Though i have different view of this game than you do I respect your review. Not everybody likes the same thing. What im curious to see is how many of the constant bashers for this game will pipe in with their own review now that NDA has been lifted and they can't make things up anymore.
From the latest stuff i have seen ,i got exactly the same feeling of this game as the OP.I knew this before the game was even playble,Bioware would deliver a linear console type game and it seriously looks like that.
I still see some people talk about story,well i was already getting the feeling that dialogue was boring and i would rather hurry through it becuase it had little meaning.he mentions he picked dark so he could killa few,hmm i don't think you need to wait for dialogue to kill something in a game.
IDK this just looks more and more less EPIC for a great IP,looks more like a typical Bioware game to me.Yes playable ,but VERY average game design.I wonder if all these Beta testers are going to remain excited enough to go back and do this again on release?I do not see this game as having any longevity at all,maybe for those that find pvp fun,i don't care for pvp unless it has really good maps,something SWTOR doesn't seem to have.
I played for 2 hours straight before even bothering to find out HOW to skip through the dialogue.
Having been a long time beta player myself, I found the game nearly through the same lens as op's. Of my complaints, I second the op's view on lightsabers as visually speaking there was not enough differentitation. I believe here the game should have more models (e.g., tri-lightsaber, two beams from one handle in the same direction, light sabers with lightning effect, dark side effect, light side effect etc).
I played mostly a bounty hunter myself to max level and that is pretty much the trooper and also played the sith sorcerer. Having played earlier in the beta and in this last build I found combat has increased in the fun factor as well as challenge.
The story was a let down. At the end of the game I felt that I had very little impact on the overall character development and this was very much unlike kotor (e.g., kotor you start neutral then can pick an alignment and even switch that if you choose in game, the conflict was more immersive because of these more open ended player driven choices while swtor sets you onto tracks).
Perhaps the greatest dissappointment was the pvp. I believe here without more open world objective-based pvp the game has little to do with star wars. Let me explain here... In star wars you have the sense of progression (a-b-c-etc) while in swtor pvp the progression without more relevant open world objectives is more "ground hog day" pvp.
Because the story left me with the impression I had no impact on the overall game I also felt this was doubly reinforced with the battleground pvp format. Please keep players in the game world not instances!
Though i have different view of this game than you do I respect your review. Not everybody likes the same thing. What im curious to see is how many of the constant bashers for this game will pipe in with their own review now that NDA has been lifted and they can't make things up anymore.
I obviously haven't followed the TOR threads as much and in depth as you have, but the majority of posts from "haters" are more lamenting that the game is a cookie-cutter themepark rather than having sandbox elements (or even being a sandbox completely) or that the elements in the game that truly are different than other themeparks just really aren't that spectacular, i.e. complexity/depth of the stories, the space combat minigame, companion system.
Not disagreeing that some of the claims are just completely false, such as the post someone made saying there's be no PvP in the game, which there most certainly is- I just find that many of the negative posters are labeled as "haters" because they just weren't wowed by a game that is a basic quest-to-max-level-then-raid themepark. That doesn't even touch on the posters that complain about the PvP because even the most popular requests for PvP are often at odds with each other; it's a very fragmented niche.
i've been playing for quite awhile myself. and i have to say i'm happy i got the CE it's totally worth it. also they game is so amazing that i got my fiance who really doesnt like games to want to play and my best friend saw it for about 10 minutes and told me he just preordered the CE on his phone. so just to say the first impression is amazing. i never palyed empire only republic, as i plan on playing empire at launch(early acces)!
BW will not messs something as monumental as this, and they will not mess up the SW brand
up to level 25 was fun , at level 30 omg same quests over and over and over is this just another WoW clone?, at 40 damn when will I hit 50?, at 50 wow time to cancel and move on to other mmo. I see about 35% cancel after the 1st month.
I did a playtest in October 2010 and have been back in beta since March...
I can honestly relate to what you said tho with me I think more about Rift than WoW. Its just a certain feeling I had playing Rift that I didn't have in WoW, but do get in TOR.
I do have doubts about long term retention for the game... but I guess we'll see how that works out. (I've said off and on that I expect it to have lost a signifigant amount of subscribers by the end of the first year).
That's just my opinion.
There are certain parts or at least areas of the game I really enjoy tho.
Even if there is a lack of retention look at what they'll make alone from the different purchase prices of the initial client. From what I've seen of late players tend to cycle through multiple games at endcap once they've exhausted the current top tier content, i.e. when Rift players had top tier raid content on farm, they'd take a break and head back to WoW or another game for it's content until that was on farm or Rift released new raids/content- some would pay month to month and cancel while in other games, a surprising amount paid for longer subscriptions for extra perks and lower monthly fees despite not playing the game for a few weeks or a month at a time.
Now imagine if Bioware, like Trion eventually adds recruit-a-friend items such as mounts/pets/etc and other special edition clients with different in game bonuses and I see no problem whatsoever with Bioware keeping the money coming in- that doesn't even touch expansions that raise the level cap, which are more or less required anymore in P2P games.
I think they have the basis for a really good MMO. I think people are expecting a bit much for a game at initial release.
I think the area that I'm somewhat dissapointed in would be the solo combat game. I was hoping for a bit more strategy involved to defeat mobs. Now I tank them and hope I blow them up before they blow me up. Make me kite them, anything really. Make me pay attention to what they are doing. I'm not really advocating fps twitch based combat just tactic/strategy based combat. Possibly at later level things become more involved solo combat wise.
And to the OP, what can you really do with a lightsaber to make it different? Is that really that big of a concern that it would make you stop playing a class? Guess I'm one of the few who doesn't really care at all about cosmetic things.
I guess everyone who is hating on the OP for no reason will find out soon enough.
What exactly did you tell us about? There has been a lot of positive buzz about this game from weekend testers and long-time testers. No one can really say with any certainty how it's going to do as far as retention, but releasing with 17 flashpoints, 2 operations, and different PvP styles, including open world, is a pretty good start as far as content goes.
I'd say, if anything, the people that have said all along that this is going to be a great game are the ones that have more of a leg to stand on at this point. As always, the key will be what the developer does post launch that is crucial to the success of the game.
I guess everyone who is hating on the OP for no reason will find out soon enough.
What exactly did you tell us about? There has been a lot of positive buzz about this game from weekend testers and long-time testers. No one can really say with any certainty how it's going to do as far as retention, but releasing with 17 flashpoints, 2 operations, and different PvP styles, including open world, is a pretty good start as far as content goes.
I'd say, if anything, the people that have said all along that this is going to be a great game are the ones that have more of a leg to stand on at this point. As always, the key will be what the developer does post launch that is crucial to the success of the game.
Redtexted & QFE- it's amazing the changes that are sometimes made between the last beta and final release.
I agree with the poster on some points but my problems with SWTOR are a bit different than his. First off, I've beta tested this game for about 2 months but I never played it to end game (I just got too frustrated with the game design). I am also a HUGE fan of both KOTOR games so I definitely don't have a bias against Bioware. Here are my problems with SWTOR:
1) Storylines were intriguing, but you cannot level purely off the storyline quests alone, you must complete MOST of the side quests that were typical MMO fluff time-sinking drab gameplay. As other posters have said, you will spend much less of your time on your personal storyline than with these time-sink quests.
2) Game world feels clausterphobic: Much of this game is spent in some sort of maze like walled off area. There are some areas that are more expansive (Taris), but much of the game world doesn't feel as massive or open as other MMOs even if the actual game world is bigger than say WoW. A great example of this is Coruscant. You have this extremely beautiful looking city... really the environment artists did a great job in making the city look fantastic. The problem? You can't actually explore the dang place! You are forced to move around on these islands within the city that have taxis that take you from one area to the other. Once you get to these areas, most of them are back to being walled off maze-like mini-zones that just cheapen the feel of the world. It would be like being in City of Heroes and only being able to see Galaxy City but not actually be able to travel and explore around it. This leads me to my other problem
3) Linear: The game design doesn't even promote exploration in any way whatsoever. If you get off course you actually feel like you are wasting time because the only thing that is actually that interesting in the game while leveling is the storyline (and arguably PvP and flashpoints). The thing is, there isn't so much content that you get to choose to explore different areas to get to other exciting quests. WoW, for all of its inherent flaws, at least has so much content that as you level, you can choose to go to a plethora of different areas that offer the same level of questing. This is one of the only ways (until GW2) a theme-park MMO can promote exploration by giving the user so much content they actually have to make a decision to level in one area or another.
4) Story is too much on rails: Bioware missed a HUGE opportunity here. Honestly this one issue might make players like myself that actually like the game but won't pay for it actually pick it up. The only real joy I got in SWTOR was when I chose Empire side but made all my story choices as if I was a double agent working for the Republic. The problem is that once you go Empire or Republic, none of your actual actions or combination of choices can make you turn to the other side. This again makes the game feel extremely forced and less immersive than what could have been. Of course ideally, there would be a 3rd faction (not at the beginning of your quest, but at the end you could move to this)... neutral faction (think Jolee Bindo) that could either stay neutral or could move towards the dark or light side through quests or choosing a faction for PvP and fighting for that faction would earn you light or dark points. This would increase immersion because it would make you feel like your decisions in the world actually changed something, namely your character!
5) Races: All of them are just reskinned/re-colored humans. Pulling from a world as vast as Star Wars one would think there would be a decent choice of unique races. One would be wrong. The game gives you no real choice... its between human, green human, red human or human with head-tails. All of the animations for each race are exactly the same further decreasing any desire to care about the race you play
6) Leveling with friends: You will have to sit through their personal storylines and wait for them to have their chats. For awhile, its sort of fun but after awhile you start to wish you both picked the same class. Be prepared to have to either ONLY play a certain character with your friend, or you will have to do redundant content with them if you pass them. The redundant content can be hard to overcome but then again, the game designers could do a better job of rewarding you if you out-level your buddy.
7) The game design is primarily SINGLE PLAYER FOCUSED: Make no mistake, this game's leveling is best enjoyed doing your own thing with some peppering of co-op play for flashpoints. I find this to be a failed game design since it should promote group play more.
In the end, SWTOR is a decent game but to me it doesn't make a good enough case to be a $60 box plus $15 a month to play. If it was just a box buy I'd probably pick it up just to go through some of the story lines. But its flaws are too great for me to want to drop $15 a month on an MMO again. I just feel the game doesn't do a good enough job to focus on co-operative gameplay. Sure, the game has raids and for people that still like that type of game this might be one to pick up. The pvp seems pretty fun, but I didn't play it enough to really make a judgement on it. I just wish Bioware would have deviated a bit more from the WoW (EQ) formula... just enough to make me thinkg I was truly playing something different enough to warrant the cost.
Bhima, if you don't mind me asking, how long did you get to play the game for? Were you a weekend tester or a general tester? I ask because a lot of the comments you make are things that get rectified the further into the game you get, particularly the "claustrophobic world," the linear /on rails" feel begins to open up a bit (although the questing is your standard linear path of themeparks), exploration is very much encouraged and fun to do (datacrons, wide open, huge planets starting around level 20), and the game is definitely not single player focused. It's single player friendly, to be sure, but in my experience with the game, I did more grouping based on need, even in early levels than I've done in any other themepark MMO since Vanilla WoW. I mean, I had to group up a few times before level 15 just to get some of the heroic quests done. There are a lot of heroic quests that require help as well as heroic areas on every planet that you need extra people to traverse.
I don't know, it just sounds like a lot of your issues with the game, while perfectly reasonable and well thought-out, apply more towards the first couple of planets that you visit.
I didnt find the worlds to be claustrophobic. Sure there were quests for smuggler and knight and even inquistor take u into daves and stuff but the worlds for most part are bigger then any starting area in wow.
Ill admit i like linear themepark games so tor appeals to me on that level. The story is what really caught my attention and i wanted to do the heroic quests so i grouped up at about level 7 for both smuggler and inquistor.
They both had amazing stories and even the planetary story quests i liked. I liked most of the choices i had to make also as i was listening to the vo.
If u like bioware games and like star wars and themepark mmos ull like this game. The story alone will get me to play all 8 classes and given the fact i played over 5 hrs straight and only made level 7 almost 8 this game will keep me busy a while getting all 8 classes to masx level.
i for one didnt find the starter worlds claustrophobic at all. I never went past the starter worlds really although i did go to fleet on smuggler to see what it was like to pick an ac and train crafting although i never actually tested the crafting as was my gfs weekend test not mine.
I cant wait to test on my own account with my gf in my group from start to finish. Will be interesting to me to find out how that works out.
That said i had a blast. Ill admit not everyone will like tor thats fine. I for one loved it.
I didnt find the worlds to be claustrophobic. Sure there were quests for smuggler and knight and even inquistor take u into daves and stuff but the worlds for most part are bigger then any starting area in wow.
Ill admit i like linear themepark games so tor appeals to me on that level. The story is what really caught my attention and i wanted to do the heroic quests so i grouped up at about level 7 for both smuggler and inquistor.
They both had amazing stories and even the planetary story quests i liked. I liked most of the choices i had to make also as i was listening to the vo.
If u like bioware games and like star wars and themepark mmos ull like this game. The story alone will get me to play all 8 classes and given the fact i played over 5 hrs straight and only made level 7 almost 8 this game will keep me busy a while getting all 8 classes to masx level.
i for one didnt find the starter worlds claustrophobic at all. I never went past the starter worlds really although i did go to fleet on smuggler to see what it was like to pick an ac and train crafting although i never actually tested the crafting as was my gfs weekend test not mine.
I cant wait to test on my own account with my gf in my group from start to finish. Will be interesting to me to find out how that works out.
That said i had a blast. Ill admit not everyone will like tor thats fine. I for one loved it.
I like you might end up trying to play all 8 classes through their respective stories. I do disagree with the claustrophobic issues though. I can't speak for all the planets but Korriban is extremely small, and has you either running around inside a cave, inside the temple, or down in a river bed through the whole planet. In fact, Korriban is actually the worst starter planet of all the ones I played on for this. The second worst would be the light jedi starter planet. Hutta and the other starting world at least had more open areas to run around and explore, as long as you can dodge the 10,000,000 mobs they've jammed into every nook and cranny on the planet.
Its more than just a rotation, nearing end game, you have to pay attention to the mobs.. they also have healers, they also have tanks and CC. If you just spam a rotation you'll die.. you need to know your abilities and plan ahead of time.
Just snipping that line out because it's very true, and I hadn't even really noticed it on my first chatacter until I got an in-game survey asking me how many abilities I used frequently. I sat back to think about it and realized there were about 12 I used a lot, depending on the situation. There is no "standard rotation" that is auto-FTW once you get deeper into the game.
Facerolling your keyboard will leave you eating dirt, even in your class storyline. There are strongs and elites sprinked liberally about the place, and they all require different tactics and a higher-than-usually-expected level of situational awareness.
One of the cleverest things about the design is the fact that you're gently taught to use things that other games consider group tools (CC, AoE, situational rotations) as part of your general solo play. So when you are in a group, you'll already know what ability to use and when to use it. Many of the mobs you encounter on "standard" quests use targetted AoE attacks, so you're taught not to stand in the fire very quickly. The mob groups with their own pocket healers teach you to take down the healers first - etc. It's really low-key and clever.
Difficulty has been scaled up recently, so the game is now even less forgiving of the classic 1 2 2 3 1 (etc.) gameplay that a lot of MMOs let you coast by on. I had a heck of a time on Tatooine with my Bounty Hunter last night trying to push through my class story a few levels below par. Ended up having to level up, after burning 10k in credits on stims that still didn't save my sorry ass. To my mind, a bit of a challenge is a good thing. I really hope they don't ease up on those changes for launch.
You do raise a good point about lightsabers all being the same, I guess there is not much they can really do with them except change the color, different glow effects will only offer so much variaty but if you are not a "must look the most awesomest ever" person i guess any standard lightsaber is pretty great in itself.
Im still 50/50 if i will pick this up as its only something to hold me over until Diablo 3 comes out hmm
if people dont like this fact dont play jedi its a good way to keep everyone and there mother being jedi or sith
Facerolling your keyboard will leave you eating dirt, even in your class storyline. There are strongs and elites sprinked liberally about the place, and they all require different tactics and a higher-than-usually-expected level of situational awareness.
One of the cleverest things about the design is the fact that you're gently taught to use things that other games consider group tools (CC, AoE, situational rotations) as part of your general solo play. So when you are in a group, you'll already know what ability to use and when to use it. Many of the mobs you encounter on "standard" quests use targetted AoE attacks, so you're taught not to stand in the fire very quickly. The mob groups with their own pocket healers teach you to take down the healers first - etc. It's really low-key and clever.
Difficulty has been scaled up recently, so the game is now even less forgiving of the classic 1 2 2 3 1 (etc.) gameplay that a lot of MMOs let you coast by on. I had a heck of a time on Tatooine with my Bounty Hunter last night trying to push through my class story a few levels below par. Ended up having to level up, after burning 10k in credits on stims that still didn't save my sorry ass. To my mind, a bit of a challenge is a good thing. I really hope they don't ease up on those changes for launch.
+1. Hell, my Bounty Hunter, who at no time did I ever feel was underpowered at all, was getting smoked in Dromund Kaas on a few ocassions by strong, not elite, mobs. It seemd like everything was a 3-pull for me, so you really had to plan out what you were going to do ahead of time. This occured last weekend, after they tuned up the mob strength. That's why I chuckle every time someone says, "Just an easy, single person rpg game with no challenge." It simply isn't true at all.
+1. Hell, my Bounty Hunter, who at no time did I ever feel was underpowered at all, was getting smoked in Dromund Kaas on a few ocassions by strong, not elite, mobs. It seemd like everything was a 3-pull for me, so you really had to plan out what you were going to do ahead of time. This occured last weekend, after they tuned up the mob strength. That's why I chuckle every time someone says, "Just an easy, single person rpg game with no challenge." It simply isn't true at all.
Confuses me because, while I only played to 10-15 on a few different classes so far, all of them were faceroll at all times. Yes, elites were a bit more difficult and could kill you, but the standard mobs would just die, and the only trouble I had was getting lazy auto-healing between fights and starting a fight with 20% hp.
People still play Vanguard and think it's the greatest game ever made... so it's hard to argue that SW:TOR is bad when fanboys and such will be all over it. I've played just about every MMO under the sun, and while I might not like them I can compare what they have to offer.
The "Story" that everyone keeps talking about is a joke in SW:TOR. Why? I leveled to 15ish multiple times and was spam clicking / accepting the first (top) option in every conversation and it doesn't change gameplay or story at all. Like people have said, nothing you do matters, so why does the story matter?
+1. Hell, my Bounty Hunter, who at no time did I ever feel was underpowered at all, was getting smoked in Dromund Kaas on a few ocassions by strong, not elite, mobs. It seemd like everything was a 3-pull for me, so you really had to plan out what you were going to do ahead of time. This occured last weekend, after they tuned up the mob strength. That's why I chuckle every time someone says, "Just an easy, single person rpg game with no challenge." It simply isn't true at all.
Confuses me because, while I only played to 10-15 on a few different classes so far, all of them were faceroll at all times. Yes, elites were a bit more difficult and could kill you, but the standard mobs would just die, and the only trouble I had was getting lazy auto-healing between fights and starting a fight with 20% hp.
People still play Vanguard and think it's the greatest game ever made... so it's hard to argue that SW:TOR is bad when fanboys and such will be all over it. I've played just about every MMO under the sun, and while I might not like them I can compare what they have to offer.
The "Story" that everyone keeps talking about is a joke in SW:TOR. Why? I leveled to 15ish multiple times and was spam clicking / accepting the first (top) option in every conversation and it doesn't change gameplay or story at all. Like people have said, nothing you do matters, so why does the story matter?
Yes, it does change the story and what you have to do, if you just click accept and don't know what you're choosing you'd never know that. Secondly, don't know when you played but try and faceroll anything now, and you will die, repeatedly, but usually not until you hit the home worlds. If you think it doesn't get tougher as you progress either, you are sorely mistaken.
Bhima, if you don't mind me asking, how long did you get to play the game for? Were you a weekend tester or a general tester? I ask because a lot of the comments you make are things that get rectified the further into the game you get, particularly the "claustrophobic world," the linear /on rails" feel begins to open up a bit (although the questing is your standard linear path of themeparks), exploration is very much encouraged and fun to do (datacrons, wide open, huge planets starting around level 20), and the game is definitely not single player focused. It's single player friendly, to be sure, but in my experience with the game, I did more grouping based on need, even in early levels than I've done in any other themepark MMO since Vanilla WoW. I mean, I had to group up a few times before level 15 just to get some of the heroic quests done. There are a lot of heroic quests that require help as well as heroic areas on every planet that you need extra people to traverse.
I don't know, it just sounds like a lot of your issues with the game, while perfectly reasonable and well thought-out, apply more towards the first couple of planets that you visit.
Biggus,
I was a general tester but I didn't play that often because of life's time constraints and I just got frustrated with playing it. The highest character I leveled to was a 16 Jedi Consular, though I got a Sith Warrior and Sith Inquisitor to 11. I just got really annoyed having to still do standard fare side quests just so I could keep up the level to do my story-line quest. And while the datacrons added something to exploring the world, the game's design never made me feel like exploring for the sake of it would reap any added benefit over trying to finish the next story quest so I could actually be entertained. I know its extremely taboo to make this comparision, especially since the game isn't even in closed beta yet but I really feel that Guild Wars 2 addresses many of my grievances with TOR. Again, I wanted to really like this game, but after playing WoW for almost 7 years and the time I actually can devote to playing MMOs has shortened greatly due to job, wife and kid, I need something different that encourages co-op gameplay to a greater degree, and is more "pick-up-and-play" friendly. SWTOR is not this for me, though I'm sure it will be successful because it is still a well polished game with some immersive VO work!
Comments
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
I played for 2 hours straight before even bothering to find out HOW to skip through the dialogue.
Having been a long time beta player myself, I found the game nearly through the same lens as op's. Of my complaints, I second the op's view on lightsabers as visually speaking there was not enough differentitation. I believe here the game should have more models (e.g., tri-lightsaber, two beams from one handle in the same direction, light sabers with lightning effect, dark side effect, light side effect etc).
I played mostly a bounty hunter myself to max level and that is pretty much the trooper and also played the sith sorcerer. Having played earlier in the beta and in this last build I found combat has increased in the fun factor as well as challenge.
The story was a let down. At the end of the game I felt that I had very little impact on the overall character development and this was very much unlike kotor (e.g., kotor you start neutral then can pick an alignment and even switch that if you choose in game, the conflict was more immersive because of these more open ended player driven choices while swtor sets you onto tracks).
Perhaps the greatest dissappointment was the pvp. I believe here without more open world objective-based pvp the game has little to do with star wars. Let me explain here... In star wars you have the sense of progression (a-b-c-etc) while in swtor pvp the progression without more relevant open world objectives is more "ground hog day" pvp.
Because the story left me with the impression I had no impact on the overall game I also felt this was doubly reinforced with the battleground pvp format. Please keep players in the game world not instances!
I obviously haven't followed the TOR threads as much and in depth as you have, but the majority of posts from "haters" are more lamenting that the game is a cookie-cutter themepark rather than having sandbox elements (or even being a sandbox completely) or that the elements in the game that truly are different than other themeparks just really aren't that spectacular, i.e. complexity/depth of the stories, the space combat minigame, companion system.
Not disagreeing that some of the claims are just completely false, such as the post someone made saying there's be no PvP in the game, which there most certainly is- I just find that many of the negative posters are labeled as "haters" because they just weren't wowed by a game that is a basic quest-to-max-level-then-raid themepark. That doesn't even touch on the posters that complain about the PvP because even the most popular requests for PvP are often at odds with each other; it's a very fragmented niche.
i've been playing for quite awhile myself. and i have to say i'm happy i got the CE it's totally worth it. also they game is so amazing that i got my fiance who really doesnt like games to want to play and my best friend saw it for about 10 minutes and told me he just preordered the CE on his phone. so just to say the first impression is amazing. i never palyed empire only republic, as i plan on playing empire at launch(early acces)!
BW will not messs something as monumental as this, and they will not mess up the SW brand
I did a playtest in October 2010 and have been back in beta since March...
I can honestly relate to what you said tho with me I think more about Rift than WoW. Its just a certain feeling I had playing Rift that I didn't have in WoW, but do get in TOR.
I do have doubts about long term retention for the game... but I guess we'll see how that works out. (I've said off and on that I expect it to have lost a signifigant amount of subscribers by the end of the first year).
That's just my opinion.
There are certain parts or at least areas of the game I really enjoy tho.
Is it too early to say "We told you so."?
I guess everyone who is hating on the OP for no reason will find out soon enough.
Even if there is a lack of retention look at what they'll make alone from the different purchase prices of the initial client. From what I've seen of late players tend to cycle through multiple games at endcap once they've exhausted the current top tier content, i.e. when Rift players had top tier raid content on farm, they'd take a break and head back to WoW or another game for it's content until that was on farm or Rift released new raids/content- some would pay month to month and cancel while in other games, a surprising amount paid for longer subscriptions for extra perks and lower monthly fees despite not playing the game for a few weeks or a month at a time.
Now imagine if Bioware, like Trion eventually adds recruit-a-friend items such as mounts/pets/etc and other special edition clients with different in game bonuses and I see no problem whatsoever with Bioware keeping the money coming in- that doesn't even touch expansions that raise the level cap, which are more or less required anymore in P2P games.
from what i can read so far it uses the usual eq model which some branded wow model but took a twist on it .if so then its acceptable
I think they have the basis for a really good MMO. I think people are expecting a bit much for a game at initial release.
I think the area that I'm somewhat dissapointed in would be the solo combat game. I was hoping for a bit more strategy involved to defeat mobs. Now I tank them and hope I blow them up before they blow me up. Make me kite them, anything really. Make me pay attention to what they are doing. I'm not really advocating fps twitch based combat just tactic/strategy based combat. Possibly at later level things become more involved solo combat wise.
And to the OP, what can you really do with a lightsaber to make it different? Is that really that big of a concern that it would make you stop playing a class? Guess I'm one of the few who doesn't really care at all about cosmetic things.
What exactly did you tell us about? There has been a lot of positive buzz about this game from weekend testers and long-time testers. No one can really say with any certainty how it's going to do as far as retention, but releasing with 17 flashpoints, 2 operations, and different PvP styles, including open world, is a pretty good start as far as content goes.
I'd say, if anything, the people that have said all along that this is going to be a great game are the ones that have more of a leg to stand on at this point. As always, the key will be what the developer does post launch that is crucial to the success of the game.
Redtexted & QFE- it's amazing the changes that are sometimes made between the last beta and final release.
I agree with the poster on some points but my problems with SWTOR are a bit different than his. First off, I've beta tested this game for about 2 months but I never played it to end game (I just got too frustrated with the game design). I am also a HUGE fan of both KOTOR games so I definitely don't have a bias against Bioware. Here are my problems with SWTOR:
1) Storylines were intriguing, but you cannot level purely off the storyline quests alone, you must complete MOST of the side quests that were typical MMO fluff time-sinking drab gameplay. As other posters have said, you will spend much less of your time on your personal storyline than with these time-sink quests.
2) Game world feels clausterphobic: Much of this game is spent in some sort of maze like walled off area. There are some areas that are more expansive (Taris), but much of the game world doesn't feel as massive or open as other MMOs even if the actual game world is bigger than say WoW. A great example of this is Coruscant. You have this extremely beautiful looking city... really the environment artists did a great job in making the city look fantastic. The problem? You can't actually explore the dang place! You are forced to move around on these islands within the city that have taxis that take you from one area to the other. Once you get to these areas, most of them are back to being walled off maze-like mini-zones that just cheapen the feel of the world. It would be like being in City of Heroes and only being able to see Galaxy City but not actually be able to travel and explore around it. This leads me to my other problem
3) Linear: The game design doesn't even promote exploration in any way whatsoever. If you get off course you actually feel like you are wasting time because the only thing that is actually that interesting in the game while leveling is the storyline (and arguably PvP and flashpoints). The thing is, there isn't so much content that you get to choose to explore different areas to get to other exciting quests. WoW, for all of its inherent flaws, at least has so much content that as you level, you can choose to go to a plethora of different areas that offer the same level of questing. This is one of the only ways (until GW2) a theme-park MMO can promote exploration by giving the user so much content they actually have to make a decision to level in one area or another.
4) Story is too much on rails: Bioware missed a HUGE opportunity here. Honestly this one issue might make players like myself that actually like the game but won't pay for it actually pick it up. The only real joy I got in SWTOR was when I chose Empire side but made all my story choices as if I was a double agent working for the Republic. The problem is that once you go Empire or Republic, none of your actual actions or combination of choices can make you turn to the other side. This again makes the game feel extremely forced and less immersive than what could have been. Of course ideally, there would be a 3rd faction (not at the beginning of your quest, but at the end you could move to this)... neutral faction (think Jolee Bindo) that could either stay neutral or could move towards the dark or light side through quests or choosing a faction for PvP and fighting for that faction would earn you light or dark points. This would increase immersion because it would make you feel like your decisions in the world actually changed something, namely your character!
5) Races: All of them are just reskinned/re-colored humans. Pulling from a world as vast as Star Wars one would think there would be a decent choice of unique races. One would be wrong. The game gives you no real choice... its between human, green human, red human or human with head-tails. All of the animations for each race are exactly the same further decreasing any desire to care about the race you play
6) Leveling with friends: You will have to sit through their personal storylines and wait for them to have their chats. For awhile, its sort of fun but after awhile you start to wish you both picked the same class. Be prepared to have to either ONLY play a certain character with your friend, or you will have to do redundant content with them if you pass them. The redundant content can be hard to overcome but then again, the game designers could do a better job of rewarding you if you out-level your buddy.
7) The game design is primarily SINGLE PLAYER FOCUSED: Make no mistake, this game's leveling is best enjoyed doing your own thing with some peppering of co-op play for flashpoints. I find this to be a failed game design since it should promote group play more.
In the end, SWTOR is a decent game but to me it doesn't make a good enough case to be a $60 box plus $15 a month to play. If it was just a box buy I'd probably pick it up just to go through some of the story lines. But its flaws are too great for me to want to drop $15 a month on an MMO again. I just feel the game doesn't do a good enough job to focus on co-operative gameplay. Sure, the game has raids and for people that still like that type of game this might be one to pick up. The pvp seems pretty fun, but I didn't play it enough to really make a judgement on it. I just wish Bioware would have deviated a bit more from the WoW (EQ) formula... just enough to make me thinkg I was truly playing something different enough to warrant the cost.
Bhima, if you don't mind me asking, how long did you get to play the game for? Were you a weekend tester or a general tester? I ask because a lot of the comments you make are things that get rectified the further into the game you get, particularly the "claustrophobic world," the linear /on rails" feel begins to open up a bit (although the questing is your standard linear path of themeparks), exploration is very much encouraged and fun to do (datacrons, wide open, huge planets starting around level 20), and the game is definitely not single player focused. It's single player friendly, to be sure, but in my experience with the game, I did more grouping based on need, even in early levels than I've done in any other themepark MMO since Vanilla WoW. I mean, I had to group up a few times before level 15 just to get some of the heroic quests done. There are a lot of heroic quests that require help as well as heroic areas on every planet that you need extra people to traverse.
I don't know, it just sounds like a lot of your issues with the game, while perfectly reasonable and well thought-out, apply more towards the first couple of planets that you visit.
I didnt find the worlds to be claustrophobic. Sure there were quests for smuggler and knight and even inquistor take u into daves and stuff but the worlds for most part are bigger then any starting area in wow.
Ill admit i like linear themepark games so tor appeals to me on that level. The story is what really caught my attention and i wanted to do the heroic quests so i grouped up at about level 7 for both smuggler and inquistor.
They both had amazing stories and even the planetary story quests i liked. I liked most of the choices i had to make also as i was listening to the vo.
If u like bioware games and like star wars and themepark mmos ull like this game. The story alone will get me to play all 8 classes and given the fact i played over 5 hrs straight and only made level 7 almost 8 this game will keep me busy a while getting all 8 classes to masx level.
i for one didnt find the starter worlds claustrophobic at all. I never went past the starter worlds really although i did go to fleet on smuggler to see what it was like to pick an ac and train crafting although i never actually tested the crafting as was my gfs weekend test not mine.
I cant wait to test on my own account with my gf in my group from start to finish. Will be interesting to me to find out how that works out.
That said i had a blast. Ill admit not everyone will like tor thats fine. I for one loved it.
I like you might end up trying to play all 8 classes through their respective stories. I do disagree with the claustrophobic issues though. I can't speak for all the planets but Korriban is extremely small, and has you either running around inside a cave, inside the temple, or down in a river bed through the whole planet. In fact, Korriban is actually the worst starter planet of all the ones I played on for this. The second worst would be the light jedi starter planet. Hutta and the other starting world at least had more open areas to run around and explore, as long as you can dodge the 10,000,000 mobs they've jammed into every nook and cranny on the planet.
FYI the level35+ worlds are quite large and open. Hoth especially.
Just snipping that line out because it's very true, and I hadn't even really noticed it on my first chatacter until I got an in-game survey asking me how many abilities I used frequently. I sat back to think about it and realized there were about 12 I used a lot, depending on the situation. There is no "standard rotation" that is auto-FTW once you get deeper into the game.
Facerolling your keyboard will leave you eating dirt, even in your class storyline. There are strongs and elites sprinked liberally about the place, and they all require different tactics and a higher-than-usually-expected level of situational awareness.
One of the cleverest things about the design is the fact that you're gently taught to use things that other games consider group tools (CC, AoE, situational rotations) as part of your general solo play. So when you are in a group, you'll already know what ability to use and when to use it. Many of the mobs you encounter on "standard" quests use targetted AoE attacks, so you're taught not to stand in the fire very quickly. The mob groups with their own pocket healers teach you to take down the healers first - etc. It's really low-key and clever.
Difficulty has been scaled up recently, so the game is now even less forgiving of the classic 1 2 2 3 1 (etc.) gameplay that a lot of MMOs let you coast by on. I had a heck of a time on Tatooine with my Bounty Hunter last night trying to push through my class story a few levels below par. Ended up having to level up, after burning 10k in credits on stims that still didn't save my sorry ass. To my mind, a bit of a challenge is a good thing. I really hope they don't ease up on those changes for launch.
if people dont like this fact dont play jedi its a good way to keep everyone and there mother being jedi or sith
+1. Hell, my Bounty Hunter, who at no time did I ever feel was underpowered at all, was getting smoked in Dromund Kaas on a few ocassions by strong, not elite, mobs. It seemd like everything was a 3-pull for me, so you really had to plan out what you were going to do ahead of time. This occured last weekend, after they tuned up the mob strength. That's why I chuckle every time someone says, "Just an easy, single person rpg game with no challenge." It simply isn't true at all.
Confuses me because, while I only played to 10-15 on a few different classes so far, all of them were faceroll at all times. Yes, elites were a bit more difficult and could kill you, but the standard mobs would just die, and the only trouble I had was getting lazy auto-healing between fights and starting a fight with 20% hp.
People still play Vanguard and think it's the greatest game ever made... so it's hard to argue that SW:TOR is bad when fanboys and such will be all over it. I've played just about every MMO under the sun, and while I might not like them I can compare what they have to offer.
The "Story" that everyone keeps talking about is a joke in SW:TOR. Why? I leveled to 15ish multiple times and was spam clicking / accepting the first (top) option in every conversation and it doesn't change gameplay or story at all. Like people have said, nothing you do matters, so why does the story matter?
Yes, it does change the story and what you have to do, if you just click accept and don't know what you're choosing you'd never know that. Secondly, don't know when you played but try and faceroll anything now, and you will die, repeatedly, but usually not until you hit the home worlds. If you think it doesn't get tougher as you progress either, you are sorely mistaken.
Biggus,
I was a general tester but I didn't play that often because of life's time constraints and I just got frustrated with playing it. The highest character I leveled to was a 16 Jedi Consular, though I got a Sith Warrior and Sith Inquisitor to 11. I just got really annoyed having to still do standard fare side quests just so I could keep up the level to do my story-line quest. And while the datacrons added something to exploring the world, the game's design never made me feel like exploring for the sake of it would reap any added benefit over trying to finish the next story quest so I could actually be entertained. I know its extremely taboo to make this comparision, especially since the game isn't even in closed beta yet but I really feel that Guild Wars 2 addresses many of my grievances with TOR. Again, I wanted to really like this game, but after playing WoW for almost 7 years and the time I actually can devote to playing MMOs has shortened greatly due to job, wife and kid, I need something different that encourages co-op gameplay to a greater degree, and is more "pick-up-and-play" friendly. SWTOR is not this for me, though I'm sure it will be successful because it is still a well polished game with some immersive VO work!
Suuuuuuuuuuuuurreeeee you were.
who cares if its like any other themepark mmorpg?!?! its a freaking SW mmo made by BIOWARE!!!!
hatersgonnahate