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impressions after 3 beta weekends started Sept..
metatronic
Member Posts: 329
I was in the first beta weekend in sept and the subsequent ones that followed and my opinion of this game changed drastically by the second and now third beta weekend.
I'm kind of surprised by the negative feedback to be honest. Simply because my negative feelings about the game didn't come till after beta weekend two and up till that point I thought the game was amazing and fun.
Everyone will have different gripes about the game because we all have different things we like or dislike, and this game was really targetting 3 audiences.. The Kotor crowd, the mmo crowd, and the star wars fans crowd. Now you could be one or all three and yet everyone of us has different tastes in games, likes and dislikes.
After my september beta weekend I couldn't wait to play again and praised this game to my peers for weeks.. Then the second beta weekend came and I found myself staring at a character creator that flat out blew. The 4 character classes were not appealing anymore so I decided to make the same character Jedi Consular. I essentially ran through the same story line all over again and was bored to tears by level 10. The most annoying thing at this point was the quests cut scenes.. When all i wanted to do was get the quest, check the map for the area I needed to go and complete it and return, what I was dealing with was very annoying cut scenes and dialogue. I hated it... Space bar, space bar, space bar skip skip skip etc... By the end of weekend two I was agitated about the game and thought to myself, they wasted all that money on voice actors and story and it is just flat out annoying me. I seriously began to think about cancelling my pre order but held off. I figured I would play the game when it came out like a single player online game and maybe play 2 months at most.
Fast forward to beta weekend 3 which just ended.. I decided to play a totally different character and found myself back to liking the actual game again but still hating the single player quest cut scenes. Even on a new toon with a new story, I didn't care what the story was. I wanted to kill things and loot. That is why I play mmo's.. To create the best possible character I can with my game time.
So all in all, I'm still keeping my pre order just to play through it once on one character but I really don't see any longterm replayability for this game. Had they offered an ability to remove cut scenes/voice overs entirely and just allowed me to get the quest I would consider playing through a few characters for more than a few months but I really can't handle the pauses between the action.
Some final thoughts about the game:
I think after 3 months this game will start to die off like Rift did. It will just lose that new car smell and become more of an annoyance to gamers especially the more hardcore ones. I do think this game was made for the kotor series fans ( I am not a fan of btw, nor any bioware game) and the hardcore role players who want to be submersed into a story driven single player game with co op abilities so they can nerd it up with their friends. I think its a niche market and there isn't enough real mmo elements (or they were done piss poorly) to keep mmo gamers playing this game.
The instances killed immersion.
The crafting is weak and feeble.
The space combat is a joke and shouldn't even be in the game till its done right.
Not enough classes
The skill trees are garbage augmentations that offer miniscule mods.
instance pvp -- more fail
character creation is very weak
still lots of bugs and more than I saw in sept beta..
Everything just seems very generic and what this game is ultimately missing is Raph Koster and whoever designed the swg crafting system, and the JTL space..
I think they wasted entirely too much on voice overs, cut scenes and story while the rest of the game is suffering very badly.
Ill still play a month or two but don't count on my sub $$$ beyond that.
Comments
For God sake Rift is not dead or dying after 3 months. it has been out for almost a year and is more successful and have more subscribers than any of the titles released in recent years. That was one bad comparison you made.
Ok, I played rift since closed beta and up till around august. The game died off considerably after the second month. It wasn't until they offered server transfers that the population seemed to get better simply because you could pick where you wanted to play. But up till that point, entire server populations were decimated, entire friends lists were full of offline players. The game did die off, entire guilds collapsed so as you see, in my opinion, rift did die from my point of view.
I also said the game will die off like rift did, after that new car smell fades, all games do.. and your ignorant to think otherwise and haven't observed it happen in many mmo's before.. I have seen it time and time again.
Let us not make this topic about Rift because it is alive and kicking so your initial statment that SWTOR will die like Rift after 3 month is still wrong. I have played a lot of MMOS and that is why i find what you said completely false because of all the duds that have come out in recent years Rift has seen the most success and is currently second most populated PVE game in P2P category after WOW.
Your personal dislike for game doesn't mean that game is dead or dying. Same goes for SWTOR please put that Crystal Ball of your away if you wan't to have a serious conversation.
/rubs his crystal ball
I wish more people on these forums would use their powers of divinity to send me the next batch of winning PowerBall numbers.
Hahahaha...lol.... what has Google even got to do with subject. Is rift still P2P yes? is still alive? yes. One can just check number of servers and get a general idea about the population.
Saying SWTOR will die like Rift after 3 months would only make sense if RIFT actually died after 3 months.
Rift has been heavily discounted.
It was dying from end of the first month
They revived it in USA at least
Back to OP
Your "review" reads like someone that doesn't really understand how ot review an MMORPG.
There is nothing wrong in reviewing the early stages of a game in a positive way as long as you are not giving the reader the impressionit is a serious analysis of the main part of the games leveling process, end game or replayability and longevity prospects.
Getting "annoyed" is a very teenage emotion especially when combined with the fact you claim to have loved the story on the fist beta test you were involved in and now get "annoyed" at the mechanic. Granted a lot of teenagers will play.
You want to just kill things but that was forgotten on your first beta test when your intial experiences levelling were good.
Did they change the races/character customisation so much that you accepted it in your first go at the game and then decided it "annoyed" you on a later beta test ?
Caveat Emptor
SWG had less than 30k players for the last 3-4 years... I would consider it dead. 4 years ago it was dieing off.. They propped that game up for as long as they could till I imagine Lucas pulled the I.P. Anyways, the point is, just because a game is p2p and still going does not mean its a thriving game. I'm not going to debate you on this as I don't have time to teach a kid how to add 1+1 in simple mmo economics. Now the reason I said to google those terms was to get a concensus of what people are saying about rifts popultaion. Its pretty black and white man.. Anyways, I'm tired of dealing with 12 year olds on the internet..
A fair personal opinion of the game. In no way am I personally attacking you, but seriously , you said I play mmo's to kill and loot?? Kind of take the whole "rpg" out out the mmorpg which is what the game is. You are pretty much saying I don't care abuot stories, I care about rushing through to the end in the limited time you have.
So the question is, why even play mmorpg's? It's obviously not your "taste", perhaps a console game?
I understand what the OP is saying, I had this issue on quests I repeated with another character, but first time through I enjoyed the story and cutscenes.
I think that if you aren't into the story in SWTOR, you're not going to get much out of it, because gameplay wise it isn't any different to what is already on the market. Other than the license the only thing that makes it stand apart is the story.
For me, who enjoyed KOTOR, enjoys Star Wars and is a massive MMO fan, it is perfect (though I would've preferred more action orientated combat).
Each to their own though, at least you aren't nerd raging about it
/Agree
Tbh Rift is a very very good game but as it concerns subscribers its almost dead anymore. I hope with some expansion the situation will change but as it is now its almost dead...
As for SWTOR, i think that after 2-3 months the game will still have many subscribers but they will be SW fans and not MMO ones. Pure MMO fans will be looking once again for the next best thing, because SWTOR is not.
People always resort to insults when they can not back up their claim. Google any game and you will find similar things about it. Doesn't mean much or neither it is a proof that game is dead or dying.
Google WOW and see how many hate topics you get. if i go by that logic WOW would have died a long time ago. For someone who wants to teach me MMO economic you fail to understand that as long as servers are up and company is making enough profit to keep servers up, game is profitable. Not every company has deep pockets like Square Enix for instance to keep failed launches up and running for months. And Rift has been more proftable to Trion than say duds like AOC, Warhammer in past have been to Funcom and Mythic. Not every MMO needs 10 million subs to be a success. Where did you learn economic by the way?
So nope it is not all black and white.
Right but under that scenario,
if SWTOR can get enough people to end game
and keep them there for a while,
people get attached to the game and their characters
and then as you say ,
they stay
because
"gameplay wise it isn't any different to what is already on the market"
as long as Bioware manage the game and new content, bugs etc etc ....
Caveat Emptor
Doesn't every MMO drop a ton of players a month or 2 after launch? Rift is still going strong.
Did they lose alot? Of course, there is a large crowd of MMO nomads who try every game that comes out and then leaves for various reasons: Its not innovative enough, its more of the same, the graphics are bad, going back to WoW....
Yes but RIFTS issue wasnt "mmo nomads"
It has done the equivalent of a country opening its doors to immigrants from the poorest most under developed countries of the world to replace its own population that left for a better life elsewhere becasue they ran the country into the ground.
Nomads choose a nomadic life, Rifts initial player base were not mmo nomads but dedicated mmo players that were looking for somewhere to "stay".
Caveat Emptor
if an mmo can hold 100 players to 100 million players its doing good. I know of several games, they have been runing for years now off of a small player bases of 50-200. Now if these mmos can runing this long, then rift is far from dead and SWTOR will live a long time. MMO's only truly need enough to keep servers alive. I know of a few devs and mmo owners, who will if they have too fire off all their staff and work on the game MMO alone to keep the game alive. So in short, No mmo is dead until the servers are turned off. So dont sit here n claim you know something is dead cuz u can google. Google dont mean squat when the game servers still kickin.
http://www.riftserverstatus.com/
Just check the amount of servers with high compared to low and tell me if this is what a dead or dying game looks like. So if SWTOR can maintain that many player after one year i would consider it as a success. So yes you saying SWTOR will die like Rift after 3 months is a complete nonsense.
Agreed, if people who aren't in the story stick around long enough to become invested in their characters and their friends they will stay longer.
But then I've never understood why someone would leave their high level invested character in MMO X for a new beginning in MMO Y, when MMO Y doesn't offer them anything they don't already get from MMO X.
If you're happy where you are and don't care about the story, then SWTOR has nothing to offer you really.
Ok, getting annoyed can and does happen beyond teenage years. Its not an emotion directly tied to an age group. I work with 50 year old men who are bored out of their minds and annoy me till no end.. They annoy me to the point of harrasment.. You see, lets be real serious about what words were using here because its obvious you are not well educated. Self education is the best, I recommend it highly over the controlled slave training centers we call schools which you seem to be some kind of mutated by product of.
The second thing I want to point out is this was not a review of the game. It was my impressions after 3 beta weekends. I would not write a review for this game unless I was paid to but I can spout off my disdain as much as anyone else around here.
"You want to just kill things but that was forgotten on your first beta test when your intial experiences levelling were good"
I will admit I was drawn in on the first run through by the story but that changed. I'm not sure why you are bringing this up, I was just sharing an observation of mine.
"Did they change the races/character customisation so much that you accepted it in your first go at the game and then decided it "annoyed" you on a later beta test ?"
No but you don't notice little things at first till you absorb it in enough that you can begin to pick up subtle things that are just not right. The theme of my post was being surprised by the negative feedback about this game so soon after just one try for the majority of people. When I myself had nothing but praise after one try. It wasn't till the second run through then the third where I thought this game was seriously lacking because you don't notice it right away while being bedazzled by actually playing the game after waiting 5-6 years... can you understand this? You want the game to be good.. you want the game to suceed but ultimately you know in the back of your mind it won't fare well. Its a shell of a game missing so much yet having so much potential, and it actually brings moisture to your eye for the first time, like a first love who left you for some rich jerk off.. its almost the same kind of pain but not really..
Anyways, im done here.. got grown up stuff to do. Sorry you guys didn't like my honest impressions..
Yes it does.
It offers you a new experience for the price ofthe box
it offers you an opportunity to be part of the history of the genre you enjoy playing (want this weekends betas testthe biggest in mmo history >?)
It offers you the opportunity to increase your knowledge of the genre you love
If you dont liekthe game beyond a few moptnhs it reaffirms your decison to stay in your incumbent MMO
the real issue is i supect $$$ as a lot of mmos player base being kids wont be able to afford several subscriptions easily andthey often wont be able to upgrade their pcs for new games.
If they are young they may be unsure of their ability to reform friendships and get angry when the stability of their gamingword is threatened ...others may leave becasue they feel the incumbents community is is not what it used to be ...
People may enjoy tyhe frontier nature of new mmo releases when at least a large % of the player base start at thte same point ..
Caveat Emptor
So long as players keep going back to the same old same old, the developers will continue to dish it out. If you don't like the direction where the genre has headed, make a statement and NOT go back to the game that has been driving everything for the past few years. You all abandon the new guys on the block in favor of the game that really is the major culprit in everyones distaste. What is that telling the developers? "Well, apparently they prefer Pandas afterall. Lets create a game just like it!"
You want the game industry to bend to your wishes? Stop supportting the games that are making zero effort to change their forumula. If WoW is so uninteresting as to get you to try something else, then why keep going back to it? Support some other game for a while... let them know that NOW is the time to churn out something new. If, as you say, SW:TOR is a clone, then you should be more than happy to play it while you wait for something better. If you keep going back to WoW, you're telling them WoW is exactly the game you want... and it's exactly the game you are going to get.
So either you stop looking for another MMO to play and just vegetate in WoW, or you grow a pair and send a message to them that you are tired of the same old same old and that if that is all that's out there, well some other same old same old is going to get my money from now on.
WoW players can't bare to part with thier toons... they don't want to start over... and that, is EXACTLY why, nothing ever chnages.
Stopped reading right there. I mean, are you fucking serious? The only saving grace of this game is that it is NOT another storyless grindfest, which seems to be exactly what you want. So consider yourself lucky, you have plenty of alternatives on the market to choose from.
Nice....I was just about to say something along these lines.
Agreed the op is a super boy wow player who just wants to rocket to the top so he can get the best gear blah blah blah we have heard it all before, I touch on it in another thread about casual players and wow, Star wars is made for the players who love Kotar , mass effect 1 and 2 and even Dragon age, , they appreciate and love the story line and are willing to invest some thought into it while having a fun time with the combat . On my weekend play I grouped a few times and had an utter blast and this is from someone who rarely groups, they even give these cool social points for grouping. Wow boys level up as fast as you can , us Star Wars men will savor the story and experience