Not accounting digital? hardly a surprise as they pushed digital pretty hard and thats how most people got it. The game is excellent with servers continuinng to fill up and new ones being opened on maintenance days, and then filling up. Like the guy above me said, most people havent left their house it seems rofl

It's fun, at least...

I will never consider a lobby game a MMO, sorry PWI.

I loved it in beta, but it felt like it was missing something. We'll see how it is now..

Simple answer: Because they want to.

There won't be another race @Razeekster. It's just the panda's and they can join both sides.

I find this to be both hilarious and sad.

Lol hahaha.

I totally agree, it is genuinely enthralling. Some class stories are better than others and I do have my criticisms but BioWare has been very receptive to feedback in these areas.

You can now upgrade your account for 10 dollars to get a spider mount, portable bank, and faction tabard.

And it's extremely impressive! Such great work on this island from the environment to the new models used, the music..Everything.

Originally posted by Zaush

Originally posted by Valentina

Originally posted by Zaush
Well I nave logged several hours beta and have had a lot of fun. I'm tired of reviewers stating that without twitch combat you can't get that Star Wars feeling. Way off IMO. I'm not going to break the NDA, but just say that those comparing the game to WOW are way off. Infect those comparing this to any Curresnt MMO are way off. The game reminds me of three other games that I won't mention, none of them are MMO's another poster on this thread hit the nail on the head without realizing it and I will leave it at that. A good number of people will absolutely love this game, and good number will hate what it is, or represents I guess. Sad. BW has done an amazing job IMO

Same here,

 

I find it bordering on hilarious at this point, SO many people are trying to bash the HELL out of SWTOR and make really bold claims that are negative, with little to no real time with the game. I have played the game through several builds, I have friends who have done the same, none of us have anything truly negative to say about the game. In fact it's all mostly positive, there were bugs and performance issues before the latest build but this is all public knowledge now so I'm not breaking NDA by stating so. I was not somebody who was looking forward to this game by any means, for quite some time. It wasn't until about the last year that I really took an interest in it and I'm glad I did. The game is fantastic, fun, it's got it's innovations and BioWare never claimed that it would be the most innovative game ever in regard to mechanics. I don't really know WHAT people are hoping to get out of this game, OR Guild Wars 2. I have played both games, GW2 on the show floor and SWTOR in beta and the show floor. GW2 is NOT great which is another thing that cracks me up about this article and the people trying to basically snap the hype up from SWTOR and place it onto the next offering for the genre. If you're disappointed in SWTOR, you WILL be disappointed in GW2, no question about that one at all. If you find SWTOR's innovations to be minimalistic and next to nothing than GW2 will make you cry. Between the two from personal experience, SWTOR wins the cake easily. I'm being completely honest here.

 

The funny thing about the GW2 reviews I've read, as they are all playing on higher level characters in advanced gaming zones. The majority of the SWToR reviews are from what is basically a tutorial zone. There was some hutball and flashpoint gameplay videos but I don't recall an actual written review of the players experiences in them. You can't compare higher level game play with starter quests in any game.

Many of the GW2 demonstrations take you through maybe one dungeon experience, and then they show you other aspects of the game that you may or may not get to play yourself depending on which you've been to. From what I have seen and played of GW2 both hands on, and standing there having them talk to me about the game, it's very much the same MMO formula we've been seeing for years in the same way that you're hearing about SW:TOR. The skill deck is a little different but all in all, nothing's REALLY changed it's just dressed differently and made to look cooler than it is. When it came to the story presentations they weren't very impressive at all, most of it seems to be pre-defined and overall just underwhelming in comparison to SWTOR's. And you can't expect it to be as good, BioWare is the master at making RPG's with depth and choice. AreaNet is a rookie at it, and I'm not saying by the end of it's development cycle that it won't be a good or even a great game but as for stacking up against SW:TOR, from personal experience on several occasions it just pales in comparison by a long shot.

Let me also say that for a long time, I was most looking forward to GW2, I still AM looking forward to it but SW:TOR really snagged the first spot on my radar against GW2 with personal experience on both titles on several occasions. People who were expecting some sort of psyhotic action star wars game in the vein of Force Unleashed will be disappointed that you won't find that in SW:TOR, but there's never been one claim made that the game would innovate and revolutionize everything about the MMO genre. The prime staple in MMO's are the progression through quests/missions and then end-game content. BioWare does an excellent job at changing these and putting the RPG back in our MMORPG. And for that they will be successful, and it wasn't until long after they had announced plans to do that, that other studio's followed suit. This article is a terrible one, written by somebody who very very VERY clearly is completely bias towards GW2, and against SW:TOR. And any review you find that has anything truly negative to say about the game tends to bring up GW2 as well. If you look at the history of these sites and these writers, they cover guild wars stuff very often, going as far as proclaiming their absolute love for it. And that's fine but you're not going to find reviews on other MMO's that are undeniably positive when they're competing with their precious Guild Wars franchise.

Also, BioWare has a very specific strategy when showing off SW:TOR to the public. They've always said they don't believe in the way many studio's present their games by trying to show off  EVERY aspect of their games before they're released, and thus leaving no surprises in it for players when they get into the games at launch. I actually agree with them on this, while I would love to see every little bit and piece of a MMO I'm going to be playing, I actually would enjoy discovering things and finding things out once I'm actually in the game itself, instead of knowing what all is there before I even install it onto my computer. That's part of what used to make MMO's so exciting, that's what happend with WoW even. Blizzard didn't show off every little piece of the game when it was being shown off like this prior to launch, they highlighted on things but mostly kept the floor experience at the beginning of the game with the exception of maybe twice. The argument being made that AreaNet let's you play high level dungeons instead of the starting experiences while BioWare only lets you play the starter worlds, and some mid-level content could be applied in vice versa. One could ask why the hell can't we see the actual beginning, middle AND end of GW2? Why are they just showing us these very specific things all this time later? We can have our speculations as to why any studio presents their titles one way or another. In the end it doesn't really matter because many of them who have shown every part of their games prior to launch haven't done so well or kept peoples interest for very long, have they? Just something to think about!

I do apologize for the giant wall of text I've slammed everyone with :)

there's no way this game will launch in Q1 of 2012. Just sayin'

Originally posted by Zaush
Well I nave logged several hours beta and have had a lot of fun. I'm tired of reviewers stating that without twitch combat you can't get that Star Wars feeling. Way off IMO. I'm not going to break the NDA, but just say that those comparing the game to WOW are way off. Infect those comparing this to any Curresnt MMO are way off. The game reminds me of three other games that I won't mention, none of them are MMO's another poster on this thread hit the nail on the head without realizing it and I will leave it at that. A good number of people will absolutely love this game, and good number will hate what it is, or represents I guess. Sad. BW has done an amazing job IMO

Same here,

I find it bordering on hilarious at this point, SO many people are trying to bash the HELL out of SWTOR and make really bold claims that are negative, with little to no real time with the game. I have played the game through several builds, I have friends who have done the same, none of us have anything truly negative to say about the game. In fact it's all mostly positive, there were bugs and performance issues before the latest build but this is all public knowledge now so I'm not breaking NDA by stating so. I was not somebody who was looking forward to this game by any means, for quite some time. It wasn't until about the last year that I really took an interest in it and I'm glad I did. The game is fantastic, fun, it's got it's innovations and BioWare never claimed that it would be the most innovative game ever in regard to mechanics. I don't really know WHAT people are hoping to get out of this game, OR Guild Wars 2. I have played both games, GW2 on the show floor and SWTOR in beta and the show floor. GW2 is NOT great which is another thing that cracks me up about this article and the people trying to basically snap the hype up from SWTOR and place it onto the next offering for the genre. If you're disappointed in SWTOR, you WILL be disappointed in GW2, no question about that one at all. If you find SWTOR's innovations to be minimalistic and next to nothing than GW2 will make you cry. Between the two from personal experience, SWTOR wins the cake easily. I'm being completely honest here.

It's surprisingly hard to do just so everyone is aware lol. This is for charity!

[Mod Edit]

This update was more of a build up for 1.6 which is gonna be pretty significant in all area's. The event for Ashes of History begins next week I believe, which will then lead into 1.6 which opens new raids, dungeons, a new region (the Ember Isles), new systems and all sorts of stuff. 1.5 really just kind of put some of the new systems in place in preparation. Something that Trion mentioned at gamescom several times and it surprises me that people still don't get it lol. For an update that's more of a preliminary than anything else it's pretty meaty.

Well written article, though! So cheers for that.

RIFT is a MMO that's at it's best when played with people, so if you join a guild you'll find yourself occupied and satisfied with most of it's content which it has an abundance of. We're seeing more solo/duo content added which is great and all but it is an MMO that was built around the idea of many people taking part in these things.

People will play TERA, but it won't be as successful as TOR or the other games coming out. They've got their niche crowed and it may surprise us how successful it actually becomes. But they've been wise to wait on releasing this game over here. VERY wise, the game was barely ready for release in Asia, and then it started dropping off because they didn't have enough content for players to stay interested in a region where new shiney MMO's are released constantly.

I think these lore stories are to help keep people's attention on TERA to the best of their ability and make it sound more story centric than it may really be. Either way, we have to face the music that MMO players by majority want the RPG in their MMO, and future games are doing that. BHS and EM would be wise to look at that and make some considerations for their own title.

The vet rewards are well recieved on the defiant end of things, on Guardian they want their uniform to look cooler. I'm more worried that Trion will be expecting everyone, or trying to encourage us all to pay for 12 month subscriptions for full vet perks all the time. They've already said that the vet shop will be updated from time to time with new things, but there are items limited by month and I have a feeling they'll just continue beyond the 24 month (which is mounts right now) instead of updating with new things for 1 year, 6 months etc.

subbed for more time! Such a good update, I love the Chronicles and the veteren rewards.

I'm excited!!!

Also, it's not unusual for Europe to have to wait about 2 days extra with any games releases. I don't really know why, but that's how it is.

Originally posted by Puremallace

The doubt about whether updates will take forever comes from this here

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c47lVQD5Zyo&feature=related

 

^ For those of you not to keen on clicking links that is a interview with the Blizzard CEO stating why having voice overs is a very bad idea in mmorpg model

BioWare already addressed that issue on the forums the other day. It depends largely on how you have it set up, the quests themselves can be continuously revised and changed just as well as any other game with the voice overs, the way it's set up in BioWare games. They've already done it several times pre-beta and post-beta, this will not be an issue for SWTOR. The biggest concern they had was ensuring that the voice actors for the main characters of the game, as well as player characters are able to come back for updates and expansions, which is something they've already taken care of and have never had a problem with in their other games.