All the Worst - An Extremely Long Winded Review of TOR

Fed1 · November 2011

Originally posted by wewter

The OP is pointing out that sanbox games > theme parks (if you don't agree, go look in a mirror and /reevaluate-self)

LOL

Themepark Dev looking in Mirror sees - Hot Chicks on each arm - BLING - Piles of cash - Swimming pools - movie stars

Sandbox Dev looking in mirror sees - long beard - box home - empty beer bottle

I prefer more sandbox elements myself but that is the reality. SWTOR is fun so I will keep playing.

Odysses · November 2011

Originally posted by Raora
Sandbox was the ONLY thing going for SWG. Beyond that SWG sucked!

This can't be overstated enough, SWG was more of a disappointment to me then TOR is. SWG combat was horrible, the classes were boring and it was grindy for grindyness sake. But the crafting was cool

allegria · November 2011

Originally posted by h0urg1ass

2) Classes. Yay, another MMO with the class system lifted right out of 1970's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. *puke*. Can we please let this convention go? Are we really this imagineless when it comes to creating games? Why can't I make a character with Attributes and Skills and then play what I want to play? Hey BioWare, Gary Gygax called from fourty years ago and wants his antiquated and clunky character system back. Give us Attributes, then let us choose from a list of skills and advantages.

I agree skill based systems rock ( see Skyrim ) however class based systems can be great, with unique classes with specific roles.

See: eq2 / vanguard

Or they can even allow for heavy customization:

See DDO

----

What we seem to forget is these MMos today are targeting the RPG crowd and the FPS crowd and resulting in a watered down RPG experience for RPG-ers... and likely a watered down FPS experience for FPS-ers

Blizzard used this model and gave both crowds enough to chew on and we all know the numbers. Now we get everyone emulating that and doing a half ass job at it

ECGangel · November 2011

Originally posted by h0urg1ass

8) Tab Targeting. This is really boring. Tab+1+2+3, Tab+1+2+3, Tab+1+2+3, Oh this ones epic so +4,+5,+6... *puke*. There's a game that came out in 2008 that pretty much had the perfect combat system. That, much disregarded, game was called Age of Conan, and although it failed very hard on so many levels it did give us one of the best combat systems I've ever used. You walk up to what you want to fight, hit a combo hotkey and then you have to push some other keys to execute whatever combo you want to execute... oh and if your sword, spear, giant hairy banana manages to hit three enemies facing you, then you damage all three of them! How novel!

you obviously didnt play a caster toon cuz its the same BS.

*pro tip - go design a game.

Binny45 · November 2011

Originally posted by h0urg1ass
After having experienced two Beta weekends now, I have to finally say something somewhere about this game. That something is that I'm highly disappointed in this installment of the Star Wars franchise!

TL;DR VERSION: Star Wars: The Old Republic is simply more of the same old garbage that you've seen in every other WoW clone to date. It is less refined, less polished and you're simply trading swords for lightsabers. Their single point of ingenuity is an abundance of voice acting which takes the same exact dialogue options found in any other game and puts a voice to them. It has zero longevity and will probably hemmorage the majority of it's player base within 3-4 months of release as players finish the main storylines and realize that WoW, EQ2... ect offer the same end game experience with more polish, customizable UI's and better graphics.

Back to my highly opinionated review: This game pretty much takes the worst part of MMO's and puts them all in one place. I work better with lists, so let me list out the issues that drive me crazy:

1) Bind on Pickup, Bind on Equip. This is one of the most immersion breaking aspects of MMO worlds in existence. My first MMO experience was EVE and it has set the bar extremely high. If I want to fit laser beams on my Hurricane, then I put the damn laser beams on there. No, I don't get any bonuses for using the wrong weapon on the ship, but at least I have the choice to do whatever I damn well please. This extends to finding a lightsaber that I don't want or need and not having the option to give it to my buddy just because I equipped it once. Apparently there's this magic superglue in MMO land that permanently attaches items to one single player at which point your options are to use it or throw it away. How ridiculous. I can't believe people aren't up in arms that this convention is still being copied ad nauseum from World of Warcrap.

If you need people to keep questing for items, then simply give items a chance of loss on death or make it to where a weapon can only be repaired so many times before it needs to be replaced. Poof, no need to glue everything to everyone anymore. If game items can be lost or destroyed through game means, then people will need to keep searching for them just in case the one they have breaks or gets lost on death. Not only that, but it creates a vibrant economy where crafters will know that there will always be a need for their products rather than selling it to someone once and now they'll have it forever and never need your item again.

2) Classes. Yay, another MMO with the class system lifted right out of 1970's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. *puke*. Can we please let this convention go? Are we really this imagineless when it comes to creating games? Why can't I make a character with Attributes and Skills and then play what I want to play? Hey BioWare, Gary Gygax called from fourty years ago and wants his antiquated and clunky character system back. Give us Attributes, then let us choose from a list of skills and advantages.

For instance, if I want to create a double bladed lightsaber wielding Jedi who wears heavy armor and has a small amount of skill in blaster pistols, then I should damn well be able to. If you're afraid that force powers and heavy armor are too powerful a combination, then give force powers a percent chance to fail that grows higher with heavier sets of armor. See? That took me less than two seconds worth of imagination to balance heavy armor and magic. You think that Jedi that can use heavy blasters might be game breaking? Well there's a way to mitigate that with a teeny bit of imagination. If you want to play a Jedi, then you need to buy into an advantage called Force Mastery. Different force powers and combat stances require a higher level of Force Mastery, therefore if you want to be a decent Jedi, then you won't really have enough points left over to spend on heavy blasters anyhow.

3) Inventory. Why why oh why do games still have slotted inventories? I can carry 50 sets of heavy armor chest pieces or 50 pieces of chewing gum. They all take up the same amount of space on my character, and when I run out of that space, well, I just couldn't possibly carry another stick of gum. But If I take one stick of gum off of my character, then I can suddenly carry an Ewok in my left cargo pocket. Give each item a weight and give our characters a carrying weight limit based off our combined strength and endurance attribute.

4) Levels. This goes along with classes. The 70's are calling again and this time their getting ready to sue for plagiarism. Levels are so boring and old school. Oh, you're a level 50 Sentinel. Well, I know exactly what you can do to me since you're just a cookie cutter, carbon copy of all the other level 50 sentinels in the game. Instead, they should have quests reward us with force points that we can either invest into attributes at a high exchange rate or skills and advantages at a lower exchange rate. Then we can make the character that we want to play instead of the one we're shoehorned into.

5) Space Combat. I'm having a hard time even trying to figure out what StarFox is doing in my Star Wars MMO. What the crap is this pure utter garbage BioWare? I know you guys have meetings to discuss content. You know the guy that stood up and said "Hey, lets put StarFox in the game and call it space combat"? Yeah. Fire his ass. Then fire the guy who said "Hey, that's a great idea!". If you didn't have enough time to develop good space combat, then just don't do it! Tell us it will be in a future expansion and leave it the hooha alone! ... and for heavens sake, if you're going to copy someone elses game then why didn't you copy X-Wing or Tie Fighter?

6) Character creation. Honestly, if you're not going to put sliders in the game that allow us to modify our characters in every shape and size, then don't bother with character creation at all. This system has to be one fo the worst I've ever seen in my life. If you want some inspiration, then go download the free trial of EVE and create a few characters in that game, then redesign this crap. The short skinny body type is absurdly short and skinny and the big fat body type is a beached whale. Now I realize that I was just testing the beta and maybe the character creator was simply limited to a few options, but with only a couple of weeks to go until full release I don't see a lot of possible changes here.

7) Character progression. Go to place "X" and kill a bajillion of "Y" and bring their lower intestines to "Z" has been done before. In fact, it's been done to freaking death. You've beat the dead horse so much now that it's just a pile of organic goo. Not only that, but it makes absolutely no sense that my Light Side Jedi needs to go slaughter 50+ justicars to complete a quest... especially when I just finished another side quest that shows the Justicars treating their prisoners fairly and honorably. "Just don't do it" some of you will say like some anti Nike spokepeople. Well, if I "just didn't do it", then I'd never gain a level past 10 during the entire game.

I never complain without providing an alternative, so here it is: Instead of slaughting our way through thousands of innocent people who inexplicably attack us for walking within some arbitrary agression bubble, let us have fewer and more meaningful fights. Give us situations where we know that there's a sith presence in the Black Sun territory, but we don't know where, so we have to talk to NPC's, hack terminals and use the force in other interesting ways in order to locate this sith operative and then we need to carfully plan our attack. For instance, we find out that he's operating out of room X and wth a little research we discover that room X runs directly under a main hot water pipe so we send a droid in to make sure that the water pipe bursts just before we attack which distracts him and causes hot water damage... ect. So many imaginative ways to have character progression without wholesale slaughter.

... and don't ever send my highly trained and skilled Jedi to fetch some ridiculous item that a droid could go pick up and bring back. It IS beneath my character and his/her abilities.

8) Tab Targeting. This is really boring. Tab+1+2+3, Tab+1+2+3, Tab+1+2+3, Oh this ones epic so +4,+5,+6... *puke*. There's a game that came out in 2008 that pretty much had the perfect combat system. That, much disregarded, game was called Age of Conan, and although it failed very hard on so many levels it did give us one of the best combat systems I've ever used. You walk up to what you want to fight, hit a combo hotkey and then you have to push some other keys to execute whatever combo you want to execute... oh and if your sword, spear, giant hairy banana manages to hit three enemies facing you, then you damage all three of them! How novel!

9) World on rails. What's the point of playing a game if everything is spelled out for you and you're simply guided straight down a walled in path? That's what a movie or TV show is... you get the same experience every time you watch it. A game should have the ability to have a different experience every time you play it. If there's an island that we need to assault, then put it out there, let us find it and let us plan our own way in past the guards and defences. Instead we get a straight path right to the door that we aren't allowed to veer off of because if we do, then there's this magic invisible force field that tells us we just went off the railroad tracks and how dare we try to play the game our way! They wrote it and dammit, we're going to experience exactly what they want us to experience! How dare you, sir, want to approach the island facility from it's less guarded western approach and sneak through the pineapple plantation unnoticed to one of the rear air ducts and crawl past the guards to drop down on the sith lord from behind! That simply wouldn't be as fun as beating up and a bajillion pixel punching bags along a straight path to your target!

10) Graphics. Again, I realized that we've only played the beta so far, but there's really only so much more they can do with the engine they are using and it's not much. If the goal was to create a cartoony game that everyone can play, then why not go the shaded cell route like Borderlands. If it's going to have a comic book feel, then go the extra mile and make it look like a comic book. I'm really starting to believe that this game powered by the same engine that KOTR and KOTR II were powered by. It doesn't look all that much better to be honest and those games were both released last decade. If you don't want photrealism, then don't do it, but this halfway in between stuff is just painful to look at after playing Witcher 2, EVE, Age of Conan and Skyrim.

On a final note I'd just like to say that I'm sick and tired of playing the same game over and over with a different skin and a different name. I pre-ordered it long ago and therefore I will play through the main quest line on a couple of characters, but then it will go right on the shelf beside all the other WoW clones while I pack up and go back to a game where I'm not shoved in a tiny box and pointed at my next target like a guided missile.

You say you're tired of the same old thing, but yet you support it by paying for it, thereby completely pulling the rug from under your own argument. The game companies could care less how long winded your review is, it's your dollars that matter and that's it. Don't like it? Don't buy it. If the game doesn't make money, there's a good chance that said companies will observe this and NOT go down that path.

If you're looking for something new and fresh and different, forget expecting earth shaking change from a large company like Blizzard or EA. There are far too many investors to worry about pissing off to risk on unproven game mechanics. If you want something that breaks the mold, it's going to come from an small, independant shop who don't have idiot investors telling that what they can or can't put in their game.

vanderghast · November 2011

Originally posted by h0urg1ass

I pre-ordered it long ago and therefore I will play through the main quest line on a couple of characters, but then it will go right on the shelf beside all the other WoW clones while I pack up and go back to a game where I'm not shoved in a tiny box and pointed at my next target like a guided missile.

Waaaah this game sucks i'm only going to play it 4 times completely through and not one single time more, you devs suck.

Seriously? I'm sure you could sell your copy of this horrid game. Anyone that's going to play through a game multiple times should probably reconsider their negative review as you obviously don't hate it that much. Any MMO i hated i usually didn't make it past level 10. I think i lasted to level 6 in Aion, sure as heck wasn't going to play through multiple times.

People just don't make sense sometimes.

BarryManilow · November 2011

Originally posted by keithian
I stopped reading as soon as I read garbage because right away I realized it was a dsgruntled Sandbox hater.

I was tempted to stop there as well. But I knew from reading the garbage part then looking at the date he joined this site to start posting...I kind of saw where this was going. A well disquised troll from another poster trying it make look like more people hate the game.

I bet money he never pre-ordered the game. This was going on as well on the SWTOR forums where people with no posting history or just joined up a week ago are blasting the game with no facts. With general blanket statements or they rip off (copy and paste) actual concerns from beta players. Most common one is the UI which is a freaking no brainer to complain about. The really funny ones are the blanket opinions like this game is crap, don't play it!

Look, I totally understand that SWTOR is not for everyone, and some will post thier disapproval of it. But when I see ALOT of these negative reviews from new posters, I start to think troll.

Hopefully, SWTOR will fix that problem by making thier forum to pre-order accounts only and not just by having a Origin/SWTOR account which is free to get. All you need is dummy email accounts to spam a forums with trolls from just one person. Kind of what happens here sadly.

Binny45 · November 2011

Originally posted by Odysses

Originally posted by Raora

Sandbox was the ONLY thing going for SWG. Beyond that SWG sucked!

This can't be overstated enough, SWG was more of a disappointment to me then TOR is. SWG combat was horrible, the classes were boring and it was grindy for grindyness sake. But the crafting was cool

Completely agree. I was BORED in SWG. Yeah it was a sandbox, but it was also incredibly unbalanced and really NOT fun to play. Certain character skill builds meant completely dominating PvP while individuality in a character build often resulted in nothing more than repair costs and immense amounts of frustration.

Granted, the crafting system and housing bit was nice, as was the non-combat classes, but these are things that can be added to an already functioning game (see Vanguard). The actualy star wars galaxies game itself blew chunks, and yes before the NGE. I fell asleep grinding my toon fighting Krayt Dragons. I guess I won? And don't even get me started on becoming a force user. Holy Crap! I'd sooner remove my own eyes with a splintered wooden cooking spoon.

Drekker17 · November 2011

1) Bind on Pickup, Bind on Equip.

I'll Give you this one, there is no reason for this.

2) Classes.

Sounds like you just hate classes in general, which is dumb. In the Star Wars Universe having classes makes more sense. I feel like you are just grasping a straws here, it's one thing to complain about the diversity of the classes or style, etc...but to say having classes makes it bad is just ridiculous. Skill based systems are just as old, silly to say one is outdated over the other.

3) Inventory.

Why does it matter if it is slotted or not? On Eve you play a ship, so seeing a ship carry 2 tons of stuff makes sense. Having weight for many games is less immersive to me, because instead of seeing the magical mount go in my bag like a pokemon, I see I am carrying a 500lb mount on my back. Despite it being more realistic, it feels more fake.

4) Levels.

You are literally asking for a complete changing of the game.

5) Space Combat.

I would've preffered xwing vs tie fighter combat too.

6) Character creation.

I'll give you this one too, the character creation is not much better than wow, which is pathetic.

7) Character progression.

There are very few kill quests in this game, most are just bonus quests.

The funny thing is the alternative you suggested is exactly how most quests are, especially Class ones.

8) Tab Targeting.

What is boring to you is not boring to others.

9) World on rails.

The game is not that linear, especially after level 10. Not every game needs to be a blank sheet.

10) Graphics.

Art styles will never please everyone.

This isn't a review, this is a complaint. Funny thing is you say you want something different, then all your alternatives are Eve based.

Metentso · November 2011

Originally posted by h0urg1ass
For instance, if I want to create a double bladed lightsaber wielding Jedi who wears heavy armor and has a small amount of skill in blaster pistols, then I should damn well be able to.

Err... how about no.

Pantheos · November 2011

I'd be happier if haters like this never bought the game, canceled their pre-orders, and just stayed the hell away. When I hear of 400+ member WoW guilds moving to TOR I die a little inside. I don't want TOR to be the next WoW, cuz WoW sucks. I hate that game and 99% of the people on it are people I'd rather not spend any time with.

I've /vastly/ enjoyed my months in the TOR Beta and that's enough for me.

If you enjoy the game, buy it, if you don't, don't. That simple. Nothing more needs to be said. These reviews? Fucking pointless.

Aglaranna · November 2011

I agree with a lot of what you said, OP. I sympathize with your frustration over the lack of new ideas. I understand, because repetition sort of drives me nuts.

I got into the beta and immediately disliked the game. I don't think Bioware misrepresented SWTOR at all, it's just that I don't want any more of the same. That said, I have not pre-ordered the game and have no intention of spending a dime on it. I get that you just came back and want a game to play, but if you really don't like this sort of cookie-cutter MMO and want devs to stop making them, then you have to stop spending money on them. It's the only language the investors/owners understand. I think you should re-consider canceling that pre-order.

timtrack · November 2011

Originally posted by Fed1

Originally posted by wewter

The OP is pointing out that sanbox games > theme parks (if you don't agree, go look in a mirror and /reevaluate-self)

LOL

Themepark Dev looking in Mirror sees - Hot Chicks on each arm - BLING - Piles of cash - Swimming pools - movie stars

Sandbox Dev looking in mirror sees - long beard - box home - empty beer bottle

I prefer more sandbox elements myself but that is the reality. SWTOR is fun so I will keep playing.

Haha /thread

Excalaber2 · November 2011

Originally posted by h0urg1ass

Originally posted by ghettobooste

Originally posted by h0urg1ass

Originally posted by Ibanezguitar

While I do understand the sentiment of the OP, why did you believe there was a chance this game would live up to any of your recommendations/expectations? I'm sure you did some research before playing the beta, or did you?

So far, SWTOR has lived up to what the developers elucidated early on.

Actually, I spent the better part of the last year in Iraq and just got home 12 days ago with a beta invite in my mailbox, so no, while all the rest of the people on this site were gaming their hours away I was dodging IED's and rocket attacks and not reading up about the latest MMO news.

And for the rest of you, the only reason I'm going to play is because I preordered without doing my due diligence and I'm going to play through at least one character's story since that seems to be the only redeeming quality coming out of a 120+ million investment in development.

You can always cancel the preorder. I did, and then I pre-ordered again lol.. So on the fence with this game.

I'm also not cancelling the pre order because my 11 year old son and 9 year old daughter will probably have lots of fun playig it after I walk away. It's about right for their age. I like how people are attacking that and not the actual content of my post. Must mean most people silently agree, but have to find some point of contention to bitch about.

AWESOME post. I read the entire thing and it was very entertaining, I love the way you write! I am totally a fan of this game and buying it on launch day. I don't care if I disagree with some of your points, there is no grounds for me to bash you what so ever. Don't listen to anyone attacking you, I really applaud what you've written. It's better than remaining silent and putting the game on the shelf. May as well let others know what they can expect.

P.S. in the post quoted above, I'm laughing to myself because of the phrase "after I walk away". I can see the first 2 or 3 months of your kids trying to play what daddy is playing and you slowly pushing them back with one arm whilst playing with the other and responding "daddy didn't beat it yet" lol

vixen2 · November 2011

Honest review, sounds like it's just not the game for you. I wasn't expecting anything new, just another themepark game that I would enjoy playing with a different story, and I got that. I had fun, I will play it, and when I'm bored I'll play something else. It's worth my money if I'm having fun with it for at least 6 months.

Mallok · November 2011

I used to be a very hard core mmo raider, from the release of eq1 to wow to rift, and ive played most games inbetween.

Ive run two characters to level 50 in swtor beta and i think the game is amazing, maybe because ive beta tested alot of games and i know the difference between beta and release. They need some polish, they need to add a few things, but no game ive played since eq1 has been released with better graphics, combat mechanics, story line, raid content/group content. thats just a fact and anyone who argues against it is comparing swtor to a game that has been fine tuned after release for years.

I loved the difficulty of eq1 and i hate the dumbing down of mmo's, but i equally cant stand sandbox games ,imo SWG was an epic failure, a total crap game with some of the worse combat mechanics ive ever seen in a p2p game, people who love to craft all day and play buisness man loved it, and thats fine but dont think any sand box game like that will ever go mainstream the way bioware means to do with swtor, youll just have to settle for games like eve and that crappy future appocolypse game that just had to go f2p.

BadSpock · November 2011

Someone who likes apples, wants to buy an apple, goes to the market and buys an orange and then complains to high Hell it is not an apple.

Guess how many orange farmers care about your opinon? None.

That is not a defense of this game or some fanboi BS it is honest fact - this game is not for you. Move along. Good luck finding something you like, seriously, I hope you do.

I hear Archeage is supposed to be "your game" that's the current hype anyway.

It's ok to not like games. It's ok to like other games.

I, for one, found EvE to be a boring, poorly designed piece of shit, as was SWG IMO because at least EvE was/is functional... but I loved UO and loved WoW for a time.

Point is... as the song goes,

"It's ok to not like things. It's ok, but don't be a dick about it."

Pelaaja · November 2011

Originally posted by h0urg1ass
After having experienced two Beta weekends now, I have to finally say something somewhere about this game. That something is that I'm highly disappointed in this installment of the Star Wars franchise!

TL;DR VERSION: Star Wars: The Old Republic is simply more of the same old garbage that you've seen in every other WoW clone to date. It is less refined, less polished and you're simply trading swords for lightsabers. Their single point of ingenuity is an abundance of voice acting which takes the same exact dialogue options found in any other game and puts a voice to them. It has zero longevity and will probably hemmorage the majority of it's player base within 3-4 months of release as players finish the main storylines and realize that WoW, EQ2... ect offer the same end game experience with more polish, customizable UI's and better graphics.

I'll just quote this, because it's what matters. All the points you made afterwards were already catered in the red text.

But read these forums and SW:TOR -forums. People are sold because there is lightsabers. If you want to love the game, you can't tear game apart from theme. Without makeup that stunning blonde will turn out to be that crazy cat woman next door.

The game is MMO to justify monthly fee. It's a clever business choice from EA to milk some more from the hardcore SW fans (like those SW:Clone Wars cartoons, but that's another thing).

The game costs quite a lot per box for a MMO, specially those CE-editions. That pulls the moolah out of the pockets of those who don't get that much kick from SW alone.

pmaura · November 2011

All I can say with this if your in love with eve stay away from everything else, and as far as your hatred of 70's goes, I guess your more of Justin Bieber fan which then makes you the most hated person in eve a carebear.

Your looking at the wrong game budy, I love and still do AD&D system there is nothing wrong with it except that aparently your alergic and makes you vomit, same with leveling.

Your eating an apple and complaining that it doesnt tast like an orange and getting pissed abou it.

Granted after creating a character in eve everyhing eles pails in comparison, even skyrims models look weak

sirphobos · November 2011

I like how you typed out that huge long post expecting people to actually read it.

Teala · November 2011

To the OP, you know if I disliked a game as much as you seem to, why spend money on it? Why give Bioware a dime of money for putting out such a terrible game? Don't think I am trolling you, beccause I agree with everything you said. As someone else that thinks like you do I refuse to spend money on game that is one of the worst MMO's I have ever played. By you actually spending money on the game all you are doing is supporting the creation of these crappy games.

Ocirusskd · November 2011

Yet another long winded review to add to the piles of thousands. I went into this weekend expecting to hate swtor for tho so called solo rpg game, crappy companions, and the typical WoW clone garbage. After playing it all weekend i soon realized that all these reviews are meaningless, we hunt out reviews that reflect our own opinions and the only way to know anything is to actually play it.

hellshanks · November 2011

Originally posted by h0urg1ass
After having experienced two Beta weekends now, I have to finally say something somewhere about this game. That something is that I'm highly disappointed in this installment of the Star Wars franchise!

TL;DR VERSION: Star Wars: The Old Republic is simply more of the same old garbage that you've seen in every other WoW clone to date. It is less refined, less polished and you're simply trading swords for lightsabers. Their single point of ingenuity is an abundance of voice acting which takes the same exact dialogue options found in any other game and puts a voice to them. It has zero longevity and will probably hemmorage the majority of it's player base within 3-4 months of release as players finish the main storylines and realize that WoW, EQ2... ect offer the same end game experience with more polish, customizable UI's and better graphics.

Back to my highly opinionated review: This game pretty much takes the worst part of MMO's and puts them all in one place. I work better with lists, so let me list out the issues that drive me crazy:

1) Bind on Pickup, Bind on Equip. This is one of the most immersion breaking aspects of MMO worlds in existence. My first MMO experience was EVE and it has set the bar extremely high. If I want to fit laser beams on my Hurricane, then I put the damn laser beams on there. No, I don't get any bonuses for using the wrong weapon on the ship, but at least I have the choice to do whatever I damn well please. This extends to finding a lightsaber that I don't want or need and not having the option to give it to my buddy just because I equipped it once. Apparently there's this magic superglue in MMO land that permanently attaches items to one single player at which point your options are to use it or throw it away. How ridiculous. I can't believe people aren't up in arms that this convention is still being copied ad nauseum from World of Warcrap.

Think of the twinks! Sure, you can give a friend some money, and give them a little advantage, but if you're giving a friend a way OP wepon that is a rare drop, they didn't earn it. Sounds stupid, but you know more people would be pissed if they saw someone with OP gear that they didn't earn, especially on PVP servers.

If you need people to keep questing for items, then simply give items a chance of loss on death or make it to where a weapon can only be repaired so many times before it needs to be replaced. Poof, no need to glue everything to everyone anymore. If game items can be lost or destroyed through game means, then people will need to keep searching for them just in case the one they have breaks or gets lost on death. Not only that, but it creates a vibrant economy where crafters will know that there will always be a need for their products rather than selling it to someone once and now they'll have it forever and never need your item again.

I like this idea, because it provokes that players need to continue endgame for something other than randoms and PvP. Kudos.

2) Classes. Yay, another MMO with the class system lifted right out of 1970's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. *puke*. Can we please let this convention go? Are we really this imagineless when it comes to creating games? Why can't I make a character with Attributes and Skills and then play what I want to play? Hey BioWare, Gary Gygax called from fourty years ago and wants his antiquated and clunky character system back. Give us Attributes, then let us choose from a list of skills and advantages.

For instance, if I want to create a double bladed lightsaber wielding Jedi who wears heavy armor and has a small amount of skill in blaster pistols, then I should damn well be able to. If you're afraid that force powers and heavy armor are too powerful a combination, then give force powers a percent chance to fail that grows higher with heavier sets of armor. See? That took me less than two seconds worth of imagination to balance heavy armor and magic. You think that Jedi that can use heavy blasters might be game breaking? Well there's a way to mitigate that with a teeny bit of imagination. If you want to play a Jedi, then you need to buy into an advantage called Force Mastery. Different force powers and combat stances require a higher level of Force Mastery, therefore if you want to be a decent Jedi, then you won't really have enough points left over to spend on heavy blasters anyhow.

Well... it's not TOTALLY cut and paste. Sure, it has it's cliches, but think about the inquisitor. Tank, assassin, enhancement, mage, burst, ranged, melee. And you get to choose. Bounty Hunter, Ranged tank. I do agree the wepons should be a little more free of use, though. I'd like to use two lightsabers, or a double bladed, or whatever. This is due to the ability/animation conflict, though. Also stupid, but since it's ability based, and not hack and slash, it's tough to transition all of that.

3) Inventory. Why why oh why do games still have slotted inventories? I can carry 50 sets of heavy armor chest pieces or 50 pieces of chewing gum. They all take up the same amount of space on my character, and when I run out of that space, well, I just couldn't possibly carry another stick of gum. But If I take one stick of gum off of my character, then I can suddenly carry an Ewok in my left cargo pocket. Give each item a weight and give our characters a carrying weight limit based off our combined strength and endurance attribute.

Good idea. Why not?

4) Levels. This goes along with classes. The 70's are calling again and this time their getting ready to sue for plagiarism. Levels are so boring and old school. Oh, you're a level 50 Sentinel. Well, I know exactly what you can do to me since you're just a cookie cutter, carbon copy of all the other level 50 sentinels in the game. Instead, they should have quests reward us with force points that we can either invest into attributes at a high exchange rate or skills and advantages at a lower exchange rate. Then we can make the character that we want to play instead of the one we're shoehorned into.

It is an MMORPG. Levels are absoloutely necissary, though it could be handled differently, they would still be there.

5) Space Combat. I'm having a hard time even trying to figure out what StarFox is doing in my Star Wars MMO. What the crap is this pure utter garbage BioWare? I know you guys have meetings to discuss content. You know the guy that stood up and said "Hey, lets put StarFox in the game and call it space combat"? Yeah. Fire his ass. Then fire the guy who said "Hey, that's a great idea!". If you didn't have enough time to develop good space combat, then just don't do it! Tell us it will be in a future expansion and leave it the hooha alone! ... and for heavens sake, if you're going to copy someone elses game then why didn't you copy X-Wing or Tie Fighter?

This is a placeholder. Bioware already announced they want to expand on this. While I agree that No, you should never ever ever release a game before it's ready, I understand this.

6) Character creation. Honestly, if you're not going to put sliders in the game that allow us to modify our characters in every shape and size, then don't bother with character creation at all. This system has to be one fo the worst I've ever seen in my life. If you want some inspiration, then go download the free trial of EVE and create a few characters in that game, then redesign this crap. The short skinny body type is absurdly short and skinny and the big fat body type is a beached whale. Now I realize that I was just testing the beta and maybe the character creator was simply limited to a few options, but with only a couple of weeks to go until full release I don't see a lot of possible changes here.

eh. I don't really care about customization. Sure, maybe a little bit. But I could care less, as long as I'm given a little option. Part of me hopes they expand on this, though.

7) Character progression. Go to place "X" and kill a bajillion of "Y" and bring their lower intestines to "Z" has been done before. In fact, it's been done to freaking death. You've beat the dead horse so much now that it's just a pile of organic goo. Not only that, but it makes absolutely no sense that my Light Side Jedi needs to go slaughter 50+ justicars to complete a quest... especially when I just finished another side quest that shows the Justicars treating their prisoners fairly and honorably. "Just don't do it" some of you will say like some anti Nike spokepeople. Well, if I "just didn't do it", then I'd never gain a level past 10 during the entire game.

I never complain without providing an alternative, so here it is: Instead of slaughting our way through thousands of innocent people who inexplicably attack us for walking within some arbitrary agression bubble, let us have fewer and more meaningful fights. Give us situations where we know that there's a sith presence in the Black Sun territory, but we don't know where, so we have to talk to NPC's, hack terminals and use the force in other interesting ways in order to locate this sith operative and then we need to carfully plan our attack. For instance, we find out that he's operating out of room X and wth a little research we discover that room X runs directly under a main hot water pipe so we send a droid in to make sure that the water pipe bursts just before we attack which distracts him and causes hot water damage... ect. So many imaginative ways to have character progression without wholesale slaughter.

... and don't ever send my highly trained and skilled Jedi to fetch some ridiculous item that a droid could go pick up and bring back. It IS beneath my character and his/her abilities.

True, however, they do branch a little. Say, more than WoW. Sure, you probably have to do the objective, but in many cases, you have a little choice. Such as, I can fight this guy, or join him. But then I have to fight the other guy. Yeah, a lot of it's minimal, at this point, but it's there. It's not a wall of text noone reads, followed by following a map, then returning. There is a sense of progression, instead of (I'm sorry, for the context of this example) I WAS in the Valley of Trials, now I'm in Orgrimar. Cool. What was the point?

8) Tab Targeting. This is really boring. Tab+1+2+3, Tab+1+2+3, Tab+1+2+3, Oh this ones epic so +4,+5,+6... *puke*. There's a game that came out in 2008 that pretty much had the perfect combat system. That, much disregarded, game was called Age of Conan, and although it failed very hard on so many levels it did give us one of the best combat systems I've ever used. You walk up to what you want to fight, hit a combo hotkey and then you have to push some other keys to execute whatever combo you want to execute... oh and if your sword, spear, giant hairy banana manages to hit three enemies facing you, then you damage all three of them! How novel!

MMO'S DEFINATELY need a massive overhall of the combat system. Every single one of them.

9) World on rails. What's the point of playing a game if everything is spelled out for you and you're simply guided straight down a walled in path? That's what a movie or TV show is... you get the same experience every time you watch it. A game should have the ability to have a different experience every time you play it. If there's an island that we need to assault, then put it out there, let us find it and let us plan our own way in past the guards and defences. Instead we get a straight path right to the door that we aren't allowed to veer off of because if we do, then there's this magic invisible force field that tells us we just went off the railroad tracks and how dare we try to play the game our way! They wrote it and dammit, we're going to experience exactly what they want us to experience! How dare you, sir, want to approach the island facility from it's less guarded western approach and sneak through the pineapple plantation unnoticed to one of the rear air ducts and crawl past the guards to drop down on the sith lord from behind! That simply wouldn't be as fun as beating up and a bajillion pixel punching bags along a straight path to your target!

It's another MMO copy feature. It's familiar. THere are some tweeks, to which I give Bioware more credit than others.

10) Graphics. Again, I realized that we've only played the beta so far, but there's really only so much more they can do with the engine they are using and it's not much. If the goal was to create a cartoony game that everyone can play, then why not go the shaded cell route like Borderlands. If it's going to have a comic book feel, then go the extra mile and make it look like a comic book. I'm really starting to believe that this game powered by the same engine that KOTR and KOTR II were powered by. It doesn't look all that much better to be honest and those games were both released last decade. If you don't want photrealism, then don't do it, but this halfway in between stuff is just painful to look at after playing Witcher 2, EVE, Age of Conan and Skyrim.

Agreed. Compleately.

On a final note I'd just like to say that I'm sick and tired of playing the same game over and over with a different skin and a different name. I pre-ordered it long ago and therefore I will play through the main quest line on a couple of characters, but then it will go right on the shelf beside all the other WoW clones while I pack up and go back to a game where I'm not shoved in a tiny box and pointed at my next target like a guided missile.

I think Bioware is moving at an incredible pace at improving. I also think most of the game's code is intact, but not yet patched in the server. Therefore, they can make minor adjestments, then release a huge change with a small patch, by simply enabling it on the servers. The final product will be vastly improved from the beta, even though it's only in a few weeks. Bioware is generally good about realeasing final products, not patches.

Zeblade · November 2011

"very negative" and its just the OP's view of the game. Haha I love the "from the 70's"..he has no clue what hes really talking about ..sorry.

For me its StarWars. I feel like I am playing StarWars. Sure its lacking things I LOVE but its made for all. When you play you feel these guys really worked hard at everything we see and hear. See I am not going in EXPECTING to see something I want or from some other MMO. You need to go in blind as if its your 1st and take it for what it is. Not wow had this or that why don't they? Granted you can't get past the "follow the path". Yes there is the get quest go kill but it has a wonderful story that makes it fun. Not ..why am I killing these or helping? You know why. you feel part of the story. But if you go in expecting .. you wont like it.

How will it stack up agaisnt the greats? Only time will tell. So far its nothing like rift and the likes which never made a impact. But then again it could wind up like them.. just floating alone making enough to just get by.

Its STARWARS! hehe ..some of us oldtimers loved SWG back before it got butchered. Lol I can say old I am..

Icewhite · November 2011

:shrug: It's a pretty standard sandbox vs.themepark manifesto rant, not a review of a game.

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All the Worst - An Extremely Long Winded Review of TOR

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All the Worst - An Extremely Long Winded Review of TOR

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