I can only atest to seeing this in one beta i have been in which was swtor. 

A few months before launch a lot the classes had massive nerfs to their game play (cool downs added, target limits added, and some got poorly thought out mechinics changes)making the gameplay feel chuncky and  much less fun to play. 

The item system in beta was basicly ungrade a peice of gear you like as you level but this changed to a mostly replace gear as you level system. 

Those two reasons are why i thought beta was better then relaese.

I dont pay for cheap carnival attractions that just nickel and dime you to death which is all ftp games are. 

Only way i would ever go back to swtor is if they finally made the game play fun.  Balanced the classes, specs, and roles.  Not playing to be three diffrent flavors of dps. 

Till then the game is not worth playing free or not.

Originally posted by heartless

It may seem trivial to some but one of the biggest issues to me was the lifeless feel of the worlds. I got into the very first Hutta 01 testing squadron. I believe it was sometime in the summer of 2010. Anyway.

I, and a few others, have commented on the lifeless feel of the game, or at least Hutta, since we were restricted to only 1 planet. I didn't think much of it at the time being that the game was in early beta. I figured that they have more pressing issues to deal with and that they'll get it done closer to launch.

Last summer, I got into the Magid marketing focus group test, which didn't have any restrictions and we basically had the whole game available to us. I got to about level 35. The game felt just as lifeless. Again, I and many others, submitted our suggestions on the forums as well as the daily questionare we had to fill out. Didn't make huge deal about it since it was still beta and apparently we were playing an outdated build. So again, I figured that they'll get it done before launch. Launch came and the game is just as lifeless as it was during early beta in the summer of 2010.

In retrospect, I really question the point of those beta tests since it seems that a lot of the feedback was completely ignored. And I'm not just talking about the issue I wrote about in this post. There was a lot of great and detailed feedback by other testers on the beta forums. Stuff that could've really made this game shine and it was ignored as well.

I was in the tython group from nov to dec then tested from march till a month before launch.  I would say for me it was when i saw how much constuctive feedback was being blantly ignored and how it was taking 50 page plus threads just to get standard mmo features (like equipment preview) moved from a post launch feature to pre-launch one. 

1.7 million have bought and registered the game while 300k only bought the game but have not registered yet.  If i had to guess I would say gifts yet to be delivered or people still busy with the holiday season given the time period.

The boring and repetitive combat

uninteresting skill trees.

Lack of balance between classes and roles.

Originally posted by itgrowls

Originally posted by iceman00

Originally posted by Distopia

[snip]

 

I think the problem is that a lot of the team probably didn't play MMO's, and those who did, only played WoW.  And then stopped playing as WoW had to innovate a bit to keep their cherished spot.  Yes, I hate WoW, but they had to make their quests a bit more in-depth, reduce the emphasis on 40 man raids, diversify rewards, etc.

have to completely disagree with you there i don't think a SINGLE person who developed this game has ever played anything other then SPRPG games, they didn't even bring in kids as experts on this one and it shows with what all they missed.

I joined the beta in march and as of today the skill trees are almost identical and the ac mechiniques either have 1 minor addition or none depending on ac.  In that time many testers made posts about the game play being dull and repetitive all were ignored or called hate. 

From march till june the devs made a few post on the beta forums but not many.  After june new waves of invites started coming in and what little feedback we had gotten died.  With the massive influx of fanboys in the beta all constuctive feedback got labeled as hate and if you didnt give the game a 9 or 10 on the forums polls you were also consider a hater. 

So i think what doomed this game was a flat out inablitiy to give or receive constructive feedback. 

The sad thing is that almost everything you listed were things that was asked for by beta testers all the way back in june if not earlier. 

They ignored it then and I see them ignoring it now too. 

Gameplay and story are not the same thing.  The gameplay is something i would expect from a 2004 wow not a 2011 swtor and should be scored accordingly.  Other then that I would agree with everything else that was atleast stated or talked about.

I was in beta since march and they had char wipes/new phases every six weeks.  I leveled more then one of each faction above level 20 most of those phases.  While i may not be a future subscriber my reasons have nothing to do with the story or releveling the first 20 levels for the twenth plus time. 

As long as you are enjoying the story you will enjoy the game.  After that you will relise the game play and skill trees are shallow and boring. 

This game will be fun for the first few months but wil have issues holding subscriptions after that. 

If they had not pissed away the potential this game had with poor game play and horrible balance.  Swtor would have competed with wow easily for subscription numbers. 

Now with only decent story and vo going for them  after a few months they will be just barely be over rift in numbers.  While still considered successful, that is still a pale shadow of what they could have been.