Originally posted by MosesZD

First, the most imporant issue is game play.  Long before the servers became ghost towns, people were dropping this game at a huge rate for reasons other than population.     So, beyond the obvious need of a huge server consolidation, I think many of these would help.

 

Fixing game play -- studio related:

 

Fire James Ohlen and Dennis Erickson, appologize to the fans for the substandard product and their unprofessional trolling of and lying to the fanbase while trying to hide their problems, and hire somone from outside BioWare who has a steller reputation in MMO development.  I have no faith or confidence they can do anything but make it worse and as long as they're involved, I wouldn't go back unless you could afford to pay me obscene amounts of money.   By improving the moral of the player base they could possibly keep more people.

 

Go the FFXIV route.   If you bought it, it's F2P until they get it fixed and re-released.   No micro transactions.  No bs f2p games, just man-up and do the right thing for your player base.

 

Fixing game play - direct game play:

 

Add open world features.   I don't mean some pure 'sandbox' open world.   Just make it more expansive and epic.   There are lots of games that are 'story driven' and still manage to have large, open worlds.    Ride your horse (without fast travel) from North West Forachel to Iisengard, or Dol Guldur or Angmar....   It will take you an hour or more to reach any of those places without fast travel.   And from any of them, another hour or so to get to another.   You make the whole circuit, it can take an entire gaming session.   it's amazingly huge.  The SWTOR planets need that openess.

 

Interactive world.   I'm not a hard-core roleplayer.  But the absolute lack of being able to interact with the world was a killer.   It was so fixed, dull and sterile.   Not even night-and-day cycles.  That was pathetic and, in my book, a fireable offense.

 

Trash the VA for the single-area world quests.    It is tedious, routinely skipped, and ludicrous waste of resources for 'kill ten rats quests' and dimishes the main story.  Keep the long world-quest and the main quest.

 

Add more non-combat quests.   Puzzle quests would be a good start.   Other MMOs have them.   SWTOR could too...   Not every quest needs to end in a meglomanical boss-rant followed by contrived combat.

 

And speaking of contrived combat.   Allow players to play it like they want.   Hey, I'm a gunslinger   That's a bad guy.  I will shoot first, talk later (to my sidekick) because I don't care what the boss has to say, I'm a cold, stone killer (with that character).

 

Consequenes and false-faction-associations.  OKay, I'm Mr. Superdarkside Jedi.   They should be TRYING TO KILL ME, not acting buddy-buddy with me...  ANd why can't I flee to the Empire?   Join an Empire guild?      Why does my bounty hunter have to be Empire?   Why does my smuggler need to be Republic?

 

Get rid of the Kabuki clothes.   Seriously, this is Star Wars and while I know where Lucas stole Star Wars, The Fortress wasn't a Kabuki theatre presentation.   And it's not even good Kabuki.   It's just ugly, uglier and ugliest.   Frankly, Kabuki would be a step up.  .  

 

 

Sith Warrior or Kabuki Dancer?   You decide...  And did I mention it's just frackin ugly beyond belief.   And add an appearence tag.   Don't give me the pvp bs.   Guys with lightsabers are sith/jedi.  The ones without, aren't.  And there are so many other visual clues, you just don't need to force people into stereotypes.

 

Monsters & combat.   Find a development team that can write patrols, variable attack AI and other sorts of improvements so the monsters don't stand around in little clusters for no reason until you come up to kill them.  And, when they fight, they fight intelligently instead of stupidly.   Combat was no challenge at all in this game.

 

Fix crafting.   Complete gut and over-haul.  It's currently worthless.   And make it so crafting is both viable and important.

 

Housing.   Needed.  Not everyone wants.  But lots love it.

 

Player shops.   I hate auction houses.   They reduce socialization.   Shops, market areas, etc., are much cooler and help foster emergent game play in many respects.

 

 

Fix the gulds.  THey're close to worthless becaues they're pretty much pointless beyond being a friends list.

This^ do this and you may save this game, don't, and enjoy your spot next to SWG in the major screw up bin.  Both games had the recipe/opportunity for succes, mind boggling success and both blew it out of the water, completely.  James Ohlen has no business in the video game industry.  Honestly.

so what you're saying is:

My lil red guy can kill the purple and yeloowish blue guys at will...yeah?

I love the first 5 - 10 posts in this thread.  Real thinkers right there.  They didn't even play through thte entire 1st area (ok technically 2nd but eh) and they know all there is to know about TSW.  Complaining about things devs said would be fixed at launch (I know I know, AoC and yes I remember that as well)  laughable really.

Do not mistake me, I appreciate your opinion I truly do and I am in no way trying to change your mind(s).  I doubt this game will appeal to the masses, and I expect it will be very lonely soon after launch, all I am illuminating is the utter lack of try in todays youth.

Anyway, gl hf in gw...its looks identical to so many other games out there...ranger, warrior, priest, ofc the token engineer class now......yeah hack/slash - shoot/run - cast/heal all so meh any more.  Just like wow with a new face imo.

Great Story, it is always cool to see how someone not inundated with the genre feel about an emerging title.  Welcome to gaming!

To be fair - 

I hate D3.  I hated the original, and I hate D3 as well.  Someone gave me a starter key so I played it as far as I can go, and I hate it.  I am sure if you are into that type of game, its great! better than free money but the game is not for me.  

I figured since I could get into LOL I may get used to the weird view angle, but no, I hate it and I will always hate it (I expect).  But that does not matter does it?  My hate for the game should have absolutely zero bearing on your enjoyment of it.  I will not be spamming you, calling you a leper because you do like it.  My point is, I think at some point we all just need to agree to disagree and move on.

Originally posted by Mephster

Are you serious ? Go kill 6 zombies , go hop on 6 cars and then light cans on fire ? I'm getting a flashback of 2004 when WoW launched with go kill/go fetch quests. Maybe I'll try it some more later but it does not look promising. Graphics are nice though.

You were in the very first actual gam eplay area.  Had kep on, you would have gotten a lot fo quests centered around the mystery that is taking place in the town.  People are basing opinions on the first area you play in a huge world.  

Granted in the BETA weekend you can't progress much, but if you get past the first couple quests (which are very basic, I admit) you will see what people that gave it a chance see.  Yes there are quests that give you very obscure clues that you need to think about to figure out.

This game will NOT appeal to everyone, it just won't I get that, but if you're going to bash it, at least  give it more than a few minutes.  Or sound ignorant, the choice is yours.

Originally posted by Valkaern

Originally posted by Hatefull

I am actualyl glad the OP doe snot enjoy TSW.  And all the rest of the posters here that did not enjoy TSW, I appreciate your point of view as well.

 

Having said that, Like it or hate it, its not much like any other MMO out right now.  I know the SWTOR references have been being thrown around, but these opinions are from people that did not actually play one game or the other.  

 

TSW makes you think, yeah combot right now is a bit clunky, and I expect that will get sorted out soon enough.  The cut scenes are a bit verbose, but I can deal with that as long as there are more quests that force you to think, explore and figure things out on your own.  I love that you are not led by the nose through every quest.  That alone will kill off most of the WoW fanboi's which is pretty awesome imo.

 

So keep the negative, and in the case of the OP ignorant reviews coming, I really enjoy this game and could not care less if I never hear another Chuck Norris reference :)

I have to disagree, I never once felt I had to think anything through, there are giant arrows showing me exactly where to go *and* exactly how far it was. Even in tasks that don't have arrows (the follow the raven task, follow the trail of traps task) there's a very clear indiator showing me exactly where to go. More than once I was sent to a location in the middle of the road for example, only to then have it update to say now go to this other location on the road. What? There was nothing significant about the first location, no bit of story revealed - nothing, just another arbitrary 'tier' of a task. Seriously?

I've heard people say thias game won't hold your hand and that I'd actually have to think, and that interested me. However I can clearly see that it's simply what they'd like to be the case as so far the game hasn't let go of my hand once. Considering I just got an achievement for completing 50 quests (pretty sure that was the number), I imagine I've seen a good sample of what the game has to offer.

The setting is pretty cool, but so far The Secret Worlds seems to take place in cut scenes totally seperate to my experience, I just basically run around, click things (RC planes, EMP units, pages) and kill zombies in various locations. Funcom would do well to consider some subtelty as well, it go a lot further than beating us ove rthe head with weird for the sake of weird at every turn.

I'm also disappointed so far with how anticlimactic finishing these tasks are. There's no sense of closure. The raven quest for example, run around to these locations, fight the revenant a few times, then fight a final version of him. That's it, no closure, That's the end of the story apparently. Wth? This was the case with all of the tasks I've done so far. Weird for the sake of weird isn't really my thing I guess, I was expecting some hidden layer or element of over arching story.

There are several quests that do not give you any indicator of where to go.  Again, play for more than 10 minutes and you will see this stuff until then, your opinion, while valuabe to you, means less than nothing to me.

I am actualyl glad the OP doe snot enjoy TSW.  And all the rest of the posters here that did not enjoy TSW, I appreciate your point of view as well.

Having said that, Like it or hate it, its not much like any other MMO out right now.  I know the SWTOR references have been being thrown around, but these opinions are from people that did not actually play one game or the other.  

TSW makes you think, yeah combot right now is a bit clunky, and I expect that will get sorted out soon enough.  The cut scenes are a bit verbose, but I can deal with that as long as there are more quests that force you to think, explore and figure things out on your own.  I love that you are not led by the nose through every quest.  That alone will kill off most of the WoW fanboi's which is pretty awesome imo.

So keep the negative, and in the case of the OP ignorant reviews coming, I really enjoy this game and could not care less if I never hear another Chuck Norris reference :)

Originally posted by Adalwulff

Originally posted by Hatefull

Originally posted by SEANMCAD

I don’t know exactly what gamer demographic I would be in other than ‘core gamer who is not the most of hard core but is very ripe to spend a large amount of money for games and willing to commit to it’

Here is a list of MMOs I haven’t spent a single dime on:

WoW

Rift

Aion

LoTR

SWTOR

Soon to be on that list: Secret World and Guild Wars

 

 

Why? because they either look like a cartoon to me or they appear to have less depth that the community made mods in NeverWinter Nights (and I am not talking about in game stories)

 

amazing...so what games do you play exactly?

Ya, what games have you played? Because if you havent played any of those games, your perspective is skewed, big time. I dont see how you can even form an opinion of the current games without that knowledge, maybe Im missing something?

That is where I was going with my question.  If you have not played any of the major titles, how can you form a solid and legitmate opinion of what they are?  I get you are entitled to your opinion and as MMORPG mods will tell you , they encourage any type of comments on their board, even if it has nothing to do with the topic, but seriously if you have never played a major title then how do you have a dog in this fight?

Originally posted by SEANMCAD

I don’t know exactly what gamer demographic I would be in other than ‘core gamer who is not the most of hard core but is very ripe to spend a large amount of money for games and willing to commit to it’

Here is a list of MMOs I haven’t spent a single dime on:

WoW

Rift

Aion

LoTR

SWTOR

Soon to be on that list: Secret World and Guild Wars

 

 

Why? because they either look like a cartoon to me or they appear to have less depth that the community made mods in NeverWinter Nights (and I am not talking about in game stories)

 

amazing...so what games do you play exactly?

Originally posted by Raserei

Really?

"You might be wondering why a hardcore MMORPG site like ours would even give any notice to Spirit Tales"

 

Asian "grinders" you say are a lot more popular then you think. Some are actually amazing but just ruined by cash shops.

 

The MMO world doesn't revolve around AAA titles like WoW. So, I'm actually offended as a hardcore MMO player of your comments above, putting down a section of the genre. Been playing MMO's for 15 years, starting with Sierra's The Realm. Played every single MMO up until now and a lot of the F2P imports are better than the "big releases" of these high budget companies.

 

1.  He said most.  So if the shoe fits...

2.  He claims hisself and his site in the catagory as well.

3.  It's not personal, the guy is just writing a piece about little seen (in the west anyway) games and is trying to make the same point you allude to, these games bring something to the table and the world (MMO wise anyway) does not revolve around triple A titles.

Originally posted by Blindchance

Heh this game is a paedophile dream after all. The female characters look ridiculous, catering to boys much ?

Art style and design of characters, weapons ( size ?! ), armour ( G-String armour ?! ) and mobs scream of totally alien art and culture. Quest system stinks of a typical Asian grinder as well.

I just find this game at times disgusting ( child porn ), misogynistic in general, tasteless and not appealing at all. And yeah panda race ?

Does it have to offer anything else then a different ( it is not like I haven't seen it before ) then main stream combat system ?

 

Obviously you have not played the game nor read much about it.  You are, of course, entitled to your opinions, but you should at least come prepared to back up your nonsense with fact. 

The game is fine, and all we have seen thus far is beta builds.  Once you understand the back story on the questionable races, the immature reaction of pedo goes away.  If you play the game you will see the combat system while nothing earth shattering, is well thought out and actually fun.

Anyway, this is turning in to a mini review, something I am not inclined to do.  Point being, quoted has no idea what he/she is talking about, as per the norm for these forums, few do.

Originally posted by blondeh

old news, been posted before....

 

next attempt at swtor bashing thread plz...

Yes it has.  However, still relevent information.  There is no need for a SWTOR bashing thread.  If people enjoy being led by the  nose to end game, and then having nothing really to do, then let them.  If that is what is entertaining to you, then so be it.

I, for one, enjoy a bit of mental stimulation when I relax.  The WoW blueprint does not work for me anymore.

As always though, SWTOR NAILED it, with the voice acting, I am sure keyboard companies everywhere are loving the spike in sales from people wearing out their space bar.  Yeah...that is what SWTOR brought us.

I agree with Sonya here.  There has been more than one instance where I was busy playing a game, and the vocal whineority (who ususally spend more time on the boards than actually playing) cried up a storm until something that was working just fine for the majority was changed.  It can be a bit annoying.  SWG was famous for listening to the minorty of whiners and where did it get them? yeah, dead.

DAoC, Lineage 2, etc etc still plugging along ignoring everyone they may not post the numbers they did in their prime, but they are still very much alive.

Bottom line;  The vocal mionority does way more harm than good in my opinion.

All the voice acting does is make me wear out my space bar.

Wow..I had pretty much given up on anyone breaking the mold on the lame ass games we are forced to endure for the past several years.  This one could make me eat those words.   If I do end up eating my words...I will do so happily.  Game looks amazing, well thought out, well designed, lets hope it implements well.

I tend to agree with OP.  I used to game because there were huge worlds to explore, fun to be had.  Now, honestly I am waiting for a game ot com ealong and grab my attention like SWG die, like L2 did, like EQ2 did.  I realize there are a lof of games out there, and that I have not played all of them but everyone I try, with the exception of SWTOR (its worse than bad) just get old real fast.  Like I am playing the same game, just a slightly different setting.

SWTOR...for all the cash they dumped into that abortion, is just horrible.  It had 2 things going for it, story and voice acting, and they both get old real quick for me.

Bottom line.  Someone needs to shake up on-line gaming, really crush the borders and step away from the norm.  People (devs) use the themepark model because its what worked for Blizz  back then.  They took the best of what was out, made it easy to play, child friendly colors, and bam best game ever.  Anyway, it won't happen, no one makes games based on fun anymore, they make them based on their profit margin.

Originally posted by nilden

This is like putting a tv in a sandbox and playing clone wars cartoons for the kids.

Could you do it sure but it seems completely counter productive to sit in a sandbox only to watch tv.

A sandbox is about the elements in that picture.

Interaction with the world and other players. Making your own story. The freedom to do what you want with the tools given to you.

SWTOR is as far from a sandbox game as you can get. Not one sandbox MMO has a linear story because it's the opposite of what those games try to do.

In short adding a linear story to a sandbox is a contradiction to everything a sandbox game would offer.

So...you can't have a theme park (linear story) within a sand box? is that what you are saying?

[Mod Edit]

Until I read the post, I was with you but if you actually bother to read the post you see where S/he went with it and it starts to make sense. Key point being you have to read it.  You didn't obviously, so all those comments you said about the OP...go grab a mirror, look at yourself, and repeat them to yourself over and over again.

Yeah, but not really.  I can see by your catchy signature block (not really) you dislike sand box games.  So that automatically makes me think you are adverse to challenge, but I will put this to you anyway.  

1.  How much money went in to the production of SWTOR?

2.  How much did SOE pay to get SWG through to the end?

I am betting that Sony paid a lot less than you think.  But I don't know, I never cared enough to go fact gathering.  You however, seem to have some knowledge on the topic so why not enlighten us?