Originally posted by Distopia

Originally posted by chryses

Originally posted by headphones

here's another way of looking at swtor:

it's in no way shape or form an mmo. you really have to admit that. sure, it has some of the features, but the strict linear structure (more strict even than wow imo), substandard ah (ever tried to find something when you're not quite sure what stupid category it might be in? and you have to troll through pages of stuff to browse. can't just browse "helmets" or "chest slots"... i mean, really?), tacked-on pvp, and the way it seems to push you away from playing with other players outside of flashpoints seems to me to put it squarely into the rpg genre more than the mmo.

given this, if you rate it as an rpg game, how would you rate it?

the environment is flaccid and dead. the npcs just window dressing. nothing moves. i mean, NOTHING moves. the "creatures" on the side of the road are there just to break up monotony. there's no attempt to create a vibrant, living world.

compare, then, to skyrim, and this doesn't rank high in the rpg department other than having a multiplayer option for a few dungeons...

the "story" concept is a wonderful addition to the modern mmo. but, i feel in this case bioware took it just a little too far and ended up so far off the mmo road that i don't see how they're going to drag this one back without at least a few large expansions and modifications to their game mechanics. in their enthusiasm to provide a great story and quest-delivery mechanism, they forgot they were making an mmo.

all the same, i don't feel it fails. i feel it instead sets both a benchmark and a warning.

gw2, for example, will have its "personal story" elements compared to swtor. that's going to be tough for them. swtor's choices CAN sometimes amuse you and surprise you. can gw2 live up to that?

the flipside is the warning: don't spend so much time on your personal stories that you forget the game itself.

 

I think this post sums it up pretty well.  I also have a feeling that SWTOR got carried away with glossing up the voice overs etc.  Think about how much work has gone into the voices and animations for the hundreds of missions...mind blowing. 

However along the way the massive open world which should be an MMO is kinda lost.  I do love some of the scenary and I find myself going 'wow look at that' but its like flicking through a photo album.

I know I will get my monies worth but I hope they do something dramatic like set up a neutral world which both sides can fight over and let players buy land or whatever to bring it back to a good MMO. 

I will happily level up a few stories and then probably jump on to something else because I personally have given up on an MMO I can stick with long term.

The only reason I really don't agree (about the MMO part) is because to me it doesn't feel much different than the MMO's that have released over the last 7 years. To me it actually feels a little bit more MMO-like than AOC did.

That may be because I know so many playing on my server, or it may be the game itself I've yet to figure that one out yet.

 

i guess what i meant was that when getting into a small group (ie: myself and my wife), the game isn't really geared for it. we get split up all the time either due to class quests or because the mobs are insanely easy. sure, the flashpoints yada yada, but just generally playing through the game doesn't require you to kind of put stuff together. in other games, for example, we often feed of each other's crafting options. say, i might be mining and feeding her the mats for her smithing. here, they give you three options and they're all on automatic. nothing to share.

there's just no part of the game other than flashpoints and pvp (though that's been a bizarre affair - what's with the rotation of maps? i feel like i'm playing OLDschool quake where the guy running the server isn't listening when you're telling him you're SICK of that map) where you seem to interact with other players in a positive and enjoyable manner. the "massive" part of the mmo is missing. we can't run space missions together. can't really do anything together. and that's where i feel this lets itself down.

it's got a great single-player component and i think they listened to a few players who were vocal "casual solo" players?

there's some great positive aspects to this game, but i think it will in the long run stand as a springboard for other games which will use it for the betterment of the mmo as a genre.

(edited to finish a sentence which was started but suddenly

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by Whiskey_Sam

Originally posted by Distopia

Originally posted by sanosukex

Originally posted by MMOExposed

 

I believe many of the people are confusing what the story is which you are impacting. The story is what you make of it. If you could jot down each and every action your character does in the game, well that would be your characters story. In SWTOR you can chose which path you take. The outcome is part of that story that would be written down for each character. So yes, you are changing the outcome of the story.

your not changing the outcome that's the point... but I would like to live in imagination land as well.. although didn't look like a great place in south park...

The outcome I pointed out was having that companion for the remainder of the story or not, that's not a changed outcome?

Which class were you playing?  When I was presented with this "choice" during the BH story, regardless of the option I chose the NPC still became my companion.  That royally pissed me off when I wanted to and had chosen to kill him.  It completely violated the character I was developing and violated the class story itself, but God forbid someone didn't want one of their precious companions.

 

Yeah...I'm not surprised by this. The problem is that there is a fundamental clash between the idea that you get to make these meaningful decisions that will forever affect your character, and the idea of an MMORPG.

 

 

You see, in an MMORPG, everyone wants to be able to "re" everything. Respec, regear, repurpose, retry. After all, you are expected to play the game for a very long time and grow attached to your character(s). You don't want to get to permanently lose out on a companion because of one decision and then spend the rest of the game envious of your peers that still have the companion.

 

 

I think that somewhere along the line, Bioware realized this and had the scrap a lot of their ideas for decisions that actually WOULD create meaningful changes. IMO, the fundamental design of mixing highly branching storyline with an MMORPG was flawed, and I think SWTOR illustrates that.

Then again this would have went -with- their design-decission of having people roll alts and experience different stories.

Right now, that is not a part of TOR and goes against the design of the game (same class alts experience very similar stories overall no matter if light/darkside). 

Also there are no respecs anyways (advanced classes) so they do not follow the policy you outlined, or more specifically, they do "some of the time".

You have gear-modding that supports the respec/repurpose route, but you do not have respecs of adv. classes which goes against the respec policy. You have (instanced) choices that are premanent, but do not in the "real world" of the game. etc.

Its again that TORs story aspect and the MMO aspect are inherrently concepts that are counter to eachother and Bio did a bad job of unifying them.

The whole game is borderline shizzophrenic design-wise.

Originally posted by headphones

i guess what i meant was that when getting into a small group (ie: myself and my wife), the game isn't really geared for it. we get split up all the time either due to class quests or because the mobs are insanely easy. sure, the flashpoints yada yada, but just generally playing through the game doesn't require you to kind of put stuff together. in other games, for example, we often feed of each other's crafting options. say, i might be mining and feeding her the mats for her smithing. here, they give you three options and they're all on automatic. nothing to share.

there's just no part of the game other than flashpoints and pvp (though that's been a bizarre affair - what's with the rotation of maps? i feel like i'm playing OLDschool quake where the guy running the server isn't listening when you're telling him you're SICK of that map) where you seem to interact with other players in a positive and enjoyable manner. the "massive" part of the mmo is missing. we can't run space missions together. can't really do anything together. and that's where i feel this lets itself down.

it's got a great single-player component and i think they listened to a few players who were vocal "casual solo" players?

there's some great positive aspects to this game, but i think it will in the long run stand as a springboard for other games which will use it for the betterment of the mmo as a genre.

(edited to finish a sentence which was started but suddenly

I been saying this for awhile.. its fine to have a good amount of solo content in a MMO but to be the main  focal point of the entire game I feel is a mistake. Also in most MMOs the pet class is usually considered the go to solo class yet in this game every class is a pet class with the companion system. Top that off with no sort of decent LFD or LFG tool then add in a HEAVILY phased game with instances all over... it's really no wonder people say this game doesn't feel like a true MMO and more like a single player game with MMO elements thrown in.

I'm not sure what your definition of respecs is, but just so you know, you can reset your talent tree selection. You just can't revert back to the non-advanced class. You will find the vendors that reset your talent tree in the homeworld of each faction.

Originally posted by headphones

 

i guess what i meant was that when getting into a small group (ie: myself and my wife), the game isn't really geared for it. we get split up all the time either due to class quests or because the mobs are insanely easy. sure, the flashpoints yada yada, but just generally playing through the game doesn't require you to kind of put stuff together. in other games, for example, we often feed of each other's crafting options. say, i might be mining and feeding her the mats for her smithing. here, they give you three options and they're all on automatic. nothing to share.

there's just no part of the game other than flashpoints and pvp (though that's been a bizarre affair - what's with the rotation of maps? i feel like i'm playing OLDschool quake where the guy running the server isn't listening when you're telling him you're SICK of that map) where you seem to interact with other players in a positive and enjoyable manner. the "massive" part of the mmo is missing. we can't run space missions together. can't really do anything together. and that's where i feel this lets itself down.

it's got a great single-player component and i think they listened to a few players who were vocal "casual solo" players?

there's some great positive aspects to this game, but i think it will in the long run stand as a springboard for other games which will use it for the betterment of the mmo as a genre.

(edited to finish a sentence which was started but suddenly

Like I said the MMO feeling may be coming to me from the amount of people I know in the game (from SWG which is lots, huge community of guilds that came to TOR). Rather than the game itself. Saying it's more MMO to me than AOC, isn't really saying much compared to games like DAOC or SWG.

Your point here is sound though, some content is far too easy, but then again I think this may also depend on class choice. Many MMO's today have a disparity when it comes to class choice and difficulty. Some display it on the character select screen yet some don't. As a scoundrel there have been quite a few instances where I either A: needed help to clear a quest or B: needed to out-level the content to complete it (when Elites are involved).

Overall though out in the world in most cases it's very easy to solo, might not be the case when it comes to heroic areas, but that could also depend on class chocie, as again unless I outlevel an elite by a few levels, I'm dead, even considering I have purples on both myself and my main companion of choice.

As for PVP again the community I belong to changes that somewhat, we're all about world PVP, so regardless of Ilums issues a lot these peeps are there fighting each other, comes from the rivalry started long ago in SWG.

Originally posted by Xasapis

I'm not sure what your definition of respecs is, but just so you know, you can reset your talent tree selection. You just can't revert back to the non-advanced class. You will find the vendors that reset your talent tree in the homeworld of each faction.

Which is expensive, time consuming, and all around annoying.

I have 5 role slots in Rift where i can swap to whatever i want, when i want, as long as i'm not in combat. I'd have killed for that functionality in TOR so i could swap to Focus for trash and then back to Watchman for single target and bosses.

Being stuck in 1 build/tree is an outdated concept and yet another example of BW not improving on basic gameplay. I swear they don't play their own game or didn't past level 20.

Originally posted by Alders

Originally posted by Xasapis

I'm not sure what your definition of respecs is, but just so you know, you can reset your talent tree selection. You just can't revert back to the non-advanced class. You will find the vendors that reset your talent tree in the homeworld of each faction.

 

Which is expensive, time consuming, and all around annoying.

I have 5 role slots in Rift where i can swap to whatever i want, when i want, as long as i'm not in combat. I'd have killed for that functionality in TOR so i could swap to Focus for trash and then back to Watchman for single target and bosses.

Being stuck in 1 build/tree is an outdated concept and yet another example of BW not improving on basic gameplay. I swear they don't play their own game or didn't past level 20.

Well, I know what you mean. I've been PvPing as a healer for quite a while now and for a change I would wish I could change to a more offensive role. Unfortunately the game does not provide dual specs (or quads or more in the case of Rift). Dual would be fine in the case of SW:TOR. The game however does provide respecs.

Regarding the cost of respec, I believe I've done it twice so far and the cost was minimal to non existent. I've used the service twice and the vendor asked 1300 credits. Considering that I've got almost 1.5M (doing almost exclusively PvP, which does not provide cash in the way PvE does), it's really cheap.

The real problem is of course that you can't switch functionality on the fly and the amount of zoning required to reach your homeworld and then return to whatever you were doing. Lets say for the sake of argument that you're in Ilum and you decide that you want to respec, so you need to return to Dromund Kaas (as Empire). That requires:

• Teleport to the port station closest to the spaceport
• Zone to the shuttle
• Zone to the interlock 
• Zone to your ship
• Go to the navigation roof of the ship, pick a cource, return to the airlock room
• Zone to the spaceport (luckily Dromund Kaas has no interlock)
• Take the taxi towards outside the city
• Drive towards the merchant

Originally posted by Xasapis

Originally posted by Alders

Originally posted by Xasapis

I'm not sure what your definition of respecs is, but just so you know, you can reset your talent tree selection. You just can't revert back to the non-advanced class. You will find the vendors that reset your talent tree in the homeworld of each faction.

 

Which is expensive, time consuming, and all around annoying.

I have 5 role slots in Rift where i can swap to whatever i want, when i want, as long as i'm not in combat. I'd have killed for that functionality in TOR so i could swap to Focus for trash and then back to Watchman for single target and bosses.

Being stuck in 1 build/tree is an outdated concept and yet another example of BW not improving on basic gameplay. I swear they don't play their own game or didn't past level 20.

Regarding the cost of respec, I believe I've done it twice so far and the cost was minimal to non existent. I've used the service twice and the vendor asked 1300 credits. Considering that I've got almost 1.5M (doing almost exclusively PvP, which does not provide cash in the way PvE does), it's really cheap.

 

I think i've respecced a total of 15 times, the most expensive being 99k. I know the cost resets after a week but i like to min/max for whatever i'm doing so it adds up. 

Now the cost is fine and i'd have no problem with it if we had multiple specs.

Originally posted by MMOExposed
Is it just me, or did Bioware live up to everything they said they would?

I know the game was majorly hyped up. And manynpeople seem disappointed, But really,, was this hype by Bioware or the Fans? Maybe EA?

to me it seems like Bioware lived up to what they said they would. I never understood the hype. The hype mainly was off of the brand-name of the developers (Bioware) and Voice Overs and th IP.... That was it...
Bioware did all of this. They didn't over hype anything here. Everything here is just what they advertised. They didn't pull a Warhammer(ironic I know), nor did they pull a Darkfall kind of launch move.

so why are you disappointed?

I guess the ultimate contradiction to this was them pulling the high res textures. The game is literrally completely different to the one they presented pre-launch.

They did, they never got me hyped to play the game before launch, tried some beta and still didnt get me hyped to play the game post launch so cuddos to them

Well, I was hardly "blown away" by Ilum....

Originally posted by fony

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68VfgesWmcI

 

just you.

Funny. Really shows what a bunch of clowns BW are.

Bioware lived up to about 70% of my expectations which is more than I can say about any game released in the last 9 years. A 70 in school is a C which is passing, and that is how I view SWTOR. It is a good game that has room for improvement. With 1.1 and their efforts thus far has made me realize Bioware is going balls to the wall to make SWTOR the game I want to play for a long time so that is pretty much that.

I just want battlefront 3 :(

Originally posted by Gorilla

Originally posted by fony

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68VfgesWmcI

 

just you.

Funny. Really shows what a bunch of clowns BW are.

No different than politics, MMO companies issue talking points to create hype so that people will buy their games.

Don't believe the hype.

I don't think anyone can complain the mechanics/gameplay was not as advertised.

Bioware was up-front during the last 4 years or so on what SWTOR is and for me they delivered what they said they would.

The big issue for me is that what they delivered is the perfect game. Oh sure, it isn't the Star Trek Holodeck but I don't think I can think of a single feature that I want from this game right now. What is in the box is going to keep me busy for the next year or so.

Content updates/expansions etc... yeah.. I'm never leaving SWTOR. :(

Originally posted by jpnz

I don't think anyone can complain the mechanics/gameplay was not as advertised.

Bioware was up-front during the last 4 years or so on what SWTOR is and for me they delivered what they said they would.

The big issue for me is that what they delivered is the perfect game. Oh sure, it isn't the Star Trek Holodeck but I don't think I can think of a single feature that I want from this game right now. What is in the box is going to keep me busy for the next year or so.

Content updates/expansions etc... yeah.. I'm never leaving SWTOR. :(

 

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Originally posted by sanosukex
O

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Originally posted by jpnz

I don't think anyone can complain the mechanics/gameplay was not as advertised.
Bioware was up-front during the last 4 years or so on what SWTOR is and for me they delivered what they said they would.
The big issue for me is that what they delivered is the perfect game. Oh sure, it isn't the Star Trek Holodeck but I don't think I can think of a single feature that I want from this game right now. What is in the box is going to keep me busy for the next year or so.
Content updates/expansions etc... yeah.. I'm never leaving SWTOR. :(
 

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 they said there combat would be a change from the same dull boring combat we have seen for years... however for anyone who has played MMOs since EQ1 and doesnt get a huge sense of deja vu from this games combat is really kidding themselves. It standard fair mmo combat through and through which is not what they advertised or said it would be during development....... yes they added couple nice animations but most melee ones only work well when standing still exhanging blows which is boring as hell... you can see in pvp how all over the place the animations are against constantly moving opponents

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Originally posted by warbot7777

Originally posted by MMOExposed
Is it just me, or did Bioware live up to everything they said they would?

I know the game was majorly hyped up. And manynpeople seem disappointed, But really,, was this hype by Bioware or the Fans? Maybe EA?

to me it seems like Bioware lived up to what they said they would. I never understood the hype. The hype mainly was off of the brand-name of the developers (Bioware) and Voice Overs and th IP.... That was it...
Bioware did all of this. They didn't over hype anything here. Everything here is just what they advertised. They didn't pull a Warhammer(ironic I know), nor did they pull a Darkfall kind of launch move.

so why are you disappointed?

I'm not disappointed. There are only a few things I don't like about the game.

 

1. Customization - Body types are pretty bad still. Number 2 looks like he has an eating disorder and I think that's suppose to be the normal body type. The heads in the game are very limited, I see clones of myself and I'm forced to show my helm. I want something that lets us dye our armor and/or robes. I would like to be able to fully recustomize my guy aside from race/class. One of my friends rolled a Zabrak and whenever we play together we are clones. :|

 

2. Bugs - There are quite a bit that need working on. Instead of releasing new content(right away), I'd like to see them iron out the game a little more. 

 

3. PvP - When I'm leveling up, I feel like Warzones are worth it. When I'm on a lvl 50 character, I get utterly destroyed by the old 50s(who have full sets by now) who use to farm me when I was lvl 11 lol. It seems like eventually things will balance out and there will be a lot more ungeared people to PvP against(like in WoW). Right now though I'm not stepping foot in the 50s bracket. I tried 2 games, it was awful. I don't consider myself a top notch PvPer or anything but I do love it. Currently at Valor rank 43(Centurion). More incentives to world PvP please! Maybe include a lower level PvP area also?

 

4. Guilds - It would be nice to have the option to label characters in the guild as dps or tanks or heals. Also how about a guild base of some kind?(SEE BELOW). 

 

5. No player housing - I don't count ships as player houses. You can't customize them beyond what's needed for space combat. I'd like to put a trophy on my wall or change my current layout. We could make due with instanced player houses or apartments. We don't need full player cities. Yes SWG was badass but they aren't gonna do it. Neocron did player housing and it was great. All instanced but fully customizable and players could enter as long as they knew ur password. (front door would still be locked but they included a doorbell)

 

6. Lack of RP support/props. - When the game was coming out, I was so excited to be able to RP in a game again. I just don't feel any love from the devs on this one. We can't even sit down in chairs in the cantina! WTF

 

Overall great game. Worth a sub if you love Star Wars and have been looking for something since SWG to play.

 

 

Pretty much the way I feel.  I hardly ever post or read half the crap the whiney bunch of members here put up.  They expect every game to blow them away, right out of their mother's basement, have perma-death and millions of miles of landscape to ride around on their "leet" mounts after they burned their way to max level in less than a week of play. 

It is amusing cause those same people will be feeling the same way, and still posting negatively, about every game they encounter until they realize it won't every happen.

Of course, OP, if you haven't figured out that this is the vast majority of posters on this site, then I guess you will have to learn the hard way...Cheers!

Originally posted by sanosukex

Originally posted by MMOExposed

 

Ok what was these features they left out? Yeah it has bugs, but don't all MMO have them? Dag even console games have them now days

Class-specific storylines that evolve based on player choice

We believe that choice is the most gripping and crucial element of these stories. The team has left a lot open so that your decisions have a significant impact on the way the storylines and the characters develop.

By focusing on these story-driven features, our goal is that you will become immersed in your character and others around you, explore exciting environments, and in the end, get lost in your own Star Wars saga.

those quotes are taken right off the main site linky

this is pretty much a lie because while choices have minor effects here and there the story really doesn't evolve based on your choices or have SIGNIFICANT impacts. 

 

also in red there really isn't any EXPLORING if you will.. there's a big thread on this so won't go much into it but LOTRO had exploration and was a themepark.. this game does not really have what you can really call exploration in my opinion

I'm loving SWTOR right now, but I have to agree with this.  The exploration/planets/zone factor is NOT what they claimed it would be.  Like you said, compare LOTRO( a well done exploration themepark) to SWTOR and you see the major difference.  LOTRO zones feel alive and exciting and unique.  SWTOR zones....all I remember from them are the color schemes.  Even the planet music themes are lackluster(love the class music themes though), but that's a whole other topic.

I also, personally thought they meant that each class would have a unique leveling experience in the regards of never the same as an alt, but this isn't quite true.  Class quest, yes, planet quests, no.  And you NEED to do some of the planet quests if not all just to level up and keep up with your class quest.  Yeah...this gets old very fast.