Can you link to the data you are basing this on? Specifically, the fact that SWTOR is a "costly and spectacular failure" since your entire argument is based on that part in particular.
I'd like those numbers too...
But people whining on forums are serious statistics, my old friend Loktofeit...
Respect, walk, what did you say? Respect, walk Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me? - PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
I played SWTOR for about 3 weeks. It wasn't bad, but it sums up everything that is wrong with gaming today. Dumbing Down.
I find it in-excusable that games like SWG and Everquest had much more innovation and were out a Decade ago. WOW built up the Theme Park, SWTOR will help kill it. The spectacular and costly failure of SWTOR will force games developers to go back to the drawing board and not give us a single player game with a chat channel anymore. I want living, breathing, immersive worlds. Not a Call of Duty with Spells.
I've got my eye on Guild Wars 2. It might be Theme Parky, but at least the developers are trying to give is something new. Good luck to them. I don't expect it to be as much as a Sandbox like SWG was, but at least it might cater to us Sandbox player in a small way.
I could easily pick this whole thing apart with my eyes closed however I will keep it simple.
Swtor is still has enough of a player base to be profitable. It will not be f2p any time soon no matter how much gw2 fan boys wish it would.
Gw2 is a theme park. Not a single concept in that game is actually new. Many of those features could be found in a myriad of games. Even the dodge system they stole. It feels more like dynasty warriors in game play.
Swtor even said from the get it was not to be a sandbox, Bioware doesnt do sandbox, they do story driven content. If you did not know this then ok sure but any one who plays games knows bioware.
If you want sand box and sci-fi go to eve.
All this peice does is try to jump on the anti Swtor bandwagon and is rather irelevant as your comparing apple's to oranges...Besides we all know Diablo will out sell gw2. Least blizzard added new features that no one has tried before.
Even if the current sub numbers from EA are only half true it still puts SWTOR as one of the more sucessful MMO's of all time in terms of box sales and subs. Contrast that to the more sucessful sandbox style titles at present or in the past and there is no comparison, at least financially. No, plenty more theme parks on the horizon I'm afraid.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
All this peice does is try to jump on the anti Swtor bandwagon and is rather irelevant as your comparing apple's to oranges...Besides we all know Diablo will out sell gw2. Least blizzard added new features that no one has tried before.
Really? All I've seen in the Diablo III beta I'm in for several months now is the dumbing down and oversimplification of the game compared to Diablo II. They did the same to Diablo than what they did to WoW, dumbing down for the lowest common denominator.
I've seen more innovation in a single beta week end in GW2 than in several months of Diablo III... go figure.
Respect, walk, what did you say? Respect, walk Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me? - PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
Even if the current sub numbers from EA are only half true it still puts SWTOR as one of the more sucessful MMO's of all time in terms of box sales and subs. Contrast that to the more sucessful sandbox style titles at present or in the past and there is no comparison, at least financially. No, plenty more theme parks on the horizon I'm afraid.
I agree, thing is that people here desperately want SWTOR to be a failure. Look at the people with 'game still has 1.7 million' subs in their signature. Even if SWTOR has half of the subs of what EA's has been telling us, it is still one of the most successful themepark MMOS in recent years.
All this peice does is try to jump on the anti Swtor bandwagon and is rather irelevant as your comparing apple's to oranges...Besides we all know Diablo will out sell gw2. Least blizzard added new features that no one has tried before.
Really? All I've seen in the Diablo III beta I'm in for several months now is the dumbing down and oversimplification of the game compared to Diablo II. They did the same to Diablo than what they did to WoW, dumbing down for the lowest common denominator.
I've seen more innovation in a single beta week end in GW2 than in several months of Diablo III... go figure.
LOL.....Ok name a single game with a cash shop auction house. Name a single game with a shared bank for all characters.
I have played both and while you may call it dumbing down, how much more simple can diablo's be. Gw2 on the other hand I felt like I was being walked around liked a questing care bear and when I did do pvp It was so Laughable how easily I was able to exploit the necro class that I easily saw this as the most played class till they nerf.....
But please tell me what ORIGINAL INNOVATION GW2 HAS....Please cause I played it and I keep hearing this yet no one ever backs it.
Even if the current sub numbers from EA are only half true it still puts SWTOR as one of the more sucessful MMO's of all time in terms of box sales and subs. Contrast that to the more sucessful sandbox style titles at present or in the past and there is no comparison, at least financially. No, plenty more theme parks on the horizon I'm afraid.
The most successfull sandbox MMO would be UO which runs for 17 years now. Then there's EvE, which is "special" (not your usual planetside MMO), but incontestably successful. All other sandbox game have lamentably failed, mostly because they were/are badly designed piles of crap written by mediocre amateur developers.
Respect, walk, what did you say? Respect, walk Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me? - PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
LOL.....Ok name a single game with a cash shop auction house. Name a single game with a shared bank for all characters.
I have played both and while you may call it dumbing down, how much more simple can diablo's be. Gw2 on the other hand I felt like I was being walked around liked a questing care bear and when I did do pvp It was so Laughable how easily I was able to exploit the necro class that I easily saw this as the most played class till they nerf.....
But please tell me what ORIGINAL INNOVATION GW2 HAS....Please cause I played it and I keep hearing this yet no one ever backs it.
Innovation can come from both new features and also the way to put features together to create something new. Both cars and motorcycles having wheels doesn't mean they are clones.
GW2 broke the WoW clone mold and reopened the world to players instead of restricting them to "end game" zones and raids, and instead of pitting the players of a same side against each other (for loot, resources, etc...), the game actually constantly encourages them to work together. That is certainly the most impressive improvement achieved by GW2. Yes, GW2 is still a "theme park" style game, but it still changed that genre enough to break it's mold, for its greater good in my opinion.
PS: I'm not bashing SW:TOR in any way btw... unlike other posters, I don't "spit in the soup", like we say in my country. I've played SW:TOR since release (and beta before), and am still playing, it's a good game, even though still rigidly hold in the WoW clone mold for most parts. I actually enjoyed the recent plague event because it showed that Bioware can encourage people to go back to lower level planets, not letting all those low level areas go to waste. And I definitely don't think the game failed, to the opposite, it's obviously the biggest theme park MMO release in these last years.
Respect, walk, what did you say? Respect, walk Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me? - PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
I played SWTOR for about 3 weeks. It wasn't bad, but it sums up everything that is wrong with gaming today. Dumbing Down.
I find it in-excusable that games like SWG and Everquest had much more innovation and were out a Decade ago. WOW built up the Theme Park, SWTOR will help kill it. The spectacular and costly failure of SWTOR will force games developers to go back to the drawing board and not give us a single player game with a chat channel anymore. I want living, breathing, immersive worlds. Not a Call of Duty with Spells.
I've got my eye on Guild Wars 2. It might be Theme Parky, but at least the developers are trying to give is something new. Good luck to them. I don't expect it to be as much as a Sandbox like SWG was, but at least it might cater to us Sandbox player in a small way.
Why are you not playing DarkFall or Mortal Online if you like sandbox type MMOs.
Both DF and MO are poor games. DF has abysmal game design, MO is... a clusterf*ck.
Who care weather they are poor games lol,that's not what the topics about.Poor or not they are sandbox games to a degree,so i ask again: if the OP likes sandbox so much then why is he/she not playing those games instead of theme park MMOs.
So many people spit shit about sandbox but never play them.
Maybe the OP likes sandbox games, but he doesn't like poor games?
I played SWTOR for about 3 weeks. It wasn't bad, but it sums up everything that is wrong with gaming today. Dumbing Down. I find it in-excusable that games like SWG and Everquest had much more innovation and were out a Decade ago. WOW built up the Theme Park, SWTOR will help kill it. The spectacular and costly failure of SWTOR will force games developers to go back to the drawing board and not give us a single player game with a chat channel anymore. I want living, breathing, immersive worlds. Not a Call of Duty with Spells. I've got my eye on Guild Wars 2. It might be Theme Parky, but at least the developers are trying to give is something new. Good luck to them. I don't expect it to be as much as a Sandbox like SWG was, but at least it might cater to us Sandbox player in a small way.
Can you link to the data you are basing this on? Specifically, the fact that SWTOR is a "costly and spectacular failure" since your entire argument is based on that part in particular.
I've said it before but it bears repeating. This site typically has about 300 active members on. I would say about 70% of them, or so dislike TOR. This is not a basis to say the game has failed. A game doesn't fail until the servers are down and there are no players. Plenty of themepark games have have lost players and even went free to play and it has not affected new mmo's as they're still making themeparks more and sandboxs less.
I mean really, as of this moment, TOR is more popular and has more players then any sub based sandbox game, does it not?
As a counter point to the OP, how many Sandboxes have crashed and burned?
I played SWTOR for about 3 weeks. It wasn't bad, but it sums up everything that is wrong with gaming today. Dumbing Down.
I find it in-excusable that games like SWG and Everquest had much more innovation and were out a Decade ago. WOW built up the Theme Park, SWTOR will help kill it. The spectacular and costly failure of SWTOR will force games developers to go back to the drawing board and not give us a single player game with a chat channel anymore. I want living, breathing, immersive worlds. Not a Call of Duty with Spells.
I've got my eye on Guild Wars 2. It might be Theme Parky, but at least the developers are trying to give is something new. Good luck to them. I don't expect it to be as much as a Sandbox like SWG was, but at least it might cater to us Sandbox player in a small way.
Can you link to the data you are basing this on? Specifically, the fact that SWTOR is a "costly and spectacular failure" since your entire argument is based on that part in particular.
Sure, you ever heard of "The customer is always right". Well the public have spoken. The vast majority are negative:
Finally, just look at the Offical Forums for lots more negativity. everyone isn't lying, not too mention it's probably going Free-2-Play soon. What else do you want?
I've said it before but it bears repeating. This site typically has about 300 active members on. I would say about 70% of them, or so dislike TOR. This is not a basis to say the game has failed. A game doesn't fail until the servers are down and there are no players. Plenty of themepark games have have lost players and even went free to play and it has not affected new mmo's as they're still making themeparks more and sandboxs less.
I mean really, as of this moment, TOR is more popular and has more players then any sub based sandbox game, does it not?
As a counter point to the OP, how many Sandboxes have crashed and burned?
The mistake Bioware made was not the product but contributing to a runaway train of expectations. They made a niche MMO that will appeal to a couple million players -- like Guild Wars 2 will fill a niche and Tera will fill a niche and TSW will fill a niche -- but the budget, marketing, and haughty, condescending attitude of their employees suggested they bought into the notion that TOR was destined to be "WoW in Space" (from the standpoint of its ceiling, not necessarily the gameplay).
If TOR proves anything it's that there's no such thing as a WoW-killer. WoW will die on its own of old age as players migrate a few hundred thousand at a time to games "specialized" to their own tastes, including TOR. In that respect TOR "accidentally" anticipated the future of MMORPGs, the entire pot split into a dozen pieces of 2-4 million players each between games that range from a pseudo-single player theme park to a directionless Sims-like fantasy sandbox.
"a couple of million players" is a niche? I bet Vanguard and many, many other games wish they had a couple million players, as a casual -hard core player who plays other games as well I do enjoy my Bioware games including swtor. It is so refreshing to see good quest to go along with a good story line, good production and still have some mmo elements. I have a level 29 Sith, a level 16 bounty hunter, a level 13 Jedi counselor and a level 15 trooper and let me tell you swtor is a casual players delight. That is what is great about so many mmo's is that you have choice. If you want hardcore PvP you go to Tera, if you want an super easy game with some what interesting quests and a good end game you go with wow, if you are a combat aficionado you go with Tera or AOC, there are great choices to be had
Dictionary.com
niche (noun) : a distinct segment of the market
As you yourself point out, TOR is not made to appeal to everybody: it's a "casual player's delight." Those that prefer other aspects of the MMO experience have other games to choose from. That very precisely defines TOR as a niche game...it's niche is gamers who prefer a casual, permanent and persistent single player RPG experience with optional social interaction.
That it's successful catering to its audience in a way that other MMOs wish they were is neither here nor there ... it doesn't change the fact that its true target audience represents a relatively specific group of players in the MMO player population. WoW on the other hand, has at various times tried to appeal to as many players as possible. Many people tried to make TOR out to be that game as well, but it turned out to be something quite different.
Actually thinking it over I do agree with you especially about wow, Blizzard dev are master strategists when it comes to marketing their product, they seem to be able to find the pulse of the casual-hardcore theme park mmo player, their leveling up process is great for casual players and their end game appeals to hardcore and that is why they have 10 million players. It also helps that you can play the game on a calculator, compare that with Vanguard where you need a SSD hd to play and even Tera- i have a dual core e8500, ati 4870 and 4 gigs of ram on windows xp and can only play on medium settings. Wow understands that 70% of computers fall in the mid to low catagory. Swtor same thing medium graphics (still looks good but wow looks better on ultra high). I am an advertising consultant and I know what makes people buy a product and Blizzard does also
I played SWTOR for about 3 weeks. It wasn't bad, but it sums up everything that is wrong with gaming today. Dumbing Down.
I find it in-excusable that games like SWG and Everquest had much more innovation and were out a Decade ago. WOW built up the Theme Park, SWTOR will help kill it. The spectacular and costly failure of SWTOR will force games developers to go back to the drawing board and not give us a single player game with a chat channel anymore. I want living, breathing, immersive worlds. Not a Call of Duty with Spells.
I've got my eye on Guild Wars 2. It might be Theme Parky, but at least the developers are trying to give is something new. Good luck to them. I don't expect it to be as much as a Sandbox like SWG was, but at least it might cater to us Sandbox player in a small way.
Umm, GW2 is not going to be a Sandbox game (not even close), and how is it different from WOW or SWTOR?. Personally, I love SWTOR. I'm still having fun and have no plans to leave anytime soon. That said, would I have loved SWTOR to be a Sandbox mmorpg? SURE! But all in all, I don't see anything out there or even in development that can match SWTOR. Yes, the game needs more content and PVP needs to go cross server with additional Warzones. But all in all, it's not a bad game and keeps me occupied.
Obviously, MY experience has been different from yours.
A real sandbox is a game like minecraft. SWTOR is as theme-park as you can get. It doesn't do a bad job at it, but its nothing mindblowing either. I would've quit after 1 month if it weren't for my partner loving the game. After a while I just got so disengaged I had to quit. It just doesn't offer anything new or exciting enough.
A real sandbox is a game like minecraft. SWTOR is as theme-park as you can get. It doesn't do a bad job at it, but its nothing mindblowing either. I would've quit after 1 month if it weren't for my partner loving the game. After a while I just got so disengaged I had to quit. It just doesn't offer anything new or exciting enough.
I was playing BioWare games in 2001-2002. Back them a big success was 500k copies and 1 mill was huge. KoToR got a 7.5 review in gamespot.
BioWare games are niche. Most players don't like story heavy games. Its been a decade since KoToR and most games have bland story and weak voice actors. I know most players don't like BioWare games.
I still support them because are one of the few companies that make games for me. And I will support any company that try to do that kind of games. But I don't insult players that like other kind of games.
Why do exist people in this forums that does that is beyond me.
Finally, just look at the Offical Forums for lots more negativity. everyone isn't lying, not too mention it's probably going Free-2-Play soon. What else do you want?
The first link is really funny.
A guy played this game for multiple months and then complains its "boring".
Hello ? Boring ? He played it for multiple months ! I call a game boring when I'm bored out of my mind after 3 days, like with Guild Wars.
MMo Catch-22.
If you play a MMO for 3 hours and find it boring, people call you an idiot because you can't judge a MMO until you gt to endgame.
If you play a MMO for 3 months and find it boring, people call you an idiot because you can't NOT like a MMO if you played it for that long.
MMo Catch-22. If you play a MMO for 3 hours and find it boring, people call you an idiot because you can't judge a MMO until you gt to endgame. If you play a MMO for 3 months and find it boring, people call you an idiot because you can't NOT like a MMO if you played it for that long.
There is no such thing as a bad MMO, amirite?
Hehe, this is sort of right .
For me I usually find myself logging on less and less and play / do other stuff instead of the new shiny MMO. That's usually a sign to unsub. In SwTOR that happened over the course of the 1st month. In Eve it happened after about 5 years .
Umm, GW2 is not going to be a Sandbox game (not even close), and how is it different from WOW or SWTOR?. Personally, I love SWTOR. I'm still having fun and have no plans to leave anytime soon. That said, would I have loved SWTOR to be a Sandbox mmorpg? SURE! But all in all, I don't see anything out there or even in development that can match SWTOR. Yes, the game needs more content and PVP needs to go cross server with additional Warzones. But all in all, it's not a bad game and keeps me occupied.
Obviously, MY experience has been different from yours.
GW2 is not sandbox in the original meaning of the word, but it does take it's own approach to lot of things. It opens the world up to the player, so you can just head to a general direction and find interesting stuff to do without any ! and ? hanging above peoples heads or preset path to follow. It is pretty dynamic in these things too as some times something might be going on in this location, sometimes not. Also these events have a real effect and consequence on the world; fail to assasinate centaur cheif and they might launch attack to nearby village. Fail to defend the village and they will capture it and now you cant travel there, all NPC's are dead and untill you conquer it back it stays that way. And none of this is instanced or special event, it all happens in the open world. This kind of 'living world' is something I haven't seen in most single player RPG's, and not in any MMO's.
This video shows the amount of detail these events have pretty well, if you dont mind funny accents
I played SWTOR for about 3 weeks. It wasn't bad, but it sums up everything that is wrong with gaming today. Dumbing Down.
I find it in-excusable that games like SWG and Everquest had much more innovation and were out a Decade ago. WOW built up the Theme Park, SWTOR will help kill it. The spectacular and costly failure of SWTOR will force games developers to go back to the drawing board and not give us a single player game with a chat channel anymore. I want living, breathing, immersive worlds. Not a Call of Duty with Spells.
I've got my eye on Guild Wars 2. It might be Theme Parky, but at least the developers are trying to give is something new. Good luck to them. I don't expect it to be as much as a Sandbox like SWG was, but at least it might cater to us Sandbox player in a small way.
I find it unacceptable that Ultima Online came out years before EQ, and EQ had less innovation, and SWG came out even later still and didn't have the innovation of UO, either.
That said, the quest system in EQ1 was garbage, complete shit. Compare that to the choices you have in SWTOR that actually work, and you see one area where SWTOR innovated. There are several. Granted, SWTOR doesn't have the most variety of features, but what it does, it does well... Star Wars + Story.
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Comments
I'd like those numbers too...
But people whining on forums are serious statistics, my old friend Loktofeit...
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
I could easily pick this whole thing apart with my eyes closed however I will keep it simple.
Swtor is still has enough of a player base to be profitable. It will not be f2p any time soon no matter how much gw2 fan boys wish it would.
Gw2 is a theme park. Not a single concept in that game is actually new. Many of those features could be found in a myriad of games. Even the dodge system they stole. It feels more like dynasty warriors in game play.
Swtor even said from the get it was not to be a sandbox, Bioware doesnt do sandbox, they do story driven content. If you did not know this then ok sure but any one who plays games knows bioware.
If you want sand box and sci-fi go to eve.
All this peice does is try to jump on the anti Swtor bandwagon and is rather irelevant as your comparing apple's to oranges...Besides we all know Diablo will out sell gw2. Least blizzard added new features that no one has tried before.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Really? All I've seen in the Diablo III beta I'm in for several months now is the dumbing down and oversimplification of the game compared to Diablo II. They did the same to Diablo than what they did to WoW, dumbing down for the lowest common denominator.
I've seen more innovation in a single beta week end in GW2 than in several months of Diablo III... go figure.
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
I agree, thing is that people here desperately want SWTOR to be a failure. Look at the people with 'game still has 1.7 million' subs in their signature. Even if SWTOR has half of the subs of what EA's has been telling us, it is still one of the most successful themepark MMOS in recent years.
LOL.....Ok name a single game with a cash shop auction house. Name a single game with a shared bank for all characters.
I have played both and while you may call it dumbing down, how much more simple can diablo's be. Gw2 on the other hand I felt like I was being walked around liked a questing care bear and when I did do pvp It was so Laughable how easily I was able to exploit the necro class that I easily saw this as the most played class till they nerf.....
But please tell me what ORIGINAL INNOVATION GW2 HAS....Please cause I played it and I keep hearing this yet no one ever backs it.
The most successfull sandbox MMO would be UO which runs for 17 years now. Then there's EvE, which is "special" (not your usual planetside MMO), but incontestably successful. All other sandbox game have lamentably failed, mostly because they were/are badly designed piles of crap written by mediocre amateur developers.
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
Innovation can come from both new features and also the way to put features together to create something new. Both cars and motorcycles having wheels doesn't mean they are clones.
GW2 broke the WoW clone mold and reopened the world to players instead of restricting them to "end game" zones and raids, and instead of pitting the players of a same side against each other (for loot, resources, etc...), the game actually constantly encourages them to work together. That is certainly the most impressive improvement achieved by GW2. Yes, GW2 is still a "theme park" style game, but it still changed that genre enough to break it's mold, for its greater good in my opinion.
PS: I'm not bashing SW:TOR in any way btw... unlike other posters, I don't "spit in the soup", like we say in my country. I've played SW:TOR since release (and beta before), and am still playing, it's a good game, even though still rigidly hold in the WoW clone mold for most parts. I actually enjoyed the recent plague event because it showed that Bioware can encourage people to go back to lower level planets, not letting all those low level areas go to waste. And I definitely don't think the game failed, to the opposite, it's obviously the biggest theme park MMO release in these last years.
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
This forum is always good for a laugh.
Maybe the OP likes sandbox games, but he doesn't like poor games?
That would make him just like me in that regard.
I'm wondering if anyone else will attempt the level of npc voices in that game. It semed to have a very mixed reception, and cost a fortune.
The sooner you fall behind the more time you have to catch up.
I've said it before but it bears repeating. This site typically has about 300 active members on. I would say about 70% of them, or so dislike TOR. This is not a basis to say the game has failed. A game doesn't fail until the servers are down and there are no players. Plenty of themepark games have have lost players and even went free to play and it has not affected new mmo's as they're still making themeparks more and sandboxs less.
I mean really, as of this moment, TOR is more popular and has more players then any sub based sandbox game, does it not?
As a counter point to the OP, how many Sandboxes have crashed and burned?
Exactly
http://trends.google.com/websites?q=swtor.com%2Cmmorpg.com&geo=all&date=mtd&sort=0
Yes it is. Always the same whine over and over, though I do admit we hadn't seen this particuliar brand in awhile.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
Actually thinking it over I do agree with you especially about wow, Blizzard dev are master strategists when it comes to marketing their product, they seem to be able to find the pulse of the casual-hardcore theme park mmo player, their leveling up process is great for casual players and their end game appeals to hardcore and that is why they have 10 million players. It also helps that you can play the game on a calculator, compare that with Vanguard where you need a SSD hd to play and even Tera- i have a dual core e8500, ati 4870 and 4 gigs of ram on windows xp and can only play on medium settings. Wow understands that 70% of computers fall in the mid to low catagory. Swtor same thing medium graphics (still looks good but wow looks better on ultra high). I am an advertising consultant and I know what makes people buy a product and Blizzard does also
Umm, GW2 is not going to be a Sandbox game (not even close), and how is it different from WOW or SWTOR?. Personally, I love SWTOR. I'm still having fun and have no plans to leave anytime soon. That said, would I have loved SWTOR to be a Sandbox mmorpg? SURE! But all in all, I don't see anything out there or even in development that can match SWTOR. Yes, the game needs more content and PVP needs to go cross server with additional Warzones. But all in all, it's not a bad game and keeps me occupied.
Obviously, MY experience has been different from yours.
A real sandbox is a game like minecraft. SWTOR is as theme-park as you can get. It doesn't do a bad job at it, but its nothing mindblowing either. I would've quit after 1 month if it weren't for my partner loving the game. After a while I just got so disengaged I had to quit. It just doesn't offer anything new or exciting enough.
What does?
BioWare games are niche. Most players don't like story heavy games. Its been a decade since KoToR and most games have bland story and weak voice actors. I know most players don't like BioWare games.
I still support them because are one of the few companies that make games for me. And I will support any company that try to do that kind of games. But I don't insult players that like other kind of games.
Why do exist people in this forums that does that is beyond me.
MMo Catch-22.
If you play a MMO for 3 hours and find it boring, people call you an idiot because you can't judge a MMO until you gt to endgame.
If you play a MMO for 3 months and find it boring, people call you an idiot because you can't NOT like a MMO if you played it for that long.
There is no such thing as a bad MMO, amirite?
Hehe, this is sort of right
.
For me I usually find myself logging on less and less and play / do other stuff instead of the new shiny MMO. That's usually a sign to unsub. In SwTOR that happened over the course of the 1st month. In Eve it happened after about 5 years
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GW2 is not sandbox in the original meaning of the word, but it does take it's own approach to lot of things. It opens the world up to the player, so you can just head to a general direction and find interesting stuff to do without any ! and ? hanging above peoples heads or preset path to follow. It is pretty dynamic in these things too as some times something might be going on in this location, sometimes not. Also these events have a real effect and consequence on the world; fail to assasinate centaur cheif and they might launch attack to nearby village. Fail to defend the village and they will capture it and now you cant travel there, all NPC's are dead and untill you conquer it back it stays that way. And none of this is instanced or special event, it all happens in the open world. This kind of 'living world' is something I haven't seen in most single player RPG's, and not in any MMO's.
This video shows the amount of detail these events have pretty well, if you dont mind funny accents
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CyqGJHTjes
My Guild Wars 2 blog. Read it. The bestestest and most TRUTHEST BLOG EVER!!
I find it unacceptable that Ultima Online came out years before EQ, and EQ had less innovation, and SWG came out even later still and didn't have the innovation of UO, either.
That said, the quest system in EQ1 was garbage, complete shit. Compare that to the choices you have in SWTOR that actually work, and you see one area where SWTOR innovated. There are several. Granted, SWTOR doesn't have the most variety of features, but what it does, it does well... Star Wars + Story.
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I am interpreting the OP's meaning in that TOR was a WoW clone and a failure and therefore somehow validates the need for a sandbox MMO.
One more WoW clone that didn't live up to expectations does not automatically translate into a successful argument for Sandbox games.
The particular style of a game and the quality of development of a game have little to do with each other.
The only good argument for or against a good sandbox MMO will be a good sandbox MMO.