Originally posted by Crazy_Stick

I was kind of sympathetic to the boy in blue until this morning's article which IS clearly a puff piece. I don't mind strong favorable opinions but they shouldn't be posted as news they should be posted as opinions in blogs. As it stands, it hurts their professional credibility.

It was posted as a column -- which is an opinionated piece. I don't pass my opinions off as fact. I make my case and if you want to agree with me, fine. If you want to tell me I'm completely off base and why, that's fine too.

@Wickedjelly -- I've been doing our weekly SWTOR column for upwards of two years now. Now that I have my own general column, I'll be writing about (and have already) other topics and games as well. There was no way I could ignore yesterday's announcement, however. And yes, I like the game, but no, it's not remotely all I play. I play Mass Effect 3 (MP), MechWarrior Online, League of Legends, SMITE, The Secret World, Guild Wars 2 (when they let me), Battlefield 3, random RPGs/little games, Skyrim, basically all sorts of stuff. I like to keep things varied. I enjoy SWTOR, but I don't marry my videogames. They're just games.

It's easy and convenient to paint a picture, as some have, of a blind fanboy that can see no wrong with his favorite game, but really read my pieces and you'll notice I often level criticism where I feel it's due, and have for the entirety of my SWTOR column's run. Even today's column rests my ultimately positive point in an accusation of arrogance and failure on EA's part. I just try to keep things balanced. IMO, EA screwed up for the reasons I mentioned, but they're also taking the right steps to reinvigorate a service (SWTOR) that clearly still has quite a bit going for it.

I simply don't see the game as deeply flawed as most. There are issues, sure, but I think it's pretty obvious to anyone that they've been blown far, far out of proportion. My contention today was not that anyone was wrong in their criticisms, you're free to have them, whatever they are, but that I see the primarily culprit of what we've seen unfold as being a business related issue more (as in, not exclusively) than a design one. The two just happened to merge in the worst possible way (poor endgame hold + a business model that can't sustain the game as a result). I think you'll find a lot less people arguing the game was shoddy on the way to level cap (the 'singleplayer' crowd will disagree, of course). Most of the people that played that far mainly left because it "ends".

Not having the foresight to see this issue and still attempt to charge a full sub fee in an environment that is increasingly friendly to quality F2P games was the biggest mistake here. It wasn't because BioWare gave Darth Malgus a voice and a Republic Trooper a storyline to follow.

That $15/month subscription often failed to attrition or collapse more often than it didn't even before the F2P wave in the West, and the environment as it stands today is more unfriendly to that model than it ever has been before. Now it isn't only, "Is this really worth $15/month to me?" but "Is this really worth $15/month to me when I can play X Y Z awesome games for free?" It's a completely new era for MMOs and this era makes the viability of an already disadvantageous business model that much worse.

EDIT: I also never wrote the class guides. thanks though!

EDIT2: Bunch of stuff added. I'll re-open the thread for now, despite the silly title. I don't write puff pieces and I'll let my writing stand on its own to prove it.

Responded and unlocked thread. Keep it civil and it may stay that way.

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Pretty much all of their articles are designed to push advertisers to the site.  They really have no harsh criticism for ANY MMO.  But at least they allow the discussions to be critical.

+1

This site as far as I'm concerned is only about the forums. The reviews at best are a joke (SWTOR MMO of the year lol) and the colum peices I just ignore out of hand just like the game reviews for being nothing more than paid advertising for the most part.

"How is it possible to have a civil war?" - George Carlin.

First off, I'm jealous that you get to play Mechwarrior online.

Second, with not being married to games I can see how it's not that big of a deal for endgame to be a gaping chasm, for space to be a silly gamecube game, or for the crafting system to be simplistic. With all the games that you play and adding a journalist's perspective on top of that, I can understand your viewpoint.

However, I was married to this game, and now the divorce has become ugly.

I had decided to play SWTOR before they announced the forthcoming death of SWG, and realized I had only one choice for a Star Wars MMO. I have never purchased a CE, but I forked out the outrageous cash for SWTOR's box set.

I talked friends and family into playing the game, and devoted hours reading about the game. Built a new computer to handle playing at max settings.

I had a clock on my desktop counting off until release.

Then the game came out.

Got to about level 32 on my first character when the wheels started to fall off. Like many I figured, "this can't be the whole thing, they are going to add to it." Months go by and still there is little change other than the UI. My friends left first, then the guild began to dissipate. Then new friends on a more populated server began to leave, and that guild melted as well.

I started to wonder, "How could this have happened?"

Then I noticed that I wasn't the only one, and I became angry. Big money, amazing IP, supposed great developer. This whole thing is one big broken dream.

I can be put in a box as a SWG Grogniard, a "didn't do the research" fool (I did the research but could not conceive that the finished game would not be a full-blown game able to sustain life for years), or a Forum troll. Doesn't matter what anyone calls me, I feel that a great wrong has been done here by people who should have known better.

So Mike, you think that EA/Bioware built $200 million worth of game in TOR?

Don't you think if you are building something that can't sustain a steady $15 per month subscription from most players you might want to rethink having the largest budget of any MMO ever in history by an order of magnitude?

Getting what they got out for the money they sunk in...and you are sitting there with a straight face saying that thier "real" mistake was the pricing plan?  Seriously?

Sorry but the manufacturer budgeted out to build a Rolls Royce, what they ended up with most people consider, at best, a Chevy Cavalier and your trying to tell us that thier real mistake was not offering a "Lease"..... sorry, no sale.

It doesn't even pass the straight face test.

Originally posted by Jounar

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Pretty much all of their articles are designed to push advertisers to the site.  They really have no harsh criticism for ANY MMO.  But at least they allow the discussions to be critical.

+1

 

This site as far as I'm concerned is only about the forums. The reviews at best are a joke (SWTOR MMO of the year lol) and the colum peices I just ignore out of hand just like the game reviews for being nothing more than paid advertising for the most part.

QFT

I only read and post in the Forums

While I think that the articles and the reviews in this site are heavily biased due to commercial reasons (my opinion), the forum and the management of the forums are the best.

They allow you to say almost everything as long you are not blatantly insulting someone else.

That's why I still log almost every day on this site, after 7 years of joining.

PS: MikeB, SWTOR is a huge disappointment and you know that.

The game might be technically a MMO, but no one enjoy the MMO features, players just focus on the story..............and you know that too.

I know you like it.

I liked it too...........but as a Single Player game.

For me SWTOR is KOTOR 3...................as a MMO though, it is a bit redundant.

Originally posted by Crazy_Stick

LOL. Ouch. Even old grudges against the peoples in blue are coming out tonight. *Pops the top off another brew.* It's like I am trapped in an episode of the Drunk and on Drugs Happy Fun Time Hour.  Everybody is high on forum fumes and and spitting fire at their disagreeables. But... at least watching all the wounds get salted has been fun.

Has this not been the most entertaining ~48 hours on this forum that you can remember, at least in the immediate past?

Originally posted by Hrimnir

Originally posted by Crazy_Stick

LOL. Ouch. Even old grudges against the peoples in blue are coming out tonight. *Pops the top off another brew.* It's like I am trapped in an episode of the Drunk and on Drugs Happy Fun Time Hour.  Everybody is high on forum fumes and and spitting fire at their disagreeables. But... at least watching all the wounds get salted has been fun.

Has this not been the most entertaining ~48 hours on this forum that you can remember, at least in the immediate past?

Ya, not since the "massive sandbox crowd" thread has this forum been so entertaining.

ah the age of criticism is upon us, where even the critics get criticised

I got banned 3-4 times when SWTOR was released and all the ridiculous puff pieces showed their biased faces on this site, becuase I disagreed with them. No I didn't swear or anything.. I just disagreed in a civil manner.

One of the bans was for asking you how you could possibly give SWTOR 8.5/10 for innovation.

You still haven't answered me.

Originally posted by MikeB

@Wickedjelly -- I've been doing our weekly SWTOR column for upwards of two years now. Now that I have my own general column, I'll be writing about (and have already) other topics and games as well. There was no way I could ignore yesterday's announcement, however. And yes, I like the game, but no, it's not remotely all I play. I play Mass Effect 3 (MP), MechWarrior Online, League of Legends, SMITE, The Secret World, Guild Wars 2 (when they let me), Battlefield 3, random RPGs/little games, Skyrim, basically all sorts of stuff. I like to keep things varied. I enjoy SWTOR, but I don't marry my videogames. They're just games.

It's easy and convenient to paint a picture, as some have, of a blind fanboy that can see no wrong with his favorite game, but really read my pieces and you'll notice I often level criticism where I feel it's due, and have for the entirety of my SWTOR column's run. Even today's column rests my ultimately positive point in an accusation of arrogance and failure on EA's part. I just try to keep things balanced. IMO, EA screwed up for the reasons I mentioned, but they're also taking the right steps to reinvigorate a service (SWTOR) that clearly still has quite a bit going for it.

I simply don't see the game as deeply flawed as most. There are issues, sure, but I think it's pretty obvious to anyone that they've been blown far, far out of proportion. My contention today was not that anyone was wrong in their criticisms, you're free to have them, whatever they are, but that I see the primarily culprit of what we've seen unfold as being a business related issue more (as in, not exclusively) than a design one. The two just happened to merge in the worst possible way (poor endgame hold + a business model that can't sustain the game as a result). I think you'll find a lot less people arguing the game was shoddy on the way to level cap (the 'singleplayer' crowd will disagree, of course). Most of the people that played that far mainly left because it "ends".

Not having the foresight to see this issue and still attempt to charge a full sub fee in an environment that is increasingly friendly to quality F2P games was the biggest mistake here. It wasn't because BioWare gave Darth Malgus a voice and a Republic Trooper a storyline to follow.

That $15/month subscription often failed to attrition or collapse more often than it didn't even before the F2P wave in the West, and the environment as it stands today is more unfriendly to that model than it ever has been before. Now it isn't only, "Is this really worth $15/month to me?" but "Is this really worth $15/month to me when I can play X Y Z awesome games for free?" It's a completely new era for MMOs and this era makes the viability of an already disadvantageous business model that much worse.

I've never referred to you as a fanboy. However, yourself and some others wrote rather biased articles in the past overlooking the many issues with this game that were rather evident even in beta. Was pretty mindblowing at times. I just about fell out of my chair with that review piece many of you writers did.

Lately you have been more critical of the game I will give you that. Still, you seem to be missing the big picture about why the game is not performing like they expected. It isn't as simple as "sub games won't work anymore" or "nothing to do at endgame". It is a culmination of several aspects that simply gives this game very little long term sustainability for players.

For the record, much as some here think I hate the game I did enjoy my time with it. The fact is though as I have said since beta it is a short term investment...nothing more. Good or bad it is what it is. TSW is the same. Although to be fair I fully plan on returning to TSW at regular intervals and with SWTOR I have no desire whatsoever to return to the game.

What has irked me most of all is the scoring system in the reviews where middle-weight games (swtor, etc) receive above 7 scores. Trust is much easier to lose then to gain.

Originally posted by Sojhin

What has irked me most of all is the scoring system in the reviews where middle-weight games (swtor, etc) receive above 7 scores. Trust is much easier to lose then to gain.

I haven't put faith in any website/publication's reviews with the sole exception of that aussie guy (can never remember his name) since probably 2005.  The gaming publications try to claim they're unbiased and such, but they seem to have forgotten what a 90+ means.  That means the game is just shy of perfect. JUST SHY.

When they give games like Modern Warfare and SW:TOR and such mid 90's scores it shows just how full of crap they are.  These are games with glaring issues even the most ardent fanboy would have difficulty not noticing and yet they're conveniently overlooked by reviewers.

I honestly blame sites like metacritic as well.  A review aggregate site like that would be a good thing if all the reviewers maintained a strict ethical compass and weren't indirectly paid by advertiser revenues.  But since they are all it does is serve to overinflate a game's score because the 2-3 legit reviews in the mix are overshadowed by the dozens of paid reviews giving excellent scores.

It is the cut scenes and voice over that make SWTOR single player. They can be good when playing with a like minded friend, but when playing in a group where some just want to space bar, it gets annoying.

Overall the stories are best enjoyed by yourself. It is fun to do it grouped as well, but for your own personal enjoyment it is best to do hem solo, as can get annoying if you do not get to see your dialogue response when you see someone elses choice.

Most single player games with multiplayer, keep the cut scenes to the single player game, but in multiplayer it is just full on gameplay action and fun with each other.  Even Mass Effect 3 is like this.

What makes a great game is the gameplay, not the cut scenes and voice over, they are only used in games to make them more intersting and an interactive experience

Cut scenes just do not work too well in a mass multiplayer (mmorpg) environment

Originally posted by MikeB

Originally posted by Crazy_Stick

I was kind of sympathetic to the boy in blue until this morning's article which IS clearly a puff piece. I don't mind strong favorable opinions but they shouldn't be posted as news they should be posted as opinions in blogs. As it stands, it hurts their professional credibility.

It was posted as a column -- which is an opinionated piece. I don't pass my opinions off as fact. I make my case and if you want to agree with me, fine. If you want to tell me I'm completely off base and why, that's fine too.

@Wickedjelly -- I've been doing our weekly SWTOR column for upwards of two years now. Now that I have my own general column, I'll be writing about (and have already) other topics and games as well. There was no way I could ignore yesterday's announcement, however. And yes, I like the game, but no, it's not remotely all I play. I play Mass Effect 3 (MP), MechWarrior Online, League of Legends, SMITE, The Secret World, Guild Wars 2 (when they let me), Battlefield 3, random RPGs/little games, Skyrim, basically all sorts of stuff. I like to keep things varied. I enjoy SWTOR, but I don't marry my videogames. They're just games.

It's easy and convenient to paint a picture, as some have, of a blind fanboy that can see no wrong with his favorite game, but really read my pieces and you'll notice I often level criticism where I feel it's due, and have for the entirety of my SWTOR column's run. Even today's column rests my ultimately positive point in an accusation of arrogance and failure on EA's part. I just try to keep things balanced. IMO, EA screwed up for the reasons I mentioned, but they're also taking the right steps to reinvigorate a service (SWTOR) that clearly still has quite a bit going for it.

I simply don't see the game as deeply flawed as most. There are issues, sure, but I think it's pretty obvious to anyone that they've been blown far, far out of proportion. My contention today was not that anyone was wrong in their criticisms, you're free to have them, whatever they are, but that I see the primarily culprit of what we've seen unfold as being a business related issue more (as in, not exclusively) than a design one. The two just happened to merge in the worst possible way (poor endgame hold + a business model that can't sustain the game as a result). I think you'll find a lot less people arguing the game was shoddy on the way to level cap (the 'singleplayer' crowd will disagree, of course). Most of the people that played that far mainly left because it "ends".

Not having the foresight to see this issue and still attempt to charge a full sub fee in an environment that is increasingly friendly to quality F2P games was the biggest mistake here. It wasn't because BioWare gave Darth Malgus a voice and a Republic Trooper a storyline to follow.

That $15/month subscription often failed to attrition or collapse more often than it didn't even before the F2P wave in the West, and the environment as it stands today is more unfriendly to that model than it ever has been before. Now it isn't only, "Is this really worth $15/month to me?" but "Is this really worth $15/month to me when I can play X Y Z awesome games for free?" It's a completely new era for MMOs and this era makes the viability of an already disadvantageous business model that much worse.

EDIT: I also never wrote the class guides. thanks though!

EDIT2: Bunch of stuff added. I'll re-open the thread for now, despite the silly title. I don't write puff pieces and I'll let my writing stand on its own to prove it.

 Kudos to you for responding to all this criticism and not just locking the thread :).

Anyway, I actually agree that the game is not so flawed that it cannot be enjoyed.  I think it's just not good enough to achieve success in the current competitive environment.

The problem is that it's basically a hybrid between a SPRPG like KOTOR and an MMO like WoW, but there are many SPRPGs that do SPRPG better than SWTOR, and there are MMORPGs that do MMORPG better than SWTOR.  At least that's how I feel.  I know that I was playing Xenoblade at the same time as I was playing SWTOR, and I just found the story and gameplay of XenoBlade so much more intriguing from an SPRPG standpoint, so I wound up ignoring SWTOR for it.

And from an MMORPG standpoint...I really think that WoW, or even Rift has it beat handsdown.  All my opinion, but I felt that the world of SWTOR just wasn't as interesting as the world of WoW, the battlegrounds weren't bad but weren't anything special, the open-world PvP was abysmal, the only real social hubs were incredibly drab, and getting into flashpoints was irritating due to lack of LFD, which wasn't added until significantly after release.

So I mean, while it's not a bad game, I just felt that it basically chose to compete with both SPRPGs and MMORPGs, and it wasn't good enough to really "win" in either arena.

Originally posted by MikeB

It was posted as a column ..

Well said, Mike.  It's good to have one of the community managers here recognize the extremeties that some of the most vocal users here go to.

Originally posted by MikeB

Even today's column rests my ultimately positive point in an accusation of arrogance and failure on EA's part. I just try to keep things balanced. IMO, EA screwed up for the reasons I mentioned, but they're also taking the right steps to reinvigorate a service (SWTOR) that clearly still has quite a bit going for it.

I simply don't see the game as deeply flawed as most.

You are blaming EA but not mentioning Lucas and bioware ,please .EA bought bioware after lucas and bioware made deal and decided game concept

You blaming EA (  business decision = subscription based payment ) but closing your eyes to truth, EA wanted a F2P game bioware rejected back in the day .You are out of touch with reality as bad as bioware devs , game is beyond repair after some months it will as low as SWG at the end of life .MMOs also about to be trendy it was a part of success of wow ,swtor missed this train and  will have painy death . But not for payment model because shitty design decisions and shitty clueless devs

Tell me Mike do you see any difference between complaints  from cryptic games and swtor ?Why will f2p save swtor

What about game engine cant hold  enough people on same space for an mmo ? This alone very serious deep flaw

http://www.shacknews.com/article/56292/biowares-star-wars-mmo-to

My last sentence to Lucas,  youll not have wow numbers never  .The thing is you dont get is your SW fans are not computer savvy but all blizzard fans are (or gamers with another word ) .

Yes EA is in fault ,its fault is giving money to clueless people and not controlling but it is not a surprise if we think how many mmos EA  screwed  (= no clue about mmos )