I don't mind "hate" because it's actually not hate at all. What I DO hate is the mindless fanboyism and apologist-esque behavior.
Sorry when people spend over 5 years crying about a video game they don't play the nicest word that can be used for them is haters. So if a person enjoys a game you don't they are fanboys or have some "apologist-behavior" that's some pretty shallow minded thinking.
The saying "First impressions last a lifetime" is totally true.
Though ESO has managed to do well despite that.
Most games that have problems aren't willing to make major changes to fix them. TSW is a great game with bad combat mechanics and mob placement and density, they made mobs a little faster to kill and that was it. Wildstar made a few changes but not many. FF shut the game down and redid it, you don't see any games willing to go that far which is a shame, IMO.
ESO basically just keeps copying from the original game, all they really needed to do was make Skyrim a full MMO which is what people really wanted which is why they are doing better by just putting more Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim stuff ingame.
SWTOR would do a lot better pulling even more from the RPG series. Plus trying to save money by giving all the classes one path is not a good idea, unless they add new professions to replay content with. How about some SWG elements?
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Most of the SWG vets I knew at the time of TOR's beta wanted to love the mmo, but later became bitter over the behavior of Lucas Arts (once again), and the wasted opportunity in that TOR was never a real mmorpg. To me it still feels like fragmented android tablet games, woven together. Each time I go back and try it, it feels too claustrophobic and constraining.
Can you imagine if TOR had taken a similar path to Elder Scrolls online? Imagine the possibilities...
What path is that? Ah, ESO: One / Tamriel Unlimited you mean?
SWTOR is just an omnibus of Bioware stories / games set in SW IP, nothing more, nothing less. If people accepted it as such, perhaps they could judge it better.
I wasn't expecting Ashoka to find enlightenment a second time and found a new Mauryan dynasty, but most thoughtful people were expecting an mmorpg.
edit: I didn't expect an mmo(ok I did, but I didn't care one cent about it). I expected what I got: a nice omnibus comprised of SW inspired BW stories. I couldn't care less for dungeons and raids and PvP and what not.
Yeah, If you go in with that thought, most should be pretty happy with what they get. Its a free game now, so sub for 1 month, maybe 2 which is $30 and you'll get your moneys worth easily.
I havent played MMOs in a while, but what I remember about SWTOR is that the game engine was really slow and unresponsive sometimes. Especially compared to a game like WoW, which had one of the smoothest MMO engines I've ever seen.
Everything else about the game was great, except, you know, actually playing the game.
I pre-ordered SWTOR in 2011 because SWG was gone and absolutely hated it after my first month.
I came back a month or so ago and now I think Star Wars is the perfect MMORPG for people who enjoy the leveling experience and want a lot of content that isn't necessarily end-game focused, or people who want the feeling of playing an MMO but don't want a social commitment.
If you play WoW or FFXIV and skip every single quest dialogue, rush to max, and just farm tokens for raiding gear, then SWTOR is a pretty terrible game because it's just the worst option out of that style of game.
I recently unsubbed from FFXIV because although I loved the game, I felt forced to log in to do a bunch of mundane trash grind to keep relevant enough to do the 'good' content, and it just gets tiresome and tedious. When you consider that I also felt like I had to skip all of the (pretty weeb) story, that's even less reason to have played it. It barely becomes a game at that point, you are playing purely because your dedicated group expects you to be caught up.
I don't do SWTOR end-game, because I just play the story and expansion story content and leave it at that. I play it more like an online Bioware game and less like a WoW Clone.
If you want to play a Star Wars game that has a tonne of story content across a bunch of different classes, then a one month sub gives you like an unreal amount of content even if you let your account go F2P after. It's not really an MMORPG but you can play it like one if you decide to get dedicated to it after capping.
Can't recommend it to everyone, but certainly don't hate it anymore.
Currently playing - FF14ARR Previous games - SWG, World of Warcraft, ShadowBane, Warhammer, Age of Conan, Darkfall, Planetside Asheron's Call, Everquest, Everquest 2, Too many.
It largely depends on history and interpretation of the game. The game's history is wrought with problems and conflicts. The original concept was basically a Star Wars Wow clone so player expectation in the early days was that of a largely open world game with similar mechanics. This actually didn't align with the game it was based on (KOTOR) so audiences were already divided. SWG players also entered with biased opinions. The launch concept however was largely impaired by the the use of a woefully bad game engine that could not support initial design.
The poor engine directly limited how future content was created and plans initially revealed to the original audience was abandoned and reshaped patch after patch after patch. Frustration is generated when you are told one thing and another is presented. This is a basic concept to understand.
Follow this up with a F2P conversion which shattered portions of the community (which occurred in multiple games during those years such as Lotro) and continued narrowing focus of design and opinions were further impacted.
Later the game went though it's own NGE-style shift which flat out changed the direction of game design. This actually aligned more with KOTOR by design but the choice in direction was obviously highly shaped by the bad engine.
And there's time itself. New players only have to adapt with what they experience. They may like or dislike it from their initial impression like any new experience but to understand someone's opinion you must learn of their history with the game and the history of the game itself. Varied opinions will always exist on any subject and you do not need to share the same opinion. What you need to do however is understand why they have their opinion or else it is a reflection of your own shortcomings ... not their's.
Because on these forums it was labelled as a total failure, will close...yada yada yada.
And it still here along with WoW and the naysayers are still butthurt.
Not how I remember the reception the game got. People "liked" the stories. Many, many posts about how "good" the stories were.
Had an OK launch back then as well by the standards oof the day. Capacity was well managed: 200 servers at launch plus a contingency which allowed them to increase quickly to 240. (Smaller servers).
And the numbers that EA put out shortly after it launched - with some playing 11 hours a day if the averages were to be believed (it was holiday time so maybe they were). The initial sales announced by EA were better than their projections as well.
What posters also commented on - however - was the lack of "longevity". And that it didn't seem to work as a "traditional" mmo. Whatever one of those was / is! Now maybe there were a few disappointed SW "fans" but that is different.
If I had to sum up the concensus view however it was "OK game, shame its not a long term mmo".
And the follow on numbers announced by EA bore that out as well. They prompted some discussion at the time but JR (then CEO) confirmed at a follow on conference that subs were indeed down over 50%. And subs fell further etc. despite the free days / week / month. Consequently the financials didn't add up for EA. The subs didn't support the huge team EA had working on the game. (EA said they had planned on 1.3M recurring subs post launch. So they shed staff - but kept a good sized team - shelved the previously announced regular stream of content etc. and set about converting the game to F2P.
The rest is history.
Now whatever the criticisms of the conversion - and there have been many - it works for EA. Has kept the game going. And allowed those who didn't play the game at launch to try it. And most people - to me anyway - come away with the view that SWTOR is .... OK game, not a long term mmo. Not "butthurt naysayers".
I resub on occasion (I actually just did a couple of days ago). My wife really likes it (she is a huge Star Wars nut). She's held a sub for a long while now.
@gervaise1 hit the nail on the head. Expectations were through the roof. SWG had been shut down so this game could have the license (that may not be exactly true, but that's what it felt like). WoW was riding high and had just hit their peak subscriber numbers (Cata had been out for a few months by then). Trion just hit it pretty big with Rift, TERA was out in SK and was being localized for the west, GW2 hype was also through the roof, and the MMO genre was probably at it's peak in terms of just raw number of players.
There was almost no way ~any~ developer could match the amount of hype that there was for this game release. Bioware was pretty well king of the RPG in the West. The game had been hinted at and teased for nearly four years prior to it's release (right after the release of Episode 3 in the theater, when SW popularity was fairly high). Star Wars was the iconic IP (just before Disney purchased it). Bioware had two earlier acclaimed Star Wars RPGs to boot. And the backing of the entirety of Electronic Arts with a multi-hundreds of Millions of dollar budget.
But it was to be Bioware's first MMO and EA hadn't done a lot in the space since Ultima Online. That was the biggest problem in my opinion.
What we got was... just an OK game. Good class stories, great musical score, a bit repetitive in questing, not quite open world. And voice acting. Tons upon tons upon hours of voice acting. A clumsy graphics engine and art direction that kinda fell down all over the place. Nothing to really do once you finished up your class quest except start another class. Promised open world PvP that did not work and could not work. It was as if the universe let out a collective facepalm.
A lot of people were angry, and there were some legitimate reasons to be disappointed, but most of it I think were just player expectations that were self-inflicted and impossible to achieve in the same time frame. There were a lot of reasons the game turned out the way it did, but that doesn't really matter. We got what we got.
To me, it was pretty clear EA had a lot of corporate expectations placed on the project. WoW was doing well, the suits saw that, and you can see the trickle down effect very plainly (and painfully) in the game. Bioware wasn't (still isn't?) a great multiplayer developer - you can tell they didn't really know what to do with the huge budget they were handed, so it seems like they blew it all on hookers and blow voice acting, and the game engine budget was extremely starved. You can tell the art direction was also hamstrung by the graphics engine capabilities. Open World PvP proved impossible to implement.
Like I said, I still sub on occasion - usually long enough to polish off another class quest, start another, and realize the planet and zone quests are just too repetitive for me to keep with the more rare class story quests. SWTOR is an ~awesome~ single player game but it's not a great MMO.
Makes you wonder what would have happened if they had not chosen to use the hero engine, as that was wholly to blame for the games performance even in terms of multiplayer numbers in an area, it was wholly responsible for what happened with the games PVP, when end game activities are so badly affected by poor game engine performance the choice of game engine makes so little sense, really have to wonder at who chose it and why.
I don't know why this thread is back. There isn't much HATE anymore. Nobody really talks about it anymore. At this point it's 'indifference' which characterizes the game.
Makes you wonder what would have happened if they had not chosen to use the hero engine, as that was wholly to blame for the games performance even in terms of multiplayer numbers in an area, it was wholly responsible for what happened with the games PVP, when end game activities are so badly affected by poor game engine performance the choice of game engine makes so little sense, really have to wonder at who chose it and why.
Why do so many people hate this game? I cannot understand it myself. I find the game to be fun and the story to be good. I'm not saying its the best game in the world by any means but its at least a 7-8/10. So is your beef with the game something in your head or does it really exist?
Many reasons...
1.) SWG
Old Vets who quit after the NGE who were hoping for SWG2, even though Bioware made it clear from the very beginning that this wasn't happening.
Players of the current version of SWG were pissed because their game was shutting down and blamed TOR..
2.) KOTOR
Fans of of KOTOR 1 and 2 wanted a part 3 and got an MMO instead.
There are many who were simply disappointed for various reasons: sterile environments, no open world PVP, choice of engine etc.etc. But the hate train this game attracted can be found with those groups mentioned. It's not as bad now as it was back during production and after launch. Seriously, some of those posters needed some major therapy for the whining and complaining that they were doing over their game shutting down and how DARE Bioware create a Star Wars game that wasn't like SWG.
Makes you wonder what would have happened if they had not chosen to use the hero engine, as that was wholly to blame for the games performance even in terms of multiplayer numbers in an area, it was wholly responsible for what happened with the games PVP, when end game activities are so badly affected by poor game engine performance the choice of game engine makes so little sense, really have to wonder at who chose it and why.
If I was to pick the biggest mistake Bioware made it would be this one. The engine simply can't handle hundreds of players on screen at one time. There was youtube clips of Ilum about a month in and I was astonished with how laggy it was.
When this game was announced I expected it to have the gameplay combat of the Jedi Academy games and not the crap it ended up as, a complete WoW clone with Star Wars Stories instead, because that is the only thing good it has IMO, the 1-50 Stories, everything else is not that great.
But then again this is EA so, if they can laze off with game development, use the least, cheapest resources possible and with only the quick buck in mind, they'll do it to the best of their abilities.
I still play the starter planets when I have the time, and even some of the continuing story. Logged in not to long ago and found a character boost acted to my account. I've not seen the game empty even on the starter planets.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Comments
ESO basically just keeps copying from the original game, all they really needed to do was make Skyrim a full MMO which is what people really wanted which is why they are doing better by just putting more Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim stuff ingame.
SWTOR would do a lot better pulling even more from the RPG series. Plus trying to save money by giving all the classes one path is not a good idea, unless they add new professions to replay content with. How about some SWG elements?
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
http://wyrdblogging.blogspot.com/
I wasn't expecting Ashoka to find enlightenment a second time and found a new Mauryan dynasty, but most thoughtful people were expecting an mmorpg.
http://wyrdblogging.blogspot.com/
Everything else about the game was great, except, you know, actually playing the game.
which put a real damper on things
2. wasnt SWG
3. Too much of a single player game, not a MMO
I came back a month or so ago and now I think Star Wars is the perfect MMORPG for people who enjoy the leveling experience and want a lot of content that isn't necessarily end-game focused, or people who want the feeling of playing an MMO but don't want a social commitment.
If you play WoW or FFXIV and skip every single quest dialogue, rush to max, and just farm tokens for raiding gear, then SWTOR is a pretty terrible game because it's just the worst option out of that style of game.
I recently unsubbed from FFXIV because although I loved the game, I felt forced to log in to do a bunch of mundane trash grind to keep relevant enough to do the 'good' content, and it just gets tiresome and tedious. When you consider that I also felt like I had to skip all of the (pretty weeb) story, that's even less reason to have played it. It barely becomes a game at that point, you are playing purely because your dedicated group expects you to be caught up.
I don't do SWTOR end-game, because I just play the story and expansion story content and leave it at that. I play it more like an online Bioware game and less like a WoW Clone.
If you want to play a Star Wars game that has a tonne of story content across a bunch of different classes, then a one month sub gives you like an unreal amount of content even if you let your account go F2P after. It's not really an MMORPG but you can play it like one if you decide to get dedicated to it after capping.
Can't recommend it to everyone, but certainly don't hate it anymore.
Currently playing - FF14ARR
Previous games - SWG, World of Warcraft, ShadowBane, Warhammer, Age of Conan, Darkfall, Planetside Asheron's Call, Everquest, Everquest 2, Too many.
The poor engine directly limited how future content was created and plans initially revealed to the original audience was abandoned and reshaped patch after patch after patch. Frustration is generated when you are told one thing and another is presented. This is a basic concept to understand.
Follow this up with a F2P conversion which shattered portions of the community (which occurred in multiple games during those years such as Lotro) and continued narrowing focus of design and opinions were further impacted.
Later the game went though it's own NGE-style shift which flat out changed the direction of game design. This actually aligned more with KOTOR by design but the choice in direction was obviously highly shaped by the bad engine.
And there's time itself. New players only have to adapt with what they experience. They may like or dislike it from their initial impression like any new experience but to understand someone's opinion you must learn of their history with the game and the history of the game itself. Varied opinions will always exist on any subject and you do not need to share the same opinion. What you need to do however is understand why they have their opinion or else it is a reflection of your own shortcomings ... not their's.
You stay sassy!
Had an OK launch back then as well by the standards oof the day. Capacity was well managed: 200 servers at launch plus a contingency which allowed them to increase quickly to 240. (Smaller servers).
And the numbers that EA put out shortly after it launched - with some playing 11 hours a day if the averages were to be believed (it was holiday time so maybe they were). The initial sales announced by EA were better than their projections as well.
What posters also commented on - however - was the lack of "longevity". And that it didn't seem to work as a "traditional" mmo. Whatever one of those was / is! Now maybe there were a few disappointed SW "fans" but that is different.
If I had to sum up the concensus view however it was "OK game, shame its not a long term mmo".
And the follow on numbers announced by EA bore that out as well. They prompted some discussion at the time but JR (then CEO) confirmed at a follow on conference that subs were indeed down over 50%. And subs fell further etc. despite the free days / week / month. Consequently the financials didn't add up for EA. The subs didn't support the huge team EA had working on the game. (EA said they had planned on 1.3M recurring subs post launch. So they shed staff - but kept a good sized team - shelved the previously announced regular stream of content etc. and set about converting the game to F2P.
The rest is history.
Now whatever the criticisms of the conversion - and there have been many - it works for EA. Has kept the game going. And allowed those who didn't play the game at launch to try it. And most people - to me anyway - come away with the view that SWTOR is .... OK game, not a long term mmo. Not "butthurt naysayers".
@gervaise1 hit the nail on the head. Expectations were through the roof. SWG had been shut down so this game could have the license (that may not be exactly true, but that's what it felt like). WoW was riding high and had just hit their peak subscriber numbers (Cata had been out for a few months by then). Trion just hit it pretty big with Rift, TERA was out in SK and was being localized for the west, GW2 hype was also through the roof, and the MMO genre was probably at it's peak in terms of just raw number of players.
There was almost no way ~any~ developer could match the amount of hype that there was for this game release. Bioware was pretty well king of the RPG in the West. The game had been hinted at and teased for nearly four years prior to it's release (right after the release of Episode 3 in the theater, when SW popularity was fairly high). Star Wars was the iconic IP (just before Disney purchased it). Bioware had two earlier acclaimed Star Wars RPGs to boot. And the backing of the entirety of Electronic Arts with a multi-hundreds of Millions of dollar budget.
But it was to be Bioware's first MMO and EA hadn't done a lot in the space since Ultima Online. That was the biggest problem in my opinion.
What we got was... just an OK game. Good class stories, great musical score, a bit repetitive in questing, not quite open world. And voice acting. Tons upon tons upon hours of voice acting. A clumsy graphics engine and art direction that kinda fell down all over the place. Nothing to really do once you finished up your class quest except start another class. Promised open world PvP that did not work and could not work. It was as if the universe let out a collective facepalm.
A lot of people were angry, and there were some legitimate reasons to be disappointed, but most of it I think were just player expectations that were self-inflicted and impossible to achieve in the same time frame. There were a lot of reasons the game turned out the way it did, but that doesn't really matter. We got what we got.
To me, it was pretty clear EA had a lot of corporate expectations placed on the project. WoW was doing well, the suits saw that, and you can see the trickle down effect very plainly (and painfully) in the game. Bioware wasn't (still isn't?) a great multiplayer developer - you can tell they didn't really know what to do with the huge budget they were handed, so it seems like they blew it all on hookers and blow voice acting, and the game engine budget was extremely starved. You can tell the art direction was also hamstrung by the graphics engine capabilities. Open World PvP proved impossible to implement.
Like I said, I still sub on occasion - usually long enough to polish off another class quest, start another, and realize the planet and zone quests are just too repetitive for me to keep with the more rare class story quests. SWTOR is an ~awesome~ single player game but it's not a great MMO.
I self identify as a monkey.
1.) SWG
Old Vets who quit after the NGE who were hoping for SWG2, even though Bioware made it clear from the very beginning that this wasn't happening.
Players of the current version of SWG were pissed because their game was shutting down and blamed TOR..
2.) KOTOR
Fans of of KOTOR 1 and 2 wanted a part 3 and got an MMO instead.
There are many who were simply disappointed for various reasons: sterile environments, no open world PVP, choice of engine etc.etc. But the hate train this game attracted can be found with those groups mentioned. It's not as bad now as it was back during production and after launch. Seriously, some of those posters needed some major therapy for the whining and complaining that they were doing over their game shutting down and how DARE Bioware create a Star Wars game that wasn't like SWG.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
But then again this is EA so, if they can laze off with game development, use the least, cheapest resources possible and with only the quick buck in mind, they'll do it to the best of their abilities.
Aloha Mr Hand !
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey