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The reason this game actually needs to fail.
Margulis
Member CommonPosts: 1,614
Preface - Before I ever played this game I spent 5 months in preparation, I read every book, comic and lore piece and also replayed through KOTOR 1 and 2 entirely. That's how excited I was for this game, what I figured to be my final MMO home. Now a month after release, not only have I cancelled my subscription, but I hope this game fails more than any other game I have played. Actually, I can't think of another game I've played where I can honestly say I desire it to fail, but this one I sure do.
Why?????
It's because a game like this sets a tone for the future of mmo gaming - the more successful it is, the LESS we as gamers get in the future. The more we reward mediocrity, the more mediocrity we will get.
Let's be honest here, after the voice acting and cut-scenes, this game is as generic as they come, and there are countless upon countless of game features and mechanics that not only do not measure up to the competition of the last 3-5 years, but fall WELL below the competition. If you have fun playing the game, that's fine, good for you, but that doesn't mean the game isn't lacking in tons of areas. Personally I find it insulting that a game company can give us this sort of product in 2012 and offer equally lackluster customer service to boot.
Not only that, but it's scary that so many people seem to eat it up without question. Is it because their only experience is with games released early to mid 2000's and that's all they have to compare to? Is it just the honeymoon period of a new game? Perhaps, like myself, they planned on this being their final MMO home and to admit it isn't what they hoped would break their sense of comfort Who knows, but I know the more positive praise and results a game like this gets, the more other developers will think to themselves "hey, we can skip on adding this or that feature, or polishing this aspect up, it doesn't seem like the gamers really care that much, so why should we spend the money on it?"
Bioware, perhaps without knowing it, has started to conduct an experiment with the MMO community - what is the LEAST that we can get away with without the gamers caring, paying attention, noticing, and ultimately affecting profits? If we put a sparkling cherry on top (story, VO, cutscenes), will that be enough to make up for the stale melted sundae it sits upon?
It looks like to some people, yes, it is enough. Not for me. And from what I've seen on this site and many others, looks like a lot of people aren't content with just that cherry. This is good!! The less evidence we give to other developers that they can give us crumbs, the better products we will get down the line.
Comments
They'll care once other AAA MMOs start looming on the horizon (GW2, TSW). It does suck, but there's nothing better to play right now man.
This game does not set shit. The death of this or WoW will not change shit. You cant change lazy devs.
TOR is not a true mmo nor an epic mmo they kept talking about. Epic = limitation, confined game, and lack of features then its number 1
TOR got two things right. Marketing, and timing.
EA spent a metric crap ton of money to market TOR. They made absolutely sure that there is no PC gamer in world that could have missed the launch of TOR. And of course at the same time, they marketed it as the next big thing for MMOs.
Furthermore, they launched the game at the best possible time. Way ahead of the truly next-generation MMOs due to launch during 2012-2013, and far enough behind of WoW and Rift - the two games that are their main competition in the western world.
That's why they got away with presenting us with a mediocre, run-of-the-mill themepark MMO. That's why their game will also shrivel into a few hundred thousand subs after the next-gen MMOs start launching.
TOR will survive, but it won't be the massive behemoth all future games will be compared to. For EA and perhaps Lucas, this game will be marked as a failure. And rightfully so.
I think the problem is that they tried to mesh a single player story game, into a MMO, and it screwed both up....Least impressive mmo I have bought....Even worse than Rift, which I gave 3-4 months (shortest I have ever played anything I bought).
But yeah, nothing else has come out, so I will wait for them to either awe me and figure something out, or for TSW/GW2 to release.
After saying that, I did get my money worth imo, since I look at mmos as entertainment, and compare it to going out, or to the movies etc...
You guys make this game sound worse than SW: Galaxies.
Agree with OP! +1
I think it is....But thats opinion....Atleast pre-NGE SWG....
SWG needed more content, some balancing, and such, in its original style...But I enjoyed it much more than TOR to be honest...Most wont or dont probably, but I also like more sandbox in my mmo...Why I am eagerly awaiting the hybrid mmos.
Agree with the OP. I hope this game crashes and burns. I am sick to death of this banal formula.
Here's something to think about before this thread devolves into an us versus them flame war.
If ToR becomes a resounding success then we can look forward to more of the same for the next millenium; and nobody wants that.
If Tor fails in grand fashion then investors will become nervous and development money will leave the MMO genre and plant itself into more secure projects; and nobody wants that.
The best thing that can happen is for ToR to be successful enough so that the investors see a small return on their investment but nothing spectacular. A return that will keep them in the MMO space and ready to invest in new ideas as they come along. Anyone shouting for ToR to fail is asking for the MMO genre in general to slide into an obscurity of low budget titles.
Well said OP.
I leveled a shadow to 50, bored and uninstalled already.
Back to RIFT and for the first time EVE, which looks really great so far. I m playing it for a few days and i m really having a blast!
And who said that's a bad thing? The age of obscurity and low budgets broguht us of some the best mmo's we've ever seen. The largest budget any mmo ever recieved in this industry, was... that's right: SWTOR. Did all that cash help to create a better mmo? I think the answer is pretty clear here.
The "I told ya" moment is slowly crawling out
the most fun thing about it is that I dont even have to say it out loud - because even the fans admit the game lacks a lot
I think I actually spent way more time reading and theorycrafting about MMOs than playing them
Actually you are wrong there. You need to look at things in context.
When the likes of EQ1, DAoC, Ao etc. were made they were considered pretty high budget endevours and are still remebered fondly and still played. Can you name me a couple of low budget titles from that era that can claim the same?
Investors are what drive the industry forward and if they are chased away from the MMO market then that market suffers as a result.
The I told you so moment from the same people screaming this game will fail before it was released. HAH. The game does need some more polish, but it's just sad we see the same hater names starting the same tired topics, seems like they would just move on, but guess some people have too much time on their hands.
In Bioware we trust!
+1 to you Nazgol. Keep in mind that many of these people posted on a thread not to long ago that they were not even playing MMOs now anyways. So they probably do have too much time on their hands.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
I have to disagree with you there. If this game fails like most in here wants, then some will rethink how to invest in mmo genre. Remember WoW is the most sucessful mmo in history base on numbers. If investor are force to rethink how the make an mmo with the right people and etc, then its win win. Its kind of a good thing that players are speaking and rejecting this game.
Read my blog http://sanmonocobra.blogspot.com/
in before the lock.
Yes a lot worse than Pre-NGE thats for sure...
I was there at the start of SWG and played for quite some time, its one of my all time favorite MMOs and i had great fun playing it. Sadly SOE/LA managed to brake the amazing game they had...
SW:TOR is just a bland themepark game, during the beta it was entertaining for a few days but sadly it did not last more than that.
I feel sorry for people who brought the silly expensive box set thing..
EVE comes to mind (though EVE might be unique in that sense). Those titles you mentioned, yes they were AAA for their times, but not much bigger than single player games of those times.
I do agree with you that the market needs investors, of course, but what I was trying to say (maybe a bit clumsily) is that big money != good mmo.
Don't feel band for me for buying the CE. I enjoy it and like supporting the game. If SWG was that good, then why is it not still around? Why did they even change it to compete with WOW with the NGE?
In Bioware we trust!
Too bad one mans voice carry no weight at all.
One can dream thought right?
You nailed it right there. Currently it is the best of a very underwhelming genre of games. I will give them story, they (SWTOR) bloody well nailed that, it does suck you in and make you forget how plain jane bland the rest of the game is. They screwed the pooch on crafting.
But yeah, at the end of the day what else is there? I can get the same experience from a lot of the F2P games out now as I can these so called triple A games.
Anyway, good point.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
So some people are allowed to be critical of the game and some are "haters" so it does not count.
Sorry, man. But just because some people didn't need to actually buy the game to see that its crap, simply because they have more experience with mmos or just simple common sense to smell a dud before it came out (and there were PLENTY warning signs) doesn't mean they are psychotic "haters." It just means that they happened to be right and you happened to be wrong so just be a man and admit it. No one will think less of you. God knows I've hyped some games that turned out to be real stinkers, lol.
I'm a "hater" and I feel justified in my "hating." From Biowares' almost frightening reliance on "story, story, STORY" to exclusion of everything else down to the christmass release date which in EA's track record usually means one of two things a) they're pushing the game unfinished just to make christmass box sales and b) everybody will buy any shit when its christmass, better to ride it out than rely on retention which we know isn't forthcoming because the game is crap . Sadly, both of those proved true this time. Ill rather gnaw my leg off than buy another EA game. They really deserve to burn.
Because Lucas Arts, greedy as always, saw the success of WoW and wanted instantly the same for SWG! So they thought that completely changing (read wrecking) the game and make it into WoW in Space would give them instantly the same sub numbers!
SWG pre-NGE had over 300.000 loyal subscribers with a very healthy population on pretty much all servers at that time!
For MMO standard at that time, this were really good numbers and nothing to complain about.
But with the unlikely happening with WoW, all studios saw $$$$ and started drooling like dogs and that was the start everyone and his mother started developing and releasing WoW clones, in a desperate attempt to achieve the same success as Blizzard.
Here we are today... more than 7 years later. Rest my case.