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.
I essentially ran through the same story line all over again and was bored to tears by level 10.
Can we stop posting reviews from anyone who didnt reach lvl 40 or higher. Up to lvl 10 makes you sound like a twit.
For someone who self imposes himself as educated, mature and cultured your writing style and opinions are really .... narrow?
So lets see , you play a MMORPG in the sense of kill kill kill kill collect just in order to maximize your gametime profit ratio?! Already failed there mate... this is an RPG, ROLE PLAYING GAME, you are supposed to interact with other people and the game's environment.
From what i see here you aren't looking for a MMORPG.. a shooter is perhaps better suited to your tastes mate, there you can kill kill kill-level up.
Thats the main problem with some people nowadays, they don't play anymore, they race until endgame and complain that the game got old before it even started and the most funny thing is... millions of other peeps really do enjoy gaming in the true sense of it, taking it slow and exploring their opinions, their characters, the gameworld, game mechanics...
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.
Yes because experiencing less than 1 100th of the game twice can tell you soooo much about it.
No I am not kidding, getting to level 10 is like 1% of the game.
TOR has always touted itself as a story focused MMO, why anyone in their right mind who hates /story/ would try that mmo is beyond me.
It reminds me of people who say 'I never had to group it is a single player mmo!' yet call WoW a 'multiplayer' game... It's as multiplayer/mmo as you want it to be at least it doesn't /punish/ people for grouping like WoW does.
Comments
I essentially ran through the same story line all over again and was bored to tears by level 10.
Can we stop posting reviews from anyone who didnt reach lvl 40 or higher. Up to lvl 10 makes you sound like a twit.
For someone who self imposes himself as educated, mature and cultured your writing style and opinions are really .... narrow?
So lets see , you play a MMORPG in the sense of kill kill kill kill collect just in order to maximize your gametime profit ratio?! Already failed there mate... this is an RPG, ROLE PLAYING GAME, you are supposed to interact with other people and the game's environment.
From what i see here you aren't looking for a MMORPG.. a shooter is perhaps better suited to your tastes mate, there you can kill kill kill-level up.
Thats the main problem with some people nowadays, they don't play anymore, they race until endgame and complain that the game got old before it even started and the most funny thing is... millions of other peeps really do enjoy gaming in the true sense of it, taking it slow and exploring their opinions, their characters, the gameworld, game mechanics...
Old days of gaming please do come back....
it actually sounds like a great single payer RPG.
Yes because experiencing less than 1 100th of the game twice can tell you soooo much about it.
No I am not kidding, getting to level 10 is like 1% of the game.
TOR has always touted itself as a story focused MMO, why anyone in their right mind who hates /story/ would try that mmo is beyond me.
It reminds me of people who say 'I never had to group it is a single player mmo!' yet call WoW a 'multiplayer' game... It's as multiplayer/mmo as you want it to be at least it doesn't /punish/ people for grouping like WoW does.
Kill and loot! So much fun!