Being boring in general, lacking an inuitive UI and a general sense of direction doesn't make this game good, nor does it make it hard.  Having a learning curve or offering little to no camoflauge for the grinding that every MMORPG has doesn't either.

The basic flaw in the trolling is that the argument is based around the idea that MMORPG's shouldn't be judged like every other genre of videogames are.  That's why a lot of games are FINALLY starting to break away from the idealogy behind most of the other MMORPGs and are starting to focus more on stories and inovation (albeit, not much inovation) as well as graphics despite the fact that having a high hardware requirement is a detriment to your top-end sales figures.  I will say that Final Fantasy has great graphics. 

I refuse to say that it's a good game simply because a 12 year old is goign to have to ask 32,000 questions in the help channel in order to figure out what the hell he's supposed to be doing for the first 3 hours of gameplay. 

The major flaw in almost all of MMORPG.com's content shows its head again.  You may as well write a blog if you are going to base entire articles on your opinion.  You're supposed to be giving us information.  Not reasons why your ideology is superior to the readers.

Seems like a lot of the posters understand a lot about the tabletop game Warhammer 40k and not much about how an MMO and it's players function.

The game's fighting style looks about on par with every other MMORPG out... they quickened the cooldowns so things go faster and are more intense to some extent, but they've never pretended to be reinventing the genre in this aspect.  So I don't really know what you're expecting.

I assume that since you are on MMORPG.com you have played plenty of MMORPG's. Under this assumption, I also can predict that you've played more than enough of the genre's offerings to know that 90 percent of PVE combat is you standing in one place unless you are a dynamic ranged class who has to kite their enemies to death.  However, the gameplay becomes a lot more rigorous and movement-based in PVP.  It always does, because you can't rely on the enemy AI to just stand toe to toe with you.  The player enemies move out of your line of sight, they try to get behind you for more damage, they have abilities in their own arsenal that rival your own instead of the NPC's simple lineup of abilities.

At some point, you lost the connection between KOTOR and SWTOR, thinking that the "TOR" part was a coincidence and it would take nothing away from it's predecessors... instead if would take from the Mass Effect "Viceral Combat" experience because it sold so many units? 

No offense, but that's just delerious.

To understand the phenominon that is World of Warcraft you have to first stop thinking of it as a game.  You have to think of it as a utility or a technology in itself.  Think of it as an iPod.  Essentially it took two technologies and put into one and then it took off and now if you don't have an iPod you're probably dead.

World of Warcraft came into the genre at the perfect time and was equipped with the right tools to use as a launchpad.  The genre was ready to be legitimate to gamers around the world, all they needed was a push.  The Warcraft IP was that push, and so the game did well at launch.  It had the built in audience that every developer wants (which is why every IP is bought up).  But they did it first.  By the time the other developers caught on it was far too late.  World of Warcraft is no longer a game.  It's something everyone knows about - not just the gamers.  It's something you can say to anyone and they either scowl or grin - either way they know exactly what you are talking about.  There are thousands of people in World of Warcraft that don't play a single additional game.

In addition as time went on they began to cater to their CHANGING demographic.  Which is why it went from semi-hardcore at the core game to easier and easier as the expansions came out.  Because their demographic had changed from the MMO gamer and the RTS gamer to the ... 40 year olds and their 10 year old son.  They have a mediocre game - its completely cookie cutter and 95 percent of their new ideas released each expansion are almost always taken as "inspiration" from other games.  But, they know thier customers and they do a great job meeting their expectations and knowing what thye need and want as subscribers (not gamers).

The simple answer is... luck.  They were lucky they came onto the scene when they did.  They are lucky that they fixed all of the launch-flaws the game had by the time the wave of talk went past their fans and into the hands of the general masses.  The one thing they did right was that they took every little thing from other MMO's that people liked and somehow manages to mesh it together so it all still feels like one gaming entity.  The Koreans still farm for gold, the raiders still raid, the PVP'ers still PVP and at the end of the day its all still WoW.  There aren't cliques.  And that is a cool thing...

I play WoW but I've come to terms with the fact that it isn't a great game, its just an addictive game that always comes up.  When I'm bored I ask my friends what they are playing and at least one is always playing WoW.  So I end up going back.

One thing is for sure - and developers would do well to know this and model their business model accordingly... no game will ever hit the type of peak WoW has.  Ever.  When WoW 2 comes out... it will do great, but it will not meet those benchmarks.

At some point the writers and MMORPG.com need to become fans of the genre.  Right now it seems like they are given a certain amount of information to look over as their task for the day, then write an article about what is given to them.  Rather than doign what fans do and scour the internet for information, videos, interviews, etc. 

I find it a bit unpleasant that absolutely every article I've read about the game's E3 presence has been terrible in that I leave each article with a grimace knowing that there are at least one or two things in the article that are speculations by the writer based on information that is already out that says their speculations are false.  Watch G4 alone and you would know that there are several classes that can take up the role of the healer, in addition the same classes can take on the role of DPS or tank depending on the class.  Also with closer inspection you can actually see the "heal bot" Consular tossing enemy NPC"s about with the force in between heals. 

In terms of an 5-man MMO encounter it was pretty damn impressive in just how active it was.  The Jedi Knight killing the smaller NPC's int eh back that are flooding in, while the rest of the party concentrates on the boss, the Consular healing and tossign enemies about while the smugger makes his rounds around the fight doing whatever he can to help the party.  Meanwhile the trooper pounds away at the mech trying to keep it off of the others as they do their jobs.  Standard to some degree but I'd like to see the last 5 man instance in many other games that has you do anything but tank, heal and DPS the boss at what seems to be a mid-level content.

The articles about the hands-on play were also absolutely terrible.  What fan of RPG's and MMORPG's alike actually sits down and complains that they had to read through voice acted, well written dialog before going and doing the quest.  Are you really so eager to go back to the days of WoW where you skip the quest box, hit accept and go kill boars?  I find it flabberghasting that people who want to move a certain genre forward, dislike the one thing that makes this game do just that.

Disgusting.

I think it's short-sighted to take a sentence like, "Looking into ways..." as anything but what it is.  To think that they haven't already implimented some ways as of right now.  I mean it's been known before that you would be able to equip your companions to some extent anyway.  To me when I read it, it says they are brainstorming MORE ways to do this on top of whatever equipment changes and so forth they already have.

I think people forget that we are talking about Bioware here.  Same as we were talking about Blizzard before they launched World of Warcraft.  They are a largely amazing developer who has put out nothing but amazing games and have continued to push their titles with each installment.  The idea that they would cut corners or not know how to develop and MMORPG despite the fact that they brought in a ton of people experienced in the field to enhance their team, is silly to me.  Don't sell Bioware short.  They've done this all long enough to know what a good game is or isn't.

I think that the text-based communication is one of the best things left over from the past.  With every other game that is based online going to voice communication, it is nice to go in knowing that there are a thousand people playing and you don't have to listen to them talk. 

At this point you use ventrilo if you need to coordinate, but there is a certain comfort knowing that you don't have to hear the 13 year old's voice crack as he tells you what to do, or the older gentleman's monotone telling you what not to do.  Let them type it. 

And honestly the game described, about being a deer?  Does anyone else think that sounds completely lame? 

In addition, the social aspect of MMORPG's are the selling point.  Otherwise we would all still be playing normal RPG's and World of Warcraft wouldn't be making Blizzard mounds of cash every month.  And it's not as if games haven't already tried the voice communication route.  DDO for instance.  I think to cripple the social aspect by either knocking it out completely in favor of fancy emotes or by overadvancing it and bringing us the amazing atmosphere that we all love in games like Call of Duty... (yeah, sarcasm) is a bad move.

Originally posted by bobbadud

Originally posted by NecroHelium

Originally posted by ProfRed

I agree with Lobotomist.  If this is supposed to be an MMO version of Bioware games they need to have some kind of random name generator and a way to customize your companions.  If everyone of the same class runs around with the same companions, and i'm sure there are cross class companions then that is pretty lame.  Not enough info now though, and honestly nothing about this game has me excited so my 2 cents is prob worth nothing.

Well if you are sure there are cross class companions you are absolutely 100% wrong as it has been consistently stated this is not the case.  Go troll else where.

So you actually say that only one class will have the Chewbacca Companion? read : tank.

I think some may be unique (in the beginning quests) to be unlocked, but it would surprise me that all the others and later acquired party companions would be this unique.

.

But to me, this problem (and the way they are handling it "we are thinking of ways to make sure you can customize them, so you don'tget the Chewbacca's mixed up..." ) shows lack of insight.

SW:TOR very much started out as KOTOR 3 but somehere somehow someone decided  to transfer it into an mmorpg (probably around 2006/07).

.

The sky was the limit back then for new mmorpgs. AoC, TR, War all would hit the multi million subs space. So why not make an mmorpg out of KOTOR3 with the newest technique of "companions" already introduced in GW1 that year.

They are making an online version out of single player adventure game (with exactly the same techniques like huge recorded dialogues, AI NPC's, in game videos etc).

Take a look at this sentence I now come to stumble upon ..." It has already more recorded dialogue than all Mass Effect games combined"....

What do you think is more challeging and time consuming: an actor that reads (and acts) a script or a team of 6 programmers that still need to begin on pvp, end game, professions that "still are discussed in the designer stage".

Very telling to me.

Sounds like a whole lot of speculation to me. 

With the keyword being development.  At what stage of development do the developers stop trying to make the game better in every way?  In terms of the MMORPG genre, they are still doing this well past launch.  The idea that it is a bad sign that they are still developing the game in the early stages of development is kind of ridiculous.  Rumor has it the game won't be coming out until after March of 2011...

Anyone who is an avid believer in logic and thinks with logic in mind would know this way before the new Companion feature article over at SWTOR.com 

They have stated since the start that you will pick up various companions who have their own personallities and motives and storylines.  It is virtually impossible to impliment something in an MMORPG with thousands of people playing at a time on any given server and make it so that each one has a unique companion to themselves with thier own unique story and so forth.

The entire idea behind the companion system is to add a way to not only enhance the storytellinge element of the game but also so that solo-play is just as viable as group-play as well as just as dynamic.  How is this any different than the Hunter pet system in WoW?  Every hunter basically has a wolf at 80 now...  The difference is the Companion is much more important to every aspect of the game rather than just combat, unlike the pets in WoW.  Which has been their mission statement since they announced the game.  They have maintained that they are not reinventing the wheel with SWTOR, they are just trying to put their name on the genre and make everything a little bit better while adding their own original features and flavor to it here and there.  They improve apon the pet system with the Companion system...

It's nothing to act appalled about.

The lawsuit in general makes you wonder if this isn't already in some sort of early planning stage. 

The reason the number is inaccurate is because Xfire only records players who use Xfire while they play.  It can't calculte unless the program is running in the background.

Which brings me to the point.  Age of Conan and Xfire have been unofficial partners for a long time.  Xfire has had a ton of events with AOC at the focus.  So naturally, a lot of Xfire users are going to try AoC and then on the other hand a lot of AOC players are going to be influenced to use Xfire.  I remember at launch Xfire did a big group thing where if you joined the xfire group you had a chance to win based on hours played and so forth.

So naturally the numbers are a bit off because of the demographics. 

On average I believe LOTRO is doing better, but you still may be seeing a huge boon in players playing AoC right now due to the expansion coming out and all of the publicity being churned up for it.

As far as Tortage goes... it's the best part of the game as far as I can tell.  After that things progressively get slower and more dull.  This is coming from a guy who played from launch and then once hitting 50-55 got bored, so I obviously don't know what the end game is like.

I think Bioware is in a tough spot with races like the Nautolan and Feorin simply because they look a lot like each other and Twi'leks.  I think most developers would shy away from having too many races that look too much alike.  I mean you can argue Elves vs. Humans vs. Dwarves vs. Etc.  for fantasy, but in a universe so diverse in species, it is tough to justify making all three. 

I personally have always been under the impression that Twi'leks are one of the shoe-in's for playable race.  They are one of the more iconic races in the Star Wars universe if for no other reason than the hot tentacled slaves of Jaba in Return of the Jedi.  They also have taken spots in KOTOR (Mission) and the expanded universe.  So if this is true, then I don't know if there is creative room for the other races that look similar.

I think the other shoe-in would be Kel Dor.  Mon Calamari are slightly questionable but definitely high on the list.  The shadow that casts the most doubt is that we don't know (like you mentioned in the article) if there are going to be faction restrictions as well as class restrictions (see WoW for examples).  If they are going to try to make it so that any race can be any class of any faction, then I think it is going to be a necessity that all of the playable races are versatile in what roles they can play.  Which is why it is also hard to say Mandalorians in the same sentence as Playable Race right now.  But, at the same time, one of the demo videos that Bioware have given to us, is the walk through of a Bounty Hunter going through the "Great Hunt".

It's hard not to attempt to read between the lines.

• Having to level anything in World of Warcraft without the Recruit-A-Friend buffs after doing it WITH them.
• Having 2 World of Warcraft Account hacked in the same day and having to go through the process of getting them back.  It drove me to buy one of those Authenticaters for my accounts.
• Having my first level-capped character on World of Warcraft stolen from me and unrecoverable.
• Laggy Shadowbane sieges.

Unless they have a whole slew of name actors doing voices, then it is highly unlikely that a "majority" of 150 million bucks is being spent on it.  I mean, if you take into consideration that we are goign to hear a lot of the same generic voices spoken by most unimportant NPC's in the game and the fact that a lot of professional voice actors can do several voices, then it is very unlikely that this is the case.

They have a large budget based on two things.  They are Bioware and they have the Star Wars IP.  Bioware is about as close to an RPG juggernaught as you can get this side of Blizzard. 

The KOTOR games were amazing, but they didn't really do a whole lot that hadn't been done before in the genre.  They just tweaked it and did it better than it had been done in the past.  I expect to see that same idea going into development when they are working with SWTOR.  We may not see a revolution, but we will probably see more in depth worlds to explore, better quests, interesting storyline and a much more quality over wall experienece, even if that experience i just the same old game done with more quality and heart.

And to be fair, budgets for MMO's have been on the rise for a long time.  You need money to bring down the beast that is World of Warcraft.  And with all of the IP's being scooped up, it is inevitable that the cost of development is going to skyrocket.

Have faith in Bioware.  They may be new to the genre, but I assure you they know what they are doing.

I don't know why people are so appauled by the idea that a lot of the basic functions of the game are going to be a lot like other MMORPG's (World of Warcraft).  Despite the fact that they stated this early on in development and nobody seemed to listen, the fact of the matter is - World of Warcraft at it's core isn't that much different from every other RPG out there.  There are abilities, you use them, you kill things, you get experience points, you level up you get more skills to use to kill things to level up further and then at some point you either beat the game or start grinding to some extent.  That's how RPG's have been for a long time.  Even games like Mass Effect that claim the title of Action RPG and offer "visceral" combat experience still operate under a set of old RPG guidelines based on skills, experienece points and story.  They deliver it in a more fast pased way, but at the end of the day it still has the core concept. 

So when you think of SWTOR why should it be so different?  I think it's time that gamers get realistic about the genre and look for a game that is going to take what WoW has done and make it better rather than reinventing the wheel.  I think that this would do much more good for the genre as a whole than simply putting out a game that is competely different from the "norm".  Those games get burried.  We've seen some of those games that try to change core concepts.  Yeah those games that nobody plays and either fail or have just enough subscribers to sneak by without having to shut down.  The genre is stubborn and so are all of us that play it whether we like to admit it or not. This is 2010, not the 90's; the genre has been molded and we have to hope that the developers are willing to take baby steps forward and hope that one day the genre has snailed along long enough that we have these mind blowing games that everyone seems to want but nobody seems to know what they consist of in their imagination...

I still think Shadowbane was one of the greatest MMORPG's ever created and look what that love has gotten me.  Nothing...

I think we can look to the industry leaders for most of the blame, much like any other industry.  When you are the most successful "group" in a certain industry, then it generally befalls you to lead that industry in healthy directions.  You know what it's called when a lesser known group changes everything?  It's generally called a revolution.  As time goes on, the industry gets bigger and more robust, the heavier the pockets the harder it is to get up and change things.

In Blizzard's mind they have a great game.  They have the most subscribers by far of any other MMORPG now or ever and for the forseeable future at that.  They have retained this subscriber base through the launch of a whole slew of other MMORPG's some with arguably better/stronger IP's to build on.  Fact is, they don't have that great of a game.  Their success relies largely on strong backing and perfect timing.  They came in with a strong IP at a time when the MMORPG genre was ready to explode.  Then it all just snowballed.  They also know what the players want, even though the players usually don't.  They know that all you need is a really well hidden grind to keep them unwittingly addicted.  Once they finish the level grind, they start a gear grind, once they finish that gear grind they start a new gear grind under the disguise of Raiding.  You throw in a decent if not completely idiotic social community and you have World of Warcraft.  They give you all of the tools, they gave you a solid game despite its flaws and deception.  Then they started putting in new features (95 percent of stolen from other games), to keep people addicted.  A ton of the playerbase for World of Warcraft has never explored other games and even when they do they either expect another World of Warcraft to a T, or something mind blowing and revolutionary.  Neither happen, even though most games do go after a basic structure modeled around the WoW building block. 

So, that said, why would they change?  Even though we know the game is just somewhere between mediocre and decent - to them they are getting absolutely rich off of it, so why would they believe the critics?  The numbers speak to them in a different language, and it sounds delightful.

So basically, it is up to them as developers to say, "We want to push this genre of games forward, we want to leave a legacy behind that isn't about our subscriber count" - and go through with it.  The question really is, what really makes a great MMORPG?  Nobody seems to know.  Whenever we think it is one thing, a developer comes out and answers that call, only to be a disappointment, so we accuse the next flaw or lack of feature.  Fact is, none of us know.  We won't know until we play it and it clicks.

I know I always go back to World of Warcraft and that's because I always know there will be people I know playing it.  And that is why it is still an absolute juggernaught.  Because, no matter how many other games fail you, there will always be at least one friend of yours that is still exploring Azeroth so in effect it always feels like home and feels safe.

So who's fault is it?  The developers or the lazy gamers?  Probably both, but who can blame either?  Irony.

The question of who has the best bet of toppling the powerhouses?

The first name that always springs to mind is probably Star Wars: The Old Republic.  But honestly, I don't see them reaching the WoW numbers.  I don't even see them reaching half of those numbers.  Fact is you can survive as a company with a lot less than what WoW takes in.  I think in that aspect, people are spoiled and expect too much.  The World of Warcraft enigma is an anomaly.  The idea of this happening again until WoW 2 is extremely unlikely.  Never will the stars align like they did for Blizzard when they launched WoW.   It is way past time for everyone, the journalists, the gamers and the developers - to stop using World of Warcraft as a measuring stick, because it simply isn't realistic.

I think a lot of people have been putting stock into the idea that this addition to the MMO market is going to be mind blowing and open up new doors, forgetting that Bioware themselves said that they weren't trying to reinvent the genre.  They add their storytelling depth to the game, they tweak various systems, sometimes just making them their own, other times updating them and making them slightly better.

I think this system has always been solid, I think players of WoW are at a disadvantage because honestly, except for the hybrid classes that can do 3 completely different things (Paladins/Druids) going into a tree really doesn't change the gameplay that much.  It may change what weapons you use, and replace one skill for antoher, but really the function the same in World of Warcraft.

Where as in games like Age of Conan, when you went one way or the other you felt as if you were truly defining your character into something particular.  A system like this can be good or dull, never really terrible.  If you do it well then the trees will allow the player to customize the character to their favored play style.  It seems that this is their mission, and if they keep that in mind the entire time the game is in development then I think we are all in for a treat.

I think players over all outlook when it comes to the MMORPG genre is flawed at the core.  I think a lot of people think that the MMORPG core concept needs to change for the genre as a whole to move in a better direction.  I don't think the gameplay itself is really that bad, I think the games are generally bad.  I mean, the stories are generally extremly cliche and rarely intriguing enought o read through quests before we hit "accept".  It's the fact that quests are uninteresting and just a veiled excuse to make people kill a certain number of things.  I think if developers did what Bioware is telling us they are doing... making the worlds interesting enough to want to explore, making the entire game story driven to the extent that non-MMO role playing games are, etc.  can be just as huge a boost to the genre as a core change to the gameplay values could be. 

If developers could just make a GOOD game... I personally am still waiting for one. 

I think one key mechanic found in most MMO's now days was forgotten - or perhaps I missed it on my admittedly quick read-through.

The Hunter class - to be mainstream.  There is an obvious mechanic that can be implimented through the use of controlled droids.  Some made for battle, others for repairs or diagnostic.  Either way it can be easily used in order to make a class.  Who knows what it could be called - perhaps just built into your Slicer class.  But it certainly would make for a solid class that delves into both the Star Wars universe at large while still providing something familiar for MMO fans to delve into.

I agree that I think we are going to see various forms of the Jedi/Sith.  I think our primary tank is going to be inthe form of a Jedi Guardian but unfortunately I think being a Jedi that heals would just take away from the coolness of the class unless they impliment a mechanic such as Warhammer where you heal through taking part in the combat.  After all, nobody wants to equip a light saber just to stand in the back and make the tank glow green.  Perhaps another use of driods for a class would result in a combat medic - a man who specializes in controlling driods such as surgeon droids and general repair droids.  Then again I hate it when developers overuse a mechanic (droids in this case).

If we think back to the movies and be meticulous, I think we can pinpoint various side-characters who can be used for a class other than the obvious, Jedi - Sith - Bounty Hunter - Smuggler - Soldier, setup.  And on the other side of that I think we have to look at the primary class components of all mainstream MMO's and find out what's missing.

Stealth, Straight DPS, DOT DPS, Healer, Tank, Crowd Control, etc etc

Originally posted by Realbigdeal

I played starwars of the old republic series and it was good. Now, when i see this game as a mmorpg, i think it will be exacly like guild wars. I just hope it wont be like the old old republic from the series with the rock paper scisors systeme. It was so stupid. Only the story was good.

Anyway, if starwars will be pay to play, i will not pay because i hate guild wars. Even if it become a wow clone, i will not play too because i hate wow.

If it become a starwars jedi knight jedi academy mmorpg, i will pay to play.

Darkfall online will be the best mmorpg and i will pay to play for that kind of game were you have the freedom to do anything you want without leveling everyday.

Do you guys think it will be a GW clone or a WOW clone?

Quite possibly one of the worst posts I've ever read. 

Regardless, what about this game reminds you of Guild Wars?