Originally posted by mmoguy43

I'd really like to know what the deal is with those guys. There are a lot of comments of their negative impact on the direction of the genre and I wish I could find out how much truth there is behind it. They seem to have the power over developers, manipulating every AAA game to their will for the sake of profit. Do they really have full control of the design direction, forcing them have mass appeal? Why does it seem like they are responsible for the disconnection between the fanbase and the developers? Indy devs do much better with their fanbase. It just boggles me that fans can't tell investers what kind of game they want to have developed regardless if it is a niche. Instead the developers guess what went want, investers OK it(modify game for $), gamers play it and most end up not liking it. Maybe I got that wrong but I don't hear about the involvement of publishers to know better.

Has anyone else wondered this? Or do some of you know what is going on for real?

Well yes. Of course they ultimately have total control. IT'S THEIR MONEY!!!! AAA MMO's are ungodly expensive to make. And there is no true "finish" point in their development. If someone isn't riding herd on those making it then noone will end up making a profit at the end. Which means that there is no reason to ultimately make the game. "Fun" is great and all of that. But remember at the end of teh day the goal of everyone making the game is to put food on the table and pay the mortgage. They simply seek to do so in a manner that people get enjoyment out of.

It is suspected that SWTOR cost almost $500,000,000.00 to make. Roughly half a billion dollars. For an entertainment product. At some point some is (and well should be) keeping a close eye on how and where that money is being spent. Preferably that should be someone connected to who's money it actually is, and who stands to lose if the whole thing tanks.

Originally posted by dimmit77

Originally posted by rokoto

Before I begin to criticize the game, I want to note that I am not SWTOR hater. In general, I do not regret time spent on the game but within two months our 16 ppl raid has closed all of the current raid content, and everybody dressed in the best gear currently available in the game. And so I realized that SWTOR does not offer any realy interesting MMO activities beyond. And I want to try to show why.

The bottom line is that any MMO is a set of gaming spheres in which social interaction occurs. For greater clarity, I have identified four basic areas (of course this is a very rough generalization): PvE, PvP, Crafting & Economy, Open world interaction. And that's what I got:

 

 

The basis of the living MMO world is that the spheres intersects and influence each other. In SWTOR all spheres exists separately from each other.

For example:

• PvP doesn't affect PvE in any way;
• you need crafted gear only for preraid short time period;
• you do not have any way to affect the world itself (build house, own territory, get economic advantage for controling open PvP zones etc).

And I'm even not speaking about 3-way or 4-way intersections. Playing SWTOR is like playing separate games in one game client and with one chat and interface... it is not what I call MMO. Bring intersections to the game and the set of separate spheres will become one huge biosphere.

After 6 years I thought I have seen everything on these boards but somehow I keep getting /facepalmed .

BTW what game is the basis of the "Good MMO" chart? Oh please do tell . I am doing to see what game you think is the examplary good MMO. Tell us and lets begin the fun .

Not knowing the OP's intent or what he has experience, but just quickly glancing at his chart I can think of a few games that would perfectly fit into his idealized intersection chart to one degree or another. DAoC and Eve being the two that most closely match it, having a high degree of intersection between pvp and pve. 

Of course this does not necesarily predict a good game in any way shape or form. In theory WAR has all the points of intersection that he is looking for. And it is a miserable game.

Originally posted by Lashley

click forgot password rather than logging in, its a workaround. The guy on the phone told me too. Just change your password to the exact same one you're using atm.

I've done this. 20 or 30 times now. But as soon as I go to log in it pops up for the same Secure Answer that has been causing the problem. It doesn't matter if it is forums, web page, launcher, phone etc.

Woot now up to over 100 attempts to call their Customer Service. Total time on hold between drops (on the extremely rare occasions I actually get into the queue) 12 hours! Total CS people spoken with. 0!

And this was with the only load on their system being the expected and predictable number of pre-order customers. Won't this be fun when the game hits retail?

I'm up to 12 hours on hold trying to get past this mystery secret question issue. I have been cut off 5 times. I can't speak to how many times I have been dumped into fax/data tones or simply gotten one of the recorded messages that basically say, 'We're busy. Go Away!"

I've dealt with a large number of games pre and post launch. I have had to call most of them at some point over a long gaming career. I have to say that so far what I have seen from Bioware/EA is the absolute worst CS for a launch ever. (And before anyone starts in with the "OMG the game hasn't launched yet!" bs. They started letting customers in! The game has launched. If the CS service is shutdown from call volume during the early release, what is going to happen when it hits retail on Tuesday?) Short answer. After years of development and $300 million spent, they were not preparred on the back end to deal with actual live customers. It's amatuer hour.

Originally posted by Terranah

Its a pain in the ass but I guess it will keep us safer supposedly.  Luckily I wasn't going through one of my paranoid phases or I would have made up answers and forgot them by now, lol.

It does nothing except force you to randomly spit out some random combination of passwords above and beyond the actual normal password that you chose to set.  It's illusionary and completely pointless security. 

Has anyone else encountered this little gem? It spams you a secret question. Refuses to accept the same answer that worked a week or two ago in beta. You end up in the endless loop of password resets, and can't get CS on the phone. (7 hours on hold total so far. Got hung up on after 3 last night)

I am so close to just cancelling my CE preorder and never buying another EA product again. Between this and the idiotic way they are handling their pre release release it's pure amatuer hour. 

Originally posted by Lobotomist

Originally posted by Narcin1

After level 11, there is more of the game... you know, past the intro. Your review is half decent, but incomplete. You didn't ecompass the game as a whole, you based it off of the starter quests like every other reviewer has almost. Did you group up and do an instance? Try your hand at some of the PvP aspects of the game? Should have, especially when trying to determine the worth of a subscription. Very lacking.

 

Also, when you say that you go into the game expecting the worse, that is actually not a good thing to do. It is called a pre-disposition, and forms bias and ill-perception of the game. Just saying.

 

Review kind of sucked, but I am sure the WoW hate croud loves it. Hipsters.

As I said in oppening.

AOC and WAR convinced me and changed my mind by playing open beta.

SWTOR did not.

 

As for judging game from lvl 1-11 content. Accurate reflection of the gameplay should be there.

Except for raids. And end content (obviously). I didnt comment on those.

If company fails to grab player by first impressions. Than they do not have much buisness sense.

Since that is what reviewers will review anyway.

 

As for not playing PVP

I did not have impression SWTOR is PVP focused game ?

If PVP is SWTOR redeeming quality. Than I appoligise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A better way to think of it. If the game cannot grab and hook you within the first hour of play, than it does not matter how much great stuff is at level 20+. Really. This is MMO 101. 

And quite frankly after spending a good chunk of this weekend in the open beta I fear I have to agree with the OP's impressions. It seems like a sort of good game. But it is missing something, especially for the new player. Yeah the voice acting cut scenes are great (but grossly overused... really. I broke into one conversation wheel cutscene to apparently inform the receptionist that she was wearing a cute outfit. She said me too. Why take 5 minutes of my time for that?) But I digress... Someone above me nailed it best when they comparred it to WAR. I can't speak for the whole of the game. But my little Bounty Hunter playthrough reminded me way to much of playingthrough the Dwarf starting zone in WAR. Lots of confusing crossfire. No clear way for a newcomer to figure out what is actually going on. While the voice over cutscene quests are fantastic for story. They do absolutely squat for actually teaching the player anything about the game mechanics or how to play or what is really going on. The whole experience just assumes you must be an MMO vet, and can probably figure out what the obscure and confusing UI symbols mean eventually. Oh and BTW you just stepped out of the cantina door into Somalia where everybody is shooting at you. Really a shame that we didn't take a minute or two to teach you how to shoot? Isn't it?

The MMO aspects of it just feel to be a weird mix of amatuerish (see starter areas and leading new players into the GAME instead of the STORY) and stuff recycled from other games. And I am really not kidding about he recycling. The OP mentioned the stiffness of how the charatcers move. What struck me even more was how oddly familiar the charatcers seemed to move. I didn't get it until I hit the spacebar, and realized that my little newb 2011 Bounty Hunter seemed to use the exact same skeletal jump animation as my 2001 Hybernian Champion. Little things like this shed a lot of the polish from the game.

It's not a bad game. It is certainly head and shoulders better than WAR. But really asside from the tons of voice acting and solo chat wheel content, not only does it not bring anything really new to the table, in many ways it almost seems to step backwards. 

Like many others the one thought in my mind while playing it was "They spent HOW MUCH making this???"

It isn't that hard to replace a screen on a Dell, nor as expensive as you might think. Depending on make and model the screen may run between $80 and $120. Replacing it will require a bit of disassembly. But it isn't really a technical challenge. The service manuals for all Dell laptops are available on Dell's website. Download it and print out the relavent sections to refer to while doing the repair.

The main tools that you will need are a variety of small screwdrivers. 1 or 2 decent angled tweezers or forceps and ideally a set of plastic electronic device wedges to safely pry open the casings. All but the tweezers can rather conveniently be found packaged together as "smartphone repair kits" or some similar name. And yeah getting this sort of toolkit is the diference between a quick easy repair and a nightmare that destroys a laptop. Do not attempt this using carpentry tools and old flatware.

When you buy the replacement screen also get a set of replacement cables for it. This will eliminate a lot of potential problems. The trickiest and most annoying things to deal with will be the video cable where it connects to the topside of the laptop itself (if you have never seen the flat cable friction connectors before approach them carefully to work out how they work and grab. Be gentle), and by far the most annoying item, the antenae cable for the wifi typically runs from the far front corner of the bottom of the laptop, up through the motherboard and accross the back of the screen. Use the service manual diagrams to work out its pathing before you start dissasembling things.

Good luck and don't be too scared.

Blizzards principle competitor is EA itself, and not any one specific MMO. It's more telling that Blizzard appears to have written off SOE almost completely.

Originally posted by wrekognize

This is horrible horrible horrible.  Should have tried ftp before dumping..One of the few MMOs on the market that had unique features to offer. 

 

I am sure this was a Lucas and Bioware thing. They did not want SWG out there confusing the market and the brand as they launch SWTOR. And there aren't enough remaining fans / players keeping the game alive to in any way cause a stir over that decision. It's that simple. 

And it looks like the naysayers are right. In a report this week Interplay admits they have less than $3000 in cash for busines soperations, are at least $3 million in debt and have been unable at this point to secure further credit or financing.

Stick a fork in it. It's done.

Originally posted by Ceridith

Don't play MMOs run by companies with terrible IT practices?

Here's the disturbing thing. We don't know that Sony was using terrible IT practices. In fact there is a lot of concerned scuttlebut in the IT and security industry that at least from initial reports and rumors, they appeared to for the most part be using best practices standards. There does not appear to be any easy to spot holes or glaring screw ups outside of having that 2007 database still exposed on the SOE side. In mild defense of Sony they did spot and respond to the hack very fast. Much faster than many other industries have. The intrusion was spotted within a day and was immediately actied apon. Customers were alerted to a problem within a matter of days once it was investigated. I know we all bitch that it could have been faster. But honestly I don't see how. real life is not a Michael Bay movie. Some australian blonde doesn't just jump up in the monitoring room and declare "they are hacking air force one!".  If an intrusion gets through there is often some lag in detection. Sony's was actually pretty fast comparred to others. (many others have gone weeks or months without noticing.)

So this is where it gets scary, and will stay that way until some sort of post mortem is released on what happened to Sony. We don't know how they got in. We don't know that it was some negligent practice on Sony's part, or if they just happened to be the target of oportunity and the same attack could just as easily breached Blizzard or EA or Amazon.com or iTunes or XBL. I assure you there are alot of security people at any online company that are sweating bullets this week wondering what happened and can it happen to them? 

And here is the kicker. No client side security would have done a bit of good in SOE's case. Authenticators? Complex Passwords? That e-mail trick of Rift's? All are meaningless if the hackers have access to the server side of the equation. With the breach of SOE we are all in uncharted territory security wise. About the best we can do is only use prepaid game cards instead of CC's and pray. They are not just after your gold and your mighty vorpal sword of kobold slaying. This last breach hit the real world. We need to think long and hard about what that means.

Originally posted by Cernan
I would probably rate the game a tad lower, 8.0. However, that is still high marks for me. So many games have come out in unplayable states here lately. A company finally launches a VERY stable game with beautiful graphics, decent lore, and small innovations. The innovations may not be earth shattering, but they have made updates. Flexible soul trees, rifts, and even coin lock aren't found in any other game. Trion should be hugely applauded for their work and communication, especially during the hacking situation. Some people should read the article from the ethical hacker that found the issue and worked with Trion to fix it. They responded instantly, verified his findings, called him personally on the phone and resolved the situation. They were completely open about these findings. That is rare, and shows their devotion. Instead of tons of praise, the comments here are mostly negative.

 

I would agree with this. trion did a wonderful job of delivering a finished polished product.

With that said I will probably not be renewing my subscription this month. And I feel bad about that. Trion did such a good job of delivering an actual finished playable content rich product of exactly the type we have been begging for here for years. They did everything right and deserve to be hailed for it.

BUT

God help me for saying this, it really is more of exactly the same thing we have been doing for years and years and years. Take every one of these games you have been playing for the past 12 years. Take them all. Put them in a blender and hit puree'. You got's your elves your dwarves your dragons your paladins your angels your mysterious demonic things from beyond. Your classes your crafting, even the UI. It is extremely well polished stuff that we have done a million times before. It's fun. If I was a newcommer to MMO's this game would be pure crack. As a veteran it is very very good. Just not enough to overcome that sense of "been there done that, now why am I doing it all over again exactly?" for me.

For FTP or mixed item shop games LotRo and DDO are top notch and have been seeing a steadily growing population since going FTP.

For PTP WoW is still the elephant in the room. Say what you will love it or hate it, but you will find a large active population within. And the new XPac changed the world to make it very newb friendly.

EVE is a superb and growing game. Sadly not the most newb friendly, but if you can get past that alot of depth.

Rift is a new release that seems to still be on its upward climbing arc and has launched with a very impressive customer base.

OK here's my 2c after Beta'ing and a few days of pre release.

yes it is quite fun. It is a well polished game with no glaring flaws in mechanics or balance, and does not seem to be half completed. It works it works well. It does everything you would expect. 

The good points. The way the class/soul system works is quite interesting, and is probably the most innovative element of the game. You can mix and match to create what you want to play. The game world is gorgeous, and as I said before it all works in a well polished manner. It is easily the most refined and polished MMO release than we have seen since WoW.

The while not bad, not quite so good. The big one here is originality. This is not some new gaming experience or some genre changer. Everything about it is simply an evolution or refinement of what has gone before. The lore and gameplay is a literal mashup of every other fantasy MMO that has been made to this point. We gots dragons and elves and angels and weird tentacled things from beyond. All extremely well presented, but really absolutely nothing new. This sort of extends into the overall gameplay. It's a WoW type fantasy MMO. It's an extremely well done WoW type fantasy mmo that evolves and refines some elements. But if you hate WoW or you hate EQ or EQ2 you will not be finding the new shiny for any huge length of time here. You asked about crafting. It's pretty much the same as the last few MMO's. ie very similar to WoW. A few refinements, but sadly a few things exactly the same (ie competition with the charmingly annoying community for things like mining nodes is exactly the same nightmare that it is in WoW. he who moves fastest wins, and the node will be stolen from you while you are clearing the mobs).

As I said it is a very good game, and if you are a fan of modern fantasy MMO's it is something you will get alot of enjoyment out of. If the thought of doing yet another kill 12 murlock quest (sorry sorry "Deep Ones") to gather their eyeballs makes your skin crawl, you may want to wait and see if they offer a free trial. The game is a very well polished familiar experience that reprosses and spits back out every genre convention you have ever played before. It is not taking you anyplace new or unfamiliar.

None of the above. There was nothing this year that deserves to be allowed to even imply acceptance or quality in their marketing copy. I mean really FFXIV was on the list of candidates? What does that tell you about this years offerings?

Actually Turbine proved both that a troubled game can be fixed, if the underlying game is solid enough, and the press is not outright horrible (DDO, LotRO) and they proved that there are some failures that just cannot be fixed and maintained as an ongoing product. No matter how many of the problems you fix. Even if the resulting long term game is superb, if the launch was horrible enough to outright inflame most of the paying playerbase, you will never recover. AC2 was a clear example of this.

Right now FFXIV is AC2. It is so flawed and has so absolutely revolted such a degree of the MMO subscribing population that there really is almost nothing they can do to recover. Yeah they may make a better or even a fun game. But virtually no one will come back. (and the parrellels with AC2 really are astonishing when you sit and look at them). 

Not really I think. For a few reasons.

Ultra realistic vs "cartoony" graphics bump up against some major pitfalls. One of the biggest is it is much harder to make u ultra realistic graphics look "real enough" to not look disturbingly unatural to the human eye. The closer you get to actual realism, the more the smaller details hurt your impressions. Whereas it is much easier to make lower quality cartoony graphics seem or feel 'alive" and thus be a more immersive avatar or world. It is a weird paradox. WoW is one of the best examples of this. They use very low quality graphics and an extremely color saturated cartoony styling. But because they use superb art direction,a nd because the lower quality graphics are easier to manipulate and do subtle tricks with the cartoons feel much more alive than alot of their more hires high quality competitors. The less realistic the graphics are, the easier it is for your eye and brain to fill in the details to make it an acceptable living thing.

The other problem with ultra realistic graphics is maintenance and expansion. Very high quality graphics take an an oder of magnitude more man hours to create content for. That was the biggest failing of Asherons Call 2 (well aside from the bugs, the chatr server meltdown etc). AC1 users were used to a steady volume of monthly content additions. AC2 had only about a 10th of that and felt much smaller and less developed, largely because it took so much more art time to make or add anything.

The final thing as someone pointed out. Cartoony graphics just age better. Ultra realistic is always cutting edge so by next year it has lost its luster. Well designed cartoony maintains its believability longer and through more video card evolutions.

Sigh! Why oh why does Blizzard give the Starcraft license to Razer, for some really good solid looking products... and the WoW license to Steelseries, for stuff that falls apart in a week and just feels horrible in your hands?