So this makes what? Three reviews that either didn't like the game or were luke warm to it? Of course one of those three didn't even play the game. So compared to the NUMEROUS reviews and posts by people who have played it AND loved it, the bad reviews are a drop in the bucket. Sorry, but untill you start showing me a trend of the majority of people hating the game, then I think I will be buying it and probably enjoying the heck out of it.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
First: The game is still not finished and released.
Second : This is the opinion of a single person and thats all. I don't go by reviews or previews..I try a game for myself if I am interested enough. I would recommend the same to everyone else.
Third: Have never even heard of incgamers.com until today....
Last: No matter how great or bad a game is, there is always people who hate it or love it. We are all human and are all different.
I'd like to know how many of the positive reviewers played the game for 8 hours, it seems to me just what they saw at PAX etc.
I wont be buying TOR as I think it'll just be another cookie cutter MMO with a few bangs and whistles, but I'm not a hater.
As someone said.. opinions are like a*******, everyone has one, but I dont wanna play World of Star Wars. But for those that do, I hope its a classic.
The Fony guy on gamebreaker.tv got to play for 2 days actually, thats 16 hours and he really liked it.
Then you have gabe from penny arcade that got to beta test the game for I think a month and also really enjoyed it, link is here:http://www.penny-arcade.com/2011/6/22/
Those are two off the top of my head, MMO.Maverik could probably help you quite a bit here as hes the proveyer of previews for this game ;p
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
People who complain that the review should not be taken seriously because he only played 8 hours on the starter planet need to realize that it's BioWare's responsibility to make those first hours fun to really hook people in. 8 hours in most MMO's is enough to see how it's played and get a good idea of whether or not you like the game. Hell, the first HOUR is just as integral as any other amount of time because many people decide in that first hour whether or not the game is interesting enough to keep playing (though I'd hope more people would give it longer than that).
Not bashing the game or anything; just saying 8 hours is long enough to learn many features, get a good taste of the combat, cutscenes, choices and cinematics and get an idea of the atmosphere of the game. There won't be any instance/raid coverage and other high-end things... but unless they're pulling the ol' switcheroo like WoW and completely changing the game at level cap, I don't see the core gameplay elements changing to such a degree that it's such a big deal.
From the video's I have seen of this game, the title of the thread is pretty accurate. It doesn't look very fresh, alive or diverse at all, and aside from the story is likely gonna be similar to every other MMO out there at the moment.
But I'm gonna take a 'wait and see' approach. I'll likely buy it... unless they announce a certain other MMO's release date and it's not far off, then I won't bother for a while.
I'm still hoping they succeed, though, and pull off some major polishing and tweaking to make the game amazing. As of right now, watching a Bounty Hunter shoot a guy over and over in the face while standing straight in one place and barely moving is not my idea of 'fun'. Jedi and smuggler didn't seem too bad, though.
Mediocre no name site has a dig at ToR and suddenly gets a lot more hits.... shock horror.
It never ceases to amaze me how polarized people get. I will be buying Sw:tor on day one, I will also buy GW 2 on day one. What I dont get though from following both games is how GW 2 fanboys have to constantly try and bash SW:ToR in order to validate their choice. Really, Arenanet and NCSoft have not exactly got a history of "honesty" in their feature previews so why not just wait, play the game and enjoy it without all the preconceptions. Thats what i will do with it, and what I am now doing with ToR (I gave up following every little news story a long time ago and only occasionally post on forums as I am bored of waiting for release date info).
Seriously, I hope both games are classics and sell in the millions, SW:ToR as proof that story, presentation and polish are good things and GW:2 as proof that the buy to play mechanism works and hopefully a few other games follow suit.
Then you have gabe from penny arcade that got to beta test the game for I think a month and also really enjoyed it, link is here:http://www.penny-arcade.com/2011/6/22/
Those are two off the top of my head, MMO.Maverik could probably help you quite a bit here as hes the proveyer of previews for this game ;p
Positive reviews of people who played the SWTOR demo for 8 hours and more?
Well, luckily I have some sources, so here's a quick (and incomplete) list of quotes from various TOR players I grabbed, this is from the time when people got the chance of playing SWTOR a whole weekend, from flashpoints to pvp to questing etc:
All in all Black Talon is probably tied for my favorite experience of the entire weekend. These flashpoints are so well designed and so much fun I cannot wait to see what else BioWare comes out with. One of the primary reasons they excite me so much is that these are great early indications of what the endgame will look like, assuming of course it is tied to flashpoint of some kind which I expect it to be (Musco, Torocast)
After playing Taral V at PAX East, and now The Black Talon at the Fan Site Summit, I feel confident in saying that fans of this kind of group content have all the reasons in the world to believe that BioWare is going to deliver in this area (Lethality, Ask A Jedi)
The story is so woven into everything, it hard to see where the combat ends and the story starts. It's better than most I've played, and on par with the best. But for those looking for the next big leap forward in combat mechanics, you'll need to wait a little longer, because TOR's combat aint it (SWTOR-UK)
Overall I honestly think Bioware wins with general game play. This game is so fun and has so many things to explore and investigate I can only imagine how fun it will be for me once the other game features are released. I can not understand how anyone could not like this game actually but I suppose there will be a few. I know for me though, this play experience has answered a few questions that have been nagging at me (Swtorcrafter)
At the most recent event demonstrating the game I spent two days playing as an Imperial Agent. This is a Sith character, focusing on stealth, subterfuge and sabotage. And perhaps what most surprised me was that this isn’t just what defines my skill tree. It changed how I play the game (Rockpapershotgun)
I think the crucial thing I took away from two days with the game was that I wanted to carry on. It frustrates me that I can’t keep playing, and I’m pretty certain that’s the key to both a good story-led RPG and monthly subbed MMO (Rockpapershotgun)
I'm still not sure how I feel about the Imperial Agent's overall play style, but I really liked the story so far. Having a secret identity made me feel like a ******, and in classic Bioware fashion, there were tough decisions to be made (Dana, IGN)
While we couldn't fully attach to our characters over the two days we were allotted with the game, we were given free reign to get as far as possible in the PvE campaign, talk to any NPCs, take on any quests, and run any flashpoints we could find. And the game is looking great—expansive, immersive, even a little moving in parts. [Bioware] has accomplished the meshing of online play and RPG better than any of their predecessors (Arstechnica)
While the Black Talon [flashpoint] wasn’t ultimately a challenge for our particular group, it definitely put to test everything we’d learned about our classes on Hutta and especially how our classes played together as a group. In the end, there are certainly familiar feelings of running through a group instance together in Flashpoints, but like everything else in Star Wars: The Old Republic, BioWare’s signature storytelling comes through, and this really ends up setting the experience apart from your typical dungeon romp. BioWare’s strengths come through here with the way the story is told visually. Enemies are bursting through walls and boarding your ship, sparks fly everywhere, and huge space battles are erupting outside as you’re making a mad dash through a hangar to board a transport. While you’ll mostly feel like you’re running through your typical MMO dungeon, there is a lot going on screen to draw you into what’s going on whether it’s simply stuff going on in the background or slick cutscenes foreshadowing an epic boss fight (Bitton, mmorpg.com)
While flashpoints are certainly exciting, the quantity and level of difficulty involving the group content - even on the first planet players will experience in the game - is very encouraging. It's a bit of a lost aspect of the MMO genre that has fallen by the wayside as studios focus on more casual aspects of leveling progression, and it's one that will be a welcomed return by many (Curse)
Out of all the ways Star Wars: The Old Republic is excelling, the one prevalant strength it has for me is how it has this pervasive momentum, the same kind that we see in BioWare's best works, where the more you play, the more you want to keep playing. Nem'ro's Palace alone has several conversational NPCs, many of whom will open up possibilities to new quests. There's compulsion to just wander the world, kill things, and just soak in the Star Wars universe, but I'm also conflicted in wanting to forward the plot, side missions or otherwise. It's a nice problem to have (G4TV)
Our massive hands-on showed that this is not the type of MMO many are accustomed to and for all the right reasons. The concentration given to that of the role-playing game makes this far more accessible to those who don’t want the obligation of jumping into a party every five minutes but are, instead, intrigued by the Star Wars fuelled story. Those multiplayer elements exist, and rightfully so, but when played alone, this is a mightier beast compared to what the rest of the genre offers. In short, it could be the Star Wars game the world has always been waiting for (Nowgamer)
Indulge me for a moment here. I am of a small group of people that has spent almost forty hours with The Old Republic, Bioware’s MMO based upon the Star Wars universe. Every hour with the game has been entirely addictive and entertaining. I’ve quested as a Sith Warrior, talked down to NPCs as a Jedi Consular, and walked the fine line between good and bad as a bounty hunter. With this much time invested in the game, you’d think I’d be tired of it. But I’m not. I don’t care about Star Wars that much. MMOs have always been an exercise in frustration for me. Hell, I’ve yet to beat a BioWare game. But BioWare Austin has done a fantastic job maintaining my interest in what may be one of the best games of the year (Perlee, Gamezone)
And about combat and overall gameplay:
The first thing you get when you walk in is the sense of how much has changed. If you remember the Black Talon Flashpoint from past videos, you may be surprised by how much things improved since the last time it was seen. Everything in it just looks vastly better (Sado, Darthhater)
One of the great things about this is that you also still earn experience points when you die, as long as you do not hit the "Return to Med Center" button. While it may seem counter intuitive to lay on the ground dead while your party finishes the fight, all classes can use an out of combat resurrection ability by right clicking on a fallen comrade. This means the Flashpoint will progress more smoothly if incapacitated players wait around for a friend to quickly pick them back up between battles, and the continued experience gain may be the carrot to keep you from self-rezzing at the entrance (Sado, Darthhater)
Bonus quests are available throughout the Flashpoint, and these enable a party to gain access to new bosses who drop different loot. In our case, the bonus objective had us disabling control panels to allow access to a boss droid and, as expected, extra loot dropped as a result. Another bonus quest had us pick up a few objects for something later. This is the earliest Flashpoint in the game for the Sith faction and it seems to focus on teaching boss encounters basic mechanics; we mainly encountered tank and spank boss fights (Sado, Darthhater)
The entire Flashpoint was fluid and enjoyable. The conversations ended up being extremely fun, with people smack talking on the high rolls and lamenting on the low ones. The combat was fast and exciting, and the ability for seasoned players to power through it without a healer was a welcome addition to an early level experience. All in all, it was a pretty good time (Dover, Darthhater)
[Black Talon flashpoint] we technically had no tanks or healers. Although the IA can eventually heal you actually don’t get access to those skills until after selecting the Operative AC at level 10. On the flipside the BH doesn’t have any high threat or healing skills either until after their AC selection. This made each fight a DPS race which made things a bit interesting on boss fights. What I thought was awesome about these boss fights is that they actually had mechanics! Think back to the deadmines in WoW or any first-time dungeon in any other MMO, those fights were just tank-n-spanks but not here. At least half of these bosses had some form of mechanic to mix it up on you (Musco, Torocast)
What I really, really loved about SWTOR and character advancement is their commendation system. Frankly put, commendations are tokens which are random drops and are tied to a zone. As an example I had both Hutta tokens and Black Talon tokens in my inventory by the end of the day. What they are used for is as a form of currency to buy items off of a special goods vendor. Due to the commendations, I was able to purchase three blue quality items before leaving Hutta. Along with a world drop or two, I left the planet with five total blue items! This system really gives incentive for players to kill mobs while traveling. What is great is that even with extra commendations, you can use them to help gear up your companions (Musco, Torocast)
[Black Talon flashpoint] Our companions did what they were set to do, and we didn’t micromanage them at all. Sentinel’s companion Mako was out “healer” and from what I could tell, concentrated on healing him the most but I also noticed the occasional heal-over-time on me going off for 36 health per tick. My companion, Kaliyo, just stuck around the perimeter and pumped whoever I was attacking full of blaster bolts (Lethality, Ask A Jedi)
[Black Talon flashpoint] Here are a few other observations: Size – It’s huge! We didn’t finish the Flashpoint, but I would say we spent a good 30 minutes getting to where we were. I don’t know how far we were from the end, but it definitely felt like we were accomplishing something meaningful. Design – It’s Star Warsy! Seriously though, traipsing through the large hangars really made me feel like I was dropped in the middle of a Star Wars movie (Lethality, Ask A Jedi)
You have to remember that, SWTOR was designed for you to take on 3 or 4 mob's at the same time, and the sooner you adapt to this fact, the faster you progress, and your enjoyment of the game increases tenfold. Most everything from the early levels comes in groups of 3 or 4. The best way I found on the day, was to take my AOE, the wrist rocket, pepper each of the mobs in turn (SWTOR-UK)
I would like to say the combat is ground breaking, but it is no such thing. It does however feel right for the IP, and you do get a sense, that great things are just around the corner. It's a very hard thing to try to predict, how combat and a class feels in these most tender of moments at lower levels. What I can say, is this, as an mmo, will have you in combat more that anything else you have played to-date. It takes you to a sweet spot, that falls between mmo, and shooter. This is were the cut scenes are a welcome brake in you quest lines. You tend to have a more forward thinking approach, to the way you enter a combat situation. You are forever checking what is around you, and where a group of mobs that are close by, to see if they could come into combat rage with you. Picking you moment to strike, or hold off till the added danger has moved on, is an important step to staying alive (SWTOR-UK)
I really think the balance of how hard the mobs are in the starting area is ok, some have said they were too hard but I found them to be average power wise (Swtorcrafter)
What we were more curious about, or worried about, was how the RPG emphasis would get along with the MMO part of the game. The most innovative concept is the holo-communication between players. When a player begins a conversation with a quest-giver, a window automatically opens on the screens of other players in the group, asking them to join the conversation. If they stop what they're doing and accept, a hologram version of them appears at the side of their group member, and they're able to watch and participate in the dialogue that follows. Seeing the dialogue is not strictly necessary to getting the related quest, as there is still a "share" button in the quest log to loop in stragglers. But it's a great solution to preserving the RPG experience when dealing with a group of players without forcing the entire group to, for instance, move around a city together. Instead, the group can scatter to complete class quests or visit trainers and vendors, and at the same time pick up quests for the group in the areas they travel. They still get to experience all of the story with a fraction of the legwork (Arstechnica)
As far as group mechanics, few classes are cut and dry, which makes it easier to run heroic quests or flashpoints with a cobbled-together group of players. I ran a level 10 flashpoint, Black Talon, with another imperial agent and two bounty hunters, and we never suffered for lack of a particular class mechanic. The bounty hunters made decent makeshift tanks as we ran around saving the Imperial ship from Republic attackers, and since all classes could heal themselves out of battle, there was little downtime (Arstechnica)
Erickson stressed that none of the multiplayer game experiences are compulsory. " You never have to play PvP, you never have to play a heroic, you never have to play a flashpoint," he said. But since you lose none of the single-player experience by grouping up, and you get access to heroics and flashpoints you would otherwise have to miss, there isn't much reason not to try it. Players that are trying to hit max level, level 50, as quickly as possible are going to want to get in on the group action (Arstechnica)
Grouping on Hutta was actually still quite fun. Sidequest dialogue can all be done in multiplayer and so you can start earning your Dark Side and Light Side points along with your friends while having to suffer the consequences of their choices if they make a decision you didn’t want to and win the conversation roll. This may sound like a negative, but it’s actually incredibly social and fun; there’s a kind of “party game” element to it (Bitton, mmorpg.com)
Grouping made things go faster for sure, but what was really interesting was the inclusion of Heroic quest content even on the starting world. We discovered a heroic quest that sent us deep within the bowels of Hutta to wipe out some unsavory characters and creatures in the sewers and found that our group cohesion was quite adequately tested. Crowd controlling enemies, target prioritization, etc., were all important for us to get through the encounter, which ultimately culminated with a fight against a robotic mini-boss who was guarding a glowing Datacron. Datacrons are scattered throughout the game world and offer unique permanent boosts to your statistics. This Datacron was actually part of a set, which when completed would offer even more significant bonuses according to BioWare’s Daniel Erickson (Bitton, mmorpg.com)
We wanted the full-bore experience of playing a massively multiplayer Star Wars game, and that also meant the grouping aspect. So we set out to do something no one else at the immersion day decided to take part in. You see, from the get-go Star Wars: The Old Republic has group content. Many of its features are even designed around group play. They want you to be social, to interact with other players nearby and form lasting relationships in the game. One such feature we were told about before we even sat in front of our stations to play the game, is the holo-com. It takes 'quest' npc interaction -- called missions in The Old Republic -- to an entirely new level. If you're not in range to go join your groupmate at the NPC, you can simply click a button and join the conversation via your holo-communicator. This in essence means that only one person ever has to actually be at an NPC to begin or turn in a mission -- everyone else can be remote and still interact in the conversation portion. another system designed to encourage the multiplayer aspect of MMO is 'Social Points,' a sort of ancillary experience bar. As you participate in conversations with a group, each person is allowed to select the dialogue response they'd like to see play out (Curse)
We'd done something none of their internal testers have ever done: we focused on group content above and beyond anything else, wherever possible. While the first group-based content doesn't come along until right around level five, it's definitely there. Foregoing our class story missions until around level nine, we instead took on the 'heroic' content on the trash planet Hutta. It's stuff that you absolutely must form a group to tackle. It was actually a challenge. Though we struggled along the way we eventually did complete the heroic quests on Hutta. The reward was fantastic: a blue quality item and a lot of experience, not only from turning in the quests, but also from doing the content itself. We managed to outpace everyone else on levels, even while being grouped up doing group-based content, which has notoriously been slower than leveling by yourself in more recent MMOs (Curse)
once a group enters a Flashpoint, the event tends to be exciting. Our Flashpoint regarded a mutinous Empire ship, and player decisions included killing or forgiving the mutinous group, finding and destroying items, searching for a traitor, and defeating a Padawan jedi. These missions are very satisfying, offer loads of experience and decent loot, and provide a great way to pad out a character when the game’s difficulty becomes intense (Perlee, Gamezone)
these are just a few quotes and a few impressions from people who demo played SWTOR, there's a hell of a lot more previews, impressions and handson reports, but I didn't want to clout the page overtly much.
Like someone said, they're still just opinions and everyone has one that just like their taste and preferences can be different from that of other people. That's why I personally usually see them all as a whole together, positive as well as negative impressions of people that actually played the game, because together a pile of impressions can shed a light upon the discussed gameplay better from various angles than 1 or 2 preview or opinions can.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I'd like to know how many of the positive reviewers played the game for 8 hours, it seems to me just what they saw at PAX etc.
I wont be buying TOR as I think it'll just be another cookie cutter MMO with a few bangs and whistles, but I'm not a hater.
As someone said.. opinions are like a*******, everyone has one, but I dont wanna play World of Star Wars. But for those that do, I hope its a classic.
The Fony guy on gamebreaker.tv got to play for 2 days actually, thats 16 hours and he really liked it.
Then you have gabe from penny arcade that got to beta test the game for I think a month and also really enjoyed it, link is here:http://www.penny-arcade.com/2011/6/22/
Those are two off the top of my head, MMO.Maverik could probably help you quite a bit here as hes the proveyer of previews for this game ;p
Good review from Gabe! Thanks for posting it.
I still probably favor GW2 a bit more, but after reading all of these positive and informative reviews, I am definitely looking forward to SWTOR as well. I think the best thing about this situation is that if one of the two heavy hitters turns out to suck, the other one will probably be good .
Mediocre no name site has a dig at ToR and suddenly gets a lot more hits.... shock horror.
It never ceases to amaze me how polarized people get. I will be buying Sw:tor on day one, I will also buy GW 2 on day one. What I dont get though from following both games is how GW 2 fanboys have to constantly try and bash SW:ToR in order to validate their choice. Really, Arenanet and NCSoft have not exactly got a history of "honesty" in their feature previews so why not just wait, play the game and enjoy it without all the preconceptions. Thats what i will do with it, and what I am now doing with ToR (I gave up following every little news story a long time ago and only occasionally post on forums as I am bored of waiting for release date info).
Seriously, I hope both games are classics and sell in the millions, SW:ToR as proof that story, presentation and polish are good things and GW:2 as proof that the buy to play mechanism works and hopefully a few other games follow suit.
Yes, because every negative opinion ToR receives is obviously just a blatent ploy to increase viewership.
Also, please give an example where Arenanet has lied regarding their feature previews.
Not all negative reviews are designed to increase traffic flow, just the ones that are then posted on high traffic sites with one contentious quote taken out of context to appeal to the people who have decided long before a product ships that it will suck.
As for the Gw 1 broken promises and overhyping by NCsoft, you can look that up your self I am sure. I still enjoyed GW 1 despite that overhyping it got, I will still enjoy GW 2 no doubt, I will also enjoy ToR and if I am wrong then I have Tera and TSW to fall back on.
The point is everyone assumes that everything Anet say will be exactly as revolutionary as they claim, the same way people believed the hype behind Rift prelaunch (Good game, but not great and certainly not the "Next evolution in MMO gaming" that it was pushed to be.) . Do I believe Gw 2 will be great, yes, do I believe it will ship with EVERYTHING thats being announced, no.
Mediocre no name site has a dig at ToR and suddenly gets a lot more hits.... shock horror.
It never ceases to amaze me how polarized people get. I will be buying Sw:tor on day one, I will also buy GW 2 on day one. What I dont get though from following both games is how GW 2 fanboys have to constantly try and bash SW:ToR in order to validate their choice. Really, Arenanet and NCSoft have not exactly got a history of "honesty" in their feature previews so why not just wait, play the game and enjoy it without all the preconceptions. Thats what i will do with it, and what I am now doing with ToR (I gave up following every little news story a long time ago and only occasionally post on forums as I am bored of waiting for release date info).
Seriously, I hope both games are classics and sell in the millions, SW:ToR as proof that story, presentation and polish are good things and GW:2 as proof that the buy to play mechanism works and hopefully a few other games follow suit.
Yes, because every negative opinion ToR receives is obviously just a blatent ploy to increase viewership.
Also, please give an example where Arenanet has lied regarding their feature previews.
Not all negative reviews are designed to increase traffic flow, just the ones that are then posted on high traffic sites with one contentious quote taken out of context to appeal to the people who have decided long before a product ships that it will suck.
As for the Gw 1 broken promises and overhyping by NCsoft, you can look that up your self I am sure. I still enjoyed GW 1 despite that overhyping it got, I will still enjoy GW 2 no doubt, I will also enjoy ToR and if I am wrong then I have Tera and TSW to fall back on.
The point is everyone assumes that everything Anet say will be exactly as revolutionary as they claim, the same way people believed the hype behind Rift prelaunch (Good game, but not great and certainly not the "Next evolution in MMO gaming" that it was pushed to be.) . Do I believe Gw 2 will be great, yes, do I believe it will ship with EVERYTHING thats being announced, no.
personally myself seeing as you brought it up, i think the burden of proof in this scenario falls on you.
It should be relatively easy to find it if you know where you saw this last.
I know your trying to defend ToR and I'd be the last one to say i don't appreciate that. But i don't appreciate potentional problem cuasing statements like that one. Too many times has that resulted in a war of the other person asking for proof then the other says you can just google it. Which makes me facepalm. Why would i on purpose try and kill my own arguement thats for the other side to do.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Mediocre no name site has a dig at ToR and suddenly gets a lot more hits.... shock horror.
It never ceases to amaze me how polarized people get. I will be buying Sw:tor on day one, I will also buy GW 2 on day one. What I dont get though from following both games is how GW 2 fanboys have to constantly try and bash SW:ToR in order to validate their choice. Really, Arenanet and NCSoft have not exactly got a history of "honesty" in their feature previews so why not just wait, play the game and enjoy it without all the preconceptions. Thats what i will do with it, and what I am now doing with ToR (I gave up following every little news story a long time ago and only occasionally post on forums as I am bored of waiting for release date info).
Seriously, I hope both games are classics and sell in the millions, SW:ToR as proof that story, presentation and polish are good things and GW:2 as proof that the buy to play mechanism works and hopefully a few other games follow suit.
Yes, because every negative opinion ToR receives is obviously just a blatent ploy to increase viewership.
Also, please give an example where Arenanet has lied regarding their feature previews.
Not all negative reviews are designed to increase traffic flow, just the ones that are then posted on high traffic sites with one contentious quote taken out of context to appeal to the people who have decided long before a product ships that it will suck.
As for the Gw 1 broken promises and overhyping by NCsoft, you can look that up your self I am sure. I still enjoyed GW 1 despite that overhyping it got, I will still enjoy GW 2 no doubt, I will also enjoy ToR and if I am wrong then I have Tera and TSW to fall back on.
The point is everyone assumes that everything Anet say will be exactly as revolutionary as they claim, the same way people believed the hype behind Rift prelaunch (Good game, but not great and certainly not the "Next evolution in MMO gaming" that it was pushed to be.) . Do I believe Gw 2 will be great, yes, do I believe it will ship with EVERYTHING thats being announced, no.
personally myself seeing as you brought it up, i think the burden of proof in this scenario falls on you.
It should be relatively easy to find it if you know where you saw this last.
I know your trying to defend ToR and I'd be the last one to say i don't appreciate that. But i don't appreciate potentional problem cuasing statements like that one. Too many times has that resulted in a war of the other person asking for proof then the other says you can just google it. Which makes me facepalm. Why would i on purpose try and kill my own arguement thats for the other side to do.
LOL yeah, GW1 overhyped...
If you consider GW1 to be an MMORPG, then it is the second highest rated MMORPG on metacritic (score 89), behind only WoW. It's also still very active today. Sounds real overhyped to me.
And tell you the truth, I didn't even know about GW1 until it was already released.
As for GW2 and SWTOR...both are pretty hyped right now. We'll only see if they are "overhyped" when they are released.
Don't know why this discussion turned into a GW2 debate. Just to point out, ArenaNet never made one promise they didn't keep. Everything they said about GW1 ended up being the actual game itself. To say otherwise is just fooling yourself.
Anyway, as for TOR, I wish I could get into it. I like the Star Wars universe(don't love it but man KOTOR and Battlefront was awesome), but this game just isn't really my style.
honestly, the more bad press, the better. i want TOR to succeed and i would like to enjoy it. the more people give BW the truth, the higher the chances of them actually making some significant changes.
i would kill for a sci fi MMO's with ANet behind it....maybe it will happen one day.
"Here’s the thing, compared to Star Wars: The Old Republic (the last MMO I previewed), (censored) is spectacular - it feels fresh, it feels alive and it feels diverse… three adjectivesthat I’d never use to describe BioWare’s upcoming MMO, at least from what I’ve seen so far."
Bad press keeps coming in...
We could counter this with god knows how many positive impressions, but why bother when you already have made up your mind about the game. I wish I could post what some of the beta testers are saying from other sites to completely contradict you, but we know that is against the rules here. Let's just say that what I've been seeing is quotes like (and I'm not paraphrasing), "I hated WOW, but I love SWTOR". When I see things like that, it kind of makes this thread feel irrelevant to me.
Don't know why this discussion turned into a GW2 debate.
It is because competition between fanbases are a fun way to pass the time until the games actually come out (imo).
Here is how I feel about SWTOR and GW2 being compared. I am a GW2 fan to the core. I have friends in my GW1 guild who are going to be playing SWTOR and GW2...they are star wars fans. I am not a fan of starwars except for the original movies and a couple of the OLDER console games. I am not a fan of bioware games at all.
I don't dislike what SWOTR is doing, and I would likely play it if it had the same business model as GW1&2. The most important thing in my opinion, however, is how interessting combat is. Combat is what I do most of the time when I am playing. I have tried a number of games, and combat isn't really different from one game to the next for the major titles, with one exception (GW1) and that mostly has to do with the way the skill bar gets set up. and a lack of aggro bars. When I was watching recent video of SWTOR combat, I saw the same combat that most other MMOs have and better animations than most. dispite the animations being fairly good, it looked as stiff as anything else released these days, especially after seeing and playing GW2 last year. When I compare GW2 combat to recently released games and video of upcoming games, I see a vast difference in how the game plays and how it looks, which is important to me.
random tangent: I played the demo for GW2 and then the demo for rift right after it. I IMMEDIATELY passed judgement on rift after about 15 seconds and just quit the demo. After hearing about the story oif rift, I felt I was too harsh on the game and decided to give the game a shot (because I liked the story) in the open betas. I played for quite a while and it was somewhat fun but the combat was dull looking and I couldn't really keep myself interested in any part of the game...so I decided my immediate judgement was in fact NOT flawed, but was, in fact, based on the immediately prior gameplay experience I had with GW2. In short, you don't know what you are missing until you have played GW2's combat*.
*only applies to those who like fast paced action/position/skill (not really twitch) based combat.
back on topic: I really feel that the only reason to debate the issue with fans of another game as to which game is better, is to present an argument that is compelling enough to get them to try the game out themselves. Hopefully, the game turns out to be fun for that person, and they can go on to present their experiece and opinions to people who will not immediately label them fanbois.
The fact that this review was written by somebody without oo much bias in any particular MMO is somewhat nice as it means that it is supposed to be an outsider's perspective. The fact that the outsider's perspective is being ridiculed as being from somebody who doesn't know what he is talking about, thus calling into question his reasoning for saying he liked GW2 more than SWTOR, is kind of sad...but its nothing less than what I would expect.
Try both games (at upcoming conventions), decide which YOU like more. That is all.
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
I agree that both games are going to be great. If one of them is going to fail, it will be GW2, because at the moment we have not seen a lot of it. Chances are that what we expect is not what we are going to get.
With SWTOR on the other hand, I think we can safely say that we have a fairly good idea now what the game is all about and even if it plays like WoW, it is going to be a huge hit.
But I hope both of them are absolutely hugely successful. We don't need any AAA MMO failures.
This is exactly the reason why I think fans of SWTOR should at least play GW2 at the next convention they go to.
The way I see it, there is really no way for the fan base of one game to know the information that is out there for a game they AREN'T following...hopefully the hands on experience will remedy some of the problem.
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
Cause playing for 8 hours, on the starting planet alone, is playing the whole game? amirite? Oh, and he has so much MMO experience, that we should totally trust his opinion, amirite? This is one opinion, of someone who obviously doesn't like MMOs as they are today, I can tell because he hasn't stayed with anything longer then 3 months, and you take it seriously?
Thanks for the laugh, thats a complete joke. Notice how the overwhelming majority actually like SW:TOR? Guess you don't. Keep failing though.
If one of them is going to fail, it will be GW2, because at the moment we have not seen a lot of it. Chances are that what we expect is not what we are going to get.
there is no rational reason to think that GW2 will fail because ANet has been delivering on promised features (thus far), it has been getting nothing but positive reviews, and everyone who tried it went nuts about it. if the WvWvW reveal is good, the game will suck in everyone who loves sandbox pvp. if outdoor raids are good, the raider nerds will come as well.
TOR has been getting tons of bad press, many with a critical eye who played it were less than impressed, and BW hasnt actually delivered anything that's genre-changing. taking into consideration how much money went into the game, it certainly wont be a huge success. it's my opinion that not many people will actually stick with the game in the long run.
The way I see it, there is really no way for the fan base of one game to know the information that is out there for a game they AREN'T following...hopefully the hands on experience will remedy some of the problem.
Right... doesn't this apply for GW2 fans as well? The amount of misinformation and wrong conclusions about gameplay features is absurd, there's vastly more of that misinterpretation and misinformation being done in SWTOR threads by GW2 fans than there is misinformation and misinterpretations in GW2 threads by SWTOR fans.
I'm keeping track on GW2, SWTOR and TSW news and interviews so it's easy to spot the misunderstandings or wrong ideas when they happen.
Originally posted by sonoggi
there is no rational reason to think that GW2 will fail because ANet has been delivering on promised features (thus far), it has been getting nothing but positive reviews, and everyone who tried it went nuts about it. if the WvWvW reveal is good, the game will suck in everyone who loves sandbox pvp. if outdoor raids are good, the raider nerds will come as well.
TOR has been getting tons of bad press, many with a critical eye who played it were less than impressed, and BW hasnt actually delivered anything that's genre-changing. taking into consideration how much money went into the game, it certainly wont be a huge success. it's my opinion that not many people will actually stick with the game in the long run.
Haters gonna hate
Thank you, you're providing the perfect example of a GW2 fan(boi) who is a SWTOR 'hater'/critic as well, but still spends a hell of a lot of time hanging around forumthreads of a game he passionately dislikes and even abhors only to bash that game
Of that type of fan(boi) who like to hang around in forumthreads of other games merely to bash them you'll see a lot more happen in the SWTOR section than the GW2 section, so maybe it's time that some GW2 fans get themselves better informed or if their mind is made up, just stick to the threads of the game they like.
Oh, it's my opinion that you're so heavily biased that you chose to ignore any positive review or observation made about SWTOR, hence your misguided viewpoint: 90-95% of the available handson reports, previews and impression blogs were positive to very positive about SWTOR, that's reality.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Comments
So this makes what? Three reviews that either didn't like the game or were luke warm to it? Of course one of those three didn't even play the game. So compared to the NUMEROUS reviews and posts by people who have played it AND loved it, the bad reviews are a drop in the bucket. Sorry, but untill you start showing me a trend of the majority of people hating the game, then I think I will be buying it and probably enjoying the heck out of it.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
Let's avoid the personal attacks.
First: The game is still not finished and released.
Second : This is the opinion of a single person and thats all. I don't go by reviews or previews..I try a game for myself if I am interested enough. I would recommend the same to everyone else.
Third: Have never even heard of incgamers.com until today....
Last: No matter how great or bad a game is, there is always people who hate it or love it. We are all human and are all different.
Do you have a direct link to the review? The site is crapping out on me, I can only read the intro. There's no link to the next page.
man, I love those threads
It's basicly that childish "No!, mine's better!" behavior on a whole new level
..but it's getting seriously ridiculous
I think I actually spent way more time reading and theorycrafting about MMOs than playing them
I'd like to know how many of the positive reviewers played the game for 8 hours, it seems to me just what they saw at PAX etc.
I wont be buying TOR as I think it'll just be another cookie cutter MMO with a few bangs and whistles, but I'm not a hater.
As someone said.. opinions are like a*******, everyone has one, but I dont wanna play World of Star Wars. But for those that do, I hope its a classic.
The Fony guy on gamebreaker.tv got to play for 2 days actually, thats 16 hours and he really liked it.
Then you have gabe from penny arcade that got to beta test the game for I think a month and also really enjoyed it, link is here:http://www.penny-arcade.com/2011/6/22/
Those are two off the top of my head, MMO.Maverik could probably help you quite a bit here as hes the proveyer of previews for this game ;p
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
People who complain that the review should not be taken seriously because he only played 8 hours on the starter planet need to realize that it's BioWare's responsibility to make those first hours fun to really hook people in. 8 hours in most MMO's is enough to see how it's played and get a good idea of whether or not you like the game. Hell, the first HOUR is just as integral as any other amount of time because many people decide in that first hour whether or not the game is interesting enough to keep playing (though I'd hope more people would give it longer than that).
Not bashing the game or anything; just saying 8 hours is long enough to learn many features, get a good taste of the combat, cutscenes, choices and cinematics and get an idea of the atmosphere of the game. There won't be any instance/raid coverage and other high-end things... but unless they're pulling the ol' switcheroo like WoW and completely changing the game at level cap, I don't see the core gameplay elements changing to such a degree that it's such a big deal.
From the video's I have seen of this game, the title of the thread is pretty accurate. It doesn't look very fresh, alive or diverse at all, and aside from the story is likely gonna be similar to every other MMO out there at the moment.
But I'm gonna take a 'wait and see' approach. I'll likely buy it... unless they announce a certain other MMO's release date and it's not far off, then I won't bother for a while.
I'm still hoping they succeed, though, and pull off some major polishing and tweaking to make the game amazing. As of right now, watching a Bounty Hunter shoot a guy over and over in the face while standing straight in one place and barely moving is not my idea of 'fun'. Jedi and smuggler didn't seem too bad, though.
Mediocre no name site has a dig at ToR and suddenly gets a lot more hits.... shock horror.
It never ceases to amaze me how polarized people get. I will be buying Sw:tor on day one, I will also buy GW 2 on day one. What I dont get though from following both games is how GW 2 fanboys have to constantly try and bash SW:ToR in order to validate their choice. Really, Arenanet and NCSoft have not exactly got a history of "honesty" in their feature previews so why not just wait, play the game and enjoy it without all the preconceptions. Thats what i will do with it, and what I am now doing with ToR (I gave up following every little news story a long time ago and only occasionally post on forums as I am bored of waiting for release date info).
Seriously, I hope both games are classics and sell in the millions, SW:ToR as proof that story, presentation and polish are good things and GW:2 as proof that the buy to play mechanism works and hopefully a few other games follow suit.
Positive reviews of people who played the SWTOR demo for 8 hours and more?
Well, luckily I have some sources, so here's a quick (and incomplete) list of quotes from various TOR players I grabbed, this is from the time when people got the chance of playing SWTOR a whole weekend, from flashpoints to pvp to questing etc:
All in all Black Talon is probably tied for my favorite experience of the entire weekend. These flashpoints are so well designed and so much fun I cannot wait to see what else BioWare comes out with. One of the primary reasons they excite me so much is that these are great early indications of what the endgame will look like, assuming of course it is tied to flashpoint of some kind which I expect it to be (Musco, Torocast)
After playing Taral V at PAX East, and now The Black Talon at the Fan Site Summit, I feel confident in saying that fans of this kind of group content have all the reasons in the world to believe that BioWare is going to deliver in this area (Lethality, Ask A Jedi)
The story is so woven into everything, it hard to see where the combat ends and the story starts. It's better than most I've played, and on par with the best. But for those looking for the next big leap forward in combat mechanics, you'll need to wait a little longer, because TOR's combat aint it (SWTOR-UK)
Overall I honestly think Bioware wins with general game play. This game is so fun and has so many things to explore and investigate I can only imagine how fun it will be for me once the other game features are released. I can not understand how anyone could not like this game actually but I suppose there will be a few. I know for me though, this play experience has answered a few questions that have been nagging at me (Swtorcrafter)
At the most recent event demonstrating the game I spent two days playing as an Imperial Agent. This is a Sith character, focusing on stealth, subterfuge and sabotage. And perhaps what most surprised me was that this isn’t just what defines my skill tree. It changed how I play the game (Rockpapershotgun)
I think the crucial thing I took away from two days with the game was that I wanted to carry on. It frustrates me that I can’t keep playing, and I’m pretty certain that’s the key to both a good story-led RPG and monthly subbed MMO (Rockpapershotgun)
I'm still not sure how I feel about the Imperial Agent's overall play style, but I really liked the story so far. Having a secret identity made me feel like a ******, and in classic Bioware fashion, there were tough decisions to be made (Dana, IGN)
While we couldn't fully attach to our characters over the two days we were allotted with the game, we were given free reign to get as far as possible in the PvE campaign, talk to any NPCs, take on any quests, and run any flashpoints we could find. And the game is looking great—expansive, immersive, even a little moving in parts. [Bioware] has accomplished the meshing of online play and RPG better than any of their predecessors (Arstechnica)
While the Black Talon [flashpoint] wasn’t ultimately a challenge for our particular group, it definitely put to test everything we’d learned about our classes on Hutta and especially how our classes played together as a group. In the end, there are certainly familiar feelings of running through a group instance together in Flashpoints, but like everything else in Star Wars: The Old Republic, BioWare’s signature storytelling comes through, and this really ends up setting the experience apart from your typical dungeon romp. BioWare’s strengths come through here with the way the story is told visually. Enemies are bursting through walls and boarding your ship, sparks fly everywhere, and huge space battles are erupting outside as you’re making a mad dash through a hangar to board a transport. While you’ll mostly feel like you’re running through your typical MMO dungeon, there is a lot going on screen to draw you into what’s going on whether it’s simply stuff going on in the background or slick cutscenes foreshadowing an epic boss fight (Bitton, mmorpg.com)
While flashpoints are certainly exciting, the quantity and level of difficulty involving the group content - even on the first planet players will experience in the game - is very encouraging. It's a bit of a lost aspect of the MMO genre that has fallen by the wayside as studios focus on more casual aspects of leveling progression, and it's one that will be a welcomed return by many (Curse)
Out of all the ways Star Wars: The Old Republic is excelling, the one prevalant strength it has for me is how it has this pervasive momentum, the same kind that we see in BioWare's best works, where the more you play, the more you want to keep playing. Nem'ro's Palace alone has several conversational NPCs, many of whom will open up possibilities to new quests. There's compulsion to just wander the world, kill things, and just soak in the Star Wars universe, but I'm also conflicted in wanting to forward the plot, side missions or otherwise. It's a nice problem to have (G4TV)
Our massive hands-on showed that this is not the type of MMO many are accustomed to and for all the right reasons. The concentration given to that of the role-playing game makes this far more accessible to those who don’t want the obligation of jumping into a party every five minutes but are, instead, intrigued by the Star Wars fuelled story. Those multiplayer elements exist, and rightfully so, but when played alone, this is a mightier beast compared to what the rest of the genre offers. In short, it could be the Star Wars game the world has always been waiting for (Nowgamer)
Indulge me for a moment here. I am of a small group of people that has spent almost forty hours with The Old Republic, Bioware’s MMO based upon the Star Wars universe. Every hour with the game has been entirely addictive and entertaining. I’ve quested as a Sith Warrior, talked down to NPCs as a Jedi Consular, and walked the fine line between good and bad as a bounty hunter. With this much time invested in the game, you’d think I’d be tired of it. But I’m not. I don’t care about Star Wars that much. MMOs have always been an exercise in frustration for me. Hell, I’ve yet to beat a BioWare game. But BioWare Austin has done a fantastic job maintaining my interest in what may be one of the best games of the year (Perlee, Gamezone)
And about combat and overall gameplay:
The first thing you get when you walk in is the sense of how much has changed. If you remember the Black Talon Flashpoint from past videos, you may be surprised by how much things improved since the last time it was seen. Everything in it just looks vastly better (Sado, Darthhater)
One of the great things about this is that you also still earn experience points when you die, as long as you do not hit the "Return to Med Center" button. While it may seem counter intuitive to lay on the ground dead while your party finishes the fight, all classes can use an out of combat resurrection ability by right clicking on a fallen comrade. This means the Flashpoint will progress more smoothly if incapacitated players wait around for a friend to quickly pick them back up between battles, and the continued experience gain may be the carrot to keep you from self-rezzing at the entrance (Sado, Darthhater)
Bonus quests are available throughout the Flashpoint, and these enable a party to gain access to new bosses who drop different loot. In our case, the bonus objective had us disabling control panels to allow access to a boss droid and, as expected, extra loot dropped as a result. Another bonus quest had us pick up a few objects for something later. This is the earliest Flashpoint in the game for the Sith faction and it seems to focus on teaching boss encounters basic mechanics; we mainly encountered tank and spank boss fights (Sado, Darthhater)
The entire Flashpoint was fluid and enjoyable. The conversations ended up being extremely fun, with people smack talking on the high rolls and lamenting on the low ones. The combat was fast and exciting, and the ability for seasoned players to power through it without a healer was a welcome addition to an early level experience. All in all, it was a pretty good time (Dover, Darthhater)
[Black Talon flashpoint] we technically had no tanks or healers. Although the IA can eventually heal you actually don’t get access to those skills until after selecting the Operative AC at level 10. On the flipside the BH doesn’t have any high threat or healing skills either until after their AC selection. This made each fight a DPS race which made things a bit interesting on boss fights. What I thought was awesome about these boss fights is that they actually had mechanics! Think back to the deadmines in WoW or any first-time dungeon in any other MMO, those fights were just tank-n-spanks but not here. At least half of these bosses had some form of mechanic to mix it up on you (Musco, Torocast)
What I really, really loved about SWTOR and character advancement is their commendation system. Frankly put, commendations are tokens which are random drops and are tied to a zone. As an example I had both Hutta tokens and Black Talon tokens in my inventory by the end of the day. What they are used for is as a form of currency to buy items off of a special goods vendor. Due to the commendations, I was able to purchase three blue quality items before leaving Hutta. Along with a world drop or two, I left the planet with five total blue items! This system really gives incentive for players to kill mobs while traveling. What is great is that even with extra commendations, you can use them to help gear up your companions (Musco, Torocast)
[Black Talon flashpoint] Our companions did what they were set to do, and we didn’t micromanage them at all. Sentinel’s companion Mako was out “healer” and from what I could tell, concentrated on healing him the most but I also noticed the occasional heal-over-time on me going off for 36 health per tick. My companion, Kaliyo, just stuck around the perimeter and pumped whoever I was attacking full of blaster bolts (Lethality, Ask A Jedi)
[Black Talon flashpoint] Here are a few other observations: Size – It’s huge! We didn’t finish the Flashpoint, but I would say we spent a good 30 minutes getting to where we were. I don’t know how far we were from the end, but it definitely felt like we were accomplishing something meaningful. Design – It’s Star Warsy! Seriously though, traipsing through the large hangars really made me feel like I was dropped in the middle of a Star Wars movie (Lethality, Ask A Jedi)
You have to remember that, SWTOR was designed for you to take on 3 or 4 mob's at the same time, and the sooner you adapt to this fact, the faster you progress, and your enjoyment of the game increases tenfold. Most everything from the early levels comes in groups of 3 or 4. The best way I found on the day, was to take my AOE, the wrist rocket, pepper each of the mobs in turn (SWTOR-UK)
I would like to say the combat is ground breaking, but it is no such thing. It does however feel right for the IP, and you do get a sense, that great things are just around the corner. It's a very hard thing to try to predict, how combat and a class feels in these most tender of moments at lower levels. What I can say, is this, as an mmo, will have you in combat more that anything else you have played to-date. It takes you to a sweet spot, that falls between mmo, and shooter. This is were the cut scenes are a welcome brake in you quest lines. You tend to have a more forward thinking approach, to the way you enter a combat situation. You are forever checking what is around you, and where a group of mobs that are close by, to see if they could come into combat rage with you. Picking you moment to strike, or hold off till the added danger has moved on, is an important step to staying alive (SWTOR-UK)
I really think the balance of how hard the mobs are in the starting area is ok, some have said they were too hard but I found them to be average power wise (Swtorcrafter)
What we were more curious about, or worried about, was how the RPG emphasis would get along with the MMO part of the game. The most innovative concept is the holo-communication between players. When a player begins a conversation with a quest-giver, a window automatically opens on the screens of other players in the group, asking them to join the conversation. If they stop what they're doing and accept, a hologram version of them appears at the side of their group member, and they're able to watch and participate in the dialogue that follows. Seeing the dialogue is not strictly necessary to getting the related quest, as there is still a "share" button in the quest log to loop in stragglers. But it's a great solution to preserving the RPG experience when dealing with a group of players without forcing the entire group to, for instance, move around a city together. Instead, the group can scatter to complete class quests or visit trainers and vendors, and at the same time pick up quests for the group in the areas they travel. They still get to experience all of the story with a fraction of the legwork (Arstechnica)
As far as group mechanics, few classes are cut and dry, which makes it easier to run heroic quests or flashpoints with a cobbled-together group of players. I ran a level 10 flashpoint, Black Talon, with another imperial agent and two bounty hunters, and we never suffered for lack of a particular class mechanic. The bounty hunters made decent makeshift tanks as we ran around saving the Imperial ship from Republic attackers, and since all classes could heal themselves out of battle, there was little downtime (Arstechnica)
Erickson stressed that none of the multiplayer game experiences are compulsory. " You never have to play PvP, you never have to play a heroic, you never have to play a flashpoint," he said. But since you lose none of the single-player experience by grouping up, and you get access to heroics and flashpoints you would otherwise have to miss, there isn't much reason not to try it. Players that are trying to hit max level, level 50, as quickly as possible are going to want to get in on the group action (Arstechnica)
Grouping on Hutta was actually still quite fun. Sidequest dialogue can all be done in multiplayer and so you can start earning your Dark Side and Light Side points along with your friends while having to suffer the consequences of their choices if they make a decision you didn’t want to and win the conversation roll. This may sound like a negative, but it’s actually incredibly social and fun; there’s a kind of “party game” element to it (Bitton, mmorpg.com)
Grouping made things go faster for sure, but what was really interesting was the inclusion of Heroic quest content even on the starting world. We discovered a heroic quest that sent us deep within the bowels of Hutta to wipe out some unsavory characters and creatures in the sewers and found that our group cohesion was quite adequately tested. Crowd controlling enemies, target prioritization, etc., were all important for us to get through the encounter, which ultimately culminated with a fight against a robotic mini-boss who was guarding a glowing Datacron. Datacrons are scattered throughout the game world and offer unique permanent boosts to your statistics. This Datacron was actually part of a set, which when completed would offer even more significant bonuses according to BioWare’s Daniel Erickson (Bitton, mmorpg.com)
We wanted the full-bore experience of playing a massively multiplayer Star Wars game, and that also meant the grouping aspect. So we set out to do something no one else at the immersion day decided to take part in. You see, from the get-go Star Wars: The Old Republic has group content. Many of its features are even designed around group play. They want you to be social, to interact with other players nearby and form lasting relationships in the game. One such feature we were told about before we even sat in front of our stations to play the game, is the holo-com. It takes 'quest' npc interaction -- called missions in The Old Republic -- to an entirely new level. If you're not in range to go join your groupmate at the NPC, you can simply click a button and join the conversation via your holo-communicator. This in essence means that only one person ever has to actually be at an NPC to begin or turn in a mission -- everyone else can be remote and still interact in the conversation portion. another system designed to encourage the multiplayer aspect of MMO is 'Social Points,' a sort of ancillary experience bar. As you participate in conversations with a group, each person is allowed to select the dialogue response they'd like to see play out (Curse)
We'd done something none of their internal testers have ever done: we focused on group content above and beyond anything else, wherever possible. While the first group-based content doesn't come along until right around level five, it's definitely there. Foregoing our class story missions until around level nine, we instead took on the 'heroic' content on the trash planet Hutta. It's stuff that you absolutely must form a group to tackle. It was actually a challenge. Though we struggled along the way we eventually did complete the heroic quests on Hutta. The reward was fantastic: a blue quality item and a lot of experience, not only from turning in the quests, but also from doing the content itself. We managed to outpace everyone else on levels, even while being grouped up doing group-based content, which has notoriously been slower than leveling by yourself in more recent MMOs (Curse)
once a group enters a Flashpoint, the event tends to be exciting. Our Flashpoint regarded a mutinous Empire ship, and player decisions included killing or forgiving the mutinous group, finding and destroying items, searching for a traitor, and defeating a Padawan jedi. These missions are very satisfying, offer loads of experience and decent loot, and provide a great way to pad out a character when the game’s difficulty becomes intense (Perlee, Gamezone)
these are just a few quotes and a few impressions from people who demo played SWTOR, there's a hell of a lot more previews, impressions and handson reports, but I didn't want to clout the page overtly much.
Like someone said, they're still just opinions and everyone has one that just like their taste and preferences can be different from that of other people. That's why I personally usually see them all as a whole together, positive as well as negative impressions of people that actually played the game, because together a pile of impressions can shed a light upon the discussed gameplay better from various angles than 1 or 2 preview or opinions can.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Good review from Gabe! Thanks for posting it.
I still probably favor GW2 a bit more, but after reading all of these positive and informative reviews, I am definitely looking forward to SWTOR as well. I think the best thing about this situation is that if one of the two heavy hitters turns out to suck, the other one will probably be good
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Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Not all negative reviews are designed to increase traffic flow, just the ones that are then posted on high traffic sites with one contentious quote taken out of context to appeal to the people who have decided long before a product ships that it will suck.
As for the Gw 1 broken promises and overhyping by NCsoft, you can look that up your self I am sure. I still enjoyed GW 1 despite that overhyping it got, I will still enjoy GW 2 no doubt, I will also enjoy ToR and if I am wrong then I have Tera and TSW to fall back on.
The point is everyone assumes that everything Anet say will be exactly as revolutionary as they claim, the same way people believed the hype behind Rift prelaunch (Good game, but not great and certainly not the "Next evolution in MMO gaming" that it was pushed to be.) . Do I believe Gw 2 will be great, yes, do I believe it will ship with EVERYTHING thats being announced, no.
personally myself seeing as you brought it up, i think the burden of proof in this scenario falls on you.
It should be relatively easy to find it if you know where you saw this last.
I know your trying to defend ToR and I'd be the last one to say i don't appreciate that. But i don't appreciate potentional problem cuasing statements like that one. Too many times has that resulted in a war of the other person asking for proof then the other says you can just google it. Which makes me facepalm. Why would i on purpose try and kill my own arguement thats for the other side to do.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
LOL yeah, GW1 overhyped...
If you consider GW1 to be an MMORPG, then it is the second highest rated MMORPG on metacritic (score 89), behind only WoW. It's also still very active today. Sounds real overhyped to me.
And tell you the truth, I didn't even know about GW1 until it was already released.
As for GW2 and SWTOR...both are pretty hyped right now. We'll only see if they are "overhyped" when they are released.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Don't know why this discussion turned into a GW2 debate. Just to point out, ArenaNet never made one promise they didn't keep. Everything they said about GW1 ended up being the actual game itself. To say otherwise is just fooling yourself.
Anyway, as for TOR, I wish I could get into it. I like the Star Wars universe(don't love it but man KOTOR and Battlefront was awesome), but this game just isn't really my style.
honestly, the more bad press, the better. i want TOR to succeed and i would like to enjoy it. the more people give BW the truth, the higher the chances of them actually making some significant changes.
i would kill for a sci fi MMO's with ANet behind it....maybe it will happen one day.
And just as bad as a "mines bigger" thread...
Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands? ~Ernest Gaines
We could counter this with god knows how many positive impressions, but why bother when you already have made up your mind about the game. I wish I could post what some of the beta testers are saying from other sites to completely contradict you, but we know that is against the rules here. Let's just say that what I've been seeing is quotes like (and I'm not paraphrasing), "I hated WOW, but I love SWTOR". When I see things like that, it kind of makes this thread feel irrelevant to me.
There Is Always Hope!
It is because competition between fanbases are a fun way to pass the time until the games actually come out (imo).
Here is how I feel about SWTOR and GW2 being compared. I am a GW2 fan to the core. I have friends in my GW1 guild who are going to be playing SWTOR and GW2...they are star wars fans. I am not a fan of starwars except for the original movies and a couple of the OLDER console games. I am not a fan of bioware games at all.
I don't dislike what SWOTR is doing, and I would likely play it if it had the same business model as GW1&2. The most important thing in my opinion, however, is how interessting combat is. Combat is what I do most of the time when I am playing. I have tried a number of games, and combat isn't really different from one game to the next for the major titles, with one exception (GW1) and that mostly has to do with the way the skill bar gets set up. and a lack of aggro bars. When I was watching recent video of SWTOR combat, I saw the same combat that most other MMOs have and better animations than most. dispite the animations being fairly good, it looked as stiff as anything else released these days, especially after seeing and playing GW2 last year. When I compare GW2 combat to recently released games and video of upcoming games, I see a vast difference in how the game plays and how it looks, which is important to me.
random tangent: I played the demo for GW2 and then the demo for rift right after it. I IMMEDIATELY passed judgement on rift after about 15 seconds and just quit the demo. After hearing about the story oif rift, I felt I was too harsh on the game and decided to give the game a shot (because I liked the story) in the open betas. I played for quite a while and it was somewhat fun but the combat was dull looking and I couldn't really keep myself interested in any part of the game...so I decided my immediate judgement was in fact NOT flawed, but was, in fact, based on the immediately prior gameplay experience I had with GW2. In short, you don't know what you are missing until you have played GW2's combat*.
*only applies to those who like fast paced action/position/skill (not really twitch) based combat.
back on topic: I really feel that the only reason to debate the issue with fans of another game as to which game is better, is to present an argument that is compelling enough to get them to try the game out themselves. Hopefully, the game turns out to be fun for that person, and they can go on to present their experiece and opinions to people who will not immediately label them fanbois.
The fact that this review was written by somebody without oo much bias in any particular MMO is somewhat nice as it means that it is supposed to be an outsider's perspective. The fact that the outsider's perspective is being ridiculed as being from somebody who doesn't know what he is talking about, thus calling into question his reasoning for saying he liked GW2 more than SWTOR, is kind of sad...but its nothing less than what I would expect.
Try both games (at upcoming conventions), decide which YOU like more. That is all.
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
This is exactly the reason why I think fans of SWTOR should at least play GW2 at the next convention they go to.
The way I see it, there is really no way for the fan base of one game to know the information that is out there for a game they AREN'T following...hopefully the hands on experience will remedy some of the problem.
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
"To be a rock and not to roll..."
there is no rational reason to think that GW2 will fail because ANet has been delivering on promised features (thus far), it has been getting nothing but positive reviews, and everyone who tried it went nuts about it. if the WvWvW reveal is good, the game will suck in everyone who loves sandbox pvp. if outdoor raids are good, the raider nerds will come as well.
TOR has been getting tons of bad press, many with a critical eye who played it were less than impressed, and BW hasnt actually delivered anything that's genre-changing. taking into consideration how much money went into the game, it certainly wont be a huge success. it's my opinion that not many people will actually stick with the game in the long run.
Right... doesn't this apply for GW2 fans as well? The amount of misinformation and wrong conclusions about gameplay features is absurd, there's vastly more of that misinterpretation and misinformation being done in SWTOR threads by GW2 fans than there is misinformation and misinterpretations in GW2 threads by SWTOR fans.
I'm keeping track on GW2, SWTOR and TSW news and interviews so it's easy to spot the misunderstandings or wrong ideas when they happen.
Haters gonna hate
Thank you, you're providing the perfect example of a GW2 fan(boi) who is a SWTOR 'hater'/critic as well, but still spends a hell of a lot of time hanging around forumthreads of a game he passionately dislikes and even abhors only to bash that game
Of that type of fan(boi) who like to hang around in forumthreads of other games merely to bash them you'll see a lot more happen in the SWTOR section than the GW2 section, so maybe it's time that some GW2 fans get themselves better informed or if their mind is made up, just stick to the threads of the game they like.
Oh, it's my opinion that you're so heavily biased that you chose to ignore any positive review or observation made about SWTOR, hence your misguided viewpoint: 90-95% of the available handson reports, previews and impression blogs were positive to very positive about SWTOR, that's reality.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."