Originally posted by raistlinm

Originally posted by Aerowyn

I'm sure this has been said at least 50 times before as I haven't read through every page but honestly if you cannot see the glaring difference between how swtor can be viewed as more of a srpg than a game like wow, rift, tera, ect I honestly don't know what to say. The obviously glaring difference swtor MAIN focus was a fully voiced SINGLE player story all those other games this was part of the game but far from the main focus of the game. Yes you have PLENTY of options to group up in swtor and play with others but that doesn't change the fact it was obvious the most time and effort was put into the srpg story aspect. It's fine if that doesn't bother you or you enjoy the game but to deny that this wasn't the main focus of swtor and how you can't see why people say it can feel more like an srpg than most other MMOs is ridiculous imho.

What people view a game as and what they choose to go on the mmorpg forums and debate it as are not the same thing, just because you can't see the fork in the road yet doesn't mean it isn't there.

The article as clearly stated is about those of you/us who choose to come on here and debate whether SWTOR is an mmorpg not what it feels like to you or me.

I'm not sure if you play SWTOR or not but I can tell you that if you counted out the quests (since the entire game is voiced over) you would find how wrong your statement is in that your characters story is the "main" or even the biggest part of the game, the world arcs outnumber the number of story quests on each world something like ten to one and even then there is nothing restricting or even discouraging people from grouping while doing class quests either.

I find it so funny that the people here who have trashed this game any which way they could have now gotten all defensive with pproclamations of "we see it like this" when for months many of these same posters in denial tried to present witty arguments of how SWTOR WAS/IS NOT an mmorpg not that it doesn't play like one or doesn't feel like one to them.

Mike B. comes along and somehow it seems because he get's paid for writing about games his opinion is deserving of more respect than the rest of us lol.

Never did I think I'd see the day when a bunch of people would admit that a game had become so immersive that they didn't even feel like they were playing an mmorpg.

For me I just wonder how people end up in these situations as I group in SWTOR every single day and it has been a very long time since I could say that about an mmorpg, people are always looking for a group to various quests and I have gotten in a pug within a half an hour of using the lfg tool.

I really think alot of these people who have a problem with grouping in SWTOR are looking for a game designed like SWG when players had a balance of reliance that nudged people into grouping no matter what it was they were doing.

I'm sorry but those days seem to be gone and now if you want to group you are going to have to put a little bit of effort into it (though trust me if you play TOR it won't take much).

swtor actually tries to make itself as unimmersive as possible in many ways but again it's all perspective. I try to stay away from these arguments because like always they just become a pissing match back and forth. I'm sure I'm 100% wrong swtor is growing and will be a massive force in the MMO world for years to come with its great MMO features... i honestly don't care anymore i actually have lost all hopes to ever play a decent star wars MMO in my lifetime and just hope star wars 1313 is as fun as the E3 footage made it look so i can get my star wars fix somewhere.

SWTOR has more single player content than most single player games. There are 8 personal stories one for each class archtype. Space is single player. Everyone has a companion.

Name a MMORPG that has more single player content/focus.

I think the author blows it when he uses heroic's as an example of group content. First of all you can solo a bunch of them if you keep your companion geared, but more importantly the entire design of heroic quests made folks skip them entirely because it took more time to form a group to do the heroic, then it took doing the heroic itself. They were to small, to fast to do, and frankly the rewards didnt make it worth your time.  Flashpoints are only slighly better.

The reality is if the game is super fast to level in there is no point in running instances to get better gear for level 25 out of instances if you will be getting better green drops in a few hours by advancing your level.

Having group content and having worthwhile group content that rewards people for doing it are entirely different things.

Oh holy sh*t.

He just defended SWTOR 

and supported GW2

In the same story.

Did he just commit hater blashpemy?

SWTOR is one the great casual story themed mmo's around and I look forward to keep coming back time and again.

In the end your fancy piece of writing means squat. Because the players made that claim and no journalist can deconstruct this and change it's legacy. It's here to stay, better make your peace with that fact!

SWTOR is an awesome single player MMO'ish, The END!

The Apologia for SWTOR given here is weak.

The game gets called a SPRPG because of the lack of challenge and depth. It's an easy summation of the design failings that have resulted in the geometric reduction in subs since launch. You can parse descriptions if you want, but the objective state of this game is on display for anyone who cares enough to log in.

Could not be more happy that I can SOLO WHOLE content! And when I will have done all questing and leveling all my alts ... will have raids etc. And if I want while leveling, have a looot of group content. So SWTOR is not at all solo RPG, it have all best from both worlds. Best game ever of all kinds ... starting with pacman and original prince of persia to nowadays. :-)

Originally posted by itgrowls

Originally posted by Fdzzaigl

Even if a MMORPG editor explains why it's a ridiculous statement, people will go on "Lalala, I'm not hearing you, lalala, TOR is a singleplayer RPG, lalala."

Heck, I played all 3 beta weekends of GW2 now (+stress tests) and did FAR less grouping and actually chatting to strangers than I did when initially starting out TOR (flame on).

 

Kettle much? "Lalalala GW2 rewards you for not having to group but still doing things WITH OTHER PEOPLE, LALALALA I'm not listening"

sound familiar? yeah that's what you implied above and you didn't learn a thing from GW2 apparently. Thought i might point out your contradiction to your own argument there. Saying that GW2 is in any way like the solo experience you get in leveling in SWTOR is like saying that the experience you get form the elites in WoW was anywhere near worth while like in EQ2. There's no comparison because they are obviously different. And then you go on the pretend that people who don't NEED to form a group for content in GW2 but get rewarded anyway is somehow the same as the experience in SWTOR. It's not and here's why.

SWTOR WOW both require you to group for dungeons and for raids and make those two things the only way to progress. The content in GW2 is almost all outside the dungeons and with every event, the group forms just by people being there (without pressing a button or asking someone's pernission so you could loot.) yeah it just happens. Top that off with getting your own loot and credit for everything you are doing without someone stealing kills or taking your nodes and you have THE solution for the pve mmo'ers problems we've all seen in the early days of mmos.

Uhh, I'm going to play GW2 and I like it, so no, not kettle much :p

I made one sentence about the game (of course I knew it was gonna be taken out of context anyhow) and here you go off like I "pretend that the GW2 experience is the same as the one in SW:TOR".

The only thing I said was that I never grouped or talked with / learned to know total strangers as often or as early as I did in TOR. Why? Because while doing events, you are playing besides each other, not necessarily with each other. I didn't "pretend" anything else.

And that's fine, because it's another type of experience, one that fits the game.

SWTOR doesn't seem as deep or complex as Wow, so I went back to WoW.

WoW also has a sense of humour.

The addons make WoW more interesting as well.

Originally posted by Mors.Magne

SWTOR doesn't seem as deep or complex as Wow, so I went back to WoW.

 

WoW also has a sense of humour.

 

The addons make WoW more interesting as well.

and that has always been a huge glaring issues people trying to beat wow at their own game yet lacking most of what keeps people playing wow to this day and people wonder why these games fall one after another.

No matter what you say, MikeB. This game felt to my like any singleplayer RPG and not even the best of it. After my mains story was over I even had to force me leveling the rest up to 50. But it felt useless. Due to the massive focus on the story and the voiced movies the common MMO gaming felt wrong to me. After that everything in the game felt like a copy of something I had done or seen before. And in fact massive parts ingame are pure copies of other parts in the game as well. The MMO feeling never got me in this game.  (if there is any)

I quit the sub after 5 month, because I felt the game was over. As in the average single player RPG. I won't even buy further Addons, SWTOR did never get my (as I had hoped for a long time)

There's a difference between saying the game can play like a Single Player RPG and saying that the game is a Single Player RPG. One statement is true, the other is not.

Yeah I'd be trying hard to bolster my position too under such overwhelming public opinion, supported by a veritable exodus of subscribers.

This site took a first class ride on the hype train, like just about everyone else.

There's no shame in admitting you were wrong.

Originally posted by XTREM1337

I'm not a powergamer like the WoW gamers,  I mean raiding, gearing, score on the armory etc. isnt my goal and thats bored me a lot...

SWTOR has many good points for ''casual'' and more than casual gamers, questing, storyline, flashpoint, pvp etc.

You can easy play solo and with a group. Everytime when I was on a planet, I saw someone who asking in the general chat to join a group for a heroic quest, and everytime he found some peeps easily.

 

Anyway, is my main game since the day one and the game is better after each update, I really like it.

 

I am still playing the game so obviously I enjoy it as well. I do wish certain features like the group finder would have been in since the beginning. Still, Bioware is moving to address elements that need to be improve and for that I am happy. 

Originally posted by razorneck

*snip*

 What really killed it for me was how insulated I felt while playing. There are 2 factions? Really? REALLY? Well... I don't believe you. So there.

*snip*

For that matter, the planets I was on didn't really exist either. I mean, not really. I kept running into invisible walls everywhere I went. That and I couldn't climb hills or jump properly to boot - that was really annoying.

*snip*

 Nailed it with those...

Methinks the Bitton doth protest too much.....

..... but good luck with telling people that the things that they dislike about a game aren't what they really dislike and people shouldn't really have the preferences that they do. EA/Bioware seem to be having awesome success with that so far.

Might I suggest for your next column you write a piece entitled "Why asparagus ice cream really doesn't taste bad and why you should forget about strawberry, chocolate or vanilla because they are things of the past and just learn to love this green stuff we are trying to force down your throat."

P.S. You didn't ever have to play TOR, let alone wait till launch to see what it's focus was about. The Developers were pretty clear about what thier design intentions were from thier blog and forum posts..... and if it wasn't explicitly spelled out anyone with 2 brain cells to rub together could gather what the results of some of mechanics decisions they made would be (i.e. not whether those would be popular or not but what it spelled for the type of game experience you could expect).

P.P.S.  If cooperative/group based isn't a centraly important aspect of game-play rather then some tacked on optional thing...then you can forget about ever seeing a dime from me. If that means I never get to play a AAA MMO again...fine. I like ice cream but if my only options in ice cream are different varieties of asparagus flavor, I'd rather pass entirely, thanks.