Now you are arguing that just because some person (not just one, many people have said that single player storylines does not make an MMORPG) does not like it then they are not allowed to say so?
No, you are absolutely right, if this game had only singleplayer storylines this would be a singleplayer game and not a mmorpg. What makes this mmorpg a mmorpg are the ton of mmorpg features in this game.
why I like this game: Technically it's flawless on my system. I like the graphics, they are not great but please my eyes, and more than that I like the GFX and sound in this game, best I've seen in any mmorpg. I like the combat being responsive, fluid, and crisp, I dont have no UI lag (WAR was UI lag hell, one of the reason of it's failure along with tons of animation bugs and sprite-like GFX) also I have very minor lag ingame.
Then, I absolutely love the sci-fi feel after we've been having to put up with fairy+troll fantasy mmorpgs for pretty much the entire time of the genre except a few very outdated games. I just love shooting those blasters and throwing those grenades not to mention the rockets. I also like the companion system a lot, and all the little things it bring like the "send companion to sell trash" - their dialogue and many epic moments when you get companions out of bushes if you havent looked in advance from the internets.
I like the feel that I travel from planet to planet in my space vessel. I like the heroic world quests with other people. I like the flahspoints, at least the few first that I tried, not for ADD sort of people but I'm quite patient ingame. I'm a big fan of world PvP and this game has one of the best options for that in the themepark front. Even if you forbid, I'm damn well going to tell you that I like the voice acting and the storyline of my characters, I loved all of the story lines that I begun in the beta, they made it so much more fun to keep leveling, sometimes having a break with the basic leveling quests and then continuing the story, absolutely great.
I like moddable gear in this game, making me to work for my ultimate badass appearance. I like the hidden areas in this game which rewards me with datacron stats or some loot if I look for them. I like this game having good sized cities and even city zones. I like the zones being open after the first two zones, this is an obvious mmorpg requirement but I had to say it since all these "I played the first / I played the first two areas" reviewers make it sound like it's nothing but a rollercoaster.
I like the combat and the feel to it, the smoothnes of it and the fact that I rarely just "pull" one mob at a time and chew it down, but have to take down a squad most of the time, no the AI is not the best one around, but very few game has AI that can be complimented. I like the cover mechanics and I love the fact that I found most of my abilites being instant or channeled reducing the "casting" in game and most of the time something happens when you use an ability, making the combat more intense.
I like the fact that for a long time I felt the special kind of joy in a mmorpg that makes me think I'll enjoy my time in the Old Republic a lot longer than the first month like in so many other technical disaster or yet another generic fantasy mmorpgs. I have absolutely no reason to convince anyone, why the heck I would, so it's just an honest opinion like many others who likes this game.
There's also a good list of things I dont like in this game, or absolutely hate, but since you asked for things I like, I'll leave it at this little list that came from the top of my head.
Whatever after rereading the topic I did write some things, I should have written differently so I apologize foraa that, gonna edit it later.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play." "Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
You know, I was pretty disappointed in the char builder when I first heard about it, then tried it, until I got into beta and realized that in this game the only faces I pay attention to up close are NPC. I don't play in first person mode so I rarely look at other player's faces. Most of the time I’m zoomed so far out I couldn’t catch finite facial details if I wanted too.
I know people will always say SWG had better char builder, but tbh after a while everyone started to look the same. SWG was really nothing special.
One of the more recent games I’ve played that had really customizable character creation was Aion, but again unless the characters were really wonky looing (short and fat mini-me with afros, or tall lanky looking spaghetti people with Mohawks), I never bothered to pay any attention to what they looked like vs. everyone else. Honestly the only thing I ever pay any attention to in most games these days is armor, or gear. This could be the reason why Facial customization is slowly fading for MMO games like this (linear MMOs).
You know, I was pretty disappointed in the char builder when I first heard about it, then tried it, until I got into beta and realized that in this game the only faces I pay attention to up close are NPC. I don't play in first person mode so I rarely look at other player's faces. Most of the time I’m zoomed so far out I couldn’t catch finite facial details if I wanted too.
I know people will always say SWG had better char builder, but tbh after a while everyone started to look the same. SWG was really nothing special.
One of the more recent games I’ve played that had really customizable character creation was Aion, but again unless the characters were really wonky looing (short and fat mini-me with afros, or tall lanky looking spaghetti people with Mohawks), I never bothered to pay any attention to what they looked like vs. everyone else. Honestly the only thing I ever pay any attention to in most games these days is armor, or gear. This could be the reason why Facial customization is slowly fading for MMO games like this (linear MMOs).
Funny you should say that I wont play an mmorpg with poor character customisation. I think the Raider mentality in general is not a mmorpg mentality, I dont even think they care about being in an immersive world, actually come to think of it, I dont even know why raiders have traditional mmorpgs in the first place. You could simply do a PVE Raider version of Bloodline Champions, with portals to raid dungeons and a lobby, the end. Honestly what do raiders do when they are not raiding, they dont pvp, they dont care about lore or what there characters look like, they talk on public chat and wait for a group to form, why not just place Icewind Dale? I think Gear Grinders like the Idea of being in an mmorpg but not actually being in one, they like standing around in the main cities showing off raid gear and talking on public chat, but problem solved just make a large city near a bunch of instance hubs just like the new cities in wow. The game can become a totally souless lifeless gear grind, the characters wont even have faces, that should take care of the character creation nonsense, just a bunch humanoid blobs wearing Tier 12 whatever.
I really don't know why raiders bother with open world games when they are not interested in open worlds, other people or immersion, or pvp combat, it makes no sense, it really drives me a little crazy.
Sadly you're right all all of your accounts except I kind of like the hack and slash combat. I had a few issues with your post like animations and npcs not reacting but I won't go into much debate about them except to say the animations are ok it just depends what your comparing them too.. If your comparing them to wow, vanguard or rift then I would say swtor animations beat all of those games. If you comparing them to something like force unleashed then ya they are lacking in comparison. I'm also referring to actual melee animations and not spell particles.. They are seperate entities imo at which point the particles could use work.
Also the npcs not reacting is in almost every game out there in the mmorpg category. Most mmo trash mobs just stand there and get beat on without much reaction.. The most reaction I think I recall out of any mmo game would be rifts npcs casted spells and abilities.. Other games have it way worse where by the npcs just run up to you and punch you lol.. Im sure the A.I scripting will improve over time.
Also the npcs not reacting is in almost every game out there in the mmorpg category. Most mmo trash mobs just stand there and get beat on without much reaction.. The most reaction I think I recall out of any mmo game would be rifts npcs casted spells and abilities.. Other games have it way worse where by the npcs just run up to you and punch you lol.. Im sure the A.I scripting will improve over time.
I really dislike the 'mine' NPCs. WAR was probably one of the worst, where you could basically slaughter guards in under what appears to be 30' in TOR.
When DH spoke of the 2 aggro systems, I had hoped that NPCs not with in the 'attack' aggro range, but inside the larger 'Looking at you' range, would atleast take up 'combat' stances (defense) when triggered.
I am not saying you cannot say you like the game, and think it is great, but rather I am asking you to demonstrate how he is incorrect -- because many others have provided examples that clearly back up his claims - some of who like and are fans of the game.
You know, I was pretty disappointed in the char builder when I first heard about it, then tried it, until I got into beta and realized that in this game the only faces I pay attention to up close are NPC. I don't play in first person mode so I rarely look at other player's faces. Most of the time I’m zoomed so far out I couldn’t catch finite facial details if I wanted too.
I know people will always say SWG had better char builder, but tbh after a while everyone started to look the same. SWG was really nothing special.
One of the more recent games I’ve played that had really customizable character creation was Aion, but again unless the characters were really wonky looing (short and fat mini-me with afros, or tall lanky looking spaghetti people with Mohawks), I never bothered to pay any attention to what they looked like vs. everyone else. Honestly the only thing I ever pay any attention to in most games these days is armor, or gear. This could be the reason why Facial customization is slowly fading for MMO games like this (linear MMOs).
Funny you should say that I wont play an mmorpg with poor character customisation. I think the Raider mentality in general is not a mmorpg mentality, I dont even think they care about being in an immersive world, actually come to think of it, I dont even know why raiders have traditional mmorpgs in the first place. You could simply do a PVE Raider version of Bloodline Champions, with portals to raid dungeons and a lobby, the end. Honestly what do raiders do when they are not raiding, they dont pvp, they dont care about lore or what there characters look like, they talk on public chat and wait for a group to form, why not just place Icewind Dale? I think Gear Grinders like the Idea of being in an mmorpg but not actually being in one, they like standing around in the main cities showing off raid gear and talking on public chat, but problem solved just make a large city near a bunch of instance hubs just like the new cities in wow. The game can become a totally souless lifeless gear grind, the characters wont even have faces, that should take care of the character creation nonsense, just a bunch humanoid blobs wearing Tier 12 whatever.
I really don't know why raiders bother with open world games when they are not interested in open worlds, other people or immersion, or pvp combat, it makes no sense, it really drives me a little crazy.
unless the portal to the dungeon was a place they could stand around wearing their armor on top of their new leet dragon of doom and waving their new glowy enchantment around so everyone else could see them, i don't think they'd want to play that game...
personally, i don't understand gear grinders either. it loses the whole "rpg" flavour.
You got to lvl 13 and are complaining about mov AI or difficult combat mechanics... give me a break. Go play any other MMO ever released and tell me if the mechanics in battle are the same at lvl 13 as they are end game.
In Wow.. a lvl 13 warrior, I was spamming sunder armor and heroic strike to keep agro. At lvl 80+ I was using a rotation comprising of 10+ abilities (minimum).
To find fault with a game, especially combat and mechanics wise at lvl 13 is idiotic.
In terms of the other complaints, I don't really care. When I played I enjoyed my time. I wasn't focused on the UI, though more customizability wouldn't hurt.
All in all, you went in as a skeptic, and predictably, saw everything your skeptic mind wanted to see.
"sometime Druids are going to do some pathing but hardly anything noticeable so everything seems limited and very stale."
Your covers been blown my good man.
But in all seriousness this is gonna be Biowares Second project on EA....with the first being Dragon Age 2 lol. Mass Effect 2 was Mass effect 1 with more dialogue options and Mass Effect 1 was already completed before they boarded EA and Dragon age was already into production b4 the deal went thru also...
Im preloaded and waiting for my early access email with my fingers crossed hoping Bioware hasnt compromised itself by the EA machine...but dont kid yourself with the "but its bioware" arguement, Back in the day there was only 1 company that went head to head with blizzard....EA bought em with madden money and theyve been M.I.A ever since.
These are the reviews(previews)i wanne see keep them comming!
I already knew this even before you showed up with this preview and ive not even played the damn game(its not a review btw, game is not even launched yet lol) but read every word of it i love negative rpeviews about game that even more dumb down the genre lol.
Companys like Bioware have millions to spent and they come up with cheap crap like this, can you believe it?
The only part of this game that bothered me was the ui and character customization. They are gonna give us the ability to customize the ui after launch so problem one will be taken care of
I still dont like the only 4 body types but i can live with it since i loved th rest of the game
the combat to me was amazing. I love fighting 3 or more enemies at once compared the the 1 u fight in most mmos
The crafting with companions doing it takes away teh boring aspect of crafting having to watch the little bar till u are doen making stuff. Its a unique take to me on crafting and one i enjoyed in my limited play time
The difficulty was just fine. I died more then once. One time i tried to take on elits by myself bad idea. Oh and unless u outlevel the content u cant take out the elite mobs by yourself with just a companion at least i couldnt on dromund kaas
also u have some easier mobs as u go to do your story quests and then u hav mobs yoru story quest have u fight some of whome were a pain in the ass to beat.
so the difficulty of your opponents was diffrent from mob to mob
The worlds to me opened up immensly once u left koriban or ord mantel. Dromund kaas was pretty damn big. it was so big people whod whined in chat that the worlds were claustraphobic were now whining that they had to walk everywhere. Tahts before u get sprint at 14-15
i loved the companions they are so much more then pets
The story and vo were amazign especially the smuggler story and inqisitor. early on at least. The sith warrior one got better as u got higher up
all in all this game to me was amazing and worht playign and i loved the graphics . They are fixing some graphics issues they have had.
People shoudl read the ign interview . some of the things people whined about like textures are being fixed or have been fixed.
These are the reviews(previews)i wanne see keep them comming!
I already knew this even before you showed up with this preview and ive not even played the damn game(its not a review btw, game is not even launched yet lol) but read every word of it i love negative rpeviews about game that even more dumb down the genre lol.
Companys like Bioware have millions to spent and they come up with cheap crap like this, can you believe it?
Yeah.... why wouldnt they go ahead and waste their money on a POS sandbox that wouldnt support the cost involved. What are they thinking?
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
Comments
No, you are absolutely right, if this game had only singleplayer storylines this would be a singleplayer game and not a mmorpg. What makes this mmorpg a mmorpg are the ton of mmorpg features in this game.
@Teala,
why I like this game: Technically it's flawless on my system. I like the graphics, they are not great but please my eyes, and more than that I like the GFX and sound in this game, best I've seen in any mmorpg. I like the combat being responsive, fluid, and crisp, I dont have no UI lag (WAR was UI lag hell, one of the reason of it's failure along with tons of animation bugs and sprite-like GFX) also I have very minor lag ingame.
Then, I absolutely love the sci-fi feel after we've been having to put up with fairy+troll fantasy mmorpgs for pretty much the entire time of the genre except a few very outdated games. I just love shooting those blasters and throwing those grenades not to mention the rockets. I also like the companion system a lot, and all the little things it bring like the "send companion to sell trash" - their dialogue and many epic moments when you get companions out of bushes if you havent looked in advance from the internets.
I like the feel that I travel from planet to planet in my space vessel. I like the heroic world quests with other people. I like the flahspoints, at least the few first that I tried, not for ADD sort of people but I'm quite patient ingame. I'm a big fan of world PvP and this game has one of the best options for that in the themepark front. Even if you forbid, I'm damn well going to tell you that I like the voice acting and the storyline of my characters, I loved all of the story lines that I begun in the beta, they made it so much more fun to keep leveling, sometimes having a break with the basic leveling quests and then continuing the story, absolutely great.
I like moddable gear in this game, making me to work for my ultimate badass appearance. I like the hidden areas in this game which rewards me with datacron stats or some loot if I look for them. I like this game having good sized cities and even city zones. I like the zones being open after the first two zones, this is an obvious mmorpg requirement but I had to say it since all these "I played the first / I played the first two areas" reviewers make it sound like it's nothing but a rollercoaster.
I like the combat and the feel to it, the smoothnes of it and the fact that I rarely just "pull" one mob at a time and chew it down, but have to take down a squad most of the time, no the AI is not the best one around, but very few game has AI that can be complimented. I like the cover mechanics and I love the fact that I found most of my abilites being instant or channeled reducing the "casting" in game and most of the time something happens when you use an ability, making the combat more intense.
I like the fact that for a long time I felt the special kind of joy in a mmorpg that makes me think I'll enjoy my time in the Old Republic a lot longer than the first month like in so many other technical disaster or yet another generic fantasy mmorpgs. I have absolutely no reason to convince anyone, why the heck I would, so it's just an honest opinion like many others who likes this game.
There's also a good list of things I dont like in this game, or absolutely hate, but since you asked for things I like, I'll leave it at this little list that came from the top of my head.
Whatever after rereading the topic I did write some things, I should have written differently so I apologize foraa that, gonna edit it later.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
My take on char builder
You know, I was pretty disappointed in the char builder when I first heard about it, then tried it, until I got into beta and realized that in this game the only faces I pay attention to up close are NPC. I don't play in first person mode so I rarely look at other player's faces. Most of the time I’m zoomed so far out I couldn’t catch finite facial details if I wanted too.
I know people will always say SWG had better char builder, but tbh after a while everyone started to look the same. SWG was really nothing special.
One of the more recent games I’ve played that had really customizable character creation was Aion, but again unless the characters were really wonky looing (short and fat mini-me with afros, or tall lanky looking spaghetti people with Mohawks), I never bothered to pay any attention to what they looked like vs. everyone else. Honestly the only thing I ever pay any attention to in most games these days is armor, or gear. This could be the reason why Facial customization is slowly fading for MMO games like this (linear MMOs).
Funny you should say that I wont play an mmorpg with poor character customisation. I think the Raider mentality in general is not a mmorpg mentality, I dont even think they care about being in an immersive world, actually come to think of it, I dont even know why raiders have traditional mmorpgs in the first place. You could simply do a PVE Raider version of Bloodline Champions, with portals to raid dungeons and a lobby, the end. Honestly what do raiders do when they are not raiding, they dont pvp, they dont care about lore or what there characters look like, they talk on public chat and wait for a group to form, why not just place Icewind Dale? I think Gear Grinders like the Idea of being in an mmorpg but not actually being in one, they like standing around in the main cities showing off raid gear and talking on public chat, but problem solved just make a large city near a bunch of instance hubs just like the new cities in wow. The game can become a totally souless lifeless gear grind, the characters wont even have faces, that should take care of the character creation nonsense, just a bunch humanoid blobs wearing Tier 12 whatever.
I really don't know why raiders bother with open world games when they are not interested in open worlds, other people or immersion, or pvp combat, it makes no sense, it really drives me a little crazy.
Sadly you're right all all of your accounts except I kind of like the hack and slash combat. I had a few issues with your post like animations and npcs not reacting but I won't go into much debate about them except to say the animations are ok it just depends what your comparing them too.. If your comparing them to wow, vanguard or rift then I would say swtor animations beat all of those games. If you comparing them to something like force unleashed then ya they are lacking in comparison. I'm also referring to actual melee animations and not spell particles.. They are seperate entities imo at which point the particles could use work.
Also the npcs not reacting is in almost every game out there in the mmorpg category. Most mmo trash mobs just stand there and get beat on without much reaction.. The most reaction I think I recall out of any mmo game would be rifts npcs casted spells and abilities.. Other games have it way worse where by the npcs just run up to you and punch you lol.. Im sure the A.I scripting will improve over time.
I ll have to agree with you.Lets hope the release built will be much better.If not i ll simply wont buy a bioware game again.
I really dislike the 'mine' NPCs. WAR was probably one of the worst, where you could basically slaughter guards in under what appears to be 30' in TOR.
When DH spoke of the 2 aggro systems, I had hoped that NPCs not with in the 'attack' aggro range, but inside the larger 'Looking at you' range, would atleast take up 'combat' stances (defense) when triggered.
{mod edit}
I am not saying you cannot say you like the game, and think it is great, but rather I am asking you to demonstrate how he is incorrect -- because many others have provided examples that clearly back up his claims - some of who like and are fans of the game.
unless the portal to the dungeon was a place they could stand around wearing their armor on top of their new leet dragon of doom and waving their new glowy enchantment around so everyone else could see them, i don't think they'd want to play that game...
personally, i don't understand gear grinders either. it loses the whole "rpg" flavour.
Bad review and a waste of my time.
You got to lvl 13 and are complaining about mov AI or difficult combat mechanics... give me a break. Go play any other MMO ever released and tell me if the mechanics in battle are the same at lvl 13 as they are end game.
In Wow.. a lvl 13 warrior, I was spamming sunder armor and heroic strike to keep agro. At lvl 80+ I was using a rotation comprising of 10+ abilities (minimum).
To find fault with a game, especially combat and mechanics wise at lvl 13 is idiotic.
In terms of the other complaints, I don't really care. When I played I enjoyed my time. I wasn't focused on the UI, though more customizability wouldn't hurt.
All in all, you went in as a skeptic, and predictably, saw everything your skeptic mind wanted to see.
"sometime Druids are going to do some pathing but hardly anything noticeable so everything seems limited and very stale."
Your covers been blown my good man.
But in all seriousness this is gonna be Biowares Second project on EA....with the first being Dragon Age 2 lol. Mass Effect 2 was Mass effect 1 with more dialogue options and Mass Effect 1 was already completed before they boarded EA and Dragon age was already into production b4 the deal went thru also...
Im preloaded and waiting for my early access email with my fingers crossed hoping Bioware hasnt compromised itself by the EA machine...but dont kid yourself with the "but its bioware" arguement, Back in the day there was only 1 company that went head to head with blizzard....EA bought em with madden money and theyve been M.I.A ever since.
The blind leading the blind...
The only part of this game that bothered me was the ui and character customization. They are gonna give us the ability to customize the ui after launch so problem one will be taken care of
I still dont like the only 4 body types but i can live with it since i loved th rest of the game
the combat to me was amazing. I love fighting 3 or more enemies at once compared the the 1 u fight in most mmos
The crafting with companions doing it takes away teh boring aspect of crafting having to watch the little bar till u are doen making stuff. Its a unique take to me on crafting and one i enjoyed in my limited play time
The difficulty was just fine. I died more then once. One time i tried to take on elits by myself bad idea. Oh and unless u outlevel the content u cant take out the elite mobs by yourself with just a companion at least i couldnt on dromund kaas
also u have some easier mobs as u go to do your story quests and then u hav mobs yoru story quest have u fight some of whome were a pain in the ass to beat.
so the difficulty of your opponents was diffrent from mob to mob
The worlds to me opened up immensly once u left koriban or ord mantel. Dromund kaas was pretty damn big. it was so big people whod whined in chat that the worlds were claustraphobic were now whining that they had to walk everywhere. Tahts before u get sprint at 14-15
i loved the companions they are so much more then pets
The story and vo were amazign especially the smuggler story and inqisitor. early on at least. The sith warrior one got better as u got higher up
all in all this game to me was amazing and worht playign and i loved the graphics . They are fixing some graphics issues they have had.
People shoudl read the ign interview . some of the things people whined about like textures are being fixed or have been fixed.
Yeah.... why wouldnt they go ahead and waste their money on a POS sandbox that wouldnt support the cost involved. What are they thinking?
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.