Into on line gaming since MUDs (over 20 years now).  Played/actually sub'd to many of the biggie MMOs and participated in the alpha/closed beta of dozens more, including SW:TOR.

I found SW:TOR to be my most playable MMO (though there is merit for labeling this as a Co-op RPG) since LotRO ,,, sure, it had (and from what I am told by friends who play it now) SW:TOR still has issues ... but the game is highly playable and BioWare is diligent and remains consistently determined to improve the game with patches and new content (in it's own slow, deliberate, overly cautious manner -- this is their first "MMO").

Let's compare -- I was there for the WoW beta (my son was a GM for Blizzard at  the time) ... I was there for the DAoC Beta and the Beat for Mythic's ToA disaster ... I was there from the start for the pre-release testing of LotRO ... Mythic's ubiquitous, highly anticipated and disappointing Warhammer Online ... and let's not forget the absolutely disasterous Betas and tremendously disappointing "Too Early for Prime Time" releases of The Age of Conan and Vanguard ...

Compared to all of the above, LotRO's release was the only MMO with fewer issues at release than SW:TOR.

All that said, I stopped playing SW:TOR when Closed Beta ended at release.   I have no doubt about the SW:TOR's success and bright future but  lets just say that, when Beta ended, I found myself at odds with the BioWare/EA/LucasArts "pablum for the masses" approach.  Since my son (and his guild of 40+) is playing SW:TOR, I'll keep getting game info from him and other friends who play as well as checking on the progress of game polishing BoWare is doing.

Who knows, depending on how it turns out, I may pull the trigger and pick this game up eventually.

Originally posted by AsatrusFire

The computer requirements are higher than WoW. I didn't realize that until I purchased the game and tried to play it and the lag was simply insane. I could barely move. I think some of these companies forget that not all of us own a computer specifically designed for gaming. As long as these companies continue to design games that require a high end computer to play they will not be able to win a lot of market share from WoW at least not until WoW does the same thing requiring a higher end computer to play. During these tough economic times not everyone is going to rush to the store to upgrade their computer just to play a game when everything else they use it for works just fine.

The reality of life is the system requirements to play SW:TOR are actually marginal .

For example, the minimum processor required is the Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 gHz was released in 2007.

Some computers that appear to meet mimimum game requirements may not do a very good job of it under certain conditions, such as computers that have inegrated graphics (often the case in cheaper desktops and many laoptop machines).

Check out the minimum system requirements for SW:TOR here:  http://www.swtor.com/info/faq#171060

Your interet connection may be a problem as well.  I have DSL here at the cabin.  SW:TOR runs slicker than snot ... BUT ...  if a couple people here are using the Internet to uploand photos, watch NetFlicks or otherwise are eating up bandwidth at the same time I was trying to play SW:TOR, I'd have issues -- even though I have an Alienware M17X laptop.

One last thing -- it's a new game -- there are a lot of people on, especially on the most popular servers and that slows things down a bit.  My son used to be a GM for Blizzard and this was the biggest challenge when WoW launched 'way back when.

I did the Closed Beta to the end but haven't bought the released game as yet.

SW:TOR is what it is.  An cute and fun RPG MMO with a absolutely well written and absorbing  story that has been dumbed down enough to give Lucas Arts a warm fuzzy and provide Lucas Arts with some market research-proven reassurance that, as designed, SW:TOR will "work as intended" to provide the pablum it wants to serve to, and be eagerly gobbled up by, the masses of gamers of all ages.

SW:TOR -- the next WoW?  Trust me, Lucas Arts regards that as a compliment and the sign of "mission accomplished" for Bioware. 

SW:TOR -- a ground-breaking MMO?  No, not on any level.

Bottom line is that Lucas Arts wanted the Star Wars Galaxy MMO to be a blockbuster "pablum for the masses" game and thus forced SOE to dramatically "dumb down" SWG with "Upgrades" and the NGE.

And that was the beginning of the end for what many of us believe was (and pre-NGE, is still the shining epitime of) the best MMO ever released.

RIP, SWG -- gone but never forgotten.

I was involved with EarthRise early on, visiting the web site often and like many others, excited about its potential and providing our personal input years before EarthRise's release.  Needless to say we had great hopes for the game but sadly, yet apparently out of necessity, EarthRise was released as a "Not Ready For Prime-Time" game.

The proof is in the pudding.  Out less than a month now, EarthRise has one of the lowest posted scores ever  when compared to early results of most other major releases, both by the MMORPG staff and by its individual subscribers. 

Let's face it -- the business plan of releasing a game before it's ready is a bad idea.  Planning to fix major game issues after selling the sizzle thus sucking in and pissing off their player base to get their money up front, then expecting them to pay to play while testing their beta product was never a good WTG (look at Eve On Line, Age of Conan, Vanguard, etc.).   

Yes, some of those games lived through it and survived.  But today, methinks that players, particularly the mature, die-hard, experienced player base, are much less likely to have any patience (read as ZERO Tolerance) with any MMO product that follows the "Not Ready For Prime-Time" business model and released clearly a long, long way from being finished.

And don't tell me an MMO is an ever-evolving project.  There's an undeniable difference between releasing a solid product ready for retail sale and then building on it afterward (such as LotRO) as opposed to pushing an early beta product out the door (AoC, Vanguard).  And yes, I was heavily involved in the Alpha and/or early Closed Beta for all three.

Originally posted by Terranah

He might have left for personal reasons.  It doesn't have to mean anything.  Still it is good gossip.

Well you heard it here first ---->

The good doctors at Bioware had to let Gordy go on his merry way to keep paying Felicia Day the huge salary she is getting for her work in Dragon Age.

I think it will go pretty much the way Mike stated in the article -- albeit in a much more complex manner.  

For Lucas Arts, it's all about the story and Bioware has stated and proven time and time again that the good Doctors and crew  will follow that path on the true and narrow --  we can count on that.

So for the Jedi and Sith, their own personal weapon (emphasis on personal) will reflect the owner's own ethics, personality, character, beliefs and the gamut of his/her other character traits that, along with the choices he/she makes, forges the way  the character and his/her weapon develop and grow in parallel.

I really don't see any other way to do it without messing it up terribly.

This is not a flame, but here it goes anyway:

"Jon Woods, you ignorant slut."  (Dan Ackroyd would be proud).

Here's the bottom line, to make it easy for you:

We expect a great deal from SW:TOR.

I wish to remind Jon Woods that the effective range of an excuse is zero meters.

I'll bet a case of of your favorite brew that most posters thus far in this thread, except Kost above, are not now and most have likely never, played LotRO.  It was, however, amusing to read their funny, if often misinformed and misdirected comments.

Turbine already has had this "testers program" in place, in one form or another, for years.  It is a way to get interesed players involved in the development of the MMO.   A supplement to -- and not a replacement for -- QA.  

Turbine is not the first nor the only MMO company to have such a program in place (FunCom, SOE, NCSoft, to name just a few) and most companies with such programs in place report a high degree of success in having actual players involved in improving their game.

Originally posted by Thomas2006

Originally posted by ninjajucer

As a free player in the realm, currently have a 26 dwarf champ. Now I have unlocked Lone Lands as a pack, and the story seems interesting, but not enough for me to pay actual money. Still, its a fun diversion where the deeds sytem is useful for gaining points, but for me the things that should be free are not.

Horses, get a free one then gotta pay 195 points and 500 silver just to get the simple horse. While most people will have the points by 15, there doesn't seem to be much choice in spending the points on a horse, or opening up the next area.

So as a f2p player, you have several choices, none of which are remotely fun. Grind the deed system in each newbie area (elf, hobbit, etc.) to gather all the points necessary to get the next quest content, even though by then most things are gray. I have gotten Bree almost finished and dwarf was about half done. Its time consuming and have already hit my gold cap of 2 gold (unlock for 495 points to raise to 32), have no horse currently, altho have gotten to do skirmishes which are interesting grind battles.

Suffice to say, I could see the game picking up a few new subs, but for people doing the free experience, the thrill will go away soon.

The end-game content currently is non existant as there is no way to see Frodo throw the ring into the volcano at mount doom. The cap is 50 for free, 65 for sub. And most of the well known lands from the movie are currently not available. So when you hit the 65 cap what is there to do? Not much. Grind legend items, a few raids, monster-play (which is limited to 1 zone), craft and basically re-roll.

The game is unfinished, prolly should not have gone f2p with no current end game content and frankly is a pay-to-play game with a tease of some freedom. As the author stated, its a longer trial game, with a cash shop.

You know people keep tossing around this "there is no end game content" and they keep making themselfs look like fools.  Theres several end game raid dungeons, theres over 10 different instances that you can run (just about every instance in the game scales based on level now), there are skirmishs, monster play (and its one huge zone - dont make it sound like this small little area).

LOTRO has as much endgame content as just about any other MMO out there. Just because you can't see Frodo toss the ring into the volcano (heck the storyline is not even that far along yet) does not mean there is no endgame content. What it does mean is that there is still alot of room for expansion by continuing on the story like they have been for the last several years.

 LOL, Ninjajucer had me chuckling with his post here as well.

LotRO, probably more than any other MMO, is all about the journey, not the destination.  In other words, it's like fly fishing --  its about the process, not so much the product.  Having been with LotRO since very early Closed Beta myself, and a Lifetime Founder since the game went live, I've seen many people (with the mind set of this Ninja-d00d person here)  who start playing LotRO as an alternative MMO (usually from WoW) and/or looking for a new MMO who grind through LotRO content like their ass is on fire, never stopping to smell the flowers, reaching the level 60 cap in the original game then saying, "OK, I BEAT the game -- now what.  God that's still hilarious thinking about it :)

It's equally annoying and not nearly as comical to see other complaints about why "FTP" has certain limits.  I'd like to reminf him and others with this mind set that if you want to play at some point you have to pay -- true in life and true in LotRO and every other worthwhile MMO -- the folks who produce these games for us have to make money in one way or another.

Turbine has already included the mind sets of people like Ninja-d00d here into their business plan equation for the FTP model of LotRO -- the plan is rock solid and was tested and re-tested both in a limited in-game Beta and for over 2 years in their Dungeons and Dragons Online (DDO) MMO.  The reality of life is it is absolutely proven that while some players will come and some will go away, a lot more players will remain after they come try LotRO with zero risk.

Pat has done an outstanding job in this re-look of STO.

Early on in the review, he makes it clear, again, reiterating that Cryptic can only do so much witn the vast Star Trek Universe and that, sadly, will perpetually leave us always wanting more -- especially if we want to playing anything but from the Federation side.

It will be interesting to see if STO can actually move beyond it's self-inflicted limits (or the actual limits that can be ever surpassed) to deliver more of what we were hoping for in an MMO featuring the Star Trek universe.

Originally posted by eyeswideopen

Originally posted by SBFord

Some people mention that Syncaine’s recent posts about his visit to Aventurine are more informative than the community QA. A part of it was because through the interaction with us he was able to ask the right questions.

 

Yeah Paragus, what's wrong with you man? Don't you know Tasos only answers the "right" questions? You know, the ones he approves of.

Let's just say Paragus could have put more effort into researching and care in selecting the right questions.  But we can't beat him up too much, he is a volunteer and not a professional, doing the best he can.

I think Tasos has done an outstanding job here -- honest, forthright.  OK, maybe not what some wanted to hear but he did delineate specifics about the game in a very logical, concise, well thought out manner ... that bit about "waves on the ocean" and certain other specifics  made me want to actually play Darkfall -- and that's a first for me.

Originally posted by Nifa

Thanks for the article.

 

Now for a moment of nerdrage...please learn to spell Mandalorian, Alderaan and Consular before writing any more about Star Wars.

 

But I do love your hardware reviews.

 That's the one annoying thing about MMORPG -- here, an editor actually reading through and editing an article for spelling, grammar and content hasn't happened for years. 

Thus, every article has errors that could have been easily corrected had the editors actually did their job.

I've mentioned this before, but was dissed as "picky" and told something like "that's the way the author submitted it .."

Hey, whatever.  Edit the damn thing -- not only is it an editor's job, it's the professional thing to do and props this site's credibility.

Admittedly, it's been a while since I played even though I'm a Lifetime Founder.

 I still log in every few weeks or so and make sure rent is paid on our Kinship House and my own house, but I pretty much put LotRO on hold shortly before the Mirkwood expansion was released.  Even though I completed most of the Mines of Moria, I did not enjoy nor did I complete non-Book Group instances for "special" rewards in the mines.  They seemed so cookie cutter one-trick pony that required the group to followed specific instructions -- it was quite annoying.

Other issues with instances were about the only reason to do them in the first place -- the rewards.  While some of the rewards were significant, problems often arose around what fell and who got it.  There were also plenty of relatively worthless waste-of-time instances prior to the Mines as well -- Annuminas comes to mind -- where the rewards were pretty much a running joke.

If the new instances system delineated by Joe Barry in this article is polished, it could go a long way in bringing people like me back to the game.  If it's too complicated and too difficult to get our arms around, we might just continue to watch from the sidelines.

If money is no object, go for the best --> Beyerdynamic's Headzone Gaming System, only $1,999US.

If you're ready to spend some money  that doesn't cost more than your car, you can't go wrong with the Razer - Megalodon USB Gaming Headset, only $150US.

Sennheiser also makes headphones for every need -- the HD 485 delivers quality sound for the money, are well built, dependable and won't break the bank @ about @$66US.

If you know someone in the business and you're looking for professional/high end, you can usually save 30%-40% or more off these retail prices.

While everyone agrees that any decent MMO is a "work in progress," that it's important for players to be patient and understand that it takes time to polish and improve any game while adding content and other embellishments, I think it's important for everyone to learn from experiences with other MMOs.

From a player's point of view (at least this player's), any MMO released when not ready for prime time but has high expectations and potential (Age of Conan comes to mind) should be set aside while the game is being worked on and eventually and hopefully achieve release quality.

STO, in my experience, is like AoC in that I left AoC after closed beta ended and, after trying a friend's "Champions On Line in space"  (STO) shortly after commercial release decided not to play -- the reasons were the same for both -- the MMO was not ready.

AoC only recently came into it's own after a lot of work @ FunCom.  I saved a ton of money waiting, buying the game box for $5 from a friend and a year's sub (with a ton of perks including TSW closed beta invite) for under $100US.

While STO is a different game, many, like yours truly, are waiting in the wings.  Cryptic has a LOT of holes to fill in to bring STO into the viable juggernaut it should be.  Cryptic, its supporters and its critics are all aware of what needs to be done to ensure STO's success.  We're waiting, patiently.  Season 2 is, at best "meh" ...

I am here to tell you that unless Crytic really gets with the program to establish STO as a viable entity, upcoming titles such as SW:TOR will crush any hopes of success for STO.  Cryptic has about a year to get STO to where it has to be.

Originally posted by Philby

 

If you and a few other believers are ok with Turbine selling lifetime subs in Europe up until a week of the F2p announcement im sure whatever Turbine tells you will be gospel as well.  Enjoy your game, but dont expect everyone in the hobby to be as easily convinced as you are.

 While I'm not in Europe (even if I was, I'd play Turbine's own USA game on Americas Oceanic servers, never Codemasters) I can understand some dick-stepping by licensees.  It's not uncommon -- there's some horrific instances, to be true, but as a long standing member of these forums yourself (nearly a whole month!) I am sure your interpretation must be considered by every reader to be absolutely accurate.

With input on classes (Hunters this time) limited only to active LotRO subscribers, unless active, frustrated forum lurkers are relegated to serving their sour grapes only on fan sites like this one ... LOL.

Hunters cannot be called Rangers in LotRO.  Check the lore, then you'll understand why.

The whole concept of applying the Turbine F2P model, which has proven to be wildly successful in DDO, is to allow players, new to LotRO, to try the game out by opening up a sizeable chunk of the game risk-free.  Indications are that this business decision has been doing very well in LotRO as well.

As an early closed beta player, it was a total no-brainer for me to accept Turbine's offer of a $199 Lifetime Founders Subscription when closed beta ended and the game released in April 2007.   After a year and a half, the game paid for itself and became free to play forever more in the fall of 2008 LOL. 

Those complaining here serving us some bitter whine with their cheese, don't offer us much else but are, noetheless, amusing.

I continue to be impressed at how Craig Morrison has led his team to truly improve Age of Conan and I particularly appreciate his determination and drive to continue to deliver exceptional new content, features, even an improve engine.   While "tweaking" game performance with this "Dreamworld" they're adding 50 or more new quests and other new things.  WOW!  WTG, Craig!

I wonder how many decades it will take FunCom to actually finish something before releasing it?

Here's another example.   The Soundtrack is available May 11th, but the link is Norwegian and the prices are in Kronas.