I'll spoil it a little bit:

You HAVE to have 4 people. No pets allowed, at least at the beginning parts.

And the "puzzle" part is somewhat annoying... (not much action, lots of running around, etc).

WoD, love the IP, hate that CCP is developing it.

Let's see... $70 for a monocle... so that must mean if you want to clothe your character in WoD, it'd be easier to shop Rodeo Drive in Cali than pay for in-game clothing from CCP with its Macro Transaction model.

This game deserves a lower score. While the reviewer may not have met any bots/cheaters, they are definitely there. Now they're usually in groups and a newb won't face them very often.

Customization is great and all..... but playing Barbie Online isn't going to go far. And the silly "premium" P2P junk drove me from the game along with the cheaters.

Never liked the Centurion. Jack of all trades, master of none. And not even a very good Jack.

Originally posted by 77lolmac77

Originally posted by eric_w66

Add in the fact most of our powers are light blue in color, and the cooldown "bar" is light blue in color, and you can't tell when a power is usable or not.... GRRRR.......

SWTOR Fanboy: "Why not go to lenscrafters and get some glasses, and a new monitor. Not Bioware's fault you're playing at a scrunched res. "

SWTOR Hater: "Just more proof that Bioware does not know how to make an MMO. If there were UI mods this would not be an issue"

 

 All too true. I'm neither.

Me: JUST FIX IT (Or make it an option).

I play watchman and it's pretty close to what I do. I worry less about keeping cauterize on all the time, as I like the zen/cauterize combo a lot, and I can build the 30 centering very fast these days, so waiting a bit to redo cauterize that can heal seems worth it to me. Keeping merciless strike going makes the DPS go way up however.

He's totally correct about the complex cycle of powers. And the recent patch totally hosed me because of the lack of greying out buttons I cannot push because of cooldowns. They provided an utterly stupid reason for it: If the skill meets the criteria for it's use, it'll be lit up, even if it is on cool down.... well guess what. COOL DOWN IS A CRITERIA FOR USE. GGAAAAHHHHH......

Add in the fact most of our powers are light blue in color, and the cooldown "bar" is light blue in color, and you can't tell when a power is usable or not.... GRRRR.......

When DAOC was released, the so called holy grail of RvR PvP on the planet, it didn't HAVE an endgame. The game was completely unfinished. And the first PvP battles, when they finally did have them, were comical /stuck fests.

Originally posted by Bunks

Originally posted by eric_w66

So it's back to WoW and the pandas, got it ;)

I know its hard to beleive this, but most people don't play SWTOR and WOW. There are "other" games in the universe. We had 30 people commited to play SWTOR before beta began. That number dwindled to 19 by launch time because it was so WOW like. Those who stayed on to play it were people who liked WOW and Rift. But the majority or at least half of the 30 who started as SWTOR fans went back to playing non MMO's. Hard to believe I know.

 

 So its now non-MMORPG players aren't happy playing an MMORPG and left? Color me not shocked.

So it's back to WoW and the pandas, got it ;)

Originally posted by Bunks

Originally posted by eric_w66

Good to hear new content coming. I'm not cancelling, nor are the 2 coworkers who play, and my 5 friends who play. All of us are enjoying the heck out of SWTOR. I don't feel like a sucker because I bought the CE. In fact, even the "Extended" circle of people I know in game (new guildmates, friends of my friends, etc), no one is cancelling...

thats great, but its easy to counter that by saying, that almost the entire SWTOR group on my ventrillo server cancelled last night. 15 out of 19. 2 weren't online and the other 2 had 3 month subs.

 Heh, did they "cancel"? Or did they really cancel. And what MMORPG is your ventrilo server moving to that is going to rock? If there's a better option, share it with us. Or is it back to MW3?

Good to hear new content coming. I'm not cancelling, nor are the 2 coworkers who play, and my 5 friends who play. All of us are enjoying the heck out of SWTOR. I don't feel like a sucker because I bought the CE. In fact, even the "Extended" circle of people I know in game (new guildmates, friends of my friends, etc), no one is cancelling...

"if I can do it in Skyrim, let me do it in an MMO."

You mean grinding iron daggers to raise blacksmithing to 100? :D We've got that in MMO's already! ;)

Or you mean the idiotic alchemy random ingredient grind? Heh.

Problem with the idea of "discovering" a recipe is that once it is discovered, it's posted on the internet on how to discover it, hence, killing the idea in its tracks. And anyone who doesn't look it up on the internet is in a huge hole compared to those who do, wasting all the time/money/ingredients trying to get something someone else got in 1 try after reading the spoiler.

"Aha! There's a way to defeat that!" you say? Make the recipes "random" aka, person X trying a mix of an iron bar, a butterfly wing, and a seed might learn how to make "Iron Butterfly Seeds" but person Y just gets "You've wasted a bunch of stuff and learned nothing!" message? Then you've just gone back to "random ingredient grinding".

And having no "levels" in crafting means Andy Newbie can craft just as well as Crafter Pro Joe? Not too keen on that if you want crafting to mean something.

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by Kaocan

Ok look, it is a really simple answer to this entire thread. if you do something in a game (or in real life for that matter) that you CAN but know you shouldn't, you will pay fro doing it. In real life the payment is more extreme since they can't BAN you. And lets be 100% clear here, if you do somethign in a game, and the company that runs the game feels you shouldn't have, it doesn't matter what you think. They will do what they feel is the RIGHT thing to do to maintain thier product. And if you feel you have been done wrong, oh well, so sad, too f'in bad. 

Cry all you want, say it was there so I should be able to, doesn't make a bit of difference. If you do something in a game that you know is NOT what was intended to be the way it should be done. Even if you CAN, it doesn't mean you should or even that you have the right to do so. 

But you are all right here, you can go right ahead and do it anyway, just stop biatching about the reward you reap for doing so. You do it, you deserve every action the company gives you. Time to step up and take responsability for your own actions, just like in real life. Part of being an adult.

 So you basically think that the game admins are infallible and any decision they make on what is or is not allowed should never be challenged.

Well I disagree.  I've played MMORPGs for a while, and I've seen quite a few boneheaded decisions of what is or isn't "allowed."  A few examples are:

1.  Shooting a MOB from across a river in EQ was bannable for "exploiting the pathing."  This is ridiculous, you are basically being banned for using the terrain to your advantage.

2.  "Roof camping" used to be a big thing in open world PvP games.  This is where a ranged character would get on top of a roof and shoot people below that had a difficult time getting to them.  Once again, this is just using the terrain to your advantage.  Unless the roof is inaccessible unless you exploit a bug, it shouldn't be bannable.

3.  And now, "excessive farming" in SWTOR.  The chests are there.  They are there to be looted.  If someone discovers that repeatedly looting them is profitable, then why is this bannable?  Where do you draw the line?

And that's the problem here, you basically just assume that BW's decision of what is or isn't allowed cannot be argued.  And well, I disagree.  If BW spawns chests too quickly because of their game design, then it's not the players' fault if they get rich off of it.  BW just needs to fix the problem, and there are SOOOO many fixes they could do that have been mentioned in this thread.

I mean, how would you feel if BW banned folks that were "exploiting" slicing before the nerf by constantly sending out all 5 companions on slicing missions?  I really don't see this situation as any different.

 Abusing game mechanics is not allowed. What part of that don't you understand? You probably think rigging lotto or insider trading is just fine, even though there are laws against it, it was built in a way where it could be done, therefore it should be allowed.

That logic is so utterly wrong.

Originally posted by jonnyfrag

Originally posted by eric_w66

The one comment here that I have to wonder about is "Combat was bland and unoriginal".

Easy to say, hard to follow up with a combat system that is "flavorful and original". It's all been done before, so how can something be original when our input systems are keyboard/mouse and sometimes joystick/gamepad? Seriously? How many ways can you make a combat system with those tools? FPS vs turn based, tab targetted vs "aimed" (ala skyrim/fallen earth). What would the reviewer DO to make combat "original"?

Griping about something no one can change is a bit silly. Unless, of course, he has the next big idea that NO ONE thought of in 31 years of PC gaming.

 

Not that it's an uber-awesome game but DCUO at least took MMO control to another place that we haven't seen them. What the (only realistic it seems) reviewer was saying is that this is really same old same old just with a Star Wars wrapper and better than average writing (which is not a high bar to clear even today sadly)

 

 DCUO took it to the level of a console. Great for button smashers, not great for PC gamers who are used to PC gaming being more involved than left left, right right up down A button.

And I still haven't seen an example of an "original" and "non-bland" combat system suggested. No, TERA and GW2 don't count, both have been done before.

Originally posted by teakbois

Its because innovation of this sort is extremely tough to pull off.  Developers mostly know how to balance around the trinity system (which in a post EQ world is just a Duo system, DPS was never even a part of the 'holy trinity').  

AoC tried to change combat a bit and it was a large factor in its failure, both because they couldnt get it implemented right and because many people simply did not like it.

 IMHO the holy trinity was tank/heal/CC, not tank/heal/DPS. In EQ1, the enchanter was very much desired for not only the buffs it could give, but being able to mez adds, which was a huge help to the healer. Most groups couldn't handle more than 1 mob at a time without an enchanter. In raids you had "off-tanks", but they still had their own dedicated healers.

CC in SWTOR is much more limited, 1 mez for 60 seconds max per class able to do so, most not castable in combat. Smugglers slicing of droids is the only in-combat mez I can think of, I'm sure the agent has something similar. Since it's more limited, most groups don't count on it, and with a group size of 4, all the combat  is geared for that already. EQ1 didn't have groups of mobs in nice little clusters of 3-4 chained together. So you could pull 1 mob and get 6 if 5 others were in range of the first mob's "yell" for help. (Monk pullers were desired as a 4th part of the trinity because of their ability to feign death, and reset bad pulls, and for the ability to split groups of monsters up to make the encounter easier).

Basically, EQ1 groups came down to Warrior/Paladin/SK (With warrior being preferred), Cleric, Enchanter, Monk, Shaman (for the uber buffs), and then 1 DPS class. The shaman wasn't as vital as the other classes, but it was desired, as it could buff, and backup heal.

It's either the trinity or "everyone can do everything".

If it's the latter, than everyone is basically the same, barring pretty graphics. And some people don't want to be "the same" as everyone else. This was a problem for SW:G, just macro yourself to your new spec, since you could only have one character (barring jedi). Everyone could be everything. TSW is going to face this problem as well.  And TSW is still going to have the "trinity" in some fashion (they've said it'd be tough for everyone to be DPS with only self heals and do the missions).

I think its two-fold:

1) SWTOR hype would drown out most of theirs.

2) They got into the SWTOR beta/release and have said "Oops, our game isn't as fun as this, we need to work on it some more."

You can compare Pong to SWTOR. Are they fun? Yes, pong is fun. SWTOR is fun. Which has more variety? SWTOR. Does that make Pong any less fun? No.

And note, video games are "evolving" not "revolutionizing". I've played with game mechanics like these since 1991 (MUD's). The ONLY thing that has changed is graphics and sound.

You know, card games really haven't improved over the last hundred years. The graphics are sub-par, the cards are still paper, and they haven't added a new number or face card in ages!

Chess.... wow, how stale and boring a game. The rules haven't changed in ages! The pieces, well, you can't upgrade them easily, and you have to buy a new set if you want to do that anyways. The board... omg.. The same 8x8 layout ALWAYS. No one dares to be different. Pawns should be able to attack to the front as well as diagonally!

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