I don't understand people some times, travel times are really what turn some off? At level 14 you get sprint .... thats a meer four levels past your starter planet, and the starter planet has argueable run distances. Then you get a mount when the planets get even bigger. Atleast the game worlds aren't small , then I assume people would be complaining about that.
I love that Bioware brought travel times back into a game, I'm sick of using portals to traverse a game. Theres incentive to explore the worlds Bioware has crafted, utilize the huge maps they've generated for us and enjoy the game.
I'd be all for it if anything actually occupied those maps and there was really anything interesting to explore or going on in the worlds. Which has been one of the biggest complaints again.... the lifeless world. The most interesting part of the game is the actual dialog the time in between the dialog not so much unfortunatley
Get off the starter planet then, there is PLENTY to do and explore on the second planets and even more as you progress. Don't let Tor's tutorial ruin what could otherwise be an enjoyable experience for you. On Coruscant there were so many intricately detailed holes in the wall. One user had a Republic warship fly over his head, something I'd of liked to seen. There are also several easter eggs to be found, holocrons etc ( not sure which planet these start on ). The testers even state the secondary planets are small compared to what comes after, those have even more to see and do.
It wasn't the living hell of FFXI, but that doesn't mean they weren't unnecessarily long and boring. If it adds nothing to the game, it shouldn't be in there.
agreed FFXI was pretty awful in this respect. Either way running through the same areas with the same npc's in the same locations in the same group of 3 gets a little redundant. NOTHING should really get redundant in a starter area on your first playthrough
It wasn't the living hell of FFXI, but that doesn't mean they weren't unnecessarily long and boring. If it adds nothing to the game, it shouldn't be in there.
So what is you are looking for? Did you want to insta-teleport from the quest giver to the quest objective, and then back again? I didn't reach a point where travel "felt" long until I got to Tatooine, and it only felt long there because I lacked the credits to train my vehicle skill. Hell, on Korriban you can probably get from one end of the map to the other in less than ten minutes, without using a taxi. The starting planets really aren't very big.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
The biggest problem with the game is that it is boring as all get out. Combat and story aren't that bad, but there is way too much in between time where you are forced to run large distances with nothing worth doing or seeing along the way.
I agree. The story and the combat is pretty good. I have to disagree with the exploration comment though. I found a LOT of cool things in out of the way places that I would not have found if I hadn't gone exploring a little. Things like amazing vistas, cool boss fights, holocrons for improving stats, shortcuts, etc.
I've been playing tons of Skyrim, which is a game with a lot of travel time and down time between action, but I'm immersed in the world and there is always the chance of a life threatening encounter or stumbling upon cool content at any moment. You'd think that with Skyrim readjusting my expectations for action and travel time, I'd have been primed to accept the TOR time sink model, but nope.
I had the opposite exprience in TOR. I felt is was kind cool that I did not have to fight every 15 feet. I thought being able to sneak past enemies instead of fighting all the time was nice and when I got caught trying to sneak it was even better. Skyrim on the other hand I felt like it was a pain in the butt to do anything or get anywhere.
If I had to guess, I'd say that out of a typical hour session so far, maybe 10-15 minutes, tops, is spent doing something interesting or useful and the other 45-50 minutes is spent running and running and running. Apparently the way Bioware intends to extend the game experience to MMO levels is to maximize travel related time sinks to the ultimate degree. I literally can't take it, which is why I'm here writing this, rather than participating in the current stress test.
Again I have to disagree. I spent much longer running around between missions, but that was because I was exploring and finding those things I talked about earlier.
They very seriously need to steal a page from Skyrim and Guild Wars 2 and remove the cooldown on instant way point travel to locations you have unlocked. Either remove it, or reduce it to 5 minutes.
I disagree. I have the feeling that I would not explore so much if they did and to be honest, I believe people loose out on a lot of the game if they don't explore. Things like . . . oh, nvm, I already mentioned them.
I was certain, flaws and all, I was going to keep my pre-order and try to get a month or two from the game, but after a very frustrating afternoon, I'm leaning towards totally passing on the game now.
Bummer. Try getting out and seeing more of the world instead of just cramming in every experience point you can in the smallest amount of time. It might help.
If they need the time sink to keep people from blowing through the content way too quickly, I guess they are screwed. If there is actually enough content to survive removal of the way point travel cool down, they really need to do so ASAP. The game would be greatly improved if they did.
Let's be honest here. The cool down is NOT a problem or every MMO out there (or maybe I should say almost every) would be doomed. The problem is your play style. BioWare has done exactly what they claimed with this game. The made huge worlds with a lot of content and then gave you a reason to go out and explore as well. The problem, at least what I can infer of it from reading this post, is that YOU do not want to play the game the way it was designed to play. Instead you want to Power Level to the end and the design of the game makes that difficult. I could be wrong, but that is what it looks like after reading your post.
I don't have a problem with this guys post, but I do disagree with most of it, so I answered his statements above in RED.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
Get off the starter planet then, there is PLENTY to do and explore on the second planets and even more as you progress. Don't let Tor's tutorial ruin what could otherwise be an enjoyable experience for you. On Coruscant there were so many intricately detailed holes in the wall. One user had a Republic warship fly over his head, something I'd of liked to seen. There are also several easter eggs to be found, holocrons etc ( not sure which planet these start on ). The testers even state the secondary planets are small compared to what comes after, those have even more to see and do.
starter areas should be a good intro to the game. They should be exciting and bring you into the world wanting you to play more and more. I'm fine with them being small but to really have very little going on and everything feel so dull is huge let down in a AAA game.
It wasn't the living hell of FFXI, but that doesn't mean they weren't unnecessarily long and boring. If it adds nothing to the game, it shouldn't be in there.
So what is you are looking for? Did you want to insta-teleport from the quest giver to the quest objective, and then back again? I didn't reach a point where travel "felt" long until I got to Tatooine, and it only felt long there because I lacked the credits to train my vehicle skill. Hell, on Korriban you can probably get from one end of the map to the other in less than ten minutes, without using a taxi. The starting planets really aren't very big.
I don't want running for 2-3 minutes where there is NOTHING. No bad guys, no quests, no objects of interest, nothing. I don't particularly care for running around for several minutes just to level up skills either, frankly (this could be easily solved with their holographic communication, imho). I don't want to do long runs BACK to a quest hub as well.
I was pretty clear on what I thought they could easily do though. Add more waypoints for you to find. Remove the cooldown on the teleport. That would do a lot and wouldn't eliminate exploring by any means (and in fact might enable it since getting back to a hub would be easy if you found nothing). If there's a sprint function you get at 14, then I think they should move it down quite a ways as well. There's no reason it shouldn't be available at level 2 or 3, right?
Korriban felt like it had a lot of long running to me, honestly. It is odd that you picked it since you literally can't run from one side of the planet to the other (you have to take a flight since the planet is split). Running to the final class quest, lots of running inside the Sith Academy as well as out of it and back into it. It didn't help that combat at higher levels for my inquisitor was a decidedly tedious affair, but that's a seperate matter to all the running where nothing can or does happen.
Some of the responses in this thread are so full of sh*t it's pathetic.
Most of the people who have actually played the game have enjoyed the game. All of the people that have played the game have not even played the final, fully 100% polished release version.
I pretty much expect a large percentage of mmorpg.com viewers to be biased against TOR whether that be because they are GW 2 fanboys or sandbox>all mentalities.
Bottom line is the game will be the largest mmo launch without question just based off pre-order North America boxed sales alone. After the open beta weekend test last week most people were looking forward to the game.
As for what the game does differently? Fully voiced over. I love people that spout off about how this isn't a big deal. It's a huge deal. I've put in 84 hours into Skyrim so far and had about 15-20 into TOR and TOR an mmo has far superior voice over and cinematic than an exclusively solo play game has. I'm not knockin Skyrim cuz it's an awesome game, but merely pointing out why the VO in this game is in fact a big deal.
Crafting. The game has a completely different approach to crafting. And the crafting is more in-depth than many mmo's. Compared to WoW it's exponentially better.
The companion system. This is a big deal. Your companions don't feel like a necromancer pet or a hunter animal pet. They have interaction throughout the game with you. They enhance your solo play. You can customize them. They are an integral part of the game. Anyone playing this down simply has a hidden agenda against this game or Bioware in general.
You get a moveable home. It's called your starship. WoW doesn't even have player housing. Oh wait, most don't even have this.
I could go on and on, but these are some of the major differences this game has to most other mmo's.
The game isn't the second coming of Jesus, but to say it's anything less than a good game is to be either biased or talking out of your ass.
Get off the starter planet then, there is PLENTY to do and explore on the second planets and even more as you progress. Don't let Tor's tutorial ruin what could otherwise be an enjoyable experience for you. On Coruscant there were so many intricately detailed holes in the wall. One user had a Republic warship fly over his head, something I'd of liked to seen. There are also several easter eggs to be found, holocrons etc ( not sure which planet these start on ). The testers even state the secondary planets are small compared to what comes after, those have even more to see and do.
starter areas should be a good intro to the game. They should be exciting and bring you into the world wanting you to play more and more. I'm fine with them being small but to really have very little going on and everything feel so dull is huge let down in a AAA game.
In this case BioWare is using the starter areas as a tutorial for the game AND for the story. As for what is exciting? How sure are you that it isn't? Oh, you may find it boring, but what about the next 5,000 players? BioWare has already stated that they hope to bring in Star Wars fans as well as BioWare fans that are NOT prior MMO players, as well as, current MMO players. By the time they leave the starter planets they should know how to fully play the game. That is a lot better than many MMOs I have played which gave ten minutes of instruction and them let the dogs loose.
I have said it in other posts as well, but you really need to play the character first that most fits you general play style. I tried the IA and couldn't get into the story because I was not happy with the play style of the character. The Sith Inquisitor (assasin) and Jedi Consular (Sage) were amazing. Can't wait to try out the Trooper and the Bounty Hunter.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
They dropped the ball with the game. I don't know why people are having a hard time admitting it. This isn't bashing on the company, it is just a fact. They had the oppertunity to go next level, and they dropped the ball.
They dropped the ball with the game. I don't know why people are having a hard time admitting it. This isn't bashing on the company, it is just a fact. They had the oppertunity to go next level, and they dropped the ball.
I haven't played it but I have watched several hours of content. I have to agree with you, plus they let me into the beta last weekend and then never gave me my code, even after contacting them about it I didn't recieve a key so I forgot about it, back to single player games for now lol...
I played the beta last weekend and honestly I can't wait for release. The art is decent, combat is fun and the storyline is better than anything I've experienced in other MMOs. I experienced a few annoying bugs but nothing game-breaking. PVP was also enjoyable, especially Huttball.
Now, I didn't get past level 15 because I was trying several classes. But overall if you're looking for a solid MMO with great Star Wars atmosphere, TOR is the game you want. If you're looking for something that's "next gen" and completely different from WOW, unfortunately you're going to have to wait until GW2.
Final thought - I'm not sure why everyone is complaining about the running. It seems much easier to get to quest points in SWTOR than say LOTRO or even WOW.
I'd be all for it if anything actually occupied those maps and there was really anything interesting to explore or going on in the worlds. Which has been one of the biggest complaints again.... the lifeless world. The most interesting part of the game is the actual dialog the time in between the dialog not so much unfortunatley
Get off the starter planet then, there is PLENTY to do and explore on the second planets and even more as you progress. Don't let Tor's tutorial ruin what could otherwise be an enjoyable experience for you. On Coruscant there were so many intricately detailed holes in the wall. One user had a Republic warship fly over his head, something I'd of liked to seen. There are also several easter eggs to be found, holocrons etc ( not sure which planet these start on ). The testers even state the secondary planets are small compared to what comes after, those have even more to see and do.
Since so many people were saying that, I did push my way through the tutorial, and saw almost all of the second planet, Dromund Kaas. It was still pretty bad. The woods were so homogenous, so lacking in any sort of variety; same trees, same grass, same exact shade of green, cut&pasted everywhere.
The city only looked like a city when I flew over the inaccessible parts in the taxi. Somehow they managed to make it feel nothing like a city at all, when I was running through it. Much like the woods, it was just nearly identical textures everwhere, in all directions. All the same shade of grey, and the whole thing felt devoid of any sort of life you'd expect to find in an urban environment. Where were the shops? Does anyone live there? Work there? There were just these grey walls that didn't seem to be the walls of anything in particular. Does anyone do anything there?
I explored as much as I could, and never saw anything remotely interesting. Even a cantina in the space station I went through - a Star Wars cantina should be a no-brainer for lively atmosphere, but it was like wandering into the minimart a bus station at 4am. Just so lifeless, it was almost creepy.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Since so many people were saying that, I did push my way through the tutorial, and saw almost all of the second planet, Dromund Kaas. It was still pretty bad. The woods were so homogenous, so lacking in any sort of variety; same trees, same grass, same exact shade of green, cut&pasted everywhere.
The city only looked like a city when I flew over the inaccessible parts in the taxi. Somehow they managed to make it feel nothing like a city at all, when I was running through it. Much like the woods, it was just nearly identical textures everwhere, in all directions. All the same shade of grey, and the whole thing felt devoid of any sort of life you'd expect to find in an urban environment. Where were the shops? Does anyone live there? Work there? There were just these grey walls that didn't seem to be the walls of anything in particular. Does anyone do anything there?
I explored as much as I could, and never saw anything remotely interesting. Even a cantina in the space station I went through - a Star Wars cantina should be a no-brainer for lively atmosphere, but it was like wandering into the minimart a bus station at 4am. Just so lifeless, it was almost creepy.
mirrors what many have been saying and my experience with the game as well. I just can't see how poeple will defend this to no end with obvious huge glaring issues right in front of there eyes. Stuff like this should not of gotten through the beta stages in a late 2011 AAA title and all I can think is the closed beta testers did nothing but praise the game as perfect 10/10 or developers just didn't listen..
I haven't played it but I have watched several hours of content. I have to agree with you, ...
Not the same thing. That's like judging the taste of an apple pie from watching a video of somebody else eating it.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
It can be said that after playing last weekends Beta, I no longer feel so bad about loosing SWG as this game has all the star wars atmosphere you need . Goes straight to the heart the musical score as it does in the films and other games. Really makes you feel like your playing a great game Gameplay is awesome too .
I don't want running for 2-3 minutes where there is NOTHING. No bad guys, no quests, no objects of interest, nothing. I don't particularly care for running around for several minutes just to level up skills either, frankly (this could be easily solved with their holographic communication, imho). I don't want to do long runs BACK to a quest hub as well.
I was pretty clear on what I thought they could easily do though. Add more waypoints for you to find. Remove the cooldown on the teleport. That would do a lot and wouldn't eliminate exploring by any means (and in fact might enable it since getting back to a hub would be easy if you found nothing). If there's a sprint function you get at 14, then I think they should move it down quite a ways as well. There's no reason it shouldn't be available at level 2 or 3, right?
Korriban felt like it had a lot of long running to me, honestly. It is odd that you picked it since you literally can't run from one side of the planet to the other (you have to take a flight since the planet is split). Running to the final class quest, lots of running inside the Sith Academy as well as out of it and back into it. It didn't help that combat at higher levels for my inquisitor was a decidedly tedious affair, but that's a seperate matter to all the running where nothing can or does happen.
Strange, it felt like the complete opposite to me, everything seemed to be in a pretty small area on Korriban. I remember looking at the architecture inside the building and thinking too bad I'm only going to be questing here for a short time since this area is relatively small. Outside things opened-up a bit more, but I had the same thought there.
i think there are flaws/negatives with Swtor that are not themepark QQ.
there are several issues that suggest that the game is shabby in general. things that point to poor coding, or poor planning, or lack luster game aesthetics. jerky animations, stuttery rail transit, ameteur UI graphics ...things that might be lumped under half assed execution/polish
there's also the more ephemeral gripes about only 4 classes/mirrored classes. and limited races and extremely poor char gen. things like this. that tend to make people feel no real effort was made to make the game exemplary ... that it's a GED game as opposed to a AAA mmo
that being said. some of these are mitigated by it being a Beta still. and in that many of the glitchy things can and will be patched out hopefully in the first 6 mo type of deal every mmo does.
then again. for the hype of this game. the franchise. of star wars and pedigree of BIoware ... it's shaping up to be a weak debut from 2 AAA names.
This game is in better shape at this stage of its life than any other MMO I have ever seen as far as polish goes. They are usually much worse than this.
I love when people who don't know what they are talking about say a game has "poor coding." Most of the time you don't even know what that means, and trust me, Bioware knows how to write code.
As far as the polish of the game, this game has come leaps and bounds in the past six months. It really has been amazing to watch, most companies would not have been able to accomplish what Bioware did in that time. I have no doubt that very soon all of those issues you experienced will be long gone.
The character creator is kind of lame, but you are lying when you say there are only 4 classes. There are 8 Advanced classes and they all play totally differently. A consular shadow is a huge difference from a consular sage. As far as teh races and the customization, that definitely needs work, but for many people that is a fairly minor issue.
If by "weak debut" you mean the largest mmo launch ever, then yeah that sounds pretty weak.
hell if you thnik this was lack of polish and all you should've been there for the launch of Age of Conan lol.
mirrors what many have been saying and my experience with the game as well. I just can't see how poeple will defend this to no end with obvious huge glaring issues right in front of there eyes. Stuff like this should not of gotten through the beta stages in a late 2011 AAA title and all I can think is the closed beta testers did nothing but praise the game as perfect 10/10 or developers just didn't listen..
It's also the opposite of what many others are saying, DK was boring IMO that doesn't mean that was the case for everyone, secondly we're talking one of 17 planets here.
There's also a third option, the team didn't have the time to go back and redesign a whole planet. There's also the chance that many in CB saw more glaring issues to report on than how much like a virtual world TOR felt. Which is what the complaint you're quoting seemed to be.
You need to step back and realize not everyone feels the same way you do. Or cares about the things you do.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
It's also the opposite of what many others are saying, DK was boring IMO that doesn't mean that was the case for everyone, secondly we're talking one of 17 planets here.
There's also a third option, the team didn't have the time to go back and redesign a whole planet. There's also the chance that many in CB saw more glaring issues to report on than how much like a virtual world TOR felt. Which is what the complaint you're quoting seemed to be.
You need to step back and realize not everyone feels the same way you do. Or cares about the things you do.
There seems to be a *lot* of that on these forums. "I don't like it, therefore anyone who does isn't giving the right feedback!" It's like people who have a favorite restaurant, and want all the food from that restaurant to be on the menu, even when they go to *other* restaurants, and then when it isn't they say the place they are in serves terrible food.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
If you like WoW, then you'll like TOR. They took everything WoW did, and made it better. Don't expect much more than that and you'll be pleasantly surprised.
There's also a third option, the team didn't have the time to go back and redesign a whole planet. There's also the chance that many in CB saw more glaring issues to report on than how much like a virtual world TOR felt. Which is what the complaint you're quoting seemed to be.
For the record, it's not like I'm saying it should be more of a sandbox or anything. Only as much of a "virtual world" as other major MMOs, such as Age of Conan, Aion, LOTRO, Rift, and even WoW. I didn't think that was expecting so much.
edit: oops, double negative
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
There's also a third option, the team didn't have the time to go back and redesign a whole planet. There's also the chance that many in CB saw more glaring issues to report on than how much like a virtual world TOR felt. Which is what the complaint you're quoting seemed to be.
For the record, it's not like I'm not saying it should be more of a sandbox or anything. Only as much of a "virtual world" as other major MMOs, such as Age of Conan, Aion, LOTRO, Rift, and even WoW. I didn't think that was expecting so much.
I don't have a problem with what you were outlining, that's your opinion, which is why I didn't quote you .
Edit- I more or less agreed I felt DK was boring as well.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
There's also a third option, the team didn't have the time to go back and redesign a whole planet. There's also the chance that many in CB saw more glaring issues to report on than how much like a virtual world TOR felt. Which is what the complaint you're quoting seemed to be.
For the record, it's not like I'm not saying it should be more of a sandbox or anything. Only as much of a "virtual world" as other major MMOs, such as Age of Conan, Aion, LOTRO, Rift, and even WoW. I didn't think that was expecting so much.
agreed especially with a game made this late in the MMO world but Distopia apparently feels anything negative towards this game is an attack on him personally for some reason. You can pretty much take what you said and apply it to yourself not everyone feels the way you do as well.
This game has been in the works for a very long time and with its budget really is no reason it's missing some key and even fluff MMO features to flesh it out into a great game.
Rift did it well to a point took most of the basic MMO elements and expanded on them and refined them in many ways. TOR took a great idea with heavy story and dialog quests but did not improve on any of the other core MMO features instead they took a huge step back in many areas such as UI, character customization, enviornments, ect...
Comments
Get off the starter planet then, there is PLENTY to do and explore on the second planets and even more as you progress. Don't let Tor's tutorial ruin what could otherwise be an enjoyable experience for you. On Coruscant there were so many intricately detailed holes in the wall. One user had a Republic warship fly over his head, something I'd of liked to seen. There are also several easter eggs to be found, holocrons etc ( not sure which planet these start on ). The testers even state the secondary planets are small compared to what comes after, those have even more to see and do.
agreed FFXI was pretty awful in this respect. Either way running through the same areas with the same npc's in the same locations in the same group of 3 gets a little redundant. NOTHING should really get redundant in a starter area on your first playthrough
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339443/Video-FollowUp-Guide-For-Enhancing-Graphics-and-Performance-in-SWTORSorry-still-Nvidia-Only.html
So what is you are looking for? Did you want to insta-teleport from the quest giver to the quest objective, and then back again? I didn't reach a point where travel "felt" long until I got to Tatooine, and it only felt long there because I lacked the credits to train my vehicle skill. Hell, on Korriban you can probably get from one end of the map to the other in less than ten minutes, without using a taxi. The starting planets really aren't very big.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
I don't have a problem with this guys post, but I do disagree with most of it, so I answered his statements above in RED.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
starter areas should be a good intro to the game. They should be exciting and bring you into the world wanting you to play more and more. I'm fine with them being small but to really have very little going on and everything feel so dull is huge let down in a AAA game.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339443/Video-FollowUp-Guide-For-Enhancing-Graphics-and-Performance-in-SWTORSorry-still-Nvidia-Only.html
I don't want running for 2-3 minutes where there is NOTHING. No bad guys, no quests, no objects of interest, nothing. I don't particularly care for running around for several minutes just to level up skills either, frankly (this could be easily solved with their holographic communication, imho). I don't want to do long runs BACK to a quest hub as well.
I was pretty clear on what I thought they could easily do though. Add more waypoints for you to find. Remove the cooldown on the teleport. That would do a lot and wouldn't eliminate exploring by any means (and in fact might enable it since getting back to a hub would be easy if you found nothing). If there's a sprint function you get at 14, then I think they should move it down quite a ways as well. There's no reason it shouldn't be available at level 2 or 3, right?
Korriban felt like it had a lot of long running to me, honestly. It is odd that you picked it since you literally can't run from one side of the planet to the other (you have to take a flight since the planet is split). Running to the final class quest, lots of running inside the Sith Academy as well as out of it and back into it. It didn't help that combat at higher levels for my inquisitor was a decidedly tedious affair, but that's a seperate matter to all the running where nothing can or does happen.
Some of the responses in this thread are so full of sh*t it's pathetic.
Most of the people who have actually played the game have enjoyed the game. All of the people that have played the game have not even played the final, fully 100% polished release version.
I pretty much expect a large percentage of mmorpg.com viewers to be biased against TOR whether that be because they are GW 2 fanboys or sandbox>all mentalities.
Bottom line is the game will be the largest mmo launch without question just based off pre-order North America boxed sales alone. After the open beta weekend test last week most people were looking forward to the game.
As for what the game does differently? Fully voiced over. I love people that spout off about how this isn't a big deal. It's a huge deal. I've put in 84 hours into Skyrim so far and had about 15-20 into TOR and TOR an mmo has far superior voice over and cinematic than an exclusively solo play game has. I'm not knockin Skyrim cuz it's an awesome game, but merely pointing out why the VO in this game is in fact a big deal.
Crafting. The game has a completely different approach to crafting. And the crafting is more in-depth than many mmo's. Compared to WoW it's exponentially better.
The companion system. This is a big deal. Your companions don't feel like a necromancer pet or a hunter animal pet. They have interaction throughout the game with you. They enhance your solo play. You can customize them. They are an integral part of the game. Anyone playing this down simply has a hidden agenda against this game or Bioware in general.
You get a moveable home. It's called your starship. WoW doesn't even have player housing. Oh wait, most don't even have this.
I could go on and on, but these are some of the major differences this game has to most other mmo's.
The game isn't the second coming of Jesus, but to say it's anything less than a good game is to be either biased or talking out of your ass.
In this case BioWare is using the starter areas as a tutorial for the game AND for the story. As for what is exciting? How sure are you that it isn't? Oh, you may find it boring, but what about the next 5,000 players? BioWare has already stated that they hope to bring in Star Wars fans as well as BioWare fans that are NOT prior MMO players, as well as, current MMO players. By the time they leave the starter planets they should know how to fully play the game. That is a lot better than many MMOs I have played which gave ten minutes of instruction and them let the dogs loose.
I have said it in other posts as well, but you really need to play the character first that most fits you general play style. I tried the IA and couldn't get into the story because I was not happy with the play style of the character. The Sith Inquisitor (assasin) and Jedi Consular (Sage) were amazing. Can't wait to try out the Trooper and the Bounty Hunter.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
They dropped the ball with the game. I don't know why people are having a hard time admitting it. This isn't bashing on the company, it is just a fact. They had the oppertunity to go next level, and they dropped the ball.
I haven't played it but I have watched several hours of content. I have to agree with you, plus they let me into the beta last weekend and then never gave me my code, even after contacting them about it I didn't recieve a key so I forgot about it, back to single player games for now lol...
I played the beta last weekend and honestly I can't wait for release. The art is decent, combat is fun and the storyline is better than anything I've experienced in other MMOs. I experienced a few annoying bugs but nothing game-breaking. PVP was also enjoyable, especially Huttball.
Now, I didn't get past level 15 because I was trying several classes. But overall if you're looking for a solid MMO with great Star Wars atmosphere, TOR is the game you want. If you're looking for something that's "next gen" and completely different from WOW, unfortunately you're going to have to wait until GW2.
Final thought - I'm not sure why everyone is complaining about the running. It seems much easier to get to quest points in SWTOR than say LOTRO or even WOW.
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Since so many people were saying that, I did push my way through the tutorial, and saw almost all of the second planet, Dromund Kaas. It was still pretty bad. The woods were so homogenous, so lacking in any sort of variety; same trees, same grass, same exact shade of green, cut&pasted everywhere.
The city only looked like a city when I flew over the inaccessible parts in the taxi. Somehow they managed to make it feel nothing like a city at all, when I was running through it. Much like the woods, it was just nearly identical textures everwhere, in all directions. All the same shade of grey, and the whole thing felt devoid of any sort of life you'd expect to find in an urban environment. Where were the shops? Does anyone live there? Work there? There were just these grey walls that didn't seem to be the walls of anything in particular. Does anyone do anything there?
I explored as much as I could, and never saw anything remotely interesting. Even a cantina in the space station I went through - a Star Wars cantina should be a no-brainer for lively atmosphere, but it was like wandering into the minimart a bus station at 4am. Just so lifeless, it was almost creepy.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
mirrors what many have been saying and my experience with the game as well. I just can't see how poeple will defend this to no end with obvious huge glaring issues right in front of there eyes. Stuff like this should not of gotten through the beta stages in a late 2011 AAA title and all I can think is the closed beta testers did nothing but praise the game as perfect 10/10 or developers just didn't listen..
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339443/Video-FollowUp-Guide-For-Enhancing-Graphics-and-Performance-in-SWTORSorry-still-Nvidia-Only.html
Not the same thing. That's like judging the taste of an apple pie from watching a video of somebody else eating it.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
Not the same thing. That's like judging the taste of an apple pie from watching a video of somebody else eating it.
Agreed, you really have to play it to get a feel for it.It can be said that after playing last weekends Beta, I no longer feel so bad about loosing SWG as this game has all the star wars atmosphere you need .
Goes straight to the heart the musical score as it does in the films and other games. Really makes you feel like your playing a great game 
Gameplay is awesome too .
http://www.speedtest.net/result/1651869499.png
Strange, it felt like the complete opposite to me, everything seemed to be in a pretty small area on Korriban. I remember looking at the architecture inside the building and thinking too bad I'm only going to be questing here for a short time since this area is relatively small. Outside things opened-up a bit more, but I had the same thought there.hell if you thnik this was lack of polish and all you should've been there for the launch of Age of Conan lol.
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It's also the opposite of what many others are saying, DK was boring IMO that doesn't mean that was the case for everyone, secondly we're talking one of 17 planets here.
There's also a third option, the team didn't have the time to go back and redesign a whole planet. There's also the chance that many in CB saw more glaring issues to report on than how much like a virtual world TOR felt. Which is what the complaint you're quoting seemed to be.
You need to step back and realize not everyone feels the same way you do. Or cares about the things you do.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
There seems to be a *lot* of that on these forums. "I don't like it, therefore anyone who does isn't giving the right feedback!" It's like people who have a favorite restaurant, and want all the food from that restaurant to be on the menu, even when they go to *other* restaurants, and then when it isn't they say the place they are in serves terrible food.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
If you like biowares games you will like this.
If you like WoW, then you'll like TOR. They took everything WoW did, and made it better. Don't expect much more than that and you'll be pleasantly surprised.
For the record, it's not like I'm saying it should be more of a sandbox or anything. Only as much of a "virtual world" as other major MMOs, such as Age of Conan, Aion, LOTRO, Rift, and even WoW. I didn't think that was expecting so much.
edit: oops, double negative
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
I don't have a problem with what you were outlining, that's your opinion, which is why I didn't quote you
.
Edit- I more or less agreed I felt DK was boring as well.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
agreed especially with a game made this late in the MMO world but Distopia apparently feels anything negative towards this game is an attack on him personally for some reason. You can pretty much take what you said and apply it to yourself not everyone feels the way you do as well.
This game has been in the works for a very long time and with its budget really is no reason it's missing some key and even fluff MMO features to flesh it out into a great game.
Rift did it well to a point took most of the basic MMO elements and expanded on them and refined them in many ways. TOR took a great idea with heavy story and dialog quests but did not improve on any of the other core MMO features instead they took a huge step back in many areas such as UI, character customization, enviornments, ect...
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339443/Video-FollowUp-Guide-For-Enhancing-Graphics-and-Performance-in-SWTORSorry-still-Nvidia-Only.html