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DeaconX Reviews SWTOR (5 months of testing)
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Really? Cut Corners? They didnt implement every single wish or fantasy you could think of at release and they cut corners? I suppose bioware would have to develop a holodeck to keep you people happy.
I'm downloading the client now, I look forward to finding out for myself. However, the author of this review goes into detail about a lot of things that matter to me in MMOs and that help or break my immersion, which is something I have to have in order to stick with any MMO for long.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
Actually elocke what you are taking about are the BONUS quests that you DO NOT have to complete. They are there to award BONUS experience if you choose to complete them but you are not forced too. I myself ignored many of them because I was more interested in the story. As for the "Fedex" quests . . . yep, they are in there. As are the "Kill a Boss".
Let's be honest folks, there are only a limited variety of quest types you can do and eventually they all get tiresome if you dwell on it. You have the "Fedex", the "Kill a Boss", "Find the Object", the "Kill XX of YY", and finally the "Combination of . . .". You can throw in a little variety now and then with puzzles and alternate paths found with some sort of skills (both of which SWTOR has), but in the end you are still stuck with pretty much the same basic quests AND the need to actually get to them and fight things along the way (or people complain of "dead worlds").
The important thing is for the developer to give you a reason to ignore the same style of questing done over and over. BioWare is doing this with Story. It's affective IF that is the type of thing you like. Very affective.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
Hi DeaconX,
While it wasn't realistic to expect a mix of SWG & Kotor, taking only the best from those games, I can understand how disappointed you are with BioWare delivery.
Long time ago someone joked about TOR and posted something along: Bye O Ware I'm not going to pay to play "The Restricted Wars" MMO. He was incinerated beyond any possible resurrection and still, that's exactly what they delivered:
A game on rails, with very limited choices.
With a time frame of 6 years of development (since December, 2005) and a budget over $100 millions, one can wonder what happened. This is like 2 or maybe 3 times Aion or AoC budget and we end with a game that's missing many features from the main AAA games, with... V.O. and fair dialogs. And that's it.
We all know whatever average (or not) the game will be, it will sell like hot cakes because of the IP and the assassination of SWG. Now what, as a player, I'm worried is how much and how fast they are going to improve the game. Because as the only SW MMO left (please don't mention CWA nor the black project) I do hope the game to be successful.
Personally I rated the game B because I didn't look with a sandbox player's eyes but more with a theme park one.
Your title should be Preview not Review, the game is still changing with a month to go....
I've been in beta for 4 months now and it's come a long ways, there still some minor bugs but nothing game breaking like some people are implying.... The last month Bioware has been changing things up and adding and removing and re-adding features to see how people react, after all it is a beta... But some people don't like there gaming experience to be interrupted so they go into fits when Bioware does this.... guess they don't understand the concept of Beta...
As for the OP "review" some of his poitns are right on others are more subjective as each person will like or dislike different things. For me the Space Combat would be 8/10 if you rate it based on a rail shooter, it gets pretty intense in the higher level combat missions... You give it a low rating because it sounds like you wanted a SWG space simulator instead. Problem with SWG space simulator was a serious lack of content plus pvp always ended in who could turn the fastest won. I know a lot of people in my guild in SWG hated the space combat, they would always get turned around and lost, plus you needed a joystick to take full advantage of it. I think Bioware went the smart route and offered content that everyone can play and not just the space sim junkies...
SWTOR does open up more when you get to worlds like Hoth, but the thing is people always say they want big worlds like SWG, the truth about SWG was 85% of the planets were empty with no content. I guess as a hardcore RP'er that might be fun but for most it's rather boring.
It would be cool if they let us put up trophies and some decorations in our space ships, something similar to Mass Effect 2 would even be cool... Bioware has said it's on there wall to do list for after the game launches...
Bottom line is no game starts out with everything in it, stuff gets added in as stime goes by.... otherwise we would have to wait another 2-3 years for SWTOR if they put in everything everyone wanted.
Bioware did not assassinate SWG, SWG took a cyanide pill back when they made the switch to the NGE, the population has never been the same. In the interview with Smeadly it sounded like they could of retained the rights to keep SWG going but it was not worth the money Lucasarts wanted based on how many people were still playing SWG.
No, but they could have taken the character creator seriously and made a decent one. Why is it that only crappy eastern mmo's have the best creators, short of APB? It's not fun seeing a thousand clones walking around. This also leads to why there isn't an appearance tab yet. I've been giving feedback for months now. "Fluff" is important for character attachment. I'm not one of those people with 10 alts that mean nothing to me.
What's also funny is that according to a guildy that actually works for BW, they didn't realize that a feature such as item linking and item preview would be so wanted. It took until the last patch to actually implement that.
No basic UI customization other than moving the chat log is also mind boggling. Allow me to move and resize every aspect. I'm not asking for silly addons, just basic functionality. Why do we still not have numbers on our target bars or our own? Why is there still no target of target? It's little things like this which make it pretty obvious that BW is still learning the whole "MMO" thing. Whether they can deliver is still unknown.
Gotta be paid off by another company, only logical answer right?
If positive is shill, negative is paid off. am i doing this right? this is how forum people rate previews obviously negative is spot on and positive is complete and utter hogwash. Some people in this thread are really cute with their double standards.
Seriously though, i get the feeling the scaling on some grades are a bit off. Misses a feature and it gets docked half the total score. While i agree CC isn't all that great and some of the hairs are a bit funny to look at. It's on par or better then most MMOs that iv'e seen where you get a choice of hair, eye color and faces.
Here you get hair, eye color, tatooes, body structure, plus more. Play a F2P game once, any will do, and i mean a real F2p not a P2P that went F2P. THen come back to TOR, you'll see it's much better and deserves IMO a much better score.
Personally looking at it and seeing the slant i upgrade it by about...1.5 to 8.0 which is about what this game normally gets. 8.0-8.5. Which is about what i expected.
Opinions are great, but when your giving a score to a game, kind have to be fair. Which i don't believe you were. oh well, thats 2 negative compared to what 20 positive..not everyone is going to like it.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
I have to admit I'm really surprised to learn about the item linking and preview, that's indeed 2 very basic features of any decent MMO.
Now you say that it explains a lot of their choices in this list
Now I'm sad.
They have item linking in game, so that bit of information is false.
Please reread what i wrote. Yes it's in game but it took months of feedback to even make BW aware that it was something most people expect.
SWTOR the most expensive game to date, their budget could feed every child in Africa indefinetely... And it's wrong to assume the game would be packed with content and longlevity? Damn, I must be stupid to expect something greater than vanilla WoW.
It's a RPG a massive multiplayer online role-playing game, they've spent more money than all of that've read this thread will ever earn in a lifetime combined and it's wrong to expect a game that's not just another themepark cookie cutter like WoW, Rift etc. Bring the RP, bring a persistent world, not an instanced shallow, narrowed and sharded zone that takes a couple of minutes to cross.
Give us a real persistent world where you can actually feel the war raging between the factions, where your factions actions can have an impact.
Nah, this will just be WoW in space, nothing else. I'm fine with that, I won't raise this game to the skies, I will praise it for what it is, WoW in space and it's pretty decent.
Ask most of the full access beta tester that've played this game for months and they'll say that it's just WoW in space with BioWare storytelling and they like it, if you expect something else you're doing it wrong.
This game will only hold a longtime intrest for the same type of players who kept raiding and grinding battlegrounds in WoW. Items! We'll rarely see groundbreaking a new fun mechanics when it comes to boss encounters that've haven't seen in WoW, it will follow the same bland pattern but in a Sci-Fi skin.
I've already pre-ordered this game. If I did not like WoW i wouldnt. Most WoW "haters" will be so turned off by this game because it is a 1:1 WoW port to outer space, the game does not follow The Old Republic lore, classes are designed as WoW classes, most abilities are exactly like in WoW but masquerade as "Star Warish".
DeaconX is the reason I found out about SWTOR in Oct of 08.....Hes the reason I have a Oct 08 join date in the official forums.....
That being said, Ive been playtesting since early Summer......And I agree with his assessment.....IN ALL CATEGORIES...
Imo, of course, his rationale hits home, and his scores are sound. Bio could of done alot more with this game but didnt.
A 6 out of 10 overall is more then fair.......Nice job Deacon
Whatever happened to the IN BIOWARE WE TRUST signatures?
You must be new to mmo rpgs. I'll fill you in. They are almost NEVER complete games at release, in fact by their very nature they are not. They grow and get better depending on what the developers think is best and (we hope) our feed back. Many of you played very simimlar mmorpgs at the times of their releases which were lacking features such as the ones you describe and it did not detract from your experience. You stayed with the games because you fundamentally enjoyed them. As for your 'guildy" who works with him, I would not trust an uncredited source like that as far as I could have a wookie throw him. At the end of the day including "swimming" and "gear dye" (two of the things listed here http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=293598)" would not make one god damned difference if the experience was enjoyable. You will play without those things. You did it before. If you dont like the fundamentals of the game then adding that crap in won't change that one god damn bit. The game will grow, those things will come in time and all will be well.
I keep going back to this post becaues it accurately sums up almost every single negative review I've seen. Instead of rating what they do see int he game, they secretly pine and wish for this or for that. Game is fun kids and it will be succesfull. Play it or dont at this point I could care less. If you do Ill see you around. If not have fun at the zoo in april.
I'm curious what you would rate other themeparks at release and what they are now (or when you played them last?), Deacon?
Admittedly my testing was limited, but what I did experience I found more enjoyable than WoW (Pre-Cata, haven't played since), Rift (beta tested for months, played till just a month ago) or WAR (which I have played on and off since release, currently "off" and likely to stay that way if world PvP is any good in TOR).
I actually agree with the vast majority of your individual category opinions and therefore have trouble arguing with your scores, but overall I have found that to be largely the case in most modern themeparks particularly at release. The difference for me is that I enjoy TOR's story. On paper, it is remakrably similar, at least in ways that I can tell now and that matter t ome, to games like Rift and WoW. However, the story element to me brings it further along.
Also, I prefer PvE combat, both in leveling and in flashpoints. Maybe it gets old, as I never got to 50, but I felt far more heroic as a character in TOR than I ever did in Rift or WoW. While combat is still the same general style, the way enemies are grouped just made it feel completely different. I felt like I was utilizing a variety of skills depending on number of opponents and general cooldowns available.
Really my only significant disagreement is that I personally feel the graphics in game in terms of cities and environments are pretty good... Not perfect, but still good. It may be that the style really appeals to me.
I did want to say that when I first loaded up the game and went through character selection I was immediately turned off. The limited options and overall terrible choices in some categories frustrated me. I feel like I ended up making virtually the same looking character for each of the 4 or 5 characters I made with only slight differences because I detested the majority of options... and there weren't very many anyway. That's literally my only major complaint so far...
Meh, although it was a bit harsh, I would agree that there is room for improvement.
But what is there so far is still more fun than pretty much any other MMORPG.
And Bioware DOES intend to improve on the game. There have been huge improvements THIS WEEK.
It's damn good now, and going to get better.
meh, I don't think his roots lend him any more credence than anyone else with a solid argument. Probably less so as I'm always wary of people on the internet trying to come across as some sort of "celebrity". I don't know who DeaconX is so that means nothign to me. It's what he says that's important.
Having said that I like that he explained his rationale. he didn't do what so many do on this and other sites and just start spouting what sucks. I appreciate the timbre of his post and that he clearly stated what he did like/didn't like and why.
Now, having said "that" some of what he says I agree with and some I just don't. And again, some/most? of what he said is just opinion, no more or less. If you and others agree with him then you share the same opinion. I share his opinion on character customization.
But take his list and it can easily be turned around and someone might say "I love the combat" or "I love how housing is done". Especially since it's pretty much a given that all these things will be expanded once the game launches. I will say what others probably might be thinking but it would be a perfect place to put in a cash shop. for housing and visual customization options. I don't know if that's their plan but there it is.
In any case, again, it's an opinion piece. Some of it I share, some i think is silly or non-issues and I'm pretty excited for the launch of this game.
I'm fairly certain that there are thousands upon thousands of people who could care less about what the naysayers are saying and will be there on launch day. The game will be a smash hit without those who can't come to terms that it's not the game that they would have designed.
However, we will see what type of longevity it has. I know people like to spout "but rift..." well Rift wasn't "all that" in my opinion and I knew this from beta. What I liked about it was the invasions and they tempered those relatively quickly so that I just lost interest.
If they can keep up with fixes, content updates then it will be a great theme park mmo. If they cant' then they will run into issues.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
The problem with this guy is that if he actually followed the game as much as he purports, how is it that the OP could have ever thought SW:TOR was going to be a good game? The Old Republic clearly does not mix well with his taste in MMORPGs.
Spare me the experienced talk nonsense, ive been there and done that longer than i can remember. I'm not asking for complete, i'm asking for basic things that should be part of all new MMO's from the start. They should be considered standard at this point in time. BW is specifically going for that market and should know better.
I notice the little things. The little things add up to longevity.
I love tor thats all that matters to me. Im not gonna rate the diffrent parts. I will say character creating was lacking in body types but for the most part i really enjoyed tor.
I dont need alot of options in myc haracter creator to overall i didnt think was bad that said all that matters to me is did i have fun playing tor and i had a blast. so ll be there on day 1 early acess as i turned in pre order code day 1 of pre orders and will have a blast.
In the end all a review is , is a personal opinon of a game and i dont care how long someone may or may not have followed a game doesnt make there review any better or any more reliable then the next guys.
If this is the way the OP feels about having played a Beta, it makes me feel hopeful for the state of the game 5 months down the road.
Many of the points, from character creation to equipment, item drops, etc., are fine points to critique, but they are still cosmetic and can be changed if there really is a problem. 5 months for continued polishing and the game will likely be better than its current state.
Oh, before you go "Well, I like to pay for the full game on day 1, not something that has to be patched" think about the last game that actually came nicely prepackaged like that. Certainly wasn't WoW, EQ2, LOTRO, GW1 and definitely not EVE. Shoot, half the single player games out there require massive day 1 patches to prevent catastrophic failure.
The following statement is false
The previous statement is true
LOL, how do little things add up to longevity? To me, little things are easy fixes. A game launching with serious, game-breaking issues would be a heck of a lot more worrisome than a game missing some "little things."
Then again, I'm a big-picture kind of guy.
I'm a huge big picture guy but the devil is in the details.