I can go out questing and not see a single person for an hour? Why is it just as much time can go by before I see anyone say anything in world chat? Why does the crafting system suck so much? Why does the economy seem dead? Why does the game lack so many MMORPG elements? Why is it I have to group in mass for RPing gear? How is it I can have a male human Jedi marry a Male Twilek Smuggler and have them give birth to a Female Sith Warrior?

Ill tell you why, because the people implimenting these things are trying hard to throw options at us without knowing what MMOs require. There are more things in game to keep players apart than there are to bring them together and THAT is why right at the END OF BETA they threw together the fleets in order to try to FORCE everyone into one spot to mask the complete lack of MMO aspects the game has.

Some raids and PvP battlegrounds does not an MMO make.

Obviously its a slight, not a factual comment. TOR plays like a solo rpg because the design encourages it. COmpanions, 90% solo content, no real encouragement or requirement to work together, instanced group conten, instanced housingt and empty zones.

What makes the Single Player RPG connection for games like SWTOR is not the lack of group content or the soloability to max level. It is the personal story. In an MMO you are NOT  "THE ONE" You are one of a million. The story in an MMO is meant to be an over arching line, not one personally for you. That is what Single player games are for. Personal Story is what takes away from the game being a world instead of a playground. Players can make their own stories in MMO's adventuring solo or grouping. Premade Developer story for a player has absolutely no place in an MMORPG.

So people label it Single player RPG because its all about me me me in every aspect even story. WoW you can level solo to the top. If you want to progress you have to be involved in group functions Raids, or PVP. But WoW does not clutter you with personal story crap that just gets in the way of the world being a world.

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Skuz

Mike Bitton, nice to see this discussed in a mature way. Apity that your efforts will be wasted on the worst elements of the readership/commentatorship here because they operate without reason & operate solely on their biases, they are too blind to even recognise in themselves so whilst there will be people that see the sense of your words, it'll mostly fall on deaf ears.

Looking at your signature, your objectivity on the subject matter comes into question.

People disagreeing with you and Mike are not bad, nor are they being unreasonable, and their arguments are just as valid as yours since what is being discussed is largely more on personal preferences than anything else.

But I suspect you didn't actually read very many of them, no?

This is especially hilarious and true when looking through the comments, the posters who disgree with Mike are giving mature and well explained responses, whereas the defenders are only replying with "Haters gonna hate".

It seems the main issue with SWTOR from the get go is that all the relevent criticism fell on deaf ears.

Originally posted by Creslin321

I don't think that anyone, or at least most people, who call SWTOR an SPRPG means it literally.  It's just hyperbole to make a point.  We all know that SWTOR is technically an MMORPG.

 Yes there is that word....technically.

Quake and Unreal Tournament are also TECHNICALLY an MMORPG...you could play them online, and a LOT of people did it thus making it massive multiplayer...they were still not MMOs. The MMO argument was used AGAINST Guild Wars for many years and thus is most definitely applies to SWTOR as well.

I also think it's a ridiculous assessment.

I did quite a lot of grouping, much of it on the fly, when I played the game.

I did more grouping in SWToR than my many years in LOTRO.

to piggy-back on what everyone is sayign about story - cutscenes should have a small role in MMO's it awful to be on vent/TS/muble/skype with friends and you are forced to either ignore the story or ignore your friends.  A lot of times I miss what both are saying. 

I have to disagree with Mike for the most part.  I used to be a staunch defender of SWTOR, but the facts are the facts.  It is KOTOR 3, with group content added.

There is absolutly no reason to group, unless you want to run flashpoints, or operations. Honestly this game would have been better as an offline game with a co-op added to it like left for dead.

Yes there is group content, over half the operations are currently bugged, there is so much that can go wrong with them, same with the flashpoints.

The real problem is that most folks solo there way, then when they get to running flash-points and or operations, they have no idea of what their roll really is in a group.

Sorry but the folks at bioware missed the mark with this one. It really does feel like an rpg single player game. I know I never ran groups until I had 4 50's and wanted to do something other than run  repeatable, and there is no reason to run them if your not grouping in the first place.

I will say politely as I can to Mike B, who I do respect very much. We will just have to disagree about how we think about the game. You have valid points, but I think the folks have very valid criticisms about the game.  I have chosen just not to play the game any more, ea/bioware not getting any more of my cash, and that decision was based on the game being weak, boring, and lifeless, not to mention no since of community in the game.

Where SWToR messed up IMO is the scaling of the story. Sure you can bring friends but the content does not reflect that. GW2 got it right, the more people you bring the harder the content becomes and the rewards scale as well. Also the story does not scale to your level. Why there is no level down system is a dumb move. I would give BioWare a 7 out of 10 just because they didnt take that last step they should have. My wife and I played level 1-50 on every mission and personal story and it was all a cake walk, so a yawn fest.

I've never seen a game that is more linear or less open for exploration like SWTOR. I dont care whether its labelled SP RPG or not (it is), but its linear and offers no sense of wonder or exploration. Most other MMOs have it but TOR doesnt. For a budget it had, it turned out to be trillion times worse than every other MMO, and for sure worse than SWG which was the last great sandbox MMO to come out.

Originally posted by erictlewis

I have to disagree with Mike for the most part.  I used to be a staunch defender of SWTOR, but the facts are the facts.  It is KOTOR 3, with group content added.

There is absolutly no reason to group, unless you want to run flashpoints, or operations. Honestly this game would have been better as an offline game with a co-op added to it like left for dead.

Yes there is group content, over half the operations are currently bugged, there is so much that can go wrong with them, same with the flashpoints.

The real problem is that most folks solo there way, then when they get to running flash-points and or operations, they have no idea of what their roll really is in a group.

Sorry but the folks at bioware missed the mark with this one. It really does feel like an rpg single player game. I know I never ran groups until I had 4 50's and wanted to do something other than run  repeatable, and there is no reason to run them if your not grouping in the first place.

I will say politely as I can to Mike B, who I do respect very much. We will just have to disagree about how we think about the game. You have valid points, but I think the folks have very valid criticisms about the game.  I have chosen just not to play the game any more, ea/bioware not getting any more of my cash, and that decision was based on the game being weak, boring, and lifeless, not to mention no since of community in the game.

 

I found most of the grouping opportunites were in doing the heroic missions and the personal story missions that were a bit difficult.

Every planet had heroic missions so I constantly found myself in these groups.

And I never looked for groups for these things, someone was always aksing in chat or I would run into someone trying to solo them, I'd ask if he/she wanted a group and before you knew it, we made an evening out of it.

So sure, if people were forgoing this content then I can easily see them saying the game was a "solo game".

SWToR didn't seem any more or less group oriented than the other Theme Park MMORPG I've played. Rift seemed to bring groups together better with the world events, but that's really the only exception I can think of.

So the game is solo oriented, but not exceptionally so. *shrug*

As someone who intends on cancelling their ToR account today and hasn't been playing it for the past two months (I know I gave away free money...idiotic of me) I can fully agree with the article. The whole 'single-player' argument is very flawed in my opinion. I had more groups questing in ToR than I did in WoW because it was never needed. Heck, other than dungeon runs I was always el-solo because there was absolutely no reason to group. Everything was faster by yourself.

None of these games are really different in this aspect. So saying it is a single-player MMO is just a stretch. There are many things to be thrown at ToR for falling short but saying it isn't a MMO is not one of them unless you want to call all the other AAA MMO's that as well.

Still playing SWTOR and still grouping for every quest. The group quest conversations is one of a kind in MMO's and makes every quest feel like a group quest. I think some people on this site just hate to see something succeed.

Originally posted by Skuz

Mike Bitton, nice to see this discussed in a mature way. Apity that your efforts will be wasted on the worst elements of the readership/commentatorship here because they operate without reason & operate solely on their biases, they are too blind to even recognise in themselves so whilst there will be people that see the sense of your words, it'll mostly fall on deaf ears

Yep. Facts never get in the way of a good flogging. Not in these parts.

I love how folks are backtracking with their "I never meant it to be taken literal" BS.  If you can't be taken at face value for the words that come out of your mouth than why should you be taken seriously by others? Just admit that you hate the game and will say whatever fits your narrative in order to bash it, regardless of facts.